Chopper Flying

solissydney (Ken) · #1 11-03-2011, 01:31 PM

Hi. I have been flying a Twister Medevac mostly indoors for close to 2 years. I am on the third one at present. I don't have to tell you what happened to the previous ones. Luckely I am good at fixing just about anything. I needed another challenge so I bought the Blade 120, I am just about an expert at walking that around in the local park. I have taken to fly the two of them early mornings, and with 5 batteries between them the flying is good for around one half an hour before the air currents start up, which is another good challenge.
Ken

gbeal · #2 11-03-2011, 01:39 PM

Dunno how you do it, looks too hard to me, LOL.
Gary

Logieberra (Logan) · #3 11-03-2011, 01:48 PM

(Details moved to another post)

JohnG (John) · #4 11-03-2011, 01:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gbeal

Dunno how you do it, looks too hard to me, LOL.
Gary

Good one, Gary

.

Cheers

Logieberra (Logan) · #5 11-03-2011, 02:02 PM

(Details moved to another post)

solissydney (Ken) · #6 11-03-2011, 02:36 PM

In order to learn to fly a Heli, after having read the instruction manual 20 times, you must do three things; practice, practice and practice. And, do the same thing again.
Then, one day you will get there.
Ken

mozzie (Peter) · #7 11-03-2011, 05:52 PM

ken my best mate bought a chopper several years ago and he thought he new everything needless to say the chopper lasted 10 seconds and i couldn't stop laughing

acropolite (Phil) · #8 11-03-2011, 06:52 PM

Ken I'll be interested on your opinion of the blade, ive been contemplating one for some time, I find my little indoor heli a little unresponsive.

solissydney (Ken) · #9 11-03-2011, 07:01 PM

I know what you mean Peter.
Over Christmas I watched a man with two friends walking out from a park with a huge broken Heli in his hands. You should have seen his face. Obviously he got the chopper for Christmas and went straight to the park thinking he could fly it perhaps without reading, or following, the instructions.
Being able just to fly my Hely, forgetting any acrobatics, after many months of practice gave me a deep down feeling of satisfaction of having achieved my goal of being able to fly one.
Ken

DavidTrap (David) · #10 11-03-2011, 07:15 PM

Flying a full control RC one is best described as balancing a ball bearing on a convex mirror - you need to be thinking two steps ahead of what it's doing. If you're behind it - you're gone!!!

The freaks of nature who can fly these things and do the incredible 3D aerobatics have usually had miss-spent youths!

I have only ever progressed to loops and something resembling a roll...

Good fun though!

DT

solissydney (Ken) · #11 11-03-2011, 08:10 PM

Phill, the Blade 120 is a logical step up to an indoors one. It should be less of a learning curve, one just need more space because it moves more quickly, ideally a park with cut grass. Also, nothing really to break on it.

Ken

floyd_2 (Dean) · #12 11-03-2011, 08:39 PM

I started my foray into helis with a QJ8-V2 EX all alloy chopper built from scratch. I then moved up to the Hurricane 550, which was an awesome chopper. I don't think I ever ended up a very good flier, but had loads of fun. I used to sweat bullets keeping those choppers under control. One thing is for sure, flying the CCPM helis where you have full control over all axes is awesome.

Eventually I moved house and no longer had anywhere to fly nearby so had to sell up my heli collection (and put those funds into a new telescope lol).

Dean

GraemeT (Graeme) · #13 11-03-2011, 10:32 PM

The reason helicopters are so hard to control is that they really cannot fly. They only stay in the air because they are so ugly that the earth repels them.

guggle (Michael) · #14 12-03-2011, 09:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidTrap

Flying a full control RC one is best described as balancing a ball bearing on a convex mirror - you need to be thinking two steps ahead of what it's doing. If you're behind it - you're gone!!!

I have a Blade 400 and the above is sooooo true. I've had one bad crash with it and it took several months for me to iron out all of the bent, broken, misshapen bits and pieces.

The problem with the Blade is it is quite twitchy... Great fun though

Michael.

DavidTrap (David) · #15 12-03-2011, 09:48 AM

Michael - the usual advice to beginners (before this wave of small electric helis came on the market) was to start with a bigger heli as they are more stable.

Most young beginners started with a heli swinging 550mm blades (ie the rotor disc is ~1.2metres) as their reflexes are quicker. Older beginners started with larger helis with 650mm blades as they are inherently more stable.

The electric helis have driven size down because you only need smaller batteries that are cheaper. They are definitely twitchier, but cheaper to repair from their inevitable crashes.

DT

guggle (Michael) · #16 12-03-2011, 01:30 PM

Yeah, some guys at my club suggested the same thing when they saw me struggling the other day - admittedly it was a bit windy.