Before I crash again - someone pse tell me how to turn in ff

[Rick Rotorhead]

Hi all, this must sound stupid, but I am trying to cope with learning ff rather than just nudging my Twister cp (mechanically similar to a Blade cp I think) around in hover. When I use cyclic to turn in a gentle bank I get mostly crabbing flight with slight turning. If I add a bit of tail in the same direction, because its banked the tail lifts up as it turns leaving the heli diving at the ground. Should I be banking over then only use collective to haul it round? or cyclic + tail + collective at the same time?
Also, is there any way to slow these things down a bit. I sort of hover it 20 feet to my right at a gentle walking pace then feed in some left cyclic and left tail to bring it back and Wooosh.... its shot by to 20 feet on my left side in like 3 seconds at which point if i'm lucky I successfully chicken out by yawing back to tail-in and bringing it to a controlled hover. If I'm not lucky its doing a long shallow dive into the dirt or turns to face me and rushes back at me just as quick like an angry wasp sometimes going right over my head (scary!). I flew planks for ten years 1980-90 (quite competently as I recall) and the only plane I flew which handled with this kind of neutral stability and nervous flicky response was a small (club 20 class) pylon racer. Now with those, as you know, you bank 'em over then haul back on the elevator to effect a turn. Is all heli flying similar to this?
I've read lots of advice on how to positon a heli for training, figure eights etc, but nowhere does it say what you should do with the sticks to effect a turn and not lose height. Any help would be much appreciated as I really want to start trying those figure eights and circuit flying..... cheers, Rick

[flyinfool]

The best thing would be to get a sim.
Sim crashes are cheap.

To make a turn with a CP heli you will bank to an appropriate bank angle and then add in both rudder and back cyclic. Unless you are really trying to go fast you shouldn't need much change on the collective.

It is a lot like turning a plank except that you must make coordinated turns with rudder input. it is a lot harder to just bank and yank a heli, like you do with a plank.

Start out slow. just hover around making the heli be where you want it to be and go where you want it to go when you want it to go there, not be or go where it wants to. By just hovering back and forth under control, as you get more confident the speed will pick up and before you know it you will be doing controlled forward flight.

I sort of hover it 20 feet to my right at a gentle walking pace then feed in some left cyclic and left tail to bring it back and Wooosh.... its shot by to 20 feet on my left side
That statement tells me that you are not ready for forward flight, since you do not have hovering under complete control. It sounds like you are over controlling, don't move the sticks so much.

[Rick Rotorhead]

Thanks Jeff, but thats exactly what I was saying. I can hover fine tail-in 'on the spot' (well within 2 feet of a chosen spot) and I can walk with it slowly forward in the hover, but - when I just turn it left or right it picks up speed before I'm ready for it and frightens the life outta' me - without knowing how I should be turning it, I was mismanaging my stick inputs. However, I get the point that it only gets better with constant practice. I am seriously considering a sim (Reflex xtr) before trying to handle a Trex. The little Twister was meant to be 'expendable' for the purpose of getting me trained with a proper 'hands on' feel rather than buy a sim. Your're right about the overcontrol, but its not deliberate. This machine seems quite sensitive to me. Hovering uses stick movements of barely 1/8 inch to keep it smooth. So when she's buzzing straight at me having just turned her around 15 feet away I guess a bit of panic sets in!!!! Anyhow, many thanks its jus' practice practice practice.......... Rick

[Gixxer]

Simulator is a must have! Get Reflex XTR or Great Planes G3. Both are pretty realistic and will get you into hovering and FF.

[flyinfool]

its jus' practice practice practice.

That is exactly right.

The inputs for normal FF are even smaller than hover.

[Rick Rotorhead]

If I keep having trouble with sensitivty I think I'll move the control rods inboard on the servo arms - that'll steady it down a bit. The already supplied tx with this thing is pretty basic, no expo here!

[flyinfool]

You don't want to go to low on the sensitivity or you may get into an attitude and not have enough to get out.

[Rick Rotorhead]

True, but maybe just a little de-sensitising.... I don't think I've ever had to use full stick deflection on this heli yet even when hit by turbulance. Its a risk I might just try to live with in order to make its normal flight responses more manageable.

[hellydaddy]

I found that learning to turn a heli made my plank flying better. I never appreciated the plank rudder until I HAD to use the heli tailrotor to turn. My plank turns are much less awkward now.


Tiger 50 OS 50SXH
Futaba7CH G401

[Rcer22]

When I use cyclic to turn in a gentle bank I get mostly crabbing flight with slight turning. If I add a bit of tail in the same direction, because its banked the tail lifts up as it turns leaving the heli diving at the ground. That sounds like your giving too much rudder. As you bank and give up the nose points up too so when you give rudder that tail turns also leaving the heli pointing down.
is there any way to slow these things down a bit.
You have to start slow to stay slow. Try banking just a few degrees and give tiny inputs for your turn. If you come out of the turn level or close to level you shouldn't pick up too much speed. Even before you get into FF or FFF you need to be able to control the heli at slow speeds and right out in front at maybe 15 or 20 feet high Try doing figure 8s small and getting bigger. As said a sim is the way to go. When you crash it's waiting for you at the start point again and don't cost anything. I used a simulator to go from hovering to FF just playing with it a couple of hours a night for a week.

[Seeker]

Rick,

Try this for a while. While hovering with the nose pointing away (like you can do easy)... just slide the heli left about 5 feet and stop it... hover there for a min.. then slide back to the right and hover there... practice this for a while...

Now.. when you can do this well...turn the nose about 20 degrees and hover like that for a while.. then turn it the other way 20 degrees and do the same... if you start to get in trouble.. turn the nose away and you are back to nose out hover... remember to stay a few feet from the ground...

now... combine the 20 degree nose hover with a slide ... practice all these things until you can do them well.

I remember only a month ago how fast my raptor 50 seemed to move once I started in FF. Seemed like it was faster than my fastest plank (of course it's not)... once you can control it... and you do some FF with that large pucker factor... it get's pretty easy pretty quick to do some figure 8's

Now I can fly my heli as fast as I it can go without any orientation problems.

Good luck and keep burning the fuel!

[Rick Rotorhead]

Many thanks for the advice. I've started doing tail only turns left and right with the Twister passing in front of me. I keep her to a walking pace with small dabs of back cyclic as necessary. So I've kind of taken a deliberate step back to make slower but more steady progress. Trouble now is I'm prevented from doing much other than tail in hover practice (its great learning to cope with the severe wind turbulance near our house Lol) by an erratic tail problem, which I suspect is a failing gyro within the so called '4 in 1' unit (remember this bird is a Twister, a sort of artf Honeybee or Blade clone. Anyhow, thanks again..... Rick