Century - Hardened Feathering Spindle

The following is a review of the Century hardened feathering spindle.

Overview

Century have released this hardened feathering shaft. This is a direct replacement for the aluminium feathering shaft supplied in the stock kit. This feathering shaft is made of steel and is much stronger. This is designed to run larger blades and handle the inherent larger stresses from doing so. Something else to take note of is the lack of ball in the centre of the feathering shaft.

In-Flight

Whilst this feathering shaft is a performance improvement part it is not designed to improve the way the Swift flies. Instead it is designed to handle the stresses of running larger blades. Therefore one should not expect to notice any differences in flying with this feathering shaft versus the stock feathering shaft.

This hardened feathering shaft has no ball in its centre. This means that there is no need to worry about whether the shaft will fit into a plastic rotor hub without rubbing or causing the well-known vibration issues. Having installed this shaft myself I did not experience any excessive vibration or issues during spool up and spool down. Therefore for somebody experiencing vibration this might be a way of reducing or removing that vibration.

Having run this feathering shaft for some time I recently encountered a total power failure in the middle of a tic toc. This resulted in a heavy landing which broke the undercarriage and also the blades hit the ground but were undamaged. Normally I would expect this type of crash landing to bend the feathering shaft slightly. In this instance the feathering shaft has not bent at all.

Conclusion

This feathering shaft removes the troublesome ball which is part of the stock feathering shaft. I did not experience any spool up all spool down vibrations after fitting the shaft. After one heavy landing and blade strike with the ground the feathering shaft is so far straight and functioning correctly. However, this is not a flight performance upgrade but in reality is some strengthening of the feathering shaft to allow Swift owners to run bigger blades and have their feathering shaft cope with the higher stresses placed upon it. In this regard the feathering shaft delivers exactly what it set out to.