Auto rotation head speed

[helimadness]

Hi All.

Have been practicing Autos on Phoenix and getting fairly good at them. Now I have the 700 I seem more game to have a go on the 500. For some reason I see it more as my training heli now :-)

I have a Vbar on both and tried to setup the bail out feature on the 500 but it never worked with the Align ESC. It made the initial spool up way to fast so never managed to fly with it. Seemed the auto bail out and general spool up was the same.
Any way was thinking why don't I just have a flight mode that is just below what a say a auto approach head speed should be. If the 500 autos at say 2000 rpm I could setup a idle 2 at say 1800 and practice the approach. Or maybe better have a throttle curve that is say below the auto speed when in negative pitch and normal hover speed when in positive. So as you start to flare it picks up.

Would only be good for the approach to the point where you start to flare what do you think?

The biggest problem I had learing on the sim was not having enough head speed in the approach. That is what got me thinking.

Cheers
Mark

[PaulJC]

The problem is as soon as you go into auto your going to be pulling negative pitch to spin the blades up, so the minute you switch in to your flight mode you'll still have a high head speed which will drive your heli towards the ground, not good...

Maybe just set bail out up temporarily for some auto practice untill you get used to it, i dont think you'll find it as bad as you think, it's just the initial fear of flicking that switch... My first auto was forced due to a flame out on a nitro, after that i used to end every flight with them for practice, it wont be long before your landing them in all orientations.

[helimadness]

The problem is as soon as you go into auto your going to be pulling negative pitch to spin the blades up, so the minute you switch in to your flight mode you'll still have a high head speed which will drive your heli towards the ground, not good...

Maybe just set bail out up temporarily for some auto practice untill you get used to it, i dont think you'll find it as bad as you think, it's just the initial fear of flicking that switch... My first auto was forced due to a flame out on a nitro, after that i used to end every flight with them for practice, it wont be long before your landing them in all orientations.

Problem is the Auto bail out function wont work. I was thinking having the throttle curve when I go negative to start the auto set to say below what it should be free spinning at for the auto. So I get the full effect of the auto. When I want to bail out and go negative I have the throttle curve in a safe hover position.

So any idea what the head speed would be during a normal auto.

For sure its just fear of flicking the switch. Had the maiden flight on the Goblin 700 on the weekend. First time I have spooled up anything bigger than a 500. Surprisingly enough all that fear I had was for nothing. It lifted off and did exactly what the 500 does just a bit slower.

Cheers

[PaulJC]

I think the aim there would have to be having it as slow as possible, but still being stable and able to stop you from hitting terra if you pull out from a height of 6' or so, your blades, pitch and model weight are going to change what head speed you get compared to others.

Does the auto bail function not work at all, is it a fault?

[helimadness]

I think the aim there would have to be having it as slow as possible, but still being stable and able to stop you from hitting terra if you pull out from a height of 6' or so, your blades, pitch and model weight are going to change what head speed you get compared to others.Does the auto bail function not work at all, is it a fault?

It works when I was testing it on the bench but the normal spool up from stopped was about as fast as the bail out. I did put some old blades on to try but folded them straight back when I tried to spool up. So never got it off the ground. I emailed the Vstabi guys and went back and forth a few times but never managed to get it sorted. Guess the Vbar just didn't like talking to the Align ESC.

[PaulJC]

Thats a shame, would make the process much easier if it worked. I guess the only thing you can do is try and see how it works out...

[helimadness]

So ran a pack through on the weekend just lining up for autos in my normal mode which is only about 2000 head speed. For sure the blade speed picked up during the auto and as I flared you could hear it slow down and the motor start to take over. So worked fairly well. Had one little bump on the ground but only soft touch :-)

Then I realized my normal mode and throttle hold the pitch curve is 40-50-75-100. Idea was I can land and drop the throttle without pushing the heli into the ground.

So Guess I need to change my pitch curve in throttle hold so when I hit hold I can get max negative pitch. I would have only been getting maybe 4 deg or something in the normal mode. Might have been giving me a false sense of the decent. Lucky I remembered that I didn't try and have a real go on the weekend. Might not have been able to get enough negative to work.

Also thinking maybe that is a good way to stop you using too much negative. Could limit max neg pitch to 6-7 deg or what ever the magic number is then just drop the collective all the way and forget it until time to flare. Maybe just introducing bad habits but.

Will have to get used of full neg pitch in throttle hold as I normally land and flick throttle hold. Might not be so bad on the 500 but not sure the 700 will like full negative pitch on landing.


Cheers

[PaulJC]

Sounds like it went ok

Full negative pitch in TH shouldn't be an issue, land at half stick, hit TH, dont lower the stick all the way down till you've lost some head speed, there is no really need to do it at all as long as you remember to do it before initialising the next flight.