Training gear to be or not to be!

[iceuk]

I am a new pilot, hav myself a Twister CP Gold and a T-Rex Sport, Sport is still waiting to be built but the question I ask is that how much easier will hovering be if I remove the Training Gear from my Twister CP Gold (It is a collective heli)

I can do hops and have it hovering for about 10 secs but I bring it down through nerves (-: as my heli tends to see saw a bit and I think it's down the the weight of the traning gear more than me.

Thoughts?

[Creaky Cactus]

One word.

CONTROL

Ya got control? Can you set her down without a tip over? The gear tends to make the heli more stable. It does two things for you. It increases the polar moment of inertia (makes it more stable in yaw) and moves the CG down (makes the cyclic slower).

You won't be using the Training Gear for long.

The Cactus

[sansone]

I got training gear on the way.. about done with the 450 build, figure I got a better chance with the newbie gear.. got sim time + coaxial flight time only :o

[BigIreland]

You use the sim enough and you wont ever need training gear.

[iceuk]

Im sick of the Sim, I have gotten to the stage where I am trying tic tac toe now, or inverted nothing compares to the real thing (-:

[PilotPete01]

I started by spending a lot of time on the sim. I used training gear for about the first 3 battery backs, until I had hovering down. After that they aren't really useful...

[jaywhy]

I think - and this is how I started - with the sim and a bit of practice, you don't need to bother with the training gear. Just skip it entirely.

[everettlee79]

with having a sim now-a-days i feel training gear is obsolete.

lets look at it this way. you learn to hover the sim - thats one heli
you learn to hover your heli with the gear - now you've learned to hover two helis
then you take the gear off and now you have to lear to fly a third heli.

now allow me to post a disclaimer: if this is a casual hobby for you by all means buy training gear and take it slow. but if you are as determined as i was forget that:BSS

and by determined let me just say, i told the girlfriend to stay home for a few days and pounded out about 15 hours on the sim in 3 days:whip in 3 days i had all my upright hovering dialed in and was doing flips and rolls all over the place (even a wall stick;)), but my favorite move was how quickly i could pull out of any maneuver, and bring her into a perfect hover right in front of me.

if you are determined, this is what helped me.
pound the sim, when you feel you can bring your actual heli up to 4 feet (out of ground effects) get the disk flat, if the heli is drifting to the left, bring her back down and give a click of right cyclic trim. bring her back up, get that disk flat, if she drifts towards you, land, and give a click cyclic up trim. i also maidened my heli in an outdoor racket ball court. perfect way to get out of the wind.

to sum it all up, i felt it helped me to know how my heli was going to fly as soon as those skids left the ground instead of learning one way then two ways then a third. just a waist of time. for me at least. but then again i may be a little too over confident at times. whatever, i love this hobby :nanabobo

[GreenCello]

I disagree. Unless you're lucky enough to have your heli and the simulator share nearly the same physics, the controls will feel very different with the real heli. Having lightlweight training gear for at least the first couple of lift offs may save your gear if you have an imperfect build or a hard landing. I still strap on training gear for a new build or major rebuild. Not necessary, but cheap insurance. I use carbon tubing and velcro straps that are easy to put on or take off.

[Jermo]

I started without training gear, tried it ONCE after I had been learning for a while and found it much HARDER to learn with it on. I dumped them and never went back.

[Creaky Cactus]

Heck! Throw them on. The worst case is you find that landing is a piece of cake and you wasted two sticks, four wiffle balls and some zip ties and you pull them off. If you save one set of rotor blades, you will have recouped the cost of making the training gear.

Cost = low (cheap in both dollars and time)
Benefits = unknown (perhaps high)
Risk = low (if you don't need the TG, nobody ever needs to see them)

Seems like the cost-benefit analysis is pretty clear.

The Cactus

[RudyDubai]

I think it is harder to learn with with the training gear on. It changes the way the heli fees. If you have put in significant SIM time this should not be necessary (or even avoided all together).

[WillJames]

Sim time could make it so you don't need the TG but it is not just the takeoffs it is also the landings you need to master before TG is not needed. If the TG saves you the downtime and fix time of a single tipover then it was worth it to use it at first. If you can really fly the sim well, you will not need it long.

Also, you can use one single dowel across the skids to help prevent side to side tipovers without using the whole X if you have a good bit of sim time.

[Greybird]

Just a tip-over eats up quite a few parts. I would put them on, then take off and land a few times. If you can do that without incident, take it off.

[pwoodyp]

I started without training gear, tried it ONCE after I had been learning for a while and found it much HARDER to learn with it on. I dumped them and never went back.
Same here, no Training GEAR... I learned relatively quick how to recognize when heli was going to tip and backed off just before it would actually tip ... Then I found that if I wasn't too slow in taking off I could power right through the tipping phase ... Although I probably could have benefited from a training Gear with my landings as I had I couple of rough landing but in no time I was past that too. Anyway trying not to blow wind up my own skirt here I also got away without using them. :thumbup:

[dwoodworker]

I got training gear on the way.. about done with the 450 build, figure I got a better chance with the newbie gear.. got sim time + coaxial flight time only :oggod decision. training gear gives you the chance to set her down without as much worry about tip overs and tail blade strickes. also when its starts to get away from you you can set it down. and no reason to be rushed to take training gear off. use it untill your perfectly confident in light landings and spot on landings and are in good control. than take it off. controls will be quicker and take a little getting used to. I built my on training gear out of dows and ping pong balls. but long since removed and past on to my friend who uses them.

[Daman691003]

I used landing gear and never flew succsesuffly always crashed and spend more time messing with the landign gear then flying. so one day a guy at the hobby shop saw me flying on the sim and saw that i could fly he said just take them off and throw them away.. so i did and it was great first get a good setup on the helicopter makesure u have a high enough head spead or u will be screwedd and make sure u have expo how u like it so the controls feel right that screwed me up alot not having the right expo dialed in i used zero on the sim but fifty was in my remote that messed me up flying when i moved it to zero it was great..
good luck have fun and buy lots of parts but my opinion throttle up a few times getting light on the skids and watch what the heli does and react to it and when ur comfortable lift off with no skidz

[Slyster]

Training gear for the first TEN lipos.. thats about enough....

[crashkit]

I used it and thought it helped me get threw the hovering fast then after i could fly ff and do some circuits i put them back on and learned nose in from ground take offs then i practiced some more put them back on again and learned to fly back circuits in my basements slowly.So i think you get what you put into them.

[tearitup66]

Well I started flying at xmas with a Blade msr. I crashed it constantly but it didn't break too much. Then 2 weeks later I got a sim (Aerofly... got a mac) and practiced for 2 hours a day for a good week. I then went out without training gear and just tried to do the things I did on the sim. and what I learned from the msr. It is true the physics are different, but they basically flew the same. Just put in the time on the sim and give it a try without. If you think its too much then throw them on, but I doubt you will ever use them. If you do use them don't get caught up keeping them on for weeks. So far I have flown my beam e4 7 times and am flying back in forth left to right. I am glad I am doing this instead of messing with the training gear. Either way it's a fun hobby and do it the way you feel most comfortable.

One last thing, if you fly with thumbs, I would learn on the the sim to pinch or thumbs on top while using your finger to support. This was a major step for me and didnt take too long on the sim to switch. If you fly with a neck strap try to keep your tx in the same spot where your strap would place it. Good luck and please post what you decided to do and how it went.

[toddress]

Im sick of the Sim, I have gotten to the stage where I am trying tic tac toe now, or inverted nothing compares to the real thing (-:

Sick of the sim but cant hover yet without training gear:thumbdown:...this may not be the hobby for you.