Tips for learning backwards and inverted flight

[PeteStewardson]

So for a while I wasn't progressing at all and so I decided to go back to basics. I've been working on my upright flying and have now sorted out turns towards me which have always been an issue, and I think my nose in has now improved a lot.

I've told myself I need to crack flying backwards, and inverted flight this year. I've made a bit of progress on the sim with some inverted hovering, but I hate the sim so it's a struggle to force myself to find the time. But I'm getting there slowly.

I was wondering if anyone has any tips for things that helped them crack these things, other than just stick time. See if anyone had anything else that helped out.

[Rachel]

yes be very proficient at all aspects of the right way up first ! then sim , sim ,sim ,sim ,sim ,sim , yes I hate it too but it works.
failing that can you buddybox with some one who is good
at inverted ?

[waveydavey]

I could fly backwards in both directions before forwards and I think it was I got so used to feeling comfortable in that orientation. As long as you're okay side on you shouldn't worry too much about backwards, remember left hand circuits are sticks apart, and right hand circuits are sticks together. Don't over do the tail control, watching others they put too much rudder in and end up baling out as they lose orientation. Plent of height and down the field a bit so you've got a bit of perspective. Start to your left side on and add a little back elevator, as you get to yourself nice and slowly balancing the elevator start and add a little right aileron, don't initially add rudder that's where it goes wrong, inch the rudder to the left and you should have started a controlled left hand backwards turn. Concentrate on speed and steadily completing the turn, it's easier to lash round the circuit but won't teach control. I would go for an 8 rather than separate circuits as I think the transition helps to improve your overall stick control. when you get to the centre transition to left aileron and same inching around with rudder, you'll have it cracked in no time. You could also just try stall turns without the piro so you slide out of the stall backwards and fly past yourself just to get used to the speed control. Remember left hand backwards circuits are easier to balance than right so don't beat yourself up if the right hand ones don't go so well.

Backwards inverted is a whole different ball game and something I really struggle with but now I can it's my favourite flight orientation. Left hand inverted backwards circuit both sticks to the right and the same process as above, right hand circuit both sticks to the left. Remember LAFT (Lead with Aileron Follow with Tail)

[myxiplx]

The best practice drill I found was doing slow piros. Make it a really slow piro, literally 10 seconds to complete a full revolution, and try to keep the helicopter in one spot. It forces you to work on all your orientations, and you end up being able to correct with both aileron and elevator in any position. Once you get good at those, start trying to drift them in a straight line, and do your best to keep it as straight as you can.

Those piro drills give you such a good set of orientation skills that they take a lot of the risk out of learning any type of upright flight. By the time you can do a slow piro and move it around you have a really solid set of basic flying skills, and it's fairly easy to transition to backwards and sideways flight. For backwards flight I just started off in a hover and started drifting slowly round in a circle. When your hover skills are solid in all orientations and you're moving slowly this isn't really much different to the skills you've already learnt. And then all you need to do is keep practising those circuits and as they start to feel more natural just start slowly speeding up.

I also recommend using the sim, but don't feel you have to spend a lot of time on it. 10-15 minutes on the sim still makes a huge difference. I setup my sim with a timer just like my real models, so I split my sessions in to 5 minute flights. I land & takeoff between each flight, and generally work on something different for each flight. You could easily spend 5 minutes working on stationary piros, or 5 minutes trying to fly backwards, or 5 minutes trying to hover inverted. I generally have a few flights working on things, and always have at least one sim flight where I just mess about and have fun.

If you make your sim sessions short enough and enjoyable enough they're easy to fit in whenever you have a break. I'll often sit down in front of the sim with a cuppa, and if you make time each day you'll be amazed at how much you'll pickup after a couple of weeks.

[SaneAdam]

Stick time and hard work… there are no secrets or sorcery that enable you to achieve these things. Its all down to practice practice practice. The sim is perfect as its a no risk environment. Or cheap helicopters you are not too bothered about crashing. I found micro helicopters very very helpful for cracking backwards and inverted. Slow upright pirouettes are a great way to become totally comfortable in any upright orientation. But you have to actually be flying something to be able to learn.

You are pretty much saying you want to able to fly inverted and backwards, but can't be bothered to put the work in, so you want someone to tell you how to do it...

There are a couple of little tips regarding stick movements… such as sticks together and sticks away for backwards flight regarding turns… but to be honest they won't be much use to you until you are more comfortable upright in general. All tips require stick time to implement, so IMO, its a very hard thing to tell someone how to do it.

Learning to fly is all about your attitude. I was so determined to learn to fly 3d i did anything i could to progress…. still do. I love the sim because it gives me an opportunity to fly and practice and get my head round all these things that once looked like gravity and physics defying magical sorcery… then you realise its just the result of hard work and practice. You just have to be disciplined in your learning. If you are able to learn to fly upright… you have what it takes to do the rest. Its a mental block thats takes a hell of a lot of determination to crack… which is why some people say they are perfectly happy just flying upright. Because they are unwilling or unable due to time constraints to dedicate the time needed to learn. Which is perfectly understandable if your flying is more of a recreational or social thing.

Maybe someone has some magic beans they can offer you that are some sort of short cut… but as far as i know… its all about determination, hard work and discipline…. sprinkled with a lot of time to dedicate to the process.

[PeteStewardson]

I could fly backwards in both directions before forwards and I think it was I got so used to feeling comfortable in that orientation. As long as you're okay side on you shouldn't worry too much about backwards, remember left hand circuits are sticks apart, and right hand circuits are sticks together. Don't over do the tail control, watching others they put too much rudder in and end up baling out as they lose orientation. Plent of height and down the field a bit so you've got a bit of perspective. Start to your left side on and add a little back elevator, as you get to yourself nice and slowly balancing the elevator start and add a little right aileron, don't initially add rudder that's where it goes wrong, inch the rudder to the left and you should have started a controlled left hand backwards turn. Concentrate on speed and steadily completing the turn, it's easier to lash round the circuit but won't teach control. I would go for an 8 rather than separate circuits as I think the transition helps to improve your overall stick control. when you get to the centre transition to left aileron and same inching around with rudder, you'll have it cracked in no time. You could also just try stall turns without the piro so you slide out of the stall backwards and fly past yourself just to get used to the speed control. Remember left hand backwards circuits are easier to balance than right so don't beat yourself up if the right hand ones don't go so well.

Backwards inverted is a whole different ball game and something I really struggle with but now I can it's my favourite flight orientation. Left hand inverted backwards circuit both sticks to the right and the same process as above, right hand circuit both sticks to the left. Remember LAFT (Lead with Aileron Follow with Tail)

Oooo now that's what I'm talking about... Never thought of it like that! Making my way into inverted I've been using the "stick up nose up, stick down nose down" mantra in my head to help get that one sorted. So that will help thanks!

I'm only just making a start on these so early days but little things like that help a lot. If I can get to the point where I can traverse between forwards and backwards and upright and inverted during circuits this year I'll be a happy man.

[PeteStewardson]

Stick time and hard work… there are no secrets or sorcery that enable you to achieve these things. Its all down to practice practice practice. The sim is perfect as its a no risk environment. Or cheap helicopters you are not too bothered about crashing. I found micro helicopters very very helpful for cracking backwards and inverted. Slow upright pirouettes are a great way to become totally comfortable in any upright orientation. But you have to actually be flying something to be able to learn.

You are pretty much saying you want to able to fly inverted and backwards, but can't be bothered to put the work in, so you want someone to tell you how to do it...

There are a couple of little tips regarding stick movements… such as sticks together and sticks away for backwards flight regarding turns… but to be honest they won't be much use to you until you are more comfortable upright in general. All tips require stick time to implement, so IMO, its a very hard thing to tell someone how to do it.

Learning to fly is all about your attitude. I was so determined to learn to fly 3d i did anything i could to progress…. still do. I love the sim because it gives me an opportunity to fly and practice and get my head round all these things that once looked like gravity and physics defying magical sorcery… then you realise its just the result of hard work and practice. You just have to be disciplined in your learning. If you are able to learn to fly upright… you have what it takes to do the rest. Its a mental block thats takes a hell of a lot of determination to crack… which is why some people say they are perfectly happy just flying upright. Because they are unwilling or unable due to time constraints to dedicate the time needed to learn. Which is perfectly understandable if your flying is more of a recreational or social thing.

Maybe someone has some magic beans they can offer you that are some sort of short cut… but as far as i know… its all about determination, hard work and discipline…. sprinkled with a lot of time to dedicate to the process.

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I'm not wanting to learn without the effort, but wanted tips to help. Yes obviously I need stick time, and I'm trying to do that, but with a family etc I find it difficult to get that. So I'm wanting little tips to help make the most of the time I do get. Actually things like sticks together, sticks away is exactly the sort of thing that does help as I can say them to myself as I learn to try and re-inforce it in my head faster.

[PeteStewardson]

yes be very proficient at all aspects of the right way up first ! then sim , sim ,sim ,sim ,sim ,sim , yes I hate it too but it works.
failing that can you buddybox with some one who is good
at inverted ?

Actually once I'm getting some progress I'm intending to go and see Dave Fisher again for some tuition. I find a couple of hours with him works wonders. But I kind of want to make a start on my own first

[Mutley]

One thing i did Pete was for example when doing backward circuits id be flying level then i'd be "left !" for left turn - trying to do it at that moment without thinking about it first, the amount of times i would then dumb thumb because i hadn't thought about stick movement first really gets you to doing it instinctively

One other thing is flying circuits with the model at all the 90 degrees so fly a circuit keeping the model at that orientation throughout the circuit, once you've got backward circuits cracked do the same with inverted.

[Scotvar]

Due to work commitments and crashes my flying regressed massively, so much so that I wouldn't even contemplate trying half of what I could do 2 years ago so I've found myself re-learning a lot in the last 6 months and I'm back at the stage where I can happily flying backwards inverted figure of 8s. The key for me has been having a bailout mode on the FBL system. It has acted as a safety net so it has given me the confidence to re-try a lot of the skills I thought I'd lost.
Plenty of height and not too fast and I found myself not actually needing the bailout and when I did get it wrong because of the height I was able to correct my errors with no real brown trousers moments. Flying for me has so much to do with confidence. Practice on the sim then if you have a fbl system with a bail out practice for real and just flick a switch if it starts to go south.
Another thing you could try is bring the sim to the field. I used to fly with a guy who was practising hurricanes. He took a lap top to the field and in between flights would practice where he was going wrong.

Paul