Few beginner questions

[Nigel]

Inverted hover.... Seems like a life time ahead of me, but I willing to get stuck-in, the thing will 'kiss the ground' but I hope I can minimise the errrrm attraction, to a minimum!!!

Thanks for the tips...

[heliphil]

Go and find a club local to you and talk to the people there........ hands on help is so much easier. You just have to be careful that the local experts really are expert....

[Nigel]

How very true, words of wisdom... Thanks very much..

[saints7]

As usual a lot of very good advice already posted.

For what it's worth, I started with a Raptor 30 and soon got a Buzzfly SE for indoor mucking about.

As already mentioned a good Sim is a must - Phoenix got me hovering the Raptor.

The other idea is some lessons - it's amazing how quickly you can progress when someone who knows what they're doing helps and shows you.

[Hick]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Well, i went out and bought a Buzzflyer SE. And am having a very hard time with it. After 3 or 4 days, i still havent got it to even hover. No matter what i do, it always leans to one side, so that when you try and take off, it immediatly crashes. Ive tried fiddling with the trims to add more lean to the other side, and this seems to work for a bit, but then when i have a minor crash, everything goes out of wack again. I just dont feel as if im getting anywhere.

I also purchased Phoenux sim, and find that so much easier to use, i actually seemt to be getting better and better. But real flight is just extremely frustrating, and the sessions seem to be a complete waste of time.

Here are a few more questions i have.

1. Should a properly trimmed helicopter be able to hover reasonably stable by just increasing the throttle? (indoors)

2. Should the tail rotar always be spinning? sometimes i find that it doesnt, which i thought it should, just at different speeds depending on the throttle.

3. What is your experience with the ESKY KOB? Maybe i jumped the gun with the BUzzflyer SE, would it be a better starter kit?

4. When trimming, should you be tweaking based on eye level? or actual flight responce? For example, i find tweaking by flight responce works better, but then im wondering is this due to me flyiing incorrectly.

[chopperaddict]

Hi hick

I will try to answer your questions to the best of my knowledge...

1. Should a properly trimmed helicopter be able to hover reasonably stable by just increasing the throttle? (indoors)

In a word- NO. Helis are inherently unstable by design, even full size helis, and you have to constantly provide inputs to keep them in a hover.

There is also ground effect, which hits a model heli up to around 3-4 feet off the ground. While in ground effect, the heli will typically try to go left and backwards due to various reasons, and you need to provide inputs to stop that. Once the heli climbs out of ground effect, a lot of that creep disappears. So the rule is normally to get it light on the skids, apply right cyclic and forward cyclic, so push the cyclic toward 2 oclock just enough to counter the movement.


2. Should the tail rotar always be spinning? sometimes i find that it doesnt, which i thought it should, just at different speeds depending on the throttle.

I am not familiar with your heli, but typically Yes, the tail rotor should spin whenever the main rotors are spinning, as it is driven by the mainshaft via ears. If you have a motor driven tail then it may well stop before the main rotors.

3. What is your experience with the ESKY KOB? Maybe i jumped the gun with the BUzzflyer SE, would it be a better starter kit?

I have a KOb which I use for nose in practice indoors or just for fun on bad days. However, dual rotor helis don't really teach you much about flying collective or even FP helis.


4. When trimming, should you be tweaking based on eye level? or actual flight responce? For example, i find tweaking by flight responce works better, but then im wondering is this due to me flyiing incorrectly.

Not sure what you mean here, but checking tracking is best done when hovering at eye level, assuming you can do that.........

Most peeps suggest that you do NOT try to trim out the normal left and backward drift on take off, as you really do need to learn how to contorl it.

Have you read any of the tutorials around on learning to hover ? Most suggest that you merely slide around on the floor at first, getting the feel for the control inputs you need ? This saves crashes and cost.

Hope this helps ?

[Johnc61]

Well, there are plenty of very experienced guys already given you some priceless advice. I'm still a beginner so understand what youre going through. My route in has been Blade Mcx (very stable indoors, good for learning orientation only - but you need to do that as I guarentee you will move the stick the wrong way when in panic mode!), Phoenix sim (so you know what youre in for in the real world) and the Walkera 4/3b (The original - BuzzflyerSE is just a rebadged Walkera 4/3b).



1. Should a properly trimmed helicopter be able to hover reasonably stable by just increasing the throttle? (indoors) As already answered by someone else: No! The BladeMcx will fly hands off when trimmed but that makes flying too easy. The Walkera will fly rock steady but you need lots of room to avoid turbulence and everything on the Heli to be correctly adjusted (Every time you crash, check it over; linkages come off, control rods bend and check the battery position as it effects the balance/c of g.)

Take-off is best acheived by: spool up, quick jab of left stick (throttle in Mode 2) to get it off the ground but at the same time have a bit of right stick to stop the 'left lurch'. A small bit of forward on the right stick will stop the flight backwards. Once airborne, you can stop the corrections on the right stick as this will lead to over correction and you will fly off to the right and forwards. This is why you shouldnt try to fly with this trimmed out, as soon as you're in clean air you will have to correct again the opposite way which is more difficult for a beginner than getting airborne. I know it is frustrating when you start but before long it will make sense and you can start enjoying the challenge of controlling it rather than fighting it!


2. Should the tail rotar always be spinning? sometimes i find that it doesnt, which i thought it should, just at different speeds depending on the throttle. In the Walkera/Buzzflyer case, No, it doesnt always spin at spool up speed. However, once flying it should always spin.

3. What is your experience with the ESKY KOB? Maybe i jumped the gun with the BUzzflyer SE, would it be a better starter kit? Personal choice, and see other peoples comments. A coax is more stable and you will fly and learn coordination but you will also get bored very quickly if you're looking for a challenge. You also cant 'thrash it around' once you learn full control.

4. When trimming, should you be tweaking based on eye level? or actual flight responce? For example, i find tweaking by flight responce works better, but then im wondering is this due to me flyiing incorrectly. Not sure what you mean. Its not really effective to land, put some trim on and then take off, as how do you know what youve changed? As you gain control of the heli, you will soon learn that to hover (for example) you keep the heli near you, you have to keep correcting the tail to the right using a stick input, as it wants to spin to the left. Rather than keep a bit of stick control on, just move the trim and then you can centralise the stick and the tail stops 'wandering'. If the heli drifts left all the time and you keep bringing it back with right stick, just try moving the trim a bit to the right.

Hope that all helps in a way! Stick with it,as when you first hover your Buzzflyer for that first long hover, it feels real good!

[GravityKills]

>> it always leans to one side
you'll find many seasoned flyers who won't be able to hover this heli without practise (if it's the same like the Walkera 4#3 I know)... it's a bit harder to fly than your average .90 3D ship.

The sideways push of the tail rotor is very strong. If you try go go straight up, it will end up two meters to the left in a second, speeding up. It's simply not possible to trim it perfectly - everything changes in ground effect.

This heli behaves a bit differently as any other heli you'll find in a sim. The reason is control delay - all cyclic input goes via the flybar, and the flybar takes a split second to react. Not that the sim is useless, but with this heli you'll need many hours of hands-on practise to prevent "overcontrolling".
You can try a T-Rex 250 in Phoenix and crank up the simulation speed.

Personally, I would trim the heli on eye level, yes. But for that you'll need to be able to fly it untrimmed.