JR ERGO CCPM RACING

Think about a helicopter that is the size of a regular 30 class, powered by a model car engine with max output at 2.3HP, 30,000 RPM (to compare, the output of OS61SXH-WC is 2.2BHP, 18,000 RPM), with a gear ratio of 14:1:4.5, and weight only 2,800 gram. What do you have? The perfect helicopter for pylon racing? This is the JR Ergo CCPM Racing.

Background

About the end of 1996, while JR is having success with their Ergo line, they introduced a new concept to the Japanese helicopter manufacturer: 120 degree Electronic CCPM. In the past, CCPM helicopters are rarely seen in countries outside Europe. JR believe by taking out the usual mixing arm and use CCPM, helicopters can achieve the following:

1. More precision - Servo directly drive the swashplate, instead of indirectly through mixing arms
2. Less slop - Less connections = less chance of developing slop
3. Light weight - Weight of the mixing arms are saved
4. More compact main frame design - As the frames do not need to leave spaces for mixing arms, various parts can be spaced closer
5. Ease of maintenance - Less parts count
6. Lower cost - Less parts is need

Two helicopter that served as test bed for their new ideas are debuted. One is an Ergo 30 controlled by 120 degree Electronic CCPM, and another took the CCPM concept further with a completely redesigned mainframe optimized for pylon racing. The later is the JR Ergo CCPM Racing. I remembered when I saw the CCPM Racing in an introductory pamphlet, I was immediately attracted by its very slick appearance. It looks like it can take any helicopter for lunch. Reading the specs further proved this: a 30 class helicopter powered by a model buggy engine with slide carburetor, tune pipe for cars and no fan for cooling? JR must be out of their minds, I thought. And the sticker shock - What! This helicopter cost US$800 with engine and exhaust? Someone must be crazy enough to buy this helicopter! CCPM? Haven't heard of that, haven't seen those helicopters fly. Even though I was holding such negative thoughts about the Racing, the sleek shape of the Racing is always in my mind. I even scanned the image of the Racing and put it as wallpapers for all my computers!

The Ergo CCPM Racing is very radical. So radical in fact that JR does not anticipate high volume of sales for it. In standard form, it features these unique designs:

1. Graphite upper frames
2. Graphite landing gear
3. Graphite lower frames designed specifically to mount a OS21RZB model car engine and tune pipe
4. FRP canopy to fit the sleek posture of the main frame

As we all know, most of the parts of the Ergo line are interchangeable. Ergos are easily upgradeable through purchase of different parts. However, this is not the case with the CCPM Racing. There are over a dozen parts that is unique only for the Racing, and most of these parts are expensive to manufacture. JR is risking their investment just to prove one thing - CCPM is a viable way to go.

After about a year and a half from its debut, I received a message from Mr. Wakabayashi, who is my friend and my model supplier in Japan, said he is lowering the cost of the Racing to clear his stock, I immediately buy one and started to assemble it when I receive it.

Assembly

Here are the details of each step.

Step 1 is the assembly of the clutch bell, the tail drive pinion, the elevator arms and the fuel tank. Most of the parts in this step are regular Ergo 30 items, except the motor pinion X tooth instead of X tooth and the tail pinion is a whopping 20 tooth special item. As with my other Ergos, I hammered out the bushings of the elevator arm and replace with bearings. The fuel tank is the standard XXcc item from the 30 parts bin, I felt it is too small for such a high powered engine, so I substitute it with a Type II fuel tank (JR#60333) to prolong flight time. I changed the belt drive pinion to a machined aluminum item from JR.

Step 2 dealt with the assembly of the main frames. These frames are machined in 2mm thick graphite. As usual, these graphite frame have the usual high quality of JR graphite frames. The whole lower frame structure comprised of about twenty different parts, and most of them are custom made items. I saw out the front portion of the fuel tank opening and installed the K&S bracket for the bigger fuel tank. I took great care to assemble and align the main frames, and putting the whole frame structure on a piece of glass to check its alignment. As usual, I secured everything with stainless steel screws. The receiver and battery tray is now a small piece of graphite measuring. Obviously, JR have tried to shave weight of this helicopter wherever possible.

Assembled lower main frame	Assembled upper main frame
Upper and lower frames	Assembled main frame with battery tray

Step 3 concerns mounting of the main mast, main gear, landing gear and engine. The main gear is a unique item machined from delrin of a whopping 126 tooth! This main gear is the biggest main gear that I've seen so far! The main mast and autorotation assembly are standard Ergo items. To shave weight, I substitute the autorotation assembly with a light weight gear hub from K&S. This gear hub does not have any auto-rotation ability, and leave the tail constantly driven. The landing gear consists of two pieces of graphite. They are very low profile and when mounted, gives the helicopter a "ready to attack" posture, with the tail slightly raised. I know K&S manufactured a similar part for Shuttle and Ergo. This helicopter is to be equipped with a OS21RZB. As with all car engines, they have very large heatsinks, and comes with slide carburetors. I also install the JR option of a venturi intake for the carburetor. I don't know if it have any practical use, but sure dress up the engine nicely. One of the unique design features if the Racing is it does not have any cooling fan. Engine cooling is by air flow through the big heatsink of the engine. I guess JR does not anticipate anyone to hover this beast. The clutch and the clutch hub are another special made items. The clutch have thicker clutch walls then standard Ergo 30/50. The hub is mounted onto the crankshaft with a locknut, then the clutch is mounted directly on to the hub. I added a spring washer onto the engine prop nut to prevent it from coming loose during flight. The pipe was mounted under the helicopter since the engine is of rear exhaust design. A K&S HN60 silicone tube is mounted first on the pipe and then secure the pipe onto the mounting bracket. The silicone tube absorb heat from the pipe, and act as dampers between the pipe and the mounting bracket.

The 126 tooth main gear!	Balancing main gear on High Point
Left side of the assembled frame	Right side of the assembled frame
Front view of the assembled frame	Rear view of the assembled frame
Left diagonal view of the assembled frame	Right diagonal view of the assembled frame
OS 21 RZB, note slide carb.	Look Ma, no cooling fan!
Closeup on the venturi intake	Closeup of the exhaust outlet

Step A (Yes, they have A before 4) deals with the assembly of the rotor head, washout assembly, swashplate, and the tail pitch slider. The rotor head and the tail pitch slider are regular Ergo items, but the swashplate is a 3 point 120 degree CCPM variant. JR got cheap with the swashplate cause it was plastic for the upper part and aluminum for the lower part. I don't mind JR charge me a high rate and give me metal one. I changed the swashplate to an aluminum item and it cost me about US$100. I changed the tail pitch slider to a metal one from JR (JR#). Once again, I hammered out the bushing from the arms and put in bearings. I replaced the washout base with a Hirobo metal part for GPH346 due to having success using the unit onto other of my Ergos.

Step 4 dealt with the mounting of the rotor head, washout assembly, flybar, and linkages. I changed the linkages to stainless steel ones from CMPS/Niftec, and ball links from Pioneer.

Step 5 dealt with the assembly of the tail. All the parts are regular Ergo 30 items except the vertical fin and the tail boom brace bracket. The vertical tail fin incorporates a small horizontal fin that is adjustable on the degree of attack. Since the horizontal fin is not mounted onto the boom, JR custom made a aluminum bracket to secure the tail boom brace to the boom. I changed the tail pitch slider, tail belt gear and tail pitch arm to metal items (JR, K&S respectively). I changed the tail boom brace to a graphite one to enhance the look and reduce weight.

Step 6 dealt with the radio mounting. From my previous experience, CCPM helicopters does require better servos for precision control. I used 4000 digital servos for swashplate controls, 2700G for tail coupled with an Arcamax Pi gyro,and 4231 for throttle. Swashplate control servo linkage has to be set up with extreme care. I have heard a lot of horror stories about burnt servos for CCPM helicopters, and their causes are either not following the linkage length or the ATV setting as detailed in the manual. A lot of these guys with blown servos in their CCPM helicopters uses Futaba servos. I guess it due to different travels of different servos. In the manual, JR specifically detailed the settings for different JR servos. So as a save bet use JR equipments when you fly JR CCPM helicopters. After setting the servos and linkages, I move them to check whether there is any binding. If you follow strictly to the manual there should be none. In standard form, the pitch window is a whopping 30 degree!

Left side of the finished Racing	Right side of the finished Racing

Lastly, mounting of the canopy, stickers and main blades. The canopy is molded in FRP, and its smooth as silk. The sticker are very minimal ( I guess that save some weight!). I use NHP 550mm symmetrical carbon main blades. I mounted the blades with K&S long shank bolts to strength the mounting points.

Closeup of canopy, looks awesome!	Racing ready to take any helicopters for lunch!

Flying

Now flying the helicopter, I chose a sunny day with light breeze. Just by looking at the helicopter, it surged my adrenaline level! Everyone cleared the field for me to test fly the beast cause no one dared to fly their machine beside this beast! First problem comes when I started the helicopter. The engine is very finicky, and the needles are very sensitive. Luckily, I have previous experience with model cars and that helps a bit. After I set the needles to enable the engine to idle for a full tank without dying, I took the helicopter to the sky. Wow! is the only word that I can say when I bang the throttle stick (In fact, I was wordless). The beast leave the ground at an instant and just keeps on going higher and higher! I almost scared the s**t out of myself! I immediately settle the helicopter to the ground, and take a breathe. Second try is to hover the helicopter for trim setting. The helicopter hovered steadily, but it always gives me the impression that it wanted to leap into the sky and fly. The helicopter seems to be happy at above 1,800 RPM, or it will begin wobbling. The manual specifically stated that this helicopter should not have a rotor speed of over 2,000 RPM, or the rotor might break down. I adjust the throttle curve to made the rotor speed the lowest possible without wobbling. After adjusting the helicopter, it was time for forward flight, I mean fast forward flight. This beast is really fast, about 70MPH judging by the eye. It just like to fly fast! Due to the speed of the helicopter, I always keep it about 50 feet away from me and from the ground, just to get used to controlling it. Coupled with the different exhaust tone of the car engine, this was a completely different experience in helicopter! The helicopter tracks very straight and is ready to take any aerobatic maneuvers thrown at it. Fast turns are knife-edged with high precision. Then I tried drag racing with a 60 class machine that was the fastest among our fellow club members, and it was no match! The Racing can catch up from 100 feet behind and zing past the other helicopter with ease. What a beast, keeping this thought when I bring the helicopter home.

Nowadays, almost all new JR helicopters (except export items) are CCPM controlled. The CCPM is like heat wave that swept the Japanese manufacturers, with a lot of after market parts produced to convert other helicopters to CCPM controlled. With the CCPM Racing, JR proved that CCPM is a viable way to go for controls. Although the Racing itself might not be a profitable investment for JR, it laid roads for future designs of JR helicopters, and it takes guts to design such a helicopter.

Follow Up

I did not fly this beast very often, due to the field over here are usually small in size for the Racing to work with. However, I sometimes would take it to the field and did some circuits just to stretch its muscles. All through these times, I have changed to using DS8201 digital servos for cyclics for their better accuracy, and switched to a JR 450 gyro for its light weight. Currently, I am using MS Composit 540mm carbon blades cause I have been using them in my helicopters with better results than NHP, and the weave pattern of the MS blades does add some cosmetic beauty to the Racing.

On May, I was invited by some friends to visit Philippines and flew in their clubs. I thought this was an opportunity to really stretch the racing to the max, and to show my friends a different type of helicopter that was rarely seen in other parts of the world, so I brought it along. At the field, it attract lots of attentions, cause everybody there like the menace look of it, and when they found out it was powered by a car engine they all wanted to see how fast it could go. However, it was hot in Philippines, and the only fuel they had was Cool Power 15%, which was under standard for car engine, so I had to re-adjust the mixtures to suit for both the weather and the fuel. The first few flights are just tuning flights and it was not as fast as it used to be. I could see some disappointed faces from my friends.

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