Jeepers! She's all over the place!

[Scooby]

Well done on handling those gusts!

You're right about them getting away from you fast. I had my first proper crash with my B450 the other week because of that. One minute it was in a fairly well controlled hover, the next it was coming straight at me (missed though!). I lost orientation and then it was in the ground. It all happened so quickly! One rebuild later...

When you take the training gear off one thing you could do is change the stock landing gear for skids off a TREX 500. I've done that on mine and it sits higher on the ground giving the tail rotor more ground clearance. Also, because the skids are wider apart it seems to make it slightly more stable on landing/takeoff (although that could just be psychological!)

Glad to see you're back!

[highlightshadow]

For me its only this last week where i've gone from being in abject fear of the heli and its power to feeling more in control of it, even in gusty wind...

Things that helped me were these tips from club guys:
1. Don't worry about altitude - focus on cyclic .... i tend to hover now around 1.5 - 2.5 m off the deck ...mainly to get out of ground effect which stabilises the heli ... but if a gust of wind picks up the heli and moves it to 2.5 - 3m up i don't worry .... i just focus on maintaining its horizontal position and not worry so much about altitude since once the gust passes it'll drop again .... i'm progressing now into paying more attention to the wind and bringing the heli back down mid-gust but feeling for the wind speed starting to drop and being ready with positive pitch again to stop doing bunny hops....

2. Be brave - lose the training gear .... as long as you can land decently then for me (maybe also because i'm FBL) i was finding the training gear made my 450 MUCH less stable ... i'm guessing both the down wash from the main rotor + the wind gusts were pushing the balls and causing vibration and making the whole thing feel much less settled

I'm now happy to fly 6 straight packs without the gear ... when its windier i just pay attention to my clock and know that once i'm in the last minute or so of flight i'll wait for a break in the wind and bring it down safe/controlled otherwise i'll keep it in the air until it does. But now i'm up to about 20 packs flown i'm getting slightly better at landing in wind (but still very careful)

I have fitted KBDD rear blades in luminous orange and gorilla skids in same bright orange ... partly for visibility and orientation but also the gorilla skids are more flexible and will absorb a slightly hard landing more than the align ones but again ... i'll happily spend 30 - 40 seconds 'landing' by coming in and waiting for a steady spot.

3. Higher headspeed ... i'm now setting up my DX6i with 'idle-up' mode actually just being an identical pitch curve to normal but instead of a flat throttle curve i'm just upping the %'s of each point by about 15% so that in wind the headspeed and subsequent tail speed are higher meaning its more locked in for when i'm outdoor/windier vs indoor sportshall flyiing.

So now my hovering stick point (75% or so) is about 80%-85% throttle outdoor and about 60-65% indoor - made the heli much more settled bumping up the headspeed at the cost of maybe 30s flying time.

4. Don't get focussed on holding it in a 1m x 1m imaginary box in the air .... let it drift more ... i was shown how twitchy my stick inputs were and it caused the heli to become unstable ... i was told to slowly correct and if it drifts a little more then fine ... just slowly correct and wait a little for that correction to take hold..... i found that i was much calmer flying after a few more packs and started to relax and enjoy it rather than feeling like i was fighting it .... eventually i guess i'll be able to bring that hover back in to a tighter box but just making rapid but smooth corrections rather than sharp jerky ones

Sorry its a long post ... hope any of this helps other people ... i know it did me

Jamie

[Scooby]

I'm going to try the higher headspeed when I get in later. It sounds like a great idea, thanks.

[Vikki]

Scooby:Thanks for the tip. I've just ordered the Trex 500 undercarriage set from Midland Models.

Shadow: Don't worry about a long post - it was all valuable information and very much appreciated.

Not worried about altitude either, if he wants to settle at 5m then that's where I'll try to hover him (well, I'd bring him down a bit).

Taking him over the field lunchtime to see if I can do better.

Vikki.

[Guest]

I agree with the higher head speed, I take off in normal mode and within 5 seconds swith to idle up. My throttle is set to 100% on all points and I use the pitch to climb etc. It gives the heli much more stability. Also you dont have a lag waiting for the heli to respond.

[Vikki]

Scooby: Trex 500 landing skids are waiting at home for me. Thanks for the tip. It will be much better for me with the tail out of the grass and the wider stance. Trainers now put aside

Vikki.

[v2kdj]

Hi all,
Some tip i had from fellow fliers...
Once your over the 1/2 mtr height threshold, training gear aint gonna do much good anyway! Dump it!! If its comin down there aint much you could do apart from hit the throttle hold to kill the motor and perhaps save the main gear. The training booms are good for scooting around the floor for getting the 'feel' initially.
I dumped the 450 from about that height and it did more damage than when it came down from 30 ft!!!!
Ahhhhhh....the early days.....still not much better now tho!! LOL
What i also found was that home made skids using garden canes and ping pong balls were cheaper and more stable than purchased ones. The ones i bought tended to resonate (wobble bloody fast!) and upset the 450.
Nice write ups n vids Vikki....are you using a GoPro??

Regards, Karl.
(took me ages to type this on a iphone with zausage fingers!! LOL)....zausause....sausage...ahhhh bo***x!!!!!
Ooooops....zorry!!

[Vikki]

Thanks, Karl. Camera is a Contour HD 1080p.

Training gear was shaking, made tail wobble, tg shake even more and so on.

Vikki.