Looking to buy CoPilot / Flymentor or similar

[fakesnake]

Personal thoughts only not having a go

As a novice flyer I find it very strange the attitude from experienced pilots to co-pilot and similar. You would not fly these days without a gyro or usually flybar less with out some electronic help, yet the mention of stabilisation brings out the cheating and no help comments.

I have found co-pilot to be a great help, I started out in this hobby on my own so it was a steep learning curve. I learnt to hover tail and side in after many crashes

When moving on to fig 8 and circuits the crash costs where getting out of control, after fitting the co-pilot they have so far been very low. I fly now with it switched off and if I loose orientation or the heli is out of control I get the chance to right my mistake as long as I have the hight by a flick of a switch.

I then get the chance to try again with out a rebuild, you hit throttle hold when going in, I hit the on switch and carry on flying till I get it right.

Not trying to convert anybody just saying it worked for me , gave me the confidence to push myself more, my knees still shake when flying so the buzz is still there.

So I say put what you want on your heli as long as you get the enjoyment out of it, because thats what its all about enjoying the hobby.

[pvk333]

Hi,I would highly recommend sim practice just keep at it and all of a sudden things will just click keep practicing realtime hovering tail in left side on ,right side on ect why spend so much money on a co pilot when your not really in controll anyways keep at it practice practice practice

[fakesnake]

why spend so much money on a co pilot when your not really in controll anyways keep at it practice practice practice

I agree with you on sim practice but there is an on/off switch so saying you are not in control is misleading. At a flick of the switch it will put the heli into level flight not a hover but level flight. so you can practice much like a sim really with next to no crash costs.

[millerman]

Personal thoughts only not having a go

As a novice flyer I find it very strange the attitude from experienced pilots to co-pilot and similar. You would not fly these days without a gyro or usually flybar less with out some electronic help, yet the mention of stabilisation brings out the cheating and no help comments.

I have found co-pilot to be a great help, I started out in this hobby on my own so it was a steep learning curve. I learnt to hover tail and side in after many crashes

When moving on to fig 8 and circuits the crash costs where getting out of control, after fitting the co-pilot they have so far been very low. I fly now with it switched off and if I loose orientation or the heli is out of control I get the chance to right my mistake as long as I have the hight by a flick of a switch.

I then get the chance to try again with out a rebuild, you hit throttle hold when going in, I hit the on switch and carry on flying till I get it right.

Not trying to convert anybody just saying it worked for me , gave me the confidence to push myself more, my knees still shake when flying so the buzz is still there.

So I say put what you want on your heli as long as you get the enjoyment out of it, because thats what its all about enjoying the hobby.

i agree to a point that it does aid training as you have said above but i have only been flying for 4 months and i was going to go down the route of helicommand but it took me a week to get from training gear to no training gear and a couple of weeks to basic circuits/lazy eights and nose in and a load of sim practice
i think it does you good to crash lets face it your gonna do it even the best crash its how you learn.
if you want to fit a flying aid do so but most will recomend not to i think

[Milamber]

I am a 66 year old and am about to embark on a T-Rex 550. With my reaction time being equal to that of a "striking tortoise" , I will be fitting a helicommand 3A. The plan - I love a plan - is to put these mechanics into a FG Fuz somewhen and the 3A will be staying in. I attended a scale fly in at the weekend and the model which caught my eye more than any other was a T-Rex 600 inside a TT Hughes 500 variant - exceptionally smooth.

M.

[EtheAv8r]

so you learn to fly with a co-pilot on and then you think ok i can fly so you take it off and oh i cant fly cause the co-pilot did it all for me and you crash

That is not how it works at all, and such views from the uniformed or negatively biased are not helpful or informative to a newcomer seeking advice.

I am a self taught solo flyer and originally abandoned model helicopter flying (or rather crashing) as too difficult and something that I would never ‘get’.

However I remained interested and after a period of time decided to give it one last go. The Hirobo SRB Quark was my first saviour; I learned to fly this little fixed pitch machine – hovering indoors, then out on calm evenings and mornings and worked up to circuits and figures of 8 and had great fun and made good progress.

I then decided to move on up to a CP machine and decided on a 450 size, with my final shortlist being a Trex 450 SEv2 or a Thunder Tiger Mini Titan E325. Just before I hit the ‘Buy’ button on the Mini Titan I came across the Outrage G5, and liking what I read, and also liking to be different from the crown where possible, I bought one.

I though that my ability with the Quark would equip me with adequate skills and preparation for the G5. I was wrong, and my first 3 attempts at flight with the G5 lasted a very short time and each resulted in unplanned arrivals and required repairs…..

I then got myself a HeliCommand – and this was the real key to learning and success. The helicopter and the HeliCommand of course need to be properly set up, and it helps to have an experienced flyer to assist, but I did manage this myself. The stabilisation ‘effect or strength’ is infinitely adjustable – from very strong to very fine and subtle. The stabilisation can be switched on and off at will via the TX. I had mine set up on a TX slider so I could vary the stabilisation in flight or switch it off at will.

The stabilisation - which is only in operation around centre cyclic stick (again a variable parameter) so that when you move the stick outside the range it is off - but get in trouble and you release or centre the cyclic and the helicopter immediately returns to a hover.

As you progress you decrease the stabilisation and take more control yourself until you are able to fly without it, but still have it available at the flick of a switch to recover a lost or crashing machine. Mine had paid for itself in saved crashes without any doubt, and was a great learning aid. It has now been removed form my G5.

Another great aid to me learning was the Thunder Tiger Innovator, which can be made very tame and stable, and I flew that first as a non-stabilised CP helicopter on alternating flights with my HeliCommand stabilised G5 – and together they were a great learning team.

HeliCommand will not stop you crashing, as sometimes you can be too late to switch it in, but it will save a lot of crashes, keep you flying when you would otherwise be repairing, and will enable you to make great progress and get stick time that for me would not be possible without HeliCommand - I know 'cos I was there.

Some people (errr Alex...) are just naturals at this lark and learn and progress at an unbelievable rate, and they would get by easily without stabalisation aids, but for the less gifted, like me, such electronic wizardry is wonderful.

Simulators do help, but it is not like the actual model.... and I find the simulator a bit boring, but I do use a sim (well two actually), but I can fly a model all day. Curious that!

[inferno]

I've played with Heli command, and it does it's job. However you will need to know how the Heli flies in order to set it up, and tbh the time spent setting up, u should be able to master a tail in hover, rendering the unit useless! Just my noon opinion

[EtheAv8r]

HeliCommand takes you way beyond hovering. In fact hovering is not the problem, for me it was orientation when you move beyond hovering and giving the wrong correction input making a situation worse, which the stabilisation really helps with as when that happens, before the inevitable resultant crash, centralising the cyclic stick enabled a recovery.

One situation I once had when HeliCommand saved what would have been a total loss was when I was flying the G5 at my strip, and was venturing into forward flight and higher flying. I wanted to expand from hovering, and I was fairly happily doing high circuits. Well the G5 can move very quickly and I was getting bolder….. and I got into a situation where the G5 was high and had got a long way away and I was having trouble seeing it and did not actually know which way it was pointing, or heading.

It was now a long way away over high crops. So I just centred the cyclic controls and held the throttle/collective at what appeared to be a hover position. The G5 was now just a blob. I then gave some back stick collective and watched the blob to see if it went left or right (side on) or got bigger (coming towards me) or smaller (moving further away)… it moved from a blob to a dot, so I concluded it was moving away from me, cantered the cyclic to stabilise it and then gave an opposite control with the stick. It started getting bigger and I was able to bring it back and land safely.

I learned a lot that day, but without HeliCommand that G5 was a gonna! Today that G5 must have clocked up 350-400 flights and is still going strong.

Some say you have to crash to learn… I disagree, what do I learn from crashing apart from how to repair or rebuild and spend more money and get dishearten? Having stabilisation that enables you to recover does teach you. You know you would have crashed, you still have that heart sinking feeling, but the machine lives, you keep flying, and you try the move again trying to get it right with the having got it wrong experience fresh in your mind. Worked for me and I know also for others.

[millerman]

each to their own at the end of the day if you wanna use it go for it
if you dont well dont, persoanlly i dont but if we were all the same it would be
an odd world.

[Mslater]

I tried this route. You'll be forever setting up. Each of the systems has its own problems.

I tried 2 of them.

Flymentor
HeliCommand

Flymentor was just horrible
HeliCommand works fine but is expensive.

Why not contact Dave at Flying Fish - He teaches from a field in Northolt just behind the Air strip.

You won't be able to crash on dual controls with him. And you can get 10 hours flying experience for the same cost as Helicommand.

[james_i]

i fitted a hal 2001 to my concept 30 a few years ago to help with my flying as i had no club avalable. And if nothing else it gave me the confidence to go out flying and not have to wait for someones help, most of my mates called it the dumbo feather. id didnot save the heli all of the time but it probably helped