Learning to fly an RC helo

[dwhall47]

My thoughts and $3.00 might get you a cup of coffee, but I thought I'd share some of mine re: learning how to fly these beasts...maybe it might be of help to new wannabes like myself.
First...a bit about me...64 years old and never flew anything rc. Have a private pilots license, am a mechanical engineer, and pretty much retired. I worked in aviation maintenance and engineering the airlines, and then for repair shops (aircraft and components).
I started with a coax micro and that was a real kick...got bored, so I decided to upgrade a little bit...went to a Blade 120SR. That took a bit of practice in the garage, but it was real forgiving of mistakes (it didn't break real bad or real expensive)...when I thought I had it down pretty well, I started flying it outside...great fun on a no wind day, but with any kind of wind it was hard to cover distances against the wind. That got me frustrated cause we don't have a lot of no wind days.
I bought a Blade 450 3D and a DX6I transmitter, and that's when the "what the %@*! have I done" thoughts began to set in.
I bought a couple of ebooks from a popular Canadian helo pilot/instructor, had no idea what most of the options on the DX6I did, let alone what they meant.
Finally just went to the default setups in the (revised) 450 manual, and off I went.
First attempt was with training wheels in my garage (I know...that was dumb), but within 2 seconds had managed to smash it, breaking both main rotors, bending flybar, damaging multiple teeth on driven gear, and bending the feathering shaft.
Second attempt was in my driveway, and ended up in about the same condition as my first attempt...but much more disgusted.
At that point was seriously considering chucking the whole thing, but I probably had $800 invested with everything, and I didn't think I's get anything close to that amount back if I tried to sell it.
I was logged on to helifreak and was sifting thru the newbie stuff when I saw some discussions about capt.jac and his offer to teach...you had to have a few basics, one of them being Phoenix flight simulator. Coughing up another $100+ at this stage was really p'ing me off, but what else do I do at this stage..
Bought Phoenix, got the other requirements, and signed up to be wait listed for lessons. We set up a date, and we hopped on Skype, dialed in Phoenix, and off we went.
He was great...patient, helpful, friendly, good sense of humor...he spent almost 3 hours with me, and got me setup correctly (in Phoenix and the DX6I), gave me some hints, and told me to start practicing a hover.
Spending session after session learning how to hover was not fun...most times it seemed like work, and boring work at that.
But gradually, I began to see some improvement, and was able to meet the requirements to schedule a second class session with the captain. Again, it was a great session...over 3 hours, and some setups were beginning to click, and I went off with my next assignment.
As I became better able to hover and control the helo (tail in orientation only), I wanted to try the real thing again, but some of my problems were related to not having a decent place to fly.
I found an RC club, met with them, and joined (they have 3 pads for heli operations).
My repair parts arrived, and I fixed the heli...put the training wheels back on, and went to the field...only one there, and it's probably blowing 8-10 mph...thought the wind would be too much, but noticed there were occasional calm periods...worked my way thru 3 2200 ma batteries, and the last flight was not too bad...kept a tail in hover for a good minute or more, despite the wind.
So if you've had anything close to the problems I've encountered, I would recommend getting in touch with capt.jac and see if he isn't able to help solve some of your troubles...he did with mine, and I am appreciative of his generous offer of time.