The reason I get my Baron was based on a mishap. I used to practice with a Shuttle. Then one day, the Shuttle lost control and sort of flew by itself and gone. I am once again in the market for a cheap, easy to repair, but high performance 30 class practice machine. At that time, I read an article in MHT of a review of the Baron 30, and I immediately decided to get one. I don't plan on to going over the details and tips about assembly of the Baron, the MHT article was already very good at this. However, I will go over the changes that I made during my years of experience with it.
The Baron features different designs compared with other helicopters, especially its pitch change mechanism. Pitch change of the Baron is not through movement up and down of the swashplate, but by a shaft that run inside the hollow main shaft, and link to two metal wires to the mixing base. Some mechanical guru that fly with us said this design minimize foul ups of the whole mixing mechanism and provides better control than regular swashplate movement design. Although I feel a little bit skeptical to this man's statement, I feel that this design does simplify the mixing a bit. It also provides a pretty wide pitch window (26 degrees with out binding) However, the main shaft looks kind of long, and make the appearance of the helicopter a little bit weird.
My Baron consists of the following changes:
Of all the upgrade parts that I put in, the S30 head gives me most of the trouble. The S30 head is an aluminum head dating back the Space Baron Era. I bought this head with the Baron, and install it without first trying the plastic head. With S30 head and 550 blades, the machine wobbled heavily during hovering. I tried everything but the wobble won't go away. After asking from friend around the world, I found that 525mm main blade coupled with a high head speed will ease the wobble. I tried that, and the wobble ease a lot. I don't like any helicopter that wobbles, and I don't like running high head speed even when hovering. As a result, I tried my luck by installing the regular stock head and 550 blades, and with this combination the wobble was gone. This photo was taken months ago, and now my Baron is flying with the plastic head instead.
I used to fly with the stock wire driven tail. After one crash due to wire slippage, I upgraded the drive system to a carbon shaft. The carbon shaft does solve most of the problem with the wire drive, but it cost an arm and a leg to replace. Kalt later introduced the Baron 30S, and it comes with a belt driven tail instead. There is also a conversion kit for older Barons to change to this new tail, and I immediately bought a set. The conversion kit comes with pinion assembly, tail boom, belt, and tail gear box. The tail boom of the belt drive is shorter than that of the wire drive. One thing to notice about the tail pinion is that I had to file the four mounting holes on the main frame into slots to get the gear mesh proper, or the drive pinion will be too tight. Other than that, the belt drive worked ok.
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NHP tail servo mount with carbon pushrod |
S-30 metal head |
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K&S metal tail blade grip |
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All through these days, my Baron have survived over numerous crashes, and my experience in repairing it found that the main shaft does require more work when changing it after a crash, due to the "shaft inside main shaft" design. Also, the pitch shaft have to be very straight and run very smooth inside the main shaft hollow, or the pitch mechanism will not work smoothly. The mounting of the rotor head to the main shaft does require some care too. The main rotor head was secured onto the main shaft by two 3X4mm hex screws. Due to the small shaft sliding inside the hollow of the main shaft, these two screws could not protrude into the hollow. As a result, only about 1.5mm of each screw will "bite" onto the main shaft. This sure is not a very secure way to fix the rotor head. In addition, both screws had to be fixed at equal torque, or the rotor hub will be pulled towards the side where one of the screws had more torque than the other, and that will lead to wobbling, or even worst, vibration. To ensure the hub run absolutely true to the main shaft, I have to dial indicate the hub every time after taking the head off the main shaft. As a result, beginners might have problem in assembling the Baron to make it fly without wobble and shake.
Flying the Baron is a much joyful experience than its assembly. Hovering is very stable compared to other 32 class machines in its price range (Except the Raptor, which released later than the Baron). Controls of the Baron is on the sensitive side with the metal S30 head, and it is too sensitive for my taste. I changed the stock flybar paddles to the ones of the Hirobo GPH346. This sort of dampen the controls a bit. After everything failed with the S30 head I use the plastic head and with this head the control was more softer. After using the plastic head, I began changing different paddles to look for a more agile feeling, and now I end up with a pair of K&S ones. Also, due to its large pitch window, doing 3D with it presents no problem. It could take any aerobatics maneuver you throw at it any day. All in all, a very joyful machine to fly, but its cumbersome for maintenance and repair after crash.
Although the Baron does require care in assembly, it is a sturdy little machine that flies great. In fact, most 3D pilots here in Hong Kong practice their moves using the little Baron. It is kind of a "status quo" locally that if you fly a Baron, your skill should be at the advanced level.
Follow Up
Though the years my Baron gave me some happy times. The life of it ended when one day I put on a G5000T to test. The tail suddenly lost control and totaled the whole helicopter. At first, I thought it was mechanical fault, but later found its the gyro that contribute to the crash. Anyway, this time, I did not bother to repair it.
With Kalt being sold to HPI on 2000, parts of the Baron had been tight due to the changeover. As of today, still the will of HPI to continue the Kalt line is unknown.