Advice on transition to forward flight and back to a hover again?

[Raven Morpheus]

Hey all

Haven't tried it yet, but I do know from my experience yesterday when I successfully hovered my MCPX for the first time, that when it gets away from me it usually transitions to forward flight and I end up crashing! I found yesterday that my MCPX zoomed off at such a rate that I couldn't keep up - and obviously I have no instruments to tell how fast I'm going like I would in a real helicopter so I have no idea when I'm about to transition to forward flight!

Can anybody here offer me some advice on how to a) transition to forward flight intentionally in a controlled manner and b) get back to a hover?

I'm thinking that it's just a matter of moving forward on the pitch stick to get into forward flight and then pulling back to get back to a hover - but I was either too slow in doing that, or didn't have enough room yesterday!

TIA

[milly0812]

Its been a long time since i was here as its now just instinct but the best analogy given to me was flying a heli is like trying to balance a marble on a dustbin lid lol As long as you a;ways treat the heli like the marble it will teach you how the heli will react and how to put it back in the middle of that lid again



Grasshopper

[Grumpy]

Do yourself a favour and fly in a large enough space so you have some thinking time, flying in small confined spaces is possibly but doesn't leave any margin for error.
Other than that you have the right idea, push the stick forward to transition into forward flight, pull back to 'put the brakes on'. Easier said than done of course.

[gazmk2]

Small inputs, very small inputs! Especially on a small heli like the MCPX. You then need to put a slight opposite input to stop it from accelerating. Basically the following steps;

From the hover
Small amount of forward cyclic
slight increase in pitch (if the heli descends)
back off the cyclic
Apply a really small amount of back cyclic, not too much or the heli will stop.

You might not always need to apply a little back cyclic, only do this if the heli starts to "run away" with itself.

To bring it to a stop;

Very slight back cyclic
Lower the collective a little
As the heli comes to a stop you might need to increase collective again to maintain height.

If you can keep it going slow enough then chances are you won't need to alter the collective, if you go forwards a bit too quickly the heli will drop height as you push forward and gain height when you pull back.

[tomatwalden]

Probably worth checking this out : How To Fly RC Helicopters

[myxiplx]

What you have to remember is that you're not directly telling it to go forwards with the stick, instead you're always controlling the angle the helicopter is at.

So to get to forward flight, you use a small movement of the stick to tilt the helicopter a little forward, and then you bring the stick back to centre. With the blade disc tipping forwards, the helicopter will accelerate forwards, and without you doing anything more it will keep accelerating that way getting faster and faster until you stop it.

To stop it, you need to lean the helicopter backwards, which is another small movement of the stick to tilt it back. Once you have it tipping backwards it will start to slow down.

But if you leave it tipped backwards, it will stop, and then accelerate back towards you. So to stop it you need to wait for the model to stop, and then tip forwards again to put the disc level.

[tomatwalden]

It's certainly a common misconception with beginners that by returning the sticks to the centre, that the model will follow suit and return to a stable hover. It won't!

As described above - once a move to forward flight is started by moving the cyclic (right) stick forward, the heli will tip forward and start to fly forwards. Move the cyclic stick back to centre, and ... wait for it ... nothing will happen! (by and large). The heli will continue moving forward.

You need to give an opposite control - ie. cyclic stick BACK to halt the forward movement, then carefully return to level flight.

Hence the "marble on an inverted plate" analogies - the heli always wants to move somewhere - it's up to you to control it!

(note - this is NOT true of micro helis with 45-degree flybars, or some modern Blade helis in SAFE/self-level mode)

[chrisleematt21]

Hey all

Haven't tried it yet, but I do know from my experience yesterday when I successfully hovered my MCPX for the first time, that when it gets away from me it usually transitions to forward flight and I end up crashing! I found yesterday that my MCPX zoomed off at such a rate that I couldn't keep up - and obviously I have no instruments to tell how fast I'm going like I would in a real helicopter so I have no idea when I'm about to transition to forward flight!

Can anybody here offer me some advice on how to a) transition to forward flight intentionally in a controlled manner and b) get back to a hover?

I'm thinking that it's just a matter of moving forward on the pitch stick to get into forward flight and then pulling back to get back to a hover - but I was either too slow in doing that, or didn't have enough room yesterday!

TIA

Have you thought about getting a sim? They really do help when you are starting out.
Did you find some where to fly or are you in the garden? A big open space does help as it gives you more time to correct.