OK so I can hover - now what?

[kenpeacock]

New to Helis, got myself a Lama 3 and happily hovering and moving around.

I wondered if there's a structured plan somewhere of things I should be trying to learn (progressing in difficulty) now I'm not crashing regularly?!

Thanks!

[MarkD]

Some recommend RADD's school of rotary flight

http://www.dream-models.com/eco/flying-index.html

[SinxarKnights]

Now you get to hover in different orientations! Do side in (both sides) then go for nose in. By the time you can do all of that. It will be time to re-learn most of it when you upgrade to a CP.

[kenpeacock]

If I've made the decision I'm ultimately going to want to progress to CP - how helpful is it to continue learning on a coax then?

IE. is that time better spent just going straight to a CP OR is your learning path quicker by getting the basics down on a COAX then moving to CP?

How is a CP different to a COAX BTW?

[PaulW]

Relative to a collective pitch helicopter a coaxial rotor hovers itself!!

[Fade-Dude]

Yeah, you will probably need to re -learn how to hover, but I think getting to fly the coaxial chopper much better will definately help you alot when proceeding on to a bigger heli.
The orientation is very important, and if this is a 4 channel, your controls will be exaclty the same as on a CP. Leran to fly around, nos in, sideways, fly around nose in, fly circles fly circles to the other side... all of this will prove invaluable when you move one....

[flyingtanks]

The biggest advantage to flying a coaxial heli first is to learn orientation. Practice as much head-in and backwards flying as you can. Be able to take off head-in, fly backwards a bit, turn 90 degrees and fly backwards, hover, and land. When you can do that moving to a CP heli will be easier. Hovering is much harder with smaller CP helis but you won't be fighting with heli orientation as well as hovering at the same time. You will also get much more flight time in. I can fly my Blade CX2 in the living room no problem anytime I want. No way I would do that with a Blade CP Pro or especially a T-Rex 450. I did coax first this way and I thought it made learning CP helis much easier.

But it is true that you can pick up some bad habits with a coaxial. Better to learn to dump the bird (power to zero) than to go neutral with it as that trick won't work with CP helis.

Also get a computer flight sim if you can. Those will help you a lot.