Flying nose in - Any tips?

[withnail]

Hi All,

I'm glad to say that m'little Esky Lama V3 and I are getting along very well now. Since re-routing the ariel there have been no more glitches at all and upgrading the inner shaft to an alloy topped model that secures the stabilzer bar has also improved handling. Repairs have been cheap and after shortening both control rods half a turn, she is nicely trimmed. Thanks to the forum for all those tips.

I'm flying at least 2 batteries a day in the fairly limited space of the front room. Tail in I can hold a nice hover, even when less than an inch off the ground, and I can also land on 2 CD cases placed together on the floor.

Where I am having a lot of trouble is getting used to any other orientation! Once the heli turns more than about 45 degrees in either direction, my control goes almost completely. I know it is a case of practice, practice, practice, but wondered if there are any hints or tips you could pass on to make the process easier? How did you go about learning nose in flying?

Any comments would be most welcome.

Cheers

Mark

[trvo]

Hi Mark, not sure if this is appropriate for indoors, but here's how I would go about it...

Start of hovering from side to side, gradually turning the nose in the direction of travel as an when u feel comfortable. Keep this up until you are doing a lazy figure 8 from side to side. This will get you used to seeing the machine side on. Once you've practised that start working it into a full figure 8 where eventually you'll be flying nose in as you come back towards the 'cross over point'.

It'll take a little while to get comfy with that, afterwards you will have all the orientation that you need to escape from a nose in hover. To enter the nose in hover start with your figure 8 and bring it to a stop as it comes back in towards you. That way you will already be familiar with what the aileron and elevator controls are doing.

In order to succeed at trying something new you should have a basic plan of how to abort it. For instance in the nose in hover, you would pirouette 180 degrees to a tail in hover in the event that something went wrong.

Hope that helps - Trev

[withnail]

Cheers for that, I think I should have enough room to try that out.

[quanter]

Tip from Boggy in another thread
<Quote>
a quick tip nigel don't think of it as reverse! waaaaay to much brain power needed!!
when your "nose in" look at the rotor disc as a spinning plate, when it slides sideways, forwards etc, "prop" it up with the cyclic stick. pretty soon it will become instinctive will no brain strain
<Quote>

Brian

[jboweruk]

One trick I use when 'nose in' is to watch the tail movement, it moves now the way the stick does. Sliding is the hardest to get my head around, for that I just try to get my head around facing the way the heli is. I try to move the room for sliding, that is if I want to slide north, I need to move the room south (aka the stick moves the room now.) It works for me around 75% of the time, the other 25% I end up letting go before my little lady hits anything.

[scallybert]

One trick I use when 'nose in' is to watch the tail movement, it moves now the way the stick does. Sliding is the hardest to get my head around, for that I just try to get my head around facing the way the heli is. I try to move the room for sliding, that is if I want to slide north, I need to move the room south (aka the stick moves the room now.) It works for me around 75% of the time, the other 25% I end up letting go before my little lady hits anything.

I'm learning too - and I'm trying not to do it this way , as I think I'd end up confused which of the various rules to apply.

I'm trying to think in the 'frame of reference' of the helicopter. ie moving the stick left moves the helicopter to the helicopter's left, pushing the stick forward makes the helicoptoer go in the direction it's pointing, etc.

I'm lucky to have a reasonable size room to play in, which gives more margin for error.

I've also found it's quite fun to put a bit of forward cyclic pitch on, so the heli goes forward fairly slowly, then use the 'yaw' to steer it in a rough circle. Left & right cyclic pitch can then be used to move towards or away from the centre - again in the helicopter's frame of reference.

This seemed to help me get my head around things.

[Mike W]

One thing i was taught flying helis and also planks was when its towards u which ever side dips move the stick that way, like ya propping the rotor up... The more u do it the more it becomes instinct ....

[Si_B]

The way I learnt was similar to what some people have already said, but I always thought of it as correcting into the movement of the heli ie. when it's nose in and moves to the right, you put right in etc. Works with the tail as well, but you must look at the nose of the model.
Also, start with the model nose in. Seems drastic, but I remember wasting months dithering around trying to get nose in. A friend advised me to put the training undercarriage back on and spend a day learning to hover starting nose in on the ground. 4 or 5 tanks later the training gear was off. Still remember going down the field and sitting in a rock solid nose in hover.......seemed really impressive then !!!

[quanter]

What bugs me is I can cope with nose in, but side in is all over the shop.
Brian

[jboweruk]

I hear that, I think I was lucky with it, as most of my early flights were nose in, so quickly learned that when rudder came into it, right was clockwise, left wasn't, then once I bought my Blade I only had to learn sliding the wrong way. But side on is a killer still.

[Boggy]

What bugs me is I can cope with nose in, but side in is all over the shop.
Brian

crack nose in using the prop the disc up method. once thats second nature. sidways becomes easier but is definatly the worst. ive found that if its facing left think of it as tail in if its right think of it as nose in. (im right handed dont know if that has any bearing on the matter)

[Brewber]

Some really useful stuff there guys, much appreciated.

[quanter]

crack nose in using the prop the disc up method. once thats second nature. sidways becomes easier but is definatly the worst. ive found that if its facing left think of it as tail in if its right think of it as nose in. (im right handed dont know if that has any bearing on the matter)

I think you have a point with the handedness I'm definitely worse in a big way right side to me.

To some extent having many years ago flown slope soarers I got the hang of nose in left is right etc. and inverted up is down and down is up, but with any sort of plank going right left or left right you can mostly leave it to its own devices.
Not so with a heli.

Brian

[jboweruk]

I think I see how that works, nose in you go right to go left, so facing left you go left to bring it closer, and tail in you go the right way, so right you go right to bring it in. I think.... OOH my head hurts.

[robgt]

nose in you go right to go left, so facing left you go left to bring it closer, and tail in you go the right way, so right you go right to bring it in. I think.... OOH my head hurts.

Yep
Cheers,
Rob