How I learn half piro flips

[DoubleCH]

So many threads about maintenance here, let's hear some flying talks.

Today's I finally tried out some half piro flips in the real-world after trying some on the sim (PhoenixRC) with the Trex-700 and Goblin.

I've always been reluctant to try it out on the 130X because whenever I felt a little more comfortable doing new moves with the 700 size birds on the sim I moved to smaller birds in the sim and then it's total disconnect. Pheonix just can't simulate the small bird anywhere near close. Well, it doesn't simulate the big birds well either because of the lack of the "Direct Cyclic Feed Forward" parameter but at least on the bigger bird cyclic is slower and smoother and thus missing that parameter will not be as apparent.

Anyways, weather was nice today but I had a dumb-thumb early on. I was going to pack up but I thought since I had to overhaul a few things because of the crash anyways so why not take the opportunity to try new moves. If I crash, no big deal!

My theory of trying many new moves is to start by keeping the bird moving instead of trying to keep it in one spot. Same way I learnt side-in and nose-in hover by learning figure 8 then slowed down the time when the bird was at side-in and nose-in positions. I also learnt flips by doing loops first and then tighter the loop until it became a flip. Like many balance sports, maintaining balance in one spot is harder than maintainging balance while moving. Noone starts learning to ride a bicycle or ice-skating by balancing on a stopped bicycle or skates.

For the half piro-training, I start out with a tail slide then forward elevator to turn into a fast backward and continue back up into a nose-down stall. The idea to throw the bird up is to buy time to finish the required moves for a half piro: left rudder, forward elevator, and right aileron. As long as I keep collective close to zero, bird will not wander around too much and the timing of those stick movements is not that critical. Once I get the hang of it I increase rudder to make it look more like a half piro.

This is definitely not the only way to learn half piro or any new moves but I like my strategy to start by keeping the bird moving rather than to target at keeping the bird from moving. Here's how I did it my way in 3 flights. Still need more practice to make it look better and be more consistent but I'm happy with the progress so far.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8Pn7PMAMCY[/ame]

[Centurian]

after comming across: https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=248272 the other day, I realised I have been nearly doing half piroflips for years in a manouver I call asymetric loops which is doing a loop with a half piro across the top...

enter upright fwd, pull to verticle, maintain positive collective/half piro across top, go to negative collective push elev to exit loop inverted fwd... basicly repeat to upright... push to vert, maintain neg col, half piro, pos colective, pull to exit loop upright fwd which is the initial entry position above repeat at will.

so doing this, I just started to use some aileron during piro and fly the manouver tighter to get to piro flip. Anyway, I havn't got it nailed in one spot yet, but things are progressing nicely.

The basic asymetric loop above is a nice looking manouver and a great start to half piro flips IMHO.

[faceman425]

Great vid DCH. I can do a half fairly tight sloppy piro with mine but I think a full piro is out for me due to lack of power and collective control. I start looking too much altitude then I bail out inverted or wherever I can get back in control. For some reason inverted nose foreward is my bailout move for most everything I try. Did it first on my mcpx then just kept doing it with sim and 130. This stuff is what makes these things a blast.

[GravityJunkie]

There are better heli models in the sim than a 700 size bird to mimic a 130x. I'll generally use a 550 heli with tweaked parameters.

The float of the bigger birds and piro optimization of the sim birds doesn't translate overly well into the real life 130x. But that's ok, these micro birds are my sims. I use Phoenix to get the concepts down, then I move onto the much more fun micros.

[DoubleCH]

Yeah, in Phoenix I start new moves with 700-size, then 500X, Trex-450, Trex-250, and then 130X which is more of a joke. I made variants of the 450 and 250 to make them fly kind of like 130X in real life but the primary problem with Phoenix (RealFlight) simulating smaller birds is that it lacks the DCFF parameter of a real FBL controller so any bird to use the smaller the harder they can get it right. And because of that I find I learn faster with real-life 130X than anything 450-size and down in the sim. It's sad that after so many versions of Phoenix they still don't get it that they're missing the single most crucial parameter (OK not single most crucial but pretty close) to simulate a FBL controller right. You can get away without that parameter with a bigger bird but it's very noticeable with smaller birds.

[DoubleCH]

Originally Posted by Centurian

so doing this, I just started to use some aileron during piro and fly the manouver tighter to get to piro flip. Anyway, I havn't got it nailed in one spot yet, but things are progressing nicely.

The basic asymetric loop above is a nice looking manouver and a great start to half piro flips IMHO.

Nice! I'm always a strong believer to start practicing a new move that requires a stationary bird with bird in motion than trying to make it stay in one spot and then once comfortable progressively make it a tighter maneuver. For 1 there's one less thing to worry about to control the bird in one spot. For 2, an object in motion tends to stay in motion which means much more predictable. For example, if the bird is flying forward at 3ft/s and with some sideway drift from unwanted aileron input say +/- 6in/s the bird is still generally travelling predictably forward. But if you have no forward motion, the bird can be travelling either 6in/s left or 6in/s right, totally opposite behavior and can get caught off-guard because of that.

[elpeq]

DoubleCH, I'm beginer, can you explain me the difference between flips and loops ?

[Centurian]

Originally Posted by elpeq

DoubleCH, I'm beginer, can you explain me the difference between flips and loops ?

Not DCH, but a flip is a loop with no fwd speed. As the name implys the heli just appears to flip (can be done as a loop or roll or anycompination there of). In a perfect world the helicopter would rotate about it's center of mass, but gravity will not quite allow this but with practice, you can come amazingly close.

[GravityJunkie]

I could care less for them perfecting smaller helis in Phoenix. No matter how good the flight characteristics are, it'll still feel like I'm attempting to fly a mosquito. They shouldn't even bother with anything under 500.

[DoubleCH]

Originally Posted by GravityJunkie

I could care less for them perfecting smaller helis in Phoenix. No matter how good the flight characteristics are, it'll still feel like I'm attempting to fly a mosquito. They shouldn't even bother with anything under 500.

True but without DCFF parameter 500-size and up are still not simulated right. It's just that more inertia hides the problem better. It's easy to notice the lack of the parameter simulation when you try to smack a 500-size bird or even just a tight tic-toc. You can never get the quick/tight/fast cyclic response as the real thing because of the lack of DCFF parameter. I basically use Pheonix to do orientation and stick input sequence trainings and I know lots of people have the same view, too. But, the sad fact is it's the DCFF parameter that's the only thing left to make the 500-size birds and even the smaller birds to simulate much better like in the real world. Pheonix (and RealFlight) is close at the doorstep and basically gave it up by missing this one parameter.

[elpeq]

Originally Posted by Centurian

Not DCH, but a flip is a loop with no fwd speed. As the name implys the heli just appears to flip (can be done as a loop or roll or anycompination there of). In a perfect world the helicopter would rotate about it's center of mass, but gravity will not quite allow this but with practice, you can come amazingly close.

Thanks a lot for the explanation

[Strangedaze]

WHoooooo... What a Great Day...

Thanks to reading this thread just the other day I can now do half & Full Piro Flips on the sim... Man that first one was a rush, just like the first time I ever went inverted but EVEN BETTER.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ec1Ii43VAZ4[/ame]

I've just spent the last 3 days pretty much solidly practicing them after coming across this thread and also watching the above video that was referenced in a post above many many times.

Up until a few days ago I had trouble even understanding the full motion of a piro flip, all I knew is that they looked awesome so I'm still having a hard time believing that I can now do them, although they are still very sloppy and will take a LOT MORE practice to get them nailed down 100%.

SO I would definitely recommend the above video if you are having trouble with Piro flips.. I also downloaded the clip from Youtube with Jdownloader so I could then slow the video down with media player..

[skunkworx]

RaZa's vid is alright and will help a little. But I think Nick Maxwell's "One Tank Tips" on Youtube are a little better at breaking down a P-flip. I'd been attempting them for years using the other methods and I think Nick's method is what finally started to push it over the top and make things more symmetrical. Have a look:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P05Q6HeoSek[/ame]

[DoubleCH]

Nick Maxwell's clip was what inspired my method. While I like his breakdown of the various mini-moves to combine a half-piro, it's not easy for a learner to perform what Nick did in the video because keeping the bird in one spot performing different maneuvers takes extra effort especially with a micro and you can't really progressively advance from distinct mini-move to a half piro. That's how I came up with my idea of "throwing the bird up" to buy time so that I can perform the mini-moves in almost slow-motion, even with the small 130X. Once I get comfortable with how fast and how much to throw sticks at each mini-move, I can slowly and progressively advance to combine the mini-moves and slowly work on the timing and slowly reduce how much I throw the bird up. Took me all of 3 flights to get the hang of it.

[skunkworx]

Working on keeping it still is definitely the hardest part. The second hardest part is learning when and where to feed in the mixed controls so that it's seamless. 4-point tic-tics are actually one of the best trainers for doing the mixes and are relatively easy to pull off on a 130X. The largest focus I had problems with is feeding too much negative pitch into the mix which makes the bird walk even more on you.

Stationary flips help teach you to keep a steady altitude as well as holding it still laterally, but if you let it walk away on you it will. Lots of sim time was the only thing that broke me of the habit and its been a couple years' long effort to start to get the hang of it. Even if you really think you know what you're doing it has a rude tendancy to remind you that you don't know squat! Just keep at it and you'll start to see results when you truly start to get it on the simulator.