Axe CP Suggestion

[Steve_O]

Hey fellas. I have been trying to learn how to fly this heli for a few weeks now. I have been flying fixed wing since 1979 and this has really turned out to be a challenge. I won't go into all the boring details of that. I have found a couple of things that have helped that i wanted to share with all of you. First of all, i swapped out the styrofoam training balls for some toy balls from Dollar General. They are called Water Bombs made by Sun & Shade, a pack of two for $1. Try not to laugh too hard but they are very light and absorb the hard landings much better than the styrofoam. The other biggest thing i have found helpful is to fly off or grass. It is much more forgiving than an inside floor or a driveway. I tend to pull nose up when getting in trouble and causing tail strikes (part of the airplane flyer in me i guess). The grass helps the tail strike issue considerably.

[Ray K.]

Check out the "baller" heli! That's a great idea, though! I've pretty well squashed the stock styro balls down into egg-shaped and flat-sided wads of polystyrene. And I also agree with you on the grass thing. Unfortunately, it's been so windy around here that flying outside is a pretty scary and expensive proposition- my Axe got away from me just yesterday and it's a minor miracle that I was able to bring her back to terra firma intact.

I've never flown fixed-wing RC, but I'm aware that planker guys face many of the challenges that heli guys do. So I'm asking for your help... Is there anything that you can recommend that would help me with orientation skills? I guess that practice is the obvious answer, but I was hoping that in your years of flying you've developed some tricks that you would be willing to share. I don't want another experience like I did yesterday! It was all because I lost orientation, and my incorrect control inputs only made my problem worse.

Also, instead of yanking back on the elevator when you get into some trouble, try giving it more collective. It's pretty counterintuitive (especially for you I bet!), but that strategy has saved my posterior many many times. Doing this usually results in more altitude, which buys you some time to fix the boo-boo.

Thanks!

Ray

[Steve_O]

Orientation is a big issue with learning to fly planes too. After some time it seems to come naturally. In the early days of flying fixed wing i would turn my shoulder slightly to the plane, that helped tremendously with right/left orientaion. Perhaps that can be applied with the helis as well. Wind has been a bit of a problem here too, i try to fly early in the morning (grass is wet though) or late in the evening.
Like you said there is nothing better than practice.

[USNRIS]

Ray - one of the tricks I learned for aileron control when the plane or heli is coming at you is to move the stick toward the low wing.

Jeff

[Ray K.]

That's a good tip, thanks! The other thing I've been doing is I've stopped thinking in terms of "left" and "right"- it just confuses me. Now, I think in terms of "which way does the heli need to go?" It simplified the thought process a lot for me, and it seems to be working well. I also imagine a small heli right on top of my right stick with the nose always pointed toward the top of the radio. It sounds silly, but it works for me. I'll be getting my sim pretty soon, so hopefully that will help a lot too.

[Ray K.]

I don't know if you guys saw any of my other posts, but in the spirit of this thread, I'll say it again.

Be sure to check for binding of the swashplate against the fuse and the swashplate anti-rotation guide. When I was installing my aluminum swash, I just by chance took the time to check that out, and I'm glad I did. I found that under certain combinations of full cyclic and full collective conditions, the swash was topping out in the guide- really badly, too. I ended up completely ignoring HMX's link length specs for two reasons: First, the anti-rotation pin on the swash was interfering with the guide, and second, my servo arms are a fair bit off of 90° to the link when the collective stick is in the full down position in normal mode, as the owner's manual states they should be- even after jockeying around with the horn-to-spline position on the servos. I got it as close as I could, but they were still all off by at least a few degrees.

So, taking that into account, I lowered the overall position of the swash relative to the fuselage by a couple millimeters or so. I found that there is a sweet spot where the swash will not interfere with anything, no matter what combination of cyclic and collective inputs I could throw at it. At that point, it was simply a matter of using my highly sophisticated calibrated eyeball to make the final tweaks to the links to get the swash level. I must have done okay, because my Axe hovers hands-off when there is no wind (read: indoors). It's going to be some time before my adjustment means anything to flight performance, because I can hardly manage a nose-in hover right now, much less the freestyle 3D mayhem that would require that kind of freedom of movement for the swash.

But the moral of the story is that you should make sure that everything is working right, and don't be afraid to experiment. If it weren't for screwing around with my Axe a bit, it wouldn't be flying nearly as well as it is now.

Oh yeah- and be sure to frequently check the tightness of the 4 screws that hold the tailboom tight in the fuse- I've discovered that mine come a little loose from time to time and cause the tailboom to rotate upon it's major axis a little bit, causing some strange behavior in the tail/rudder control. It's part of my pre-flight routine now.

-Ray