Turned my new R/C helo into a post hole auger!

[NPloysa]

Well not really, but I did get my first heli crash under my belt on Sunday evening.



It was windy and I was cocky, doing some high flying (15 feet), wind caught it, weathervaned into the wind, flew over my head, and since I am still learning how to control with reversed cyclic and rudder, it got the best of me and I set her down hard.



Pretty good tail boom strike. Tore the wood blades up, broke the aluminum boom, shattered the tail rotor housing, bent the tail rotor control rod.



Good think they make crash kits with all the necessary parts for a typical boom strike type of crash! Should be able to get her back flying soon!



Nick

 

[Chuckie]

So sorry to hear . Better the helo than the truck.







Chuckie

 

[Chuckie]

:-laf With some riggin you could make a prerotator for your turbo>



Chuckie

 

[XJSuperman]

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being an dexpert I know about 0. 5 about R/C helos.

With that said... the only time I ever flew one was with someone with experience and he tied a concrete block to his helo and it wouldn;t get very high and was much easier to control... of course it was just for getting the feel and hand/eye coordination but the wind was all but negated. Again I know nothing about them but this has stuck in my head.

 

[NPloysa]

They are fun! I bought it last Monday and was doing some pretty good high hovers and low forward, sideways flight by Saturday. They are expensive though too. Just to get it back in the air to same configuration I bought it in is going to be about $75. Yes, much better than crashing my truck!

 

[Jengle]

Dang, sorry to hear that, Nick. Thought you were going to play with the computer sim first? Or did you, and just let the wind get the best of ya? I don't understand the reversed controls, cyclic and rudder. Why do you do that? So you can face the chopper head on and not have to think about the left/right thing?

 

[NPloysa]

Well what I meant was that if the heli is flying away from you (tail pointed at you) and diving, you need to push the stick forward for cyclic "up" to make it climb, but if the heli is flying toward you with the tail pointed at you, and diving tail first, you need to push the stick back. Since helis can fly backwards there is that one extra control to remember when flying. And if the nose is pointed at you, push the stick to whichever way the heli is falling, but in standard tail pointed at you, and it goes to the right, you need left cyclic to counteract it. Get it?



Oh, and by reversed I meant thinking about reversing the controls when flying tail toward or nose toward. As far as actually reversing the controls, well, I think it would mess with the gyro, but you can do it on airplanes.



Nick

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

I worked at a company back in the 80's that also sold metals for prototyping and stuff. There was a guy that was into R/C Helo's - he came in what seemed like every week buying metal to repair his Helo's cause he crashed one again. Seemed like a real expensive hobby.

 

[tpuig]

I looked into buying an RC helo a couple years ago. The guy behind the counter recommended I buy a couple cheap ones to crash until I gained the skills for a decent one, which ran $300-400 at the time.

I ended up flying the real things in a much more costly venture... But once I figured out I wouldn't be able to swoop down guns blazin' and blowin' stuff up, stopped the lessons... Guess seeing the Cobras and Apaches in action kind of gets the Walter Mitty imagination thing going. A little two seat bubble craft isn't quite the same. ;-)

TP

 

[Jengle]

Lotta "S" to remember, when under the stress of watching ones chopper headed for terra firma in a hurry. Glad it wasn't a total loss. Fixed wing airplanes are definitely easier.

 

[bighammer]

I had heard somebody explain flying RC Helo's as being similar to balancing a ball bearing on a bowling ball. I have enough problems with my airplanes. YIKES

 

[NPloysa]

That's a good analogy, the balancing the ball bearing on a bowling ball. As for me, I crashed a few planes and got out of it. I now prefer helis over airplanes. In an airplane you always need forward speed to fly, granted you have glide capability and such, but with my heli, I learned to hover at 6 inches off the ground. Try doing that with a plane! Also, heli parts are expensive, but they are all bolt on, screw on, or some type, whereas with the wood and monokote airplanes, they take a lot of time to piece back together. For anyone wanting to learn to fly helis, make sure to buy or make your own training gear, just a big dowel frame with ping pong balls or practice golf balls on the end, it will keep the craft from tipping on not-so-square landings. Check out www.heliproz.com for great sales and flying info.



On edit: Yes, aiplanes are easier for a few reasons, the main one being fixed wing pilots rarely use the left stick. Rudder and throttle are kept pretty constant in the air on an aileron equipped plane, the rudder used a little bit, and throttle a little, but not nearly as much as elevator and aileron.



On helis though, you use BOTH sticks all at once. As the throttle increases, so does collective pitch. Since increasing the collective slows the rotor RPMs, you need to increase throttle to keep the RPMs up. The tail rotor is used to keep it straight, a lot more than the airplane rudder. However, some people ask if learning to fly an airplane first will help them transition into a heli, not really. I still need to take some pics but the website listed above has some pictures of the Raptor 30 that I bought.

 

[Jengle]

Nick,

I tried a real chopper out once. I was ok as long as we had forward speed, the instructor went hands off, almost as soon as we started down the runway. He took it back after I almost slowed to a hover over the runway, after doing some standard airwork. Then we went to the practice area and tried my hand at a real hover. Took me about 30 seconds to lose it. An Army instructor once told me that in the choppers, any change in any control, requires an action on the other three, keeping both hands and feet busy all the time. I can tell the same applies with the R/Cs as well, as you explained. And you're right, fixed wing experience doesn't apply much to choppers.

 

[NPloysa]

I want to get my private heli license also, on top of my fixed wing I am working on. I wonder if flying my r/c heli would help with the real one at all? Not the same movements or hand placements, but with realizing the need to correct with 3 actions if you move one, like you said Jengle.