How do you recover when you lose the tail?

[Airickf]

I just lifted off and was hovering at about 5 feet off the ground when all of a sudden I lose rudder control. I backed off the throttle and kinda hit the ground hard and had a main blade strike. Wasn't too bad. stripped maingear/bent feathering shaft/chewed blades. Apparently my belt broke. Anyway, is there a way to recover safely when losing rudder control in flight?

-Eric

[z11355]

if you had setup 'throttle hold', that would have saved you (if you had practiced mini-autos).

[skunkworx]

If you have a sim, you should definately try autorotations on all levels of flight (high/low/eyeball level etc...). They are rather upsetting at first because all they are is controlled crashes that you do on purpose. The good news is that if you get good enough at them they'll save your a%* if it happens again. :arggg: If you don't have a sim, you might find that another 2-3 crashes will equal the price of a sim and you only get 2-3 more chances, the sim is unlimited!
***NOTE***your heli will start to spin if you lose the tail so the practice ones will react different. You might be able to put that into the fault/failure settings on the sim though, I'll have to try it on mine! thanks for the idea! I'll write back if I find anything out! :)

[Airickf]

if you had setup 'throttle hold', that would have saved you (if you had practiced mini-autos).

Haven't practiced autos yet (still a hovering newbie). Would throttle hold stop you from spinning? I guess it really wouldn't matter if you set it down slowly but I was kinda tilted when going down...

[Airickf]

If you have a sim, you should definately try autorotations on all levels of flight (high/low/eyeball level etc...). They are rather upsetting at first because all they are is controlled crashes that you do on purpose. The good news is that if you get good enough at them they'll save your a%* if it happens again. :arggg: If you don't have a sim, you might find that another 2-3 crashes will equal the price of a sim and you only get 2-3 more chances, the sim is unlimited!
***NOTE***your heli will start to spin if you lose the tail so the practice ones will react different. You might be able to put that into the fault/failure settings on the sim though, I'll have to try it on mine! thanks for the idea! I'll write back if I find anything out! :)

Thanks for the tip. I have clearview sim. I'm going to practice autos tonight.
-Eric

[skunkworx]

the throttle hold won't stop it from spinning, that's what the tail does! ypu get the picture...I just tried to put in failures on G3.5, but it only does random problems. I had to hover and then rear cyclic until the tail hit the ground and broke the blades. After the bird settled to the ground, I throttled up untilabout eye level and hit the th. hold switch and auto'd to the ground. Worked pretty good,but I don't recommend it on the real bird!!! Could cause some major headaches! :arggg:
You get a lot better at them real quick, so if you don't get them well on the first few tries, put it down, go have a coffee or something and come back to it. I was amazed at the difference between my first session (10-12 attempts) and now...I can do most autos without crunching up the bird. Good luck!

[WayneBrown]

Throttle hold removes the torque imparted by the driven main blades, so the tail *will* stop spinning, although perhaps not immediately.
What is the more important issue, is that hitting hold stops driving the rotor disk and should minimize damage to the heli and whatever it may hit.
throttle hold should be a mandatory part of setting up your machine in the event of an accident or incident in flight.

[Airickf]

Throttle hold removes the torque imparted by the driven main blades, so the tail *will* stop spinning, although perhaps not immediately.
What is the more important issue, is that hitting hold stops driving the rotor disk and should minimize damage to the heli and whatever it may hit.
throttle hold should be a mandatory part of setting up your machine in the event of an accident or incident in flight.

Ah... Wasn't sure exactly how the torque worked... I kinda figured it would kinda stop spinning. Comming from RC cars, I know that when you hit the throttle in mid flight the nose of the car will want to come up. Now if you slam on the brakes, the nose will come down (or if you just cut throttle, to a lesser effect.)

I do have throttle hold setup. I guess I just wasn't thinking fast enough to hit it.

[vera]

I think throttle-cut would be the way to go. I don't know about the models, but on a full size heli you can drive it around without tail thrust so long as you keep up forward speed. You can even do a "run-on landing", much like an airplane. But with a model, before contacting the ground, if you have time, I think you might as well shut the engine off. I'm guessing almost nobody hovers with a finger on the throttle cut or throttle hold.

[WayneBrown]

everyone I know that is beyond the hovering stage keeps a finger on the throttle hold switch at all times.

[BarracudaHockey]

To add to what Wayne said, with a heli with a driven tail it won't stop when you hit throttle hold. The torque will be removed but depending on the nature of the failure it may keep right on spinning as I found out when my R50 threw a tail blade.

[Pinecone]

It shoul dstop spinning if the power is removed from the main rotor, driven or non-driven tail doesn't matter.

All full scale helis have driven tails the the way to deal with a tail rotor failure is to maintain forward speed until you need to land, then auto to landing. Basically fly it down with power until the tail starts to get away, then remove power and tial weathervanes straight.


In hove,r you just chop power and auto.

[flyinfool]

As Andy mentioned it depends on the cause of the tail failure.
In the event that the servo or linkage fails and causes the control to be locked hard over to one side, Hold will only lessen the available energy on impact. The piros will not stop. until the Helli finds some object of greater mass (usually a planet will do).
This only applies to a driven tail.
With a non driven tail as one would have in the event of a tail drive line failure hitting hold will stop the piros fairly quick.
Once the piros stop you need to get the main rotor tilted to allow the heli to gain forward speed. once you have forward speed you can fly around all day (or till the fuel/battery runs out) just like an airplane. After you unpucker for a short time you can then attempt your auto. be aware that there will be some rotation of the heli as the forward speed bleeds off, due to the friction in the bearings.
I recommend making the approach from right to left so that the rotation turns the heli tail in rather than nose in.

[BarracudaHockey]

The problem with a driven tail is its still trying to correct for torque that isnt there. If it went to flat pitch that would be fine. In my case the tail blade departed and it spun like a top, even in throttle hold, with the boom shaking up and down violently due to the still spinning, but out of balance, tail rotor.

[vera]

everyone I know that is beyond the hovering stage keeps a finger on the throttle hold switch at all times


That's a habit I need to get into.

[Pinecone]

I hadn't thought of servo or linkage failure. In that case you are in trouble with a driven tail (another reason for non-driven tails :) ).

But if the linkage is intact and there is enough tail power to piro, there should be enough tail power to stop the piro.

[WayneBrown]

Makes no difference if the tail is driven or not, the end result is the same, kill power and auto it down.
A linkage failure will feather the tail blades due to gyroscopic effect.
Servo failure, well that is a different story. If it's burned up you probably have a dead short on the RX battery and have zero control over anything.