Piloting Skills for L platers

[AnthD]

Apologies if there's some beginner eye rolling questions in here but as Im progressing I would like to limit bad habits picked up , so I though it would benefit me and I know other new L platers on Sims and there new set ups to receive some hands on flying tips from the experienced members anything you can add here to the thread is beneficial to us and will be appreciated.

All in all I've very pleased I bought a sim first! And would highly recommend I did this by the book from reading this forum on the beginner section and the brain training it offers is second to only destroying your new heli on a regular basis !
Here are a few of my personal questions after a few days with my sim


Hover - is RPM staying the same in hover and your predominantly on the right stick adjusting left right latitude front rear adjustment (if using the left mainly for Heli rudder for orientation?
(Mode2/Left Throttle)


Slowing down from flight - Are you pitching the heli nose up to reduce speed then reducing RPM of rota .


Landing - as heli lands Im finding it fine to stabilise the heli then reduce the rota then just slightly increase to soften the landing then fully reduce ?


General in air adjustments to heli eg. Role left right - I make very small adjustments to stabilise in the air but when the heli is out of a good visible path to see what small adjustments are needed do the more experienced pilots have any tips on this mistakes made outside a good vis range can go wrong very quickly for me when your flying at a reasonable speed ! .

Thanks for the time reading .

[pgkevet]

Pitch has more effect that rpm. If you have a governor onboard then rpm will remain the same and you only adjust pitch. The higher RPM makes heli more responsive. Much more so than the small effect on lift. When you don't have a governor then yes, you have throttle tied to pitch becasue the higher pitch means more drag and more power required to vercome it and maintain constant headspeed.

[tomatwalden]

First thing, as PGK mentions is that for the most part, RPM remains constant. As you're a beginner, and probably have a fixed pitch heli (200srx? - can't remember) it's clearly not true and speed of the blades affects height. BUT, once you get to "proper" collective pitch, height is NOT controlled by speed of the rotors. Watch the video at the end of this post for explanation, but essentially, blade PITCH ("collective pitch") controls height, not RPM

Slowing down from forward flight. Yes, in essence, you pitch the nose up. You do modify collective pitch slightly, but depending on exact scenario, you may end up applying some negative rather than positive pitch as bringing the nose up will make the heli rise anyway (like a plane).

Landing - again, different for collective pitch and there is not one "correct" method. Personally I use "throttle hold" to land my helis - killing the motor then floating the heli down as the rotors lose head speed. Other people land under power then kill the motor. Whatever suits really!

[Peteski]

I'm another armchair sim pilot at the moment!

I've been on the sim for about 3 weeks now and I feel that it's really starting to come together this week. At first I was crashing on every single flight, so I'm glad I didn't try a real heli first! I've spent a lot of time hovering in all orientations, slow piros etc which is much harder than it sounds if you really want to stay on one spot. I actually find flying circuits easier in many ways. I'm now at a point where I don't crash on the sim at all and can fly reasonably controlled circuits in any upright direction/orientation and recover to a hover from pretty much any orientation. I actually feel in complete control throughout each flight for the first time this week!

I'm finding throttle/pitch control pretty subconscious now. At first I was all over the place with altitude, but now my left thumb seems to just do what it needs to keep level or go up/down as I like. This took a while for sure. At first I thought my collective stick was too loose, so I tightened it up and then realised just how much I was actually fine tuning it in flight. It felt absolutely terrible with more resistance and I was no longer able to make the fine adjustments I must have been doing subconsciously, so I immediately went back to a loose stick - barely enough resistance to stop it falling down under its own weight.

The thing I find hardest (with a small model at least, not the bigger helis) is landing without tipping over. I'm wondering what people do in real life? In the sim I get into a really stable hover about a couple of feet off the ground and then reduce collective pretty quick and dump it into the ground applying a bit of negative pitch as it lands. Seems to work for me on the sim, but wondered what people actually do in real life when landing small helis like the 130X? I find if I try to bring it down very gently the ground effect tries to push the heli back up and destabilises it and I usually end up tipping the hell over (I guess my sim - neXt - must have some ground effect at least). I don't have this problem at all with the larger helis e.g. 500+ and can just land them very gently. But I still get the collective down pretty quick on final landing to stop them moving around on the ground.

Could be a very useful thread for beginners this. Thanks for starting it.

[Peteski]

Landing - again, different for collective pitch and there is not one "correct" method. Personally I use "throttle hold" to land my helis - killing the motor then floating the heli down as the rotors lose head speed. Other people land under power then kill the motor. Whatever suits really!

Ah, that's what I was thinking might work well. I can't do that on the sim at the moment as I haven't configured a throttle hold switch. The nearest I can do is throttle right back on the collective, which obviously also reduces the pitch and brings it down a bit too fast. What height do you normally kill the motor from or does it depend on the model?

[tomatwalden]

Ah, that's what I was thinking might work well. I can't do that on the sim at the moment as I haven't configured a throttle hold switch. The nearest I can do is throttle right back on the collective, which obviously also reduces the pitch and brings it down a bit too fast. What height do you normally kill the motor from or does it depend on the model?

Depends on the heli. This video below is me with my Goblin 630. If you watch from about 3:55 you can see/hear when I chop the throttle..

[pgkevet]

......

The thing I find hardest (with a small model at least, not the bigger helis) is landing without tipping over. I'm wondering what people do in real life? In the sim I get into a really stable hover about a couple of feet off the ground and then reduce collective pretty quick and dump it into the ground applying a bit of negative pitch as it lands. Seems to work for me on the sim, but wondered what people actually do in real life when landing small helis like the 130X? I find if I try to bring it down very gently the ground effect tries to push the heli back up and destabilises it and I usually end up tipping the hell over (I guess my sim - neXt - must have some ground effect at least). I don't have this problem at all with the larger helis e.g. 500+ and can just land them very gently. But I still get the collective down pretty quick on final landing to stop them moving around on the ground.

Could be a very useful thread for beginners this. Thanks for starting it.

That's also a problem with Phoenix sim.. in as much as landing tip-overs happen a lot more on the sim than in real life. I found it still happened on the sim way after it wasn't a concern in reality/particularly on auto practice. In fact it wasn't ever really much of a concern in reality after those first hopping hovers. When landing the model for real you will be a lot more focussed and much more likely to ground the tail or bounce. After you've been through that phase of trying to land for real (as a beginner) on a slightly gusty day and spent the whole pack waiting, trying to time the last few inches of touchdown in turbulence... well you'll get the hang of it. Ground effect will be adding to turbulence from the rotors but calming it from the wind.

a bit off topic: Yonks ago when i was renewing my PPL an instructor with a sense of humour decided we should make an instrument landing at stanstead using his IR (as opposed to my IMC)- he'd be visual safety pilot and I'd go down to 50 feet with foggles (sense of humour!). On the way stanstead approach called up asking if we wanted to hold off due to a thunderstorm over the field. Instructor replied it'd be good practice for me (that sense of humor again). At under a 1,000 feet on the glideslope we were still bouncing 100feet above/below track and at 500 feet still bouncing 75 feet yet by 200 feet it had almost smoothed out...

[SGD]

The thing I find hardest (with a small model at least, not the bigger helis) is landing without tipping over. I'm wondering what people do in real life? In the sim I get into a really stable hover about a couple of feet off the ground and then reduce collective pretty quick and dump it into the ground applying a bit of negative pitch as it lands. Seems to work for me on the sim, but wondered what people actually do in real life when landing small helis like the 130X? I find if I try to bring it down very gently the ground effect tries to push the heli back up and destabilises it and I usually end up tipping the hell over (I guess my sim - neXt - must have some ground effect at least). I don't have this problem at all with the larger helis e.g. 500+ and can just land them very gently. But I still get the collective down pretty quick on final landing to stop them moving around on the ground.

I wouldn't worry to much about the landing issue with the neXt sim as mine does it. Not sure why they have designed it that way but I've never had a model tip over on landing IRL but it happens occasionally on neXt when I'm not paying full attention. So if you can land on this sim consistently without tipping then you shouldn't have too much trouble with the real thing.

[Peteski]

Depends on the heli. This video below is me with my Goblin 630. If you watch from about 3:55 you can see/hear when I chop the throttle..

That's pretty cool. Looks like you were a good 4 feet in the air - higher than I would have imagined but obviously plenty of momentum in a big heli like that. I guess with a smaller model it would need to be proportionally lower to get the same effect?

[Peteski]

I wouldn't worry to much about the landing issue with the neXt sim as mine does it. Not sure why they have designed it that way but I've never had a model tip over on landing IRL but it happens occasionally on neXt when I'm not paying full attention. So if you can land on this sim consistently without tipping then you shouldn't have too much trouble with the real thing.

That's encouraging. I was thinking that I could probably fly my little 130X reasonably well only to then smash it up on landing! My landing success rate on the sim with the 130X model on NeXt is about 75% at the moment, but I can hover it no problem a foot or two above the ground all day. With the 500 models and above I find landing no problem at all on the sim. It's those tricky little buggers that are hardest in all respects!

[tomatwalden]

That's pretty cool. Looks like you were a good 4 feet in the air - higher than I would have imagined but obviously plenty of momentum in a big heli like that. I guess with a smaller model it would need to be proportionally lower to get the same effect?

Yeah - it depends on model The really small models don't have a one-way bearing (eg. 180CFX, 300CFX) which affects it even further. But a 450-sized heli (swinging 325mm blades) with a one-way bearing, you can comfortably engage throttle hold at about 2 feet off the ground and float it down.

[SGD]

That's encouraging. I was thinking that I could probably fly my little 130X reasonably well only to then smash it up on landing! My landing success rate on the sim with the 130X model on NeXt is about 75% at the moment, but I can hover it no problem a foot or two above the ground all day. With the 500 models and above I find landing no problem at all on the sim. It's those tricky little buggers that are hardest in all respects!

The smaller helis aren't the best things to be learning on with a sim as they don't fly very much like the real thing. so you would be better sticking to the 500+ size models to start with.
If you want a bit of a challenge even just with tail in hovering then in neXt right click on your mouse to bring up the setting dialogue box and then click on Simulator tab and then the Wind tab. Now increase the wind speed to about 25-30kph and bump the turbulence setting up to 50% and see how you get on. Now you can start to increase the wind speed and especially the turbulence % and see how you get on. Don't forget to alter the wind direction on a regular basis to keep the learning curve equal in all directions.

[Peteski]

The smaller helis aren't the best things to be learning on with a sim as they don't fly very much like the real thing

Yes, so I've heard, but I thought it would be good to try them all at this stage. I spend most of my time on the 550 models at the moment as that's the sort of size I'm aiming for eventually. Thanks for reminding me about the wind/turbulence settings on the sim. Think I'm ready to try those now as the basic flight/hovering is starting to seem a bit too easy.

[robbo45]

What lovely flying skills ,very smooth and controlled. This is how i would like to get with my flying(may be one day)

[Grumpy]

Personally the last thing i'd advise a complete novice to do was to do their first landings by cutting power and 'auto-rotaing' (aka an 'auto') down. While practicing autos is a good thing to do IMHO you should only think about trying an auto when you are already fully profficient at hovering and landing under power.

Autos are tricky, you only get one go at it. Controlling landing is hard because as soon as you add positive pitch the blades start to slow. You have to balance increased pitch against ever decreasing rotor RPM and you have to do it pretty quickly before the rotors slow too much. Get it wrong and the heli literally falls out of the sky. Due to the slow start process power takes a while to come back after you have hit throttle hold, so if you screw up you cant just fly out of it. Of course expert flyers make it look easy, but dont be fooled.

It's your heli so try it if you want but my advice would be to get hovering and 'normal' landing mastered before you even think about trying auto-rotation landing.