Failed Flight, but No Crash

Step forward, but not as big as I was hoping it would be. Then again, at least there was no crash.

I received the replacement parts from xheli.com (gears, stabilizer bar, and training gear) and replaced the main gear, and installed the training landing gear and also while at it realigned the swash plate and re leveled it using a trick I saw online that uses a credit cart to check and set the swash plate connecting rods at 90 degrees to the main shaft.

With the newly operable gyro, and reset heli I went out for a test flight. I must say that the realignment of the swash plate and the landing gear helped a lot in keeping the heli from getting too far out of control and very little input was necessary to keep it level. However as soon as it took off, it started spinning again. I have a feeling the tail rotor is not centered properly even though to the naked eye it seems pretty close, and even then I would assume the gyro would correct any mis alignments - but it didn't. it also seemed like the gyro was pushing the tail rotor too far off to the left making it bind and stuck in that position which I guess is what led to the final spinning mode.

I'll have to put more attention on centering the tail rotor, and re set the gyro and minimize its effect on the tail rotor to keep it from traveling too far and getting the tail rotor stuck at the far ends of its travel.

back to the workbench for some more tweaking...