Help needed for beginner.

[paulics]

Hi all. I bought a esky belt CPX a little while ago a decided to get phoenix rc sim before flying it just to get a feel for it. over the last two days I have been fling the honey bee king 2 and the belt cp v2. I think the belt v2 has a head lock gyro like my belp cpx and I do not like this as much as flying the king 2, I think it does not have it and I just find it alot easier and more fun to fly.

So my question is, can I unplug the head lock gyro on my cpx to fly in the same way or should I just sell it and buy the king 2 as I enjoy flying it on the sim alot more?

[muscleflex]

the sim is always different to fly than the real thing... to me, i find the real thing easier to fly (don't know why)
headlock gyro is supposed to make things easier to learn... but like you, i actually prefer to fly in rate mode.
i'm sure other people with more experience will chime in.

[Randall]

heading lock mode is easier to learn in as you can almost forget about the tail when progressing later on you will need heading lock for backwards flight and aerobatics, rate mode tends to be used for scale flyers who want the natural scale flying style, if you flan on moving on with your flying into aerobatics or 3d then stick with heading hold

[unwind-protect]

Don't worry, the gyro on the Belt won't hold heading in real life nearly as well as it does on the sim.

On the other hand, a rate gyro without revo mixing will lead to you constantly chasing the tail.

The sim is a training device, nothing more. If you base purchases on it then you're likely to be disappointed.

[James A]

Not sure what your model is like and I've got to say I haven't tried in rate mode but my suggestion would be to turn up the wind under the weather option on phoeonix and then try flying both. Basically the heading hold simply allows you to rotate to the position you want and then release rudder input at wqhich point it will stay facing that direction. Now if my thinking is right the issues will rate mode will come in in a number of ways:

when you have a gust of wind when you're hovering as it will make the heli start to turn as it's force will affect the tail and main boddy diferently.

When you make any change to the throttle the torque produced by the main rotor will change and the tail will start to rotate.

There are also no doubt other ways in which you will find the heli starts to turn 'of its own accord'. Now the real issue is how are you going to cope if your heli moves from a nice tail in scenario and suddely drifts to side on and you become disorientated (not knowing which control to use as it starts to slide out of its hover). Typically you may have put some more throttle to get extra height as after all that is your freind in Helis but that now pushes the tail further round and you're now nose in and all your syclic controls are reversed relative to you.

Anyway, I guess my point is that you'll have enough 'fun' trying to keep the thing under control and hovering nice and stable without giving yourself the worry of controlling the tail at the same time. Leave switching off heading hold until you're happy at flying in all orientations (nose in, side on etc) on your real heli (not just the sim) then you won't get into trouble.

Final thing, the heading hold may just be set to different gains (how quickly it will react to a heading change) on the two models but I'd be surprised if it was turned off totally on either one in the SIM.

Hope that helps.

[paulics]

Thanks for the replies. Randall, I would rather go the the "natural scale flying style" rather than aerobatics. I just found that it was alot easier to fly in normal flight in rate mode rather than heading hold. I will try it on the belt for real to see how it is. I also turned up the wing James and it was a little more tricky to hold a hover in rate mode but I can manage, I can hover inverted too, the thing is forwrd flight, as I lik to fly the heli "realistic" and maybe get into scale in the future, I find it alot eaiser in rate mode. The type of flying I am doing the rate mode suits best over heading hold I think?

[paulics]

good news, just found this out

The gyro switch (below the idle up switch) toggles HH mode on/off. If it is flipped up to position 0 (towards the idle up switch) then HH is turned on. Flipped in the opposite direction turns HH off. You can test this by turning the HH switch on and plugging in the battery, waiting for the gyro to initialize, then rotating your heli left and right by hand while observing the motion of the tail servo. You will notice that the servo changes position relative to how far you've moved the heli from it's initial position. Now switch over to rate mode and perform the same actions. You'll notice that the servo only activates while the helicopter is in motion, then returns to it's initial position once the heli is stationary, regardless of how far it is from it's initial position. This is expected, as rate mode only attempts to dampen unwanted movements.

[cjcj1949]

Normally gyro gain controls the way a gyro works. Setting it below 50% gives rate mode and above 50% heading hold. You can choose rate or heading hold for all models in Phoenix. A good (SMM or MEMS) gyro basically does not drift. It does require more deliberate control of the tail, but is really useful in wind. A bad Heading Hold gyro can be more trouble than it's worth.