I've been having such a blast flying lately...but, I keep thinking of some of the comments about crashing and all the stuff we've been talking about...I remember when I was very content to just hover my Eco's..I would watch the 3d pilots and think..man theres just no way I will ever do that...Since my new feelings on the joy of crashing I look back and really wished inside that I could have flown out of the parking lot...but just the thought of it getting turned around on me made me stay right where I was....I know that there are tons of people out there just like me...wanting to build scale heli's cause you just cant see yourself hitting full throttle and yanking it back into a stall turn...not to mention 3d???? But I can honestly say now that I can fly my gas heli's and ECO's at full throttle and feel totally in control...If I can.. and I am still amazed because I never even knew Helicopters could even do these kind of maneuvers..so can you...If your worried about the cost of your heli or waiting for parts to rebuild it....dont worry... I've been thinking how to get us all flying without crashing all the time and letting it all hang out ...Anyone interested? If Not...I'll just fly off.....takes allot of nerve just to say YES !! Radd...( the cowardly Lion)
It's two in the morning I hope this comes out alright??
I can't be the only one surprised at Helicopter pilots that don't use simulators and progress faster than those with simulators.This doesn't make much sense to me but it happens all the time..You can spend 4 or five hours a week on the computer and some guy fly's twice a week and progresses much faster? Why? Another strange thing I've seen is a guy that bought a helicopter at clearance sale for $200 and the next week he's flying it all over the place..That confused me to say the least, and.. made me feel less than average .You can give any reason you want..talent, natural ability, blind recklessness? But I think it boils down to just two things...Either they simply believe they can do it, or want to fly helicopters badly, and will fly no matter what it takes.I suppose our personalities reflect clearly in the way we fly.But..If your not currently flying like you thought you would by now don't let it get you down until you've tried a few different ways to break through the walls..And walls are what they are..Fear, Money, Pride,or your wife's ridicule.What ever your wall is it is still based on a fear of some kind..The best motivator at the field is your friends pushing you to the limits they believe your capable of.(not the kind of friends that want to laugh at your stupidity) If they can encourage you to stretch past a wall or a rut, they usually feel just as good as you. But, we can't do that here can we?..Well, We can if we are honest about where we currently are and where we want to go and if we share our progress. We can encourage each other..This board is famous for the way we support each other.. The real problem is that it's not very macho to admit your not Curtis Youngblood and that you may still be in the hover mode? I my case I was quite happy hovering around my yard,work shop, and parking lot.. But...brother when I finally started flying I couldn't believe how much time I wasted..I could have been flying the way they were meant to..banking, stalling, tail whipping..I always wanted to land like I saw the Hueys in Vietnam, coming in hot with their tails practically dragging in the grass.Then lifting off nose down and tail high banking hard and pulling out in a hurry.That's no problem for me now and that doesn't include what I can do in the sky...I am not into 3d yet but you can't do a flip or roll and consider yourself to be into 3d..That's heavy duty stuff and we are suppose to be honest here?? Ok.. with all that out of the way are you ready? I hope you put your name up and your progress will encourage us and you'll help push us all to the level we can be at..
Unfortunately this applies to those who are stuck in the hover mode, if you can't fly (hover) out a whole battery pack (tail in) your not ready for forward flight anyway..sorry, but you can't run if you cant walk..there is not 12 easy steps to forward flight, only three rules and they are so simple that it's gonna make you sick. They are Discipline,Boredom and the third is this:( You'll get there faster if you slow down). If you cheat your only wasting your own time...But If you want to fly your gonna get there faster than you ever imagined and your gonna feel great about yourself and flying..
Your going to do one of two things. You are either going to give up or your going to get better. The speed that you do either is up to you.. When you get bored you will either want to try something new or you just peter out move on to a new hobby..right? well, what if we set out to get bored a little early? Two things will happen.You'll start to relax and if your relaxed long enough you'll get bored and of course if your bored you can't be afraid...
The guys flying and learning without a sim don't have time for toys.....that's how they see sims..a waste of valuable time. They could be really flying, not fakey flying.and ( they believe they can do it so you find them trying)
The guys that get the heli's at a garage sales, clearance sales or as a gift..have no real attachments or fascination about them.They simply treat them as if they are airplanes...Ask one of these fast learners yourself..I'll bet the first thing they'll say is.".well I've flown airplanes for awhile and it really doesn't freak me out." Everyone else will say.." I cant fly helicopters!! ..they are too complicated..they freak me out.."
Finally..Here's how you do it...
A helicopter should want to fly....and a pilot should "only" fly it!??.. sound crazy?....before I do any flying at all I trim the model..(from now on we will call our copters "models"...lets not puff them up anymore..they are just machines..) It's not uncommon for me to waste half a battery pack trimming a model for level flight..The Helicopters job is to fly..the pilots job is simply to push it around..The first time I had a model really trimmed out and the gyro was working as it should I was very surprised to see all I had to do was move the aileron stick a little right and the model moved right and stopped when I let up on the stick!! Then I moved it Left and it moved back again..actually I was shocked!..I thought you had to fight to keep a helicopter in the air..WRONG ...Because if you have to keep the machine in the air you cant really be flying.Your doing two jobs..Get it? The model should be balanced and trimmed...The pilot should only push it around...DING...TAH DAH!!!!! Ok now picture this again...imagine a perfectly balanced machine, hovering only with small corrections.. that leaves you the pilot time to decide where to go!! Gee...Just one stick can move it left, right, forward, backward....cool..huh? and not so complicated...I know what your thinking...My model doesn't fly that well?? Then you need to spend two or three packs trimming or work on your mechanics cause it should....
Second thing you have to do is know what your going to do and how to recover if you get scared. The main reason for helicopter crashes is usually because pilots have combined a combination of moves and loosing the orientation it takes to recover. Combinations are the killers. So If you practice one movement at a time and it's recovery your crashes will become less frequent especially if you know the recovery when your going in.
- With that in mind here's your first orienation.(The Model should be hovered at least chest high)..If you can hover a pack out tail in then your next orientation should be left side in.The key to the fear wall here is to slowly rotate it to the left side with the rudder stick....until it's side in..(please left so we are all on the same page). Your (recovery) will be rudder back to tail in...If you freak out at full left side in then go 45degs..You MUST....remain in this orientation for an entire battery pack...Until you are capable of staying side in or 45 deg for a whole pack you must recover with rudder until stable again then return to the orientation...You cant move on until you can hover in this posisition for an entire pack..An easy way to relax is to watch the skids..they are a quick reference to see if the model is tilting.Later you'll have to kick this habit but it will help for now.
- When you can hover left side in for two or three packs or until you are bored..( don't be in a hurry...a week can last a lifetime.) ( remember, you get there faster by slowing down).....Now it's time to rotate to the right side. Your recovery will be rudder back to tail in as before. Don't cheat! this will get you flying trust me.. practice until you can remain stable for two or three packs or until you are bored...but not less than two or three packs.
- Next you should be ready to move from left side in to right side in after freezing in each position for around ten seconds. You should be confident now of you recovery out moves..Same story again Discipline yourself until you can rotate the model left side in to right side in ten second movements until your are bored to tears or confident through 2 to 3 packs.
- Now the fun stuff begins...Turn your model left side in as usual hold it for ten seconds then slowly move forward one foot! JUST ONE FOOT...don't cheat!...( Boredom, Discipline. You'll get there faster by going slow!). turn the model right side in and hold it ten seconds, then move forward one foot...This one foot is more important than you'll ever know..don't cheat. Same story again don't move on until your bored or at least two to three packs..
- More Fun is on the way... Left side in...freeze...move (Two) feet forward...freeze...right side...(Two) feet forward ..more batteries..
- Here we go... we are going to do the same thing as before, moving two foot forward, only this time your NOT going to freeze..try to make it one smooth movement...rotate slowly left side in. move slowly forward two feet and gently rotate to right side in and slowly move two feet forward and so on....what your are doing is a figure 8....Yea!
- now, if you feel the way I did after the boredom you wont have any problem moving forward 5 feet then 8...10 and rotating smoothly...When you feel you burned enough battery packs move to a large field and slowly take it away 20 feet each way..When you go home at the end of that day...If you don't feel absolutely great....you had a mechanical failure.
- More come...
