When Googling fails

I'm a knowledge worker. For most of my life, I earned my keep by herding electrons into specific configurations to make something-or-another work a certain way. It's a little weird when I stop to think about it - the majority of what I've done isn't tangible, not directly. Yes, I've written device drivers that will translate physical movement to useful data. I've enabled people to shuffle electronic proxies of their wealth around. Almost everything I've done in my adult work life has been virtual.

So, when I recently discovered just how fun radio-controlled micro-helicopters can be, I dove into it with a passion. I am now the very proud owner of a red E-flite Blade MSR that I've named Anisoptera (dragonfly), or Ani for short. I'm having a hoot with it, although the kids are less enthusiastic as they quietly don their safety goggles and discreetly put away any high-value breakable toys of theirs whenever I throttle up Ani, usually with a giggle of delight.

This morning, a strong gust blew in through the screen doors as I was hovering Ani and blew her into a wall. It's the hardest crash she's had so far and I couldn't throttle down in time. When I picked her up, everything seemed fine other than a minor scratch to one of her main rotors. Unfortunately, when I tried taking off again, she banked uncontrollably to the left. Trimming didn't help. Nothing I did helped.

Even Googling didn't yield any answers. I had a horrible sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach. Now I knew I was in deep trouble. :(

So, I decided to return to basic principles and started running tests on Ani. Upon inspection, I discovered that the rotor disc appeared off-axis under power. I knew from normal operation that she was supposed to have a slightly off-axis rotor disc. Unfortunately, I didn't remember which side it was supposed to cant towards. However, I'm pretty sure by now that it's a misalignment except that I had no idea how to fix it. Oh well, back to basic principles again - I started tracing the mechanism from the rotor blades down to the main gear and motor. I did notice an unnatural slant to the entire rotor assembly from the swashplate up, so that eliminated my original knee-jerk panic response of "OMG, WE HAVE TO REPLACE THE MAIN ROTORS!!!"

I checked the main drive shaft to ensure it was straight; it was. The rest of the mechanism was pretty solid - it wasn't really meant to move and everything was screwed together quite well. Not finding any culprits, I started working my way back up, from the main gear to the rotors. Still nothing. Tired now, I took off my magnifying visor and made a cup of coffee. Returning to the worktable, I took a sip of my coffee, glanced at Ani...and there it was - the swashplate had popped out of alignment in the back with one of its very tiny securing nubby prongs completely outside of its seating fork. Very carefully and gently, I popped it back into place and went through power-up and takeoff procedures.

Ani's flying again. And the kids are scattering in her wake. It's a good day. :)