My first attempt at inverted hovering (Crash Report)

[jondbennett]

I have been working on inverted hovering in the simulator for several months. Tonight I attempted it for the first time with the real heli. I crashed.

I decided to make my attempt over a field of tall hay so that it might pad the helicopter if I was not able to control it. It turns out to have been a wise move.

The attached images tell the story:

1) The helicopter, in good working condition before the flight.
2) Taking off and cruising before the attempt
3) I flipped it inverted and brought it in closer.
4) It was snappy, I tried to escape. This is the heli going in.
5) The NTSB crash investigator gathering evidence at the scene.
6) The aftermath.

Total parts: Main blades, feathering shaft, tail fin mount, flybar, and a missing 1191 paddle. I was not able to find it in the hay.

I am most comfortable in nose-in inverted, but it seemed as though I was having a hard time controlling collective. I was running it up and down like a yo-yo. It may have been nerves causing me to over-react.

It got a little too close to the ground and pulled pitch to gain altitude, It seemed to climb too quickly, so I decided to bail to upright. When I pulled back, I did it too soon and did not have enough altitude. Darn.

Overall, it only took an hour to repair, so I am expecting to attempt again later in the week, probably Thursday. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

I have already ordered an replacement frame.

[zeese5]

Hmm.. same with me.. practiced really hard on the sim.. with high confident that I would not do dumb thumb.. but when tried for the first time.. crash...

[F1Atom]

Suxs man. I too am learning inverted. I first started out high with plenty of room to bail. When I am high I programed myself to pull back on the stick (half-a-backflip). That way I would be tail in and easily recover. As I progressed and started to bring her lower and lower to the ground I taught myself to give full "negative" in the event I have to bail. No matter what happens I always given full negative to climb out. So far it has worked..knock on carbon/wood. Keep trying! You'll get there.

Good Luck!

[Skarn]

Yep, I'm learning too. I can hold them for about 10 seconds, but then I either chicken out or the tail starts to move so I bail out.

On my Rex 450, I do this VERY high up so I have plenty of room to recover. But on my Raptor 50, I can do it much lower since it sort of "floats" over when I need to bail out vice loose 20ft. of altitude like my rex.

Skarn

[magimat]

Dont worry man, you will succeed. The main problem at the beginning (at least it was for me) is the stress. I started doing basic 3d myself just a few weeks ago. The first few times my knees were shaking big time, but now after 12-15 packs doing basic 3d stuff(loops, flips, inverted and more recently rolls) I am beginning to be more and more confident and the stress is slowly going away and everything is much more easy.

For me, flying in a larger area helped a lot. When there is nothing many feet around (I mean at least 50-75 feet in any direction), it helps, you have room to recover in any direction. Also, I started with loops, which are way easier than inverted hovering in my opinion.

Keep up practicing and remember to fly high for your first attempts.

Mat

[HeliSmith]

Yup high up is the best way.

It is all confidence if you can do it in the sim you can do it. It is convincing yourself that is true that is the hard part.

[jujiro]

yea My first inverted attempt ended up bad as well about a month or so ago. Had it inverted went to bail out but pulled full positive collective and slammed it into the ground inverted @_@ . Didn't break to much actually just the main gear and main bearing blocks needed to be replaced .

Now I'm on to inverted circuits and the best advice I found is to keep it high up so you have lots of time to recover, also takes away from the nervousness of crashing once you realize that you have so much room for error.

[OverTemp]

I'm can old it inverted indefinitely, but my nerves keep me from doing it often for some stupid reason. I can even fly it around the pattern inverted once, but I hardly ever even try it. I have some sort of huge mental barrier with this inverted stuff.

[edoyle11]

started out with some flips and foward rolls then decided to stay inveterted, held for about 15 secs very high up lol then i got cocky and tryed doing inverted peroits wich didnt work out to well im rebuilt now and going back to flips the hard part for me is to stay inverted it just moves so fast and seems hard to control most likely since my knees are shaking. so later this week ill try it again hopefully it will stay in one piece lol

[HeliSmith]

Everyone is nervous at first I used to be so nervous it consumed me to crash. Now I only think about it when I come close to crashing. If I don't fly for a couple of days my first flight I am always shakey.

[alienteabagger]

Originally Posted by HeliSmith

......my first flight I am always shakey.

OoOh but those shakes are the bestestest!! Love that feeling... unless it's accompanied by my heli trying to burrow into the ground.

[jondbennett]

It is good to know that I am not the only one that went in confident and left with my tail between my legs.

I expect to try again on Thursday. I'll post a follow up.

[jondbennett]

Ok, I did try again on Thursday, 6/19/2008, and dropped it in the hay again.

I really cannot explain what happened with that one. I have begun to suspect that I was in idle 1, which I currently have configured for -5 to +10 degrees, and simply did not have enough negative to prevent the descent. This fits with the experience, because I thought I had it, but it kept descending until the blades touched the top of the hay. At that point it lost head speed, I flipped hold, and the heli wrapped itself up in the tall hay.

The wonderful thing about the T-Rex is that it landed inverted, in the hay, and absolutely nothing broke. Nothing even bent. I simply took it in the house, checked it out, and found nothing wrong. I love this heli.

On Friday, I stormed out to the field, took a moment to calm my nerves, and got ready to try yet again. This time, I rehearsed the stick movements and the helicopter behavior in my mind before starting the attempt. It went exactly as planned:

I verified that I was in idle-2 (+/- 10 degrees), then I gained some altitude and flipped it back from upright nose-out to inverted nose-in. As it went vertical I went to neutral collective but maintained full back cyclic. As it came into horizontal I brought down the collective and caught it inverted. Once it stabilized, I brought it in a little closer and lower. I held it inverted for a bit more than a minute (my Tx beeps every minute, and I waited for two beeps).

After the inverted hover, I flew a victory lap. At this point I thought I should land and count myself lucky, but I decided that if I was going to develop the inverted hover I would have to loose the fear. So I entered inverted again, held it for two beeps, and exited again. Then I did it again, but I did not hold it as long.

Today I went into and out of inverted four times. I think I have inverted nose-in down pat. My wife came out with me to take some photos. I attached one.

Now to start on the other orientations. I can do them all in the simulator so this next step should not be as difficult.

Thanks again for all of the encouragement!