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To day was a landmark day for me and I put this into the Beginners forum in the hope that it might prove useful to others starting (or progressing) along the road.
The landmark in question was the first collective pitch flight and I was, somewhat naturally, beset with a combination of excitment and apprehension beforehand. But first the story so far.
It started with (the inevitabe?) Pico-Z just before Christmas and quickly moved to the CX-2 in January followed by the purchase of a Blade 400D in February. But although the 400 was bought then today was it's, and of course my, first flight with it. The reason for this time gap was partly time because I run a business and partly that the 400 was bought without transmitter or receiver. This is just what I wanted because I had already bought a DX7 transmitter and wanted to fit an AR7000; if I went scale, I wanted the extra channel for retracts. On top of that I wanted to use the CX2 and Phoenix sim to develop the right control inputs and corrective responses. All in all that philosophy seems to have paid hansome dividends because I flew some 3 1/2 batteries and ended up having a reasonable tail-on hover and control to a height of about two feet, which will do me nicely for the time being.
Practising with fully collective on the Phoenix (mainly using the Ecuriel because it is not so jumpy as the 400) gave me a good idea of what to expect but Ron (Boggy) had put up the idea of using colletts on the flybar to dampen down the responsiveness and this seems to have worked very well together with the correct settings (again from Ron) on the DX7.
Just to be sure I had some extended training legs made (see Rod at Elite Models) and having waited paitently for so long (some time being taken to decide how to fit the AR7000 into the 400) all of a sudden everything was ready to go and I was eager to give it a try. Was it wise, I wondered, to think about first flight on a front lawn some 15 feet by 20 feet, given that the 400 has this reputation for being twitchy? Also, the neighbours must have wondered what I was doing periodically standing still in the viscinity apparently sniffing the air and in a way that is what I was doing because I wanted the wind to die down. Eventually I decided I could at least spool it up and see where we went from there. Now Uncle Ron had said that one needs to get it up to around two feet to clear the ground effect and be sure that if you need to get to ground quickly you do not do it by lowering the throttle but, by using the Rudder/Dual Rate switch to cut the engine. This would keep the blade pitch the same so that the model should nicely sink to the ground. Point made.
So gradually spooling up I first noticed a strong tendancy to yaw before she had even left the ground. On top of that I knew (partly from my experience with Phoenix) that a little right cyclic is needed just at lift off. And eventually we had a tentative hop and then gradually, over the three and a half batteries, into a reasonably controlled hover.
My point, in part, is that all the practise put in on the CX2 and the Phoenix just developing the control inputs so that corrections came reasonably naturally seems to have paid good dividends so far. On top of that preparing for the first fully collective flight I have concentrated mainly on trying to get a good hover and controlled landing.
Without doubt the added colletts as well as the right settings on the Tx made the 400 fairly easy to control, at least so far.
I feel that all the groundwork put in and not being too eager to get onto, at least for me, more advanced things too quickly have been well worth the patient time spent trying to get the basics right. If I can continue to progress steadily in this fashion I shall be more than happy.
Suffice to say none of this would have happened without Boggey's patient tutoring, and I do mean patient. So if can find yourself a tame expert it is likely to make all the difference. I am sure that Ron's contribution has, in no small way, contributed to this very successful first series of flights and I am indebted to him for his time and gentle encouragement.
The landmark in question was the first collective pitch flight and I was, somewhat naturally, beset with a combination of excitment and apprehension beforehand. But first the story so far.
It started with (the inevitabe?) Pico-Z just before Christmas and quickly moved to the CX-2 in January followed by the purchase of a Blade 400D in February. But although the 400 was bought then today was it's, and of course my, first flight with it. The reason for this time gap was partly time because I run a business and partly that the 400 was bought without transmitter or receiver. This is just what I wanted because I had already bought a DX7 transmitter and wanted to fit an AR7000; if I went scale, I wanted the extra channel for retracts. On top of that I wanted to use the CX2 and Phoenix sim to develop the right control inputs and corrective responses. All in all that philosophy seems to have paid hansome dividends because I flew some 3 1/2 batteries and ended up having a reasonable tail-on hover and control to a height of about two feet, which will do me nicely for the time being.
Practising with fully collective on the Phoenix (mainly using the Ecuriel because it is not so jumpy as the 400) gave me a good idea of what to expect but Ron (Boggy) had put up the idea of using colletts on the flybar to dampen down the responsiveness and this seems to have worked very well together with the correct settings (again from Ron) on the DX7.
Just to be sure I had some extended training legs made (see Rod at Elite Models) and having waited paitently for so long (some time being taken to decide how to fit the AR7000 into the 400) all of a sudden everything was ready to go and I was eager to give it a try. Was it wise, I wondered, to think about first flight on a front lawn some 15 feet by 20 feet, given that the 400 has this reputation for being twitchy? Also, the neighbours must have wondered what I was doing periodically standing still in the viscinity apparently sniffing the air and in a way that is what I was doing because I wanted the wind to die down. Eventually I decided I could at least spool it up and see where we went from there. Now Uncle Ron had said that one needs to get it up to around two feet to clear the ground effect and be sure that if you need to get to ground quickly you do not do it by lowering the throttle but, by using the Rudder/Dual Rate switch to cut the engine. This would keep the blade pitch the same so that the model should nicely sink to the ground. Point made.
So gradually spooling up I first noticed a strong tendancy to yaw before she had even left the ground. On top of that I knew (partly from my experience with Phoenix) that a little right cyclic is needed just at lift off. And eventually we had a tentative hop and then gradually, over the three and a half batteries, into a reasonably controlled hover.
My point, in part, is that all the practise put in on the CX2 and the Phoenix just developing the control inputs so that corrections came reasonably naturally seems to have paid good dividends so far. On top of that preparing for the first fully collective flight I have concentrated mainly on trying to get a good hover and controlled landing.
Without doubt the added colletts as well as the right settings on the Tx made the 400 fairly easy to control, at least so far.
I feel that all the groundwork put in and not being too eager to get onto, at least for me, more advanced things too quickly have been well worth the patient time spent trying to get the basics right. If I can continue to progress steadily in this fashion I shall be more than happy.
Suffice to say none of this would have happened without Boggey's patient tutoring, and I do mean patient. So if can find yourself a tame expert it is likely to make all the difference. I am sure that Ron's contribution has, in no small way, contributed to this very successful first series of flights and I am indebted to him for his time and gentle encouragement.
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