How do I do turns ?

[BrontoRaptus]

Sorry to ask such a basic question, but I'm learning to fly my heli on my own and having a problem turning !

I have reached the stage of practicing lazy 8's, and when I get to the parts where I need to turn, I've just sort of been ruddering the model round.
I've been trying to fly round the bends properly by banking the model and keeping it moving forward - but I just don't seem to be able to fly nicely round the bends !!! (In fact, most attempts finish up with a struggle to get the beast back under control !!)

My Raptor (what else!) has a H/H gyro, which I guess makes it more difficult ?

I don't seem to be able to find a nice description of how to do a proper turn in a heli - perhaps some kind helpful person could take me through it ? I'm sure a lot of other beginners would also be interested.

Thnx ................ Tony

[Stuart]

Hi Tony,

Put the the heli gyro into rated mode i.e. Non HH, this will make the heli weather vane, i.e. guide the tail to follow the direction of the heli this will help you in the rudder control.

You must first get used to orientation of the heli, their is a fair amount to consider when turning, banking and keeping your forward speed going at the early stages in your flying it can be mind blowing, but once mastered you'll be doing circuits all over the place.

You need to be able to hover your heli as a minimum tail in, left and right to get started.

I would suggest that you break it down into three parts.

Part 1.
Once confident in hovering left, right and tail then start to do the following.

Hover the heli in front of you at a safe distance tail in.

Turn the nose right and fly 10ft to the right straight and level at a slow speed, halt the heli still facing right now left rudder 180 degrees and fly 20ft left again keeping speed under control as well as height.

Once you feel very comfortable at passing the heli back and forth, then now add some more into the equation.

Part 2.
Start the heli in a hover in front of you at a safe distance. Then keeping the tail facing south at all times use your cyclic to take the heli round an imaginery 8 using the rudder too keep the tail heading south. This will help you to control between cyclic and pitch in maintaing the heli's height of the ground and its speed.

Once you can keep the heli's speed and height at a relative constant then

Part 3
Now you want to combine the two into one...

So from a starting hover tail in turn right, as you get 10-15ft start banking left so the heli would be flying away from you, at the same time add a little left rudder. As you bank the heli will want to drop a little, but also remember you just changed the airflow through the blades so you pushing air off to the right, as the gyro is in rated mode the heli with the forward speed the heli will start to weather vane. As the heli reaches a 45 degrees angle to you, level out and fly foward slow and keeping control of the pitch.

As it passes the middle and starts to reach the next turn start to bank , right rudder and add a minor pitch the weather vane will assist and keeping it controlled and slow is the trick.

Again at 45 dregrees level out and flying from left to right pass the middle and start again.

Keeping the speed, pitch and tail in control at all times and make sure that all turns are away from you. Evetually over time you'll be flying faster and wider turns, then you can progress this into nose in hovering by making big circles.

I hope this helps.

others will have different methods, but this is how I mastered it.

[Ed]

Tony,
Try this link out i have found it a great help, and still am.
http://www.littlerotors.com/flyinglessons/

Best of luck
ED

[antsis]

Tony

As Stuart said, you have to keep the pitch, speed and rudder under control. The key is the forward speed. You are into the lazy 8's. When you get to the turn use the aileron to bank into the turn. At the same time you must put in a little forward stick to maintain the speed. At this point the tail will be starting to point at the ground and it's here where you feed in some rudder to make the tail follow the nose in the turn. When the nose looks as if it's about to point over your shoulder (The one furthest from the model), apply opposite aileron to level out and relax the rudder. Then fly the model across in front of you at the 45 deg angle.

It's important to keep the speed up, especially in the turn. Remember the model will loose height as it turns. Don't be tempted to pull back on the elevator to maintain the height, but feed in some collective. Obviously as you come out of the turn you can relax the forward stick and reduce some of the collective to maintain height and speed.


Hope this helps

[BrontoRaptus]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Was going to try to put it into practice this w/e, but been laid up with the 'flu !!!

Will let u know how I get on next w/e.