leeroy30
02-10-2007, 03:18 AM
G'day all
Firstly i just like to say what a great site! There is a mile of information and tips for the beginner, right up to advanced setups, 3D etc.. Awsome!
This is my first post and i would like to introduce my self and share my experiences with the Walkera #36.
First a little history on myself. I have been involved in RC aircraft (fixed wing)for about 20 years, allthough it has been about 5 years since i have been a member of a club or even flown regularly. I have owned quite a few fixed wing aircraft, some sport and some scale, and 4 helicopters in this time. Only one heli (the latest) was ever flown with any real sucess. The first two were very old second hand nitro powered models of fixed pitch design that were basicly given to me as there owners had become frustrated with them 10 years earlier.
Due to there age and my inexperience, neither ever realy flew well. In the small town i was living in at the time (Coffs Harbour , NSW, Australia) there was very little in the way of other experienced heli pilots to help.
I managed to teach my self how to hover (Just) but the lack of reliability and hence progress, made this very frustrating and boring and i eventualy gave up and went back to fixed wing. My third model was a small fixed pitch electric heli, brand new, which flew quite well ,but the NMH battery only lasted 3 minuts and just hovering became frustrating and again i gave up and used the running gear in a small aerobatic fixed wing aircraft.
I'd also learnt to fly these helis in transmitter mode 3 (Rudder and throttle on the right stick and elevator and aileron on the left stick). All the litrature i had at the time sudgested this mode. It made sense to me and allowed exelent control of the cyclic and throttle/tail relationship. (i had a very crappy gyro).
The main problem with this is that i flew fixed wing in mode 2 (throttle and aileron on right stick and elevator and rudder on the left). This probably held me back alot from forward flight but try as i might to change to mode 2 my brain just didn't agree.I had learnt to hover in mode three and it wanted to stay that way!
Now my latest attempt at helis is a walkera #36. Obtained from ebay at a good price with a brushless motor, esc and a 2200mha lipo battery plus a few spares etc..
Well.... Seemed a good price.....
I imediatly ditched the walkera radio and added my beloved JR X-388s. This was even before i read about how crappy the walkera radios/electronics are.
Allthough the walkera radio seemed to work just fine, they realy are just utter garbage and should not be used.
At first i set up in mode 3 again, this allowed me to at least hover the heli and get the setup and trim right.
AND THIS IS WHERE THE PROBLEMS BEGAN!!!
On the third hovering flight of about 3 minuts duration the heli seemed to loose power and then the motor just stopped. Inspection revealed a completly cooked brushless motor with a side order of fryed ESC. The model landed with no damage but this was very dissapointing.
I sent both of them back to the supplier for replacment , and i'm still waiting to hear back from them..
An align 430L and a 40 amp ESC were purchasesd and fitted and this setup now works extreamly well. The pinion gears for the trex is compatable with the #36 main gear. This motor runs cooler (Heatsink fitted) has more power than you could ever need and i get a good 8-10 minuts hover with a 2200 mha lipo.
I also started taking the slop out of all the moving parts in the rotor head and tail buy fileing down the brass bushes untill there was no play when the screws were tight.
The walkera servos are average at best, they work fine with no glitches but the precision of control could be alot better and they were replaced with 3 JR 375's and a digital for the tail rotor. This made a HUGE difference in the fight performance, control was much smother and more precise.
This pretty much re-enforces the popular opinion that the walkera electronics are not worth pi$$ing on.
Allthough surprisingly, the WK-G006 gyro seems to work quite well, initialy setup in standard mode with revo mixing in the TX, and now in heading lock mode with the revo switched off. There is a small ammount of drift and corection required but i beleve this is normal in most of the cheeper gyros.. I hope to replace this with something beter later on..
Any recomendations?
Ok so now i had a heli that i could hold a pretty good tail in hover. So good infact, that i even removed the training undercarage.
I just knew though that if i ever tried forward flight in TX mode 3 ,my old fixed wing mode 2 reflexes would bring me horribly unstuck. And this was made pretty clear from one short out, half turn, get completly disorentated, pirouette, backwards flight, another priouette almost crash , recover just in time circuit!! Needless to say my nerves were totaly shot after that flight!!!
So it was time... Learn to hover in mode 2 or give up helis for ever!
The first thing i did at this point, and i can strongly sudgest to ALL beginners, was to get a Sim. I searched on the net and settled for Clearview RC sim.
Only AU$35, and with some ppjoy tx drivers my JR TX plugs straight into the sound card. It has a good model selection, both fixed and rotary wing aircraft. Good scenery and graphics. Phisics arn't quite up to the real thing but certanly good enough to learn, or in my case re-train the reflexes. IMHO this is the most important thing in learning to fly any rc aircraft. You must practice until you don't have to think about which stick and in which direction to move, they just become natural reflexes.
So i locked my heli in the cuboard and then i locked my self and my TX in the computer room for 3 weeks....
After countless hours and crashes i emerged, my reflexes re-booted, I could now hover in mode 2!
However the sim was one thing, the real heli was another.. The first real flight went pretty well, tail in hover, with the training undercarage back on.I was pretty much all over the place but after 2 weeks of flying i was back up to the level i was flying in mode 3.
Then came the day, my first real circuit.... I'd hovered out my first battery, concentrating on holding a stable hover. Landed, in went the second battery, a few minuts of hovering and it was time..
Push the stick forward and off she went! A little colective to gain some hight, a few minor corections to the left here and there, getting too far away now so then some left cyclic and left tail, a little up elevator to maintain the hight and arround she came back towards me!, flew past me at about 30 ft, and off towards to other end of the field. Getting to far away again so into a right hand turn this time and round she comes and back towards me. Ease back on the forward cyclic, reduce the colective, heli slows and starts to sink, forward speed reduces to zero , side on to me now at about 30 ft up and off to the left. Swing the tail back to me and control the decent, heli is sinking slowly and back into the hover, then settles back onto the ground!!! My first ever circuit, I was STOKED!!!!
Looking back, my turns were realy horrible and the whole flight not at all as gracefull as the above paragraph would have you think. It looked beautiful to me at the time though! An experienced heli pilot would be laughing at the ammount my TX antana was moving from all my shaking!!
It has been about 3 weeks since my first circuit and i'm slowly getting better. Allthough i do still get disorentated a little and into some unusual attitudes. Recovery is normaly to apply colective and then swing the tail back to me, then get the thing stable again. Hard to see the orentation of the rotor disk at greater distances though.
So that is where i'm at right now..
I have a few questions on the pitch and throttle curves for non 3D flight.
Would anyone like to share there pitch and throttle curvs, so i can compare it to mine?
I guess i aimed to set up for a constant head speed over the whole pitch range and after some flying i have slowly been modifying the pitch curve to increasing the head speed.
I found that at first in a good wind i had to reduce the stick so much to get the thing to descend that the head speed was too slow for good cyclic control. Any comments??
Cheers
Leeroy
Firstly i just like to say what a great site! There is a mile of information and tips for the beginner, right up to advanced setups, 3D etc.. Awsome!
This is my first post and i would like to introduce my self and share my experiences with the Walkera #36.
First a little history on myself. I have been involved in RC aircraft (fixed wing)for about 20 years, allthough it has been about 5 years since i have been a member of a club or even flown regularly. I have owned quite a few fixed wing aircraft, some sport and some scale, and 4 helicopters in this time. Only one heli (the latest) was ever flown with any real sucess. The first two were very old second hand nitro powered models of fixed pitch design that were basicly given to me as there owners had become frustrated with them 10 years earlier.
Due to there age and my inexperience, neither ever realy flew well. In the small town i was living in at the time (Coffs Harbour , NSW, Australia) there was very little in the way of other experienced heli pilots to help.
I managed to teach my self how to hover (Just) but the lack of reliability and hence progress, made this very frustrating and boring and i eventualy gave up and went back to fixed wing. My third model was a small fixed pitch electric heli, brand new, which flew quite well ,but the NMH battery only lasted 3 minuts and just hovering became frustrating and again i gave up and used the running gear in a small aerobatic fixed wing aircraft.
I'd also learnt to fly these helis in transmitter mode 3 (Rudder and throttle on the right stick and elevator and aileron on the left stick). All the litrature i had at the time sudgested this mode. It made sense to me and allowed exelent control of the cyclic and throttle/tail relationship. (i had a very crappy gyro).
The main problem with this is that i flew fixed wing in mode 2 (throttle and aileron on right stick and elevator and rudder on the left). This probably held me back alot from forward flight but try as i might to change to mode 2 my brain just didn't agree.I had learnt to hover in mode three and it wanted to stay that way!
Now my latest attempt at helis is a walkera #36. Obtained from ebay at a good price with a brushless motor, esc and a 2200mha lipo battery plus a few spares etc..
Well.... Seemed a good price.....
I imediatly ditched the walkera radio and added my beloved JR X-388s. This was even before i read about how crappy the walkera radios/electronics are.
Allthough the walkera radio seemed to work just fine, they realy are just utter garbage and should not be used.
At first i set up in mode 3 again, this allowed me to at least hover the heli and get the setup and trim right.
AND THIS IS WHERE THE PROBLEMS BEGAN!!!
On the third hovering flight of about 3 minuts duration the heli seemed to loose power and then the motor just stopped. Inspection revealed a completly cooked brushless motor with a side order of fryed ESC. The model landed with no damage but this was very dissapointing.
I sent both of them back to the supplier for replacment , and i'm still waiting to hear back from them..
An align 430L and a 40 amp ESC were purchasesd and fitted and this setup now works extreamly well. The pinion gears for the trex is compatable with the #36 main gear. This motor runs cooler (Heatsink fitted) has more power than you could ever need and i get a good 8-10 minuts hover with a 2200 mha lipo.
I also started taking the slop out of all the moving parts in the rotor head and tail buy fileing down the brass bushes untill there was no play when the screws were tight.
The walkera servos are average at best, they work fine with no glitches but the precision of control could be alot better and they were replaced with 3 JR 375's and a digital for the tail rotor. This made a HUGE difference in the fight performance, control was much smother and more precise.
This pretty much re-enforces the popular opinion that the walkera electronics are not worth pi$$ing on.
Allthough surprisingly, the WK-G006 gyro seems to work quite well, initialy setup in standard mode with revo mixing in the TX, and now in heading lock mode with the revo switched off. There is a small ammount of drift and corection required but i beleve this is normal in most of the cheeper gyros.. I hope to replace this with something beter later on..
Any recomendations?
Ok so now i had a heli that i could hold a pretty good tail in hover. So good infact, that i even removed the training undercarage.
I just knew though that if i ever tried forward flight in TX mode 3 ,my old fixed wing mode 2 reflexes would bring me horribly unstuck. And this was made pretty clear from one short out, half turn, get completly disorentated, pirouette, backwards flight, another priouette almost crash , recover just in time circuit!! Needless to say my nerves were totaly shot after that flight!!!
So it was time... Learn to hover in mode 2 or give up helis for ever!
The first thing i did at this point, and i can strongly sudgest to ALL beginners, was to get a Sim. I searched on the net and settled for Clearview RC sim.
Only AU$35, and with some ppjoy tx drivers my JR TX plugs straight into the sound card. It has a good model selection, both fixed and rotary wing aircraft. Good scenery and graphics. Phisics arn't quite up to the real thing but certanly good enough to learn, or in my case re-train the reflexes. IMHO this is the most important thing in learning to fly any rc aircraft. You must practice until you don't have to think about which stick and in which direction to move, they just become natural reflexes.
So i locked my heli in the cuboard and then i locked my self and my TX in the computer room for 3 weeks....
After countless hours and crashes i emerged, my reflexes re-booted, I could now hover in mode 2!
However the sim was one thing, the real heli was another.. The first real flight went pretty well, tail in hover, with the training undercarage back on.I was pretty much all over the place but after 2 weeks of flying i was back up to the level i was flying in mode 3.
Then came the day, my first real circuit.... I'd hovered out my first battery, concentrating on holding a stable hover. Landed, in went the second battery, a few minuts of hovering and it was time..
Push the stick forward and off she went! A little colective to gain some hight, a few minor corections to the left here and there, getting too far away now so then some left cyclic and left tail, a little up elevator to maintain the hight and arround she came back towards me!, flew past me at about 30 ft, and off towards to other end of the field. Getting to far away again so into a right hand turn this time and round she comes and back towards me. Ease back on the forward cyclic, reduce the colective, heli slows and starts to sink, forward speed reduces to zero , side on to me now at about 30 ft up and off to the left. Swing the tail back to me and control the decent, heli is sinking slowly and back into the hover, then settles back onto the ground!!! My first ever circuit, I was STOKED!!!!
Looking back, my turns were realy horrible and the whole flight not at all as gracefull as the above paragraph would have you think. It looked beautiful to me at the time though! An experienced heli pilot would be laughing at the ammount my TX antana was moving from all my shaking!!
It has been about 3 weeks since my first circuit and i'm slowly getting better. Allthough i do still get disorentated a little and into some unusual attitudes. Recovery is normaly to apply colective and then swing the tail back to me, then get the thing stable again. Hard to see the orentation of the rotor disk at greater distances though.
So that is where i'm at right now..
I have a few questions on the pitch and throttle curves for non 3D flight.
Would anyone like to share there pitch and throttle curvs, so i can compare it to mine?
I guess i aimed to set up for a constant head speed over the whole pitch range and after some flying i have slowly been modifying the pitch curve to increasing the head speed.
I found that at first in a good wind i had to reduce the stick so much to get the thing to descend that the head speed was too slow for good cyclic control. Any comments??
Cheers
Leeroy