1 month in and still here! A few thoughts on starting out

[Peteski]

my girls are a little older than yours now (5 and 8) so aren't quite as demanding on my time now.

Ahh so there is at least some hope for me then! Getting our 2 year old out of nappies would be a good start

[Guy7]

Thanks for sharing your experiences Pete. I started flying my mSR x again a few weeks back for the first time in over a year. Haven't got further than basic hovering and tail in squares around the room but am keen to make progress. I suspect not as quickly as you - that's a long way you've come in just 8 months. I've just invested in a better Tx and sim to help the process.

My question is, have you followed any particular training plan / program?

[Peteski]

Hi Guy. I didn't follow any single specific program, but I did read the famous thread on HF (From tail-in to all 8s and funnels in 6 months - HeliFreak) and did a lot of slow piro and upright circuit practice on the sim - still do that now, both upright and inverted. I also spent a lot of time flying my nQX quad around the house in agility mode, which really nailed my upright orientations. I seriously recommend the nQX over any of the micro CP helis as you can fly much more advanced circuits in an average sized room and I still find it a great training aid now. Then lots of time with my mCPX in the garden and 130X at the field. Time on the sim and nQX made the transition to micro CP helis very easy for me with no crashing. I didn't look at flying inverted at all until I'd completely nailed all my upright orientations and by the time I did start flying inverted again it was pretty painless. Just took a couple of sessions with my 180 CFX to crack flips and rolls and a few weeks more to get into more sustained inverted hovering. Right now I'm working on my inverted orientations and circuits, which are still a bit robotic and I still make lots of mistakes in orientation. But it's getting there with some effort! I set goals, but no timescale to achieve them and I always fly within my comfort zone at the field while pushing myself constantly on the sim (free crashes!). That way I find that real crashes are rare and it keeps my confidence up.

[Guy7]

Thanks Pete. nQX seems very tempting. Or the nQX 3D? Not that I'd be doing any 3D. Need to research the pros and cons of each first.

I've only spent a little time on the sim but it is really helping with orientation. Hovering the mSRX in a quick post work fly this evening showed a difference already.

Thanks for the reminder of the HF thread. I did read that last year but recent searching hadn't thrown it up again.

Now I just want to go and fly

[Peteski]

Yeah, I'd get the nQX 3D so you can use it for both upright practice now and inverted practice later on. I'm tempted to get one of those myself because it looks great for practising simple 3D moves in the house. It wasn't out when I bought my normal nQX.
The great thing with these little quads is that they require zero setup to fly perfectly and they simply do not break or damage anything else in a crash. It's like having a real life sim. Micro cp helis are good too, but I find them less precise on the cyclic, they need a bit more space to throw around and they take chunks out of your walls and furniture.

[Peteski]

I've just passed the 1 year mark now and thought I'd make an update to my progress thread. I hardly flew at all outdoors from the end of October through to the beginning of February, but I spent a lot of time on the sim and a little time flying my now ageing nQX indoors. Since the beginning of Feb I've managed just over 50 flights at the field, mostly with my OXY 3. After reaching a bit of a plateau toward the end of last summer, I have to say that I've probably made the most progress in the last 3 months since I first started in the hobby back in Dec 14. All down to relentless sim time in an effort to properly crack upright and inverted flight in all orientations. I basically ended last season being able to fly basic sport moves like flips, rolls, loops, stall turns with a few piros thrown in and inverted hover nose-in. But backward upright circuits and inverted circuits were still beyond me. So that's what I concentrated on during my winter sim sessions and it was a long hard slog to get there! But now after 4 months of solid practice I can finally say that circuits and eights feel pretty natural in any orientation i.e. upright/inverted/forward/backward. I'm still very cautious when flying inverted and backward circuits in real life, but on the sim they are now pretty slick and I just need time at the field to gain more confidence in my ability to use my full sim skill set.

I've also been working on learning piro-flips and funnels and that was pretty hard work and frustrating at times too. But I'm now pretty comfortable with half piro-flips (tail-in at least), basic mobius transitions and even full piro flips on the sim in one direction. I'm now doing regular half piro-flips in real life and I did one full piro-flip the other day without even intending to try, the sim reflexes just took over. Funnels on the other hand have been seriously hard work for me. I was using NeXt sim and for anyone who is familiar with this sim, funnels are very difficult to learn with it. The heli just seems to drop out of the sky like a stone, it is so unforgiving in this respect. I almost gave up as I was tearing my hair out, but then I tried Heli-X again and WOW! what a difference that made. I made more progress with funnels in a couple of days than I had in months with NeXt. I just think the physics on Heli-X is more realistic and for me it seems to translate better to real life than NeXt. But the demo version of Heli-X does not do it any justice at all. The default Logo heli and scenery are both terrible compared to the models and scenery available in the full version. Had I known this I would have switched ages ago. While NeXt is still very good, for me Heli-X has become my favourite sim and the helis fly much closer to real life, especially the smaller models. Back to funnels, I think I've finally cracked them too on the sim and I've started flying them tentatively in real life. I'm now quite happy with my nose down upright and tail down inverted funnels, but need to keep practicing the other variations and in both directions as I'm starting to get a bit lazy with learning stuff in one direction only!

Rainbows and tic-tocs are the other moves I've added to my portfolio over the winter. As my collective management has generally improved along the way, I don't find these particularly difficult, at least in their basic form. Plenty of power seems to help here too and my OXY 3 has more than enough on tap in that regard.

Which brings me on to my heli fleet. My OXY 3 is going to play a major role again this year, it's such an awesome little heli to own. I can just pick it up and fly at the drop of a hat and it needs virtually no maintenance. I've got nearly 200 flights on it now and it's not showing any sign of wear or tear. Honestly anyone looking for a 300 size heli should simply order one of these, it's hard to over-state just how good it is. But everyone keeps telling me (especially Grumpy!) how much better larger helis are, so I bought a Goblin 380 KSE kit over the winter to test that water. I know it's not exactly a big heli, but it's more than twice as massive as the OXY (1400g vs 650g RTF) so it should give me a good idea what a 500 size heli might fly like and still retain much of the convenience I enjoy with the OXY. I'm still flying alone in public spaces (although deserted 99% of the time) so I'd like to keep the size down for now.

My final goal this season is to join a local club, but that will have to wait until September at the earliest when our youngest daughter goes into nursery. I'm looking at the Banbury club as it's probably the most convenient for me to get to (20 mins drive), but MK is a possible too (35 mins drive, but more traffic).

Looking back over my first year, I'm well ahead of where I expected to be at this point. I wasn't even intending to fly 3D when I started out, I would have been content to just to fly sport but I'm finding the challenge of 3D impossible to resist! But I do love big air sport flying as much as anything else and my favourite move is still the big power loop, I just love the sound. So now my aim now is more to mix it up a bit between big air and closer smooth 3D. It's all great fun and a nice break from reality.

[Scotvar]

Nice progress update, sounds like you're coming along excellently.

I have to admit that Grumpy is right, I can't think of anyone that I know who prefers flying smaller models to larger models. Now I don't mean prefers flying a 500 to a 700 but I do mean a 300 or smaller to a 500 or bigger (does that make sense?!!). Everyone eventually ends up with bigger models and at some point you will find the optimum size for you. By the way I totally know what you're saying about public places so you're making perfect sense there. However I do want to add that (for me at least) manoeuvres have been much easier to learn on the larger models as you see to have more time and much more of the model to see. Basically a larger model won't get really small on you too fast which small models can.

I'm very interested to hear what you will make of things when you do go to larger helis... get that 380 finished off. I love mine (like I do with all Goblins!). I'm certain you'll enjoy it and will progress even further.

Paul

[Grumpy]

That sounds like excellent progress and if you can fly inverted /backward figure eights you are now well ahead of me!

My problem is I hate the sim, it just bores me rigid.

[Peteski]

Cheers Paul, yes it will be interesting to fly the 380. I'm out of the country for a whole month soon, so it will probably be the end of April before I get it flying. Obviously I fly big helis in the sim and they are easier to handle for sure, but to be honest I'm so used to flying smaller helis, I don't find them significantly harder, at least not the OXY 3. If I learn something on the sim on a large heli, I can always do it on the OXY without any trouble, it's only when I drop down to my 180 CFX that it gets a fair bit harder and feels "micro" for the want of a better word. Once I started getting into learning mild 3D I did abandon my mCPX V2 (which had been a great little trainer up until that point) because it just didn't perform close enough to the big sim helis to be of any further use - even simple flips were difficult. But the OXY 3 just flies great for its size, it actually feels quite similar to the G380 model in Heli-X although the sim model does feel slightly "bigger" and even more precise. I'll be more than happy if the real thing feels similar in the air. Interestingly my OXY 3 flies bigger (i.e. more hang time in transitions) than the G380 model in NeXt, which had me slightly worried for a while! My 180 CFX is pretty good too, but it does feel very small and twitchy by comparison once you start pushing it a bit. But if you ignore a bit of random tail wag and vibration it hangs in there pretty well!

[myxiplx]

Nice progress Peteski, it sounds like you've gotten hooked just like I did, and you're progressing fast :-)

Everybody does like their large models, but I'm in a similar boat to you and I get the vast majority of my flying done on my Trex 250 and Gaui X3's. The convenient pick up & go nature of a smaller model is hard to beat when you're learning, and the lower crash costs don't hurt either if you want to progress into 3D.

My plan is to just get as much stick time as I can this year, probably next year as well, and by that point crashes should be pretty rare and I'll also have plenty of real world heli maintenance experience, and a 700 will definitely be on the cards ;-)

[Peteski]

That sounds like excellent progress and if you can fly inverted /backward figure eights you are now well ahead of me!

My problem is I hate the sim, it just bores me rigid.

Thanks Grumpy. Inverted backward eights/circuits was the last orientation I learned. I went from upright forward straight to inverted forward, then upright backward and finally inverted backward. I didn't find it easy at all and only thrashing away relentlessly on the sim got me there in the end! Took a good 3 months of solid daily simming. But it's paying dividends now and I'm finding a lot of other moves much easier to learn. Funnels for example seem a lot easier now I can fly forward or backward at will. I know what you mean about the sim being tedious at times, but I find it very realistic too with the right setup. Without it I'd be nowhere near where I am now. Just the sheer amount of stick time it gives is impossible for me to replicate at the field.

[Peteski]

Nice progress Peteski, it sounds like you've gotten hooked just like I did, and you're progressing fast :-)

Everybody does like their large models, but I'm in a similar boat to you and I get the vast majority of my flying done on my Trex 250 and Gaui X3's. The convenient pick up & go nature of a smaller model is hard to beat when you're learning, and the lower crash costs don't hurt either if you want to progress into 3D.

My plan is to just get as much stick time as I can this year, probably next year as well, and by that point crashes should be pretty rare and I'll also have plenty of real world heli maintenance experience, and a 700 will definitely be on the cards ;-)

Cheers myxiplx, I agree stick time is king with progress. I'm looking to at least double mine at the field this year. I'm still not convinced I'll ever want to go as big as a 700, but I can certainly see a 500 on the cards next year. Maybe something like a Protos, X5, Goblin 500 Sport or even something like a Diablo 550. But I'm really looking forward to flying my G380 and OXY 3 this year. I could happily exist in this hobby long term with just a pair of OXY 3s, so I might even do something along those lines if the G380 doesn't feel like a big step up. Or I might simply end up with multiple helis in the 450/360 class. An X3 or Mini-Protos for example. I like the idea of convenient flying without all the stress of handling huge lipos (it's always a turn-off for me when I see the packs charging for a 700 and no I'm not going nitro before anyone suggests it!) and potentially expensive crashes. LOL! There are so many options, I'm sure I'll do the lot at some point along the way!

[hedge]

...and no I'm not going nitro before anyone suggests it...

It saddens me to see this reaction, Nitro is not a swear word, its an extension of the hobby running and maintaining an engine - to all the other stuff you need to know sometimes flying is just not enough.

I really enjoyed your post though and you are progressing at a good speed, hope you make your goals this year.

[Peteski]

It saddens me to see this reaction, Nitro is not a swear word, its an extension of the hobby running and maintaining an engine - to all the other stuff you need to know sometimes flying is just not enough.

I really enjoyed your post though and you are progressing at a good speed, hope you make your goals this year.

Sorry I didn't mean to come across as nitroist! They're just not for me thanks, even though I'm a mechanical engineer by profession

[Grumpy]

Sounds to me that with tentative plans on the table already for a 500-550 then you are well down the slippery slope to a 700, despite your protestations to the contrary IMHO there is really no significant difference in 'flying convenience' between a 550 and a 700, they both need big open space to fly in, they both cost a lot, they both take large lipos.