Just want to let everyone know I am finally flying my Helicycle. I still need Doug to come and help me work out a little kinks here and there, but over all the flight was great. Burned abour 40-45 gal of K-1 ---- flew about 3 hours, left the airport and flew the country side and around Old Hickory Lake, landed on the heli pad next to the Jet Ranger for News Channel 5 in Nashvile (the pilot is a good friend of mine). I noticed a little belt slippiage, and know it was because of a tranny leak from the filter housing. When I would come in for a landing, I was pulling full collective at the bottom, but still landed with a thump. For some reason my rotor tach quit working, but I could tell by ear that my rotor was slowing down, thus the belt slipping being the problem, but it will be fixed before the next fligt- the slipping and the tach. Thanks again Rod. I knew not to have the collective in the pocket. I found the 0 degree of my blades and used a spacer to start up there. I did not do what you said in #2, that is to slightly load the blades until around 100-150 rpm. So I tried that today, after cleaning all the antisieze off the blades. That leaves me with a confession to make, and that is:

I burned about 40-45 gallons of fuel today!! I spent about an hour around the airport, and then I just took off and flew around the country side. The only trouble I had is there still is a little stick shake, and I noticed I had a problem with belt slippage, but I believe that can be stopped with cleaning, because with the first start up the other day, I had an oil leak from the tranny filter housing that I am sure got on the belts. I remember watching the vid and BJ said "do not over tighten these bolts" , so the housing leaked, but that has since been corrected. I put about 3 hours on her today, and it is hard to put into words how pleased I am with this machine.

Thanks Blake, Jacob, Homer , Stan, Rod, Brian, Gator, Juan, Joe, Hal, Pat, Jake (my Robbie instructor), Mike, Eric Parker(whom I bought it from), Jim Little and Al Yanagisawa (for welcomed me to the forum) Charles Gross ( who flies a Jet Ranger for a local TV station [ Sky 5] and encouraged me, and the many others that are on this forum, there is no way I could have come this far with out all of you, I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.

I am still going to have Doug come to me, we have made arrangements, he is supposed to call me sometime next week. We will install the new E-bearings, and I am sure we will balance and tweak everything.

I am 61 years old, have had a lifetime of aviation, but man, this was a great day, so (to the Helicycle group) don't be too hard on me for flying before Doug got here, it was an experience I will carry with me to the end. The H-C is one awesome machine!!! THANKS TO EVERY BODY and I am sorry if I left any one out. ----- James

Nice to see you enjoying it! Wish everyone could fly one just once.

Congrats, post pics or it didn't happen...

glad ya got your bird flying. have fun with it and stay safe.

make sure to bring it to bensen days 2015 so we can see it.

Good on you James. I am so happy for you!!!!!!!!!