Last week, I wrote about the Goblin 380 helicopter which I built and set up for a good friend of mine. I had the build finished for the most part, and was waiting for the tail servo and FBL unit to get to me so I could set it up.

They got here Thursday, September 3, and I got to work installing them and setting up the helicopter. It rained cats and dogs on Friday, so test flying it was a no go.

Yesterday, I was finally  able to take the little guy to the field for some exercise. The first two flights were spent tuning the Bavarian Demon and the Castle governor...both of which were very easy to tune. 

As I mentioned in my last blog post, we decided on the Bavarian Demon 3SX unit, with auto level and captain rescue. I had never used, or even flown a helicopter with either feature before, but they worked flawlessly.

It was actually a little spooky as to how well the auto level worked at keeping the helicopter upright with no inputs being applied. I also have to admit, that the rescue feature scared me a little when I flipped the switch to activate it for the first time. I got the helicopter up to about 100ft and into a weird attitude to try and simulate loss of control, then flipped the switch.  I was not prepared for how fast it would right itself, and I flinched a little when it happened.

After getting the tuning done, I started flying it around to make sure there were no issues I had missed before. But I also just wanted to have some fun with it as well.

Tomorrow, I get to deliver it to its owner, and see her face when she gets it in her hands for the first time. I really love to do things like this, and give back to the hobby. :)