My first flip and inverted hover with mx400pro

[xStatiCa]

I finally got up the courage to do it after practicing on the sim. It is pretty much just a dot though :)

http://www.rcuvideos.com/view_video.php?viewkey=b94cb0f55994f679f595

[helisforfun]

I finally got up the courage to do it after practicing on the sim. It is pretty much just a dot though :)

http://www.rcuvideos.com/view_video.php?viewkey=b94cb0f55994f679f595

im impressed as I just became comfortable with ff still affraid to loop although completly competent on the sim

[broncomech]

Nice job!
But you gotta get the camera man to zoom in a bit :roll:
How many hours it taken to get to this level of acrobatics?

Which sim and what heli do you use for practice?

I am using G2 with a modified Dolphin 3D or Thunder Tiger Raptor(1TTRappy 10) can do sustained inverted, flips, rolls, loops, ect

When flying the real thing I have managed a couple of loops but nothing any more advanced than that yet, cant afford to get too crazy.

[xStatiCa]

Nice job!
But you gotta get the camera man to zoom in a bit :roll:


Thanks. I was encouraged when I heard someone else on another discussion forum looped when they did not know how to hover inverted at all on the sim. I was just going to loop but I just went for it and held it inverted after 2 loops.

The camera woman(wife) was AWOL. She had to watch the baby so I just set the camera down on a table on my back porch and tried to keep the heli where I thought the camera was pointed :). I figured it was better than nothing.


How many hours it taken to get to this level of acrobatics?


I am still a beginner myself. Most of the stuff in the video I flipped the bird over when the tail started to get too far around on me.

I used to own a Concept DX 30 15 years ago but only got to barely hovering on the ground stage before shelving it. That lasted about 2 months of only a few flights a week.

I just got the mx400 in July and try to fly out back 7 - 12 flights a week(8 minute flights). I try to get sim practice in for an hour or so a day but some days I don't. When I practice on the sim I try to stick to one thing that I want to do for 60% of the time and then spend the rest forcing myself to do a + pattern in all directions in front of me while keeping the heli in one of 4 directions each time I do the pattern. The pattern is just to make sure I don't lose any of my orientation skills and to try and get more precise at the pattern each time. It is amazing how difficult it is to keep the + pattern movements as straight as possible even though I know how to hover in all directions within a 1 - 3 foot spot. In the sim I also like moving the heli around myself while keeping it pointed in one direction(north for instance). It seems to help but who knows.


Which sim and what heli do you use for practice?


G3 with expansion 1 so I can use the mx400. I have tweaked it to be closer to how my extended boom mx400pro with 325 blades and 430L motor flies.


I am using G2 with a modified Dolphin 3D or Thunder Tiger Raptor(1TTRappy 10) can do sustained inverted, flips, rolls, loops, ect


The mx400 is much more twitchy than the dolphin as I am sure you are already aware of so I was glad G3 had the mx400 with expansion pack 1. I am no expert on G3 heli tweaking though so maybe the dolphin can be tweaked to act more like an mx400.

That sounds about right where I am too on the sim. I am not so good on the rolls though because I am practicing inverted flips and inverted hovering (to the left and right side too) the most right now. I don't want to practice rolls very much until I can hover inverted tail in.

Once I am comfortable with something on the sim I increase wind gusts to 15mph(not a constant 15mph) just to make sure I really know how to keep it stable when unexpected gusts come in.


When flying the real thing I have managed a couple of loops but nothing any more advanced than that yet, cant afford to get too crazy.

You sound very close to where I am as far as skill level. For the inverted hovering I just kept practicing on the sim so that I could hover inverted to the left and right side and pull out of the inverted hover anywhere in the 180 degree inverted hover(left, nose in, right side). As you can barely see in the video most of my inverted to upright recoveries were when the nose was not pointing right at me so I flipped it upright. I can not hover inverted tail in without crashing on the sim. I plan to work up to that slowly by pointing the heli more tail in every now and then(that is one of my current goals). I am now trying to get very comfortable with the tail control while inverted. I can do it in the sim but it still does not come automatically yet so when I tried it in real life my brain froze for the tail control so I flipped it upright when it got too far to one side.

I can't afford any more crashes right now either according to the wife :). The fact that I have a pretty deep pond in my back yard to that I have to fly over makes it even more scary. If I crash I might lose the whole heli. WIth the inverted hover I was pretty confident that I could flip it back upright as long as I stayed calm and didn't let the tail get tail in on me while inverted. I just try to think to myself that "this is just like the sim... I already know how to do it". That seems to help strangely enough.

[xStatiCa]

im impressed as I just became comfortable with ff still affraid to loop although completly competent on the sim

My main concern for the loop was that the tail would swing out on me and make me get disorientated when transitioning to upside down. The tail held pretty well though. I tried to practice on the sim so that I used as little collective as possible for the flip. Editing the mx400pro to have power close to my mx400 with a 430L helped when practicing too because the collective input was kind close to the real thing.

To get myself to the courage to do the loop on the real heli I just kept practicing stalls(that is what I call it anyway.. I have no idea what it really is). Keep in mind I did this on the sim a few days before trying it with the real heli. WIth the heli hovering pretty far away and ~ 90 feet in the air I would give the heli full collective to get the heli going up as fast as I could and then bring collective to 0 pitch before pull back on the cyclic to get the tail toward the ground. This allowed the heli to point nose skyward while keeping the heli in about the same spot over the ground. The heli would eventually stop going up at some point and then fall backwards down. I would then let it fall until it reached the 100 foot height and then push forward on the cyclic to level the heli back off and then bring collective back to maybe a hair over hovering position.

[broncomech]

Did you have the EagleTree hooked up for this flight?
I am interested in seeing your current draw during hard maneuvering.

[xStatiCa]

Here it is.

[broncomech]

What do you have your pitch set at now?
You are running a hotter motor and longer blades than I am and still pulling less amperage on hard maneuvering, nice job on the setup.

[xStatiCa]

-10/0/+10 (maybe +11). It is hard to tell with the slop in the blades.

I am down for the count right now though... My heli fell in the pond and the Jazz wont initialize :(. Everything else seems to have survived(including the blades).

Instead of posting the info again...
http://www.runryder.com/helicopter/t289360p1/

[broncomech]

Sorry to hear that your heli is down.

Hopefully they can revive the ESC without it costing too much.

[steve28]

work up to loops doing stall turns , it getts you used to vertical attitudes and coming out of a loop is the same as coming down from a stall turn . get comfortable with that and then a loop can be done by capping off a horseshoe shape and coming down the other side , thats how Ive learned it .