My turn to go 'old school'

[trillian]

For a while now I have been thinking about flying a nitro heli again, mostly out of the idea of some kind of throwback to when I first started in the hobby. I still have a few nitro helis and some fuel so I decided to get the Knight 3D back in the air.

I needed to move it to my newer TX and I wanted to simplify the electrics a bit so I have an AR7110R with a built-in limiter which replaces the Throttle Jockey I had before and I'm using an LiFe pack instead of the 2s LiPo and Arizona reg.

I haven't flown the Knight in at least 3 years, maybe more, and I had not setup a flybarred heli in a long time so that was a trip down memory lane as well.

Today I flew it and I will say, it's punchier and more responsive than I thought it would be (it only has an OS50 Hyper and I ran it on some old 15% Rapicon). So I was pleasantly surprised in some ways. It was quite trouble-free, I didn't even fiddle with the tuning much, just set it to a couple ticks past 1.5 turns and it was quite good. My Align starter still works, the old nanotech LiPo I use with it worked, my fuel pump worked, everything just pretty much worked without giving me any grief.

But with a flybarred head, all the mechanical stuff has to be just right. I thought the swash was well levelled but it's drifting a bit down elevator (even though it's actually slightly tail-heavy).

Soooooo, the verdict is mixed. I did sense just a hint of that 'connection to the past' but is it something I want to do very much more? Probably not, not enough to burn up all the fuel I have anyway.

[bigpops]

Nice. There's a guy in my club who still flies a Knight 3D, but it has an Outrage flybarless head and swash on it now. He did wait a long time before going flybarless with the RJX head originally. He only switched because someone was offloading an old Vbar for next to nothing.

I used to have desires about flying old fly barred stuff, but that all came to an end when I actually did it. I lasted half a battery on a fly-bar 450 before I'd had enough.

[trillian]

I used to have desires about flying old fly barred stuff, but that all came to an end when I actually did it. I lasted half a battery on a fly-bar 450 before I'd had enough.

Yeah you have to constantly make little corrections as it's always drifting slightly one way or another. The Knight head is easy to convert by just adding a swash driver and I have a spare CY Total-G I could put on there.... but I don't know how motivated I am to keep flying nitro. The gasser kinda covers that whole IC engine thing for me. We'll see. With a bit of luck we still have some nice weather left for a while so the Knight will probably get out there again at some point.

[p4ddy]

And there you have it. Fbl has taken away the fine skills required for flying flybar. Seeing someone doing a low slow inverted piro with a flybared heli shows far more skill than doing the same with a fbl heli. I mean even I can do a slow inverted piro using vbar WITHOUT any corrections. That = no skill.

[trillian]

And there you have it. Fbl has taken away the fine skills required for flying flybar. Seeing someone doing a low slow inverted piro with a flybared heli shows far more skill than doing the same with a fbl heli. I mean even I can do a slow inverted piro using vbar WITHOUT any corrections. That = no skill.

I have thought about his before, and sort of similarly with the difference between, say a 700 heli vs a 450. The question being that if it's harder to fly a small heli or a flybarred heli accurately, would it sharpen your skills in the long run or would it just be wasted effort when you go back to a FBL 700?

[hedge]

I have thought about his before, and sort of similarly with the difference between, say a 700 heli vs a 450. The question being that if it's harder to fly a small heli or a flybarred heli accurately, would it sharpen your skills in the long run or would it just be wasted effort when you go back to a FBL 700?

I've been building a scale heli around a Hirobo shuttle, I originally flew it using the Flybar and it was horrid. I did fly FB back when I started however I only really hovered and putted about, def no 3d, all that came later, not because of FBL but because I was ready at the time I had FBL.

I do believe that with the right micro the skills learned are transferable up to your 700. Not many people think of flying in this way the general route is from small to larger - and never look back, however I think that if you already fly large helis, going back to micros does sharpen your skills.

[trillian]

I do believe that with the right micro the skills learned are transferable up to your 700. Not many people think of flying in this way the general route is from small to larger - and never look back, however I think that if you already fly large helis, going back to micros does sharpen your skills.

Many years ago I used to fly a 450 all the time, then over time I drifted away from the 450 and was mainly flying electric 700s. So a couple years ago I got a Beam 450SE and built it up with fast servos, VX1e FBL etc. and although it flies very well for its size I found it a bit of a shock and pretty difficult for a while - partly due to the visual element of something so small and then the lack of mass. Now I am comfortable with it and enjoy it, but everything happens faster, it requires more concentration. Sure is a heck of a lot easier to carry around