Newcomer Drills

[makaluch]

I'm very interested in drilling.

I'm descent at upright orientations on Real Flight G4, but still get behind pretty often. I think I need to start being more versatile and working on a more standard (and fun) kind of training. I've played around a bit and it helps...but I'd like to really work on things.


Can someone post some training drills or maneuvers with an explanation of what it is? Any guidance would be appreciated. I hear lots of terms but I'm not exactly sure what they mean.

[JasonJ]

I'm very interested in drilling.

I'm descent at upright orientations on Real Flight G4, but still get behind pretty often. I think I need to start being more versatile and working on a more standard (and fun) kind of training. I've played around a bit and it helps...but I'd like to really work on things.


Can someone post some training drills or maneuvers with an explanation of what it is? Any guidance would be appreciated. I hear lots of terms but I'm not exactly sure what they mean.

This is just me, but decent is not enough. You should be proficient at your upright orientations to the point of them being second nature. Hovering in all orientations are the most important skill because hovering is usually your bail-out for when you screw the pooch on a more complex maneuver. Once you have hovering down, then you go to forward flight. Keep it simple at first, just fly a few feet and stop. Turn, fly the other direction. Keep doing that slowly back and forth in front of you. You can integrate a slow turn at the end of each run making it a stretched out flat fig eight. Keep it SLOW. Yeah it's fun to rip around, but you need to be very proficient in slow maneuvering in all orientations. You can start to change that slow back and forth into a slow more rounded figure eight. When you are proficient at a good slow controlled figure eight, then you can make it bigger, and faster. I drill all the time, but after awhile I try new stuff and then go back to the drill. I crash a bunch, but it breaks up the monotony of the essential drills. In the end you need to be able to hover in all orientations upright and inverted, and you need to be able to fly forward and backwards upright and inverted. Those skills are the backbone of learning 3D.

[makaluch]

Thanks for the info!

I completely agree that descent is not enough. I'm working hard and feeling more comfortable every hour on the sim. I play around for a minute or two in between 30-minute sessions... just to humble myself and realize that I am not ready to move on yet. :noteworthy

The basics need to be burned in to my muscle memory. Again, thanks for the basic drills Jason. :thumbup:

[makaluch]

I'm finding that slow pirouettes are excellent training for full orientation.

At first I was working in full 90 degree postures and finding difficulty. The slow pirouette in both directions has sped up the learning curve drastically. Just snap back to tail-in if things get crazy.

[fiveoboy01]

I agree. Piros really help with orientation and are a little more interesting than a stationary hover though I think that stationary should be practiced too.

I think a lot of it is just time, time, and more time.

The more time I spend on the sim, the more I see improvement in my muscle memory. I'm able to do a lot of things without thinking now that I couldn't do a month ago without stopping to think, and that usually resulted in a crash.

[makaluch]

I actually try to stay in a perfectly still hover and then slow piro. I'm still wandering in a 2-3 foot circle and snap back and reset if I go outside of that.

I'm also finding that touching 4 corners of a box (one side of the road to the other...like a 10 foot box) in all orientations is becoming easier and easier. I can actually move at a good speed with confidence and solid control.

[mearlin]

Did you look here http://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=52530 and if you did, did you notice the link to
RADD's School of Rotary Flight: http://www.dream-models.com/eco/flying-index.html. (http://www.dream-models.com/eco/flying-index.html)

Read and try it out, it's working for me.

[makaluch]

Sweet, thanks! I'm being patient and just spending time on the sim.

I've reduced my session time down to 3x5-minutes with a 5 minute break for an hour. I do that 2 times a day and it seems to be helping more than the longer sessions. I'm noticing that I do things without thinking now and that's a good thing.

Thanks again for the links. Any diversity in my training will help. I'm pretty one-dimensional at this stage of the game.