Blade 450 3D and low head speed (need to adjust curves)

[NickBee]

Sorry for the double post, but I'm getting no feedback in the newbie section... Please delete other post if need be...

I'm using flight instructions and books from rc heli fun and it has been great so far. I'm got comfortable real quick with the initial docile curves and hovering. I'm now moving to slightly more aggressive curves suitable for forward flight. My optical tach came in today and I got a head speed reading of 1680 while in a stable hover. Seems low? Or is this the point for newbie exercises?

Throttle curve is:
85%
75%
55%
25%
0%

Pitch curve is:
+9%
+7%
+5%
+2%
0%

Chopper is all stock expect carbon mains / tails and training gear. I feel like the hover is stable but my guess is it would be more stable at a higher head speed?

How would you adjust the curves above and what head speed should I aim for in a hover?

Thanks!

[buddha2490]

So my guess is that you are hovering a little under half stick, maybe at half stick. Normal headspeed at 100% throttle is around 3k, so your tach is probably about right.

If it was me, I would bump your midstick throttle point to 75%, and then the two uppers to 85%, and then change your pitch curve. You need some negative pitch, give yourself at least -2 or -3 degrees pitch at low stick, but at midstick you NEED to have zero pitch, then make it linear from there.

[NickBee]

Originally Posted by buddha2490

So my guess is that you are hovering a little under half stick, maybe at half stick. Normal headspeed at 100% throttle is around 3k, so your tach is probably about right.

If it was me, I would bump your midstick throttle point to 75%, and then the two uppers to 85%, and then change your pitch curve. You need some negative pitch, give yourself at least -2 or -3 degrees pitch at low stick, but at midstick you NEED to have zero pitch, then make it linear from there.

Yup half stick hover now...

Thanks for the recommendation! Do I need neg pitch at this point if I'm not getting inverted (doing flips and such). I know I need to get there at some point but I'm a little intimidated putting neg pitch in while still at this early stage of learning. Could I just make my 1st 3 pitch points be 0 0 0. Then I'll learn to hover and FF with half stick resolution (mid 0% - upper 9%) without the chopper slamming down as hard if I panic and drop the stick?

With this set up what should be my target HS in a stable hover?

Thanks again for the great feed back!

[InFocus]

a. I would recommend having at least some negative pitch.. When the heli gets too high in the air, it really is helpful to get it down..

b. You mentioned setting the first 3 points to 0 0 0, I think what you meant was 50 50 50.. In any case, I would maybe recommend a pitch curve something along the lines of 40 45 50 70 90 .

This will get you used to hovering above mid stick. I think this would work with your existing throttle curve as well.

[buddha2490]

Originally Posted by NickBee

Could I just make my 1st 3 pitch points be 0 0 0. Then I'll learn to hover and FF with half stick resolution (mid 0% - upper 9%) without the chopper slamming down as hard if I panic and drop the stick?

With this set up what should be my target HS in a stable hover?

You want to try to avoid learning bad habits. If you panic and crash because you planted it in the dirt, you will stop panicking and learn to use your throttle hold instead of your collective when things go south. Also, as soon as you can make it through most of a battery without crashing, you should fly in IU, with around 90% throttle. Give yourself some expo to make it less twitchy. The reason for this is because your collective should not be used to throttle the motor, you have way less control that way. The goal is to have constant headspeed and only change the pitch of the blades to control altitude. You definitely shouldn't be doing forward flight in normal mode. Give it a try, it will be scary at first, but within a couple batteries you'll realize that it is the right way to go. Just give yourself like 15-20%expo.

As for target headspeed, keep it around 85%, otherwise the tail blades don't have enough speed to do their job. Plus, higher headspeed = more stability = easier flight and hovering.

[NickBee]

got it! So 85% should give me a HS of around 2500?

and my 0 - 9 should have been 0 - 9 deg...

Thanks guys!

[Thalios]

Beginner friendly settings:

TC: 0-45-75-75-75
PC: 42-46-50-75-90

Don't fly with 55% throttle in my opinion. you're fighting the heli to keep it stable. The higher the headspeed, the more stable it will be, but the more sensitive it will become on the collective.

[NickBee]

Originally Posted by Thalios

Beginner friendly settings:

TC: 0-45-75-75-75
PC: 42-46-50-75-90

Don't fly with 55% throttle in my opinion. you're fighting the heli to keep it stable. The higher the headspeed, the more stable it will be, but the more sensitive it will become on the collective.

got it thanks! Can you translate the PC numbers to pitch deg? I'd like to double check things with my pitch gauge.

[Thalios]

Originally Posted by NickBee

got it thanks! Can you translate the PC numbers to pitch deg? I'd like to double check things with my pitch gauge.

Should be roughly:

assuming 0 = -10, you would have:

-1.6
-0.8
0
5
8

The main reason you want to have point 3 and 4 at 50 and 75 respectively, is so it matches Idle Up (stunt) mode for when you progress and flip IU switch. If you train with lower values, when you get to change to IU, the bird will make a huge either drop or rise.

By learning with these, it'll be easier.

[NickBee]

Originally Posted by Thalios

Should be roughly:

assuming 0 = -10, you would have:

-1.6
-0.8
0
5
8

The main reason you want to have point 3 and 4 at 50 and 75 respectively, is so it matches Idle Up (stunt) mode for when you progress and flip IU switch. If you train with lower values, when you get to change to IU, the bird will make a huge either drop or rise.

By learning with these, it'll be easier.

Awesome! Thanks. I will program these in and report back.

[spykez]

Originally Posted by Thalios

Beginner friendly settings:

TC: 0-45-75-75-75
PC: 42-46-50-75-90

Don't fly with 55% throttle in my opinion. you're fighting the heli to keep it stable. The higher the headspeed, the more stable it will be, but the more sensitive it will become on the collective.

The higher headspeed will be necessary I completely agree as others here say I wouldn't fly this heli stock with anything low, probably the lowest I'd suggest if you're a bit daunted is the low 70's. If you put it in you're going to get damage anyways, fly a bit at 70%, get used to it and bump it up to 80+.

Thalios is absolutely right - the collective will be more sensitive but how that affects you will depend. You may find you don't need to do anything with a more standard curve.

But if you are finding it bouncing around - too sensitive - there's ways to mitigate this,

Thalios's suggestion is a good one - that will mainly take out the max collective. That won't change much of the pitch change around centre stick if you feel the collective is too sensitve, however. And I suspect you're not going to jam your collective right to the top... so if your collective is too sensitive you need to tame the middle.

Another suggestion I might have for you is you could keep the pitch curve at something I would suggest that I think is more normal like 40-45-50-75-100 for normal mode and keep the idle up per usual 0-25-50-75-100 and adjust the CCPM total collective.

You can actually dial down the collective pitch a 'little' bit via the CCPM swash menu usually labelled something like pitch or collective. Reduce the magnitude a bit and measure maximum collective both ways in idle up. Maybe instead of -10 to 0 to +10 you could dial it down to +/- 9 both ways ... or even 8... - just accomplishing what Thalios says a slightly different way. I wouldn't go lower than 8.

The normal mode I think should give you about I dunno, shrug no more than -3 pitch at the bottom and probably no less than -2 but that's my opinion - I don't fly normal mode at all. You'll probably get this with those numbers.

The advantage of doing it this way is that any changes in collective pitch is more uniform. Also you don't have to muck around with your pitch curve and keep it somewhat uniform from heli to heli.

You can also add some expo around centrestick of the pitch curve - some radios allow that but mine doesn't.

No absolute ways to do this TIMTOWTDI and all that but I kind of like my pitch curves to look 'right' - that again is very arbitrary and per individual preference.

Other tips I have: You're probably flying mode 2, and rudder/collective is left, try not to get mixing of your rudder with your collective when you move your left thumb. This is trickier than it sounds at least for me. Put a bit of rudder and the collective responds due to some inadvertent input to the collective. And vice versa.

Still a MAJOR BIG problem for me.

You can adjust stick tension to your liking, make the collective stiffer, say.

You can also add some expo to your rudder to make your collective inputs less likely to change your rudder to any great significance. Wouldn't go more than 15% rudder.

Best solution still is to get precise inputs: I try and work a lot on this on the sim. That way I can look at my sticks from time to time, bump up the collective to 13 etc...bump up the HS... that REALLY magnifies any mistakes. And if that results in a crash it's only virtual lol.

Again, the adjustments to collective etc here are not made on the pitch curves - I keep my all my pitch curves the same.

My 2 cents

[NickBee]

All great info. My next step will be trying an esc with a gov mode. Am I right to assume that takes the TC out of the equation? Since you set an rpm and now the esc is taking care of the adaptive TC to hold the head speed? Seems like it would simplify things.

[buddha2490]

Why do you need a new ESC?L and a governor? Just set a flat TC if that's what you want. I run a flat 100% TC in IU mode and it flies great, but you could also run a flat 80% with some expo and have a great stable trainer until you feel comfortable. Nothin wrong with using throttle curves.

[NickBee]

Got it. I am treating this heli as a trainer for my skill and for tech. I would like to learn as much as possible before my next stepping stone. I've been an airplane guy forever so this is like learning a new language for me. And it's been great so far.

[InFocus]

+1. Budda

Nickbee:
A governor is for when your running in idle up/stunt mode and applying large amounts of cyclic and collective during 3d. These types of moves can cause the head to bog down, so the governor will automatically apply more juice.

Using a idle up/stunt mode throttle curve you can achieve a little bit of a governor like function..

With the Blade 450 in stock form, there really is no need for a new ESC. Especially if your just in the sport flying mode. Even when I'm doing mild 3D with loops, rolls, flips, and a few tic-tocs head speed stays up.

[spykez]

Originally Posted by NickBee

Sorry for the double post, but I'm getting no feedback in the newbie section... Please delete other post if need be...

I'm using flight instructions and books from rc heli fun and it has been great so far....

Ah... missed that sentence there.... I was thinking of your numbers it seemed just so familiarly that it prompted me to check.... I looked up John Salt's book which I have and lo and behold, yup, you're following it.

Look, the guy's very very experienced and everything, I bought his books, I think they're great but I would say I disagree with him on that point on learning with those curves. Not saying he's ABSOLUTELY wrong, he's flown heli's way ++++++ longer than I have, just disagree with him that's all. He just recommends too many unusual pitch/throttle settings. Later on he does recommend more conventional settings. I never ever did it his way.

Basically I think, KISS.... Why learn it one way just to unlearn it and do it another?

I think your goal should be to get used to near constant RPM in flight, and 0 pitch at midstick positive above and some negative below (you need negative to pull the heli down, even if you're not thinking of stunt flying).

[NickBee]

Right! At this point I am comfortable hovering with the docile curves. The point of this post was to get some direction for the next step. And I will now be trying the more "standard" curves and report back (hopefully soon if the weather holds up).

Thanks again for all the help!

[spykez]

Originally Posted by NickBee

Got it. I am treating this heli as a trainer for my skill and for tech. I would like to learn as much as possible before my next stepping stone. I've been an airplane guy forever so this is like learning a new language for me. And it's been great so far.

I don't think a governor is strictly necessary unless you're a darned good pilot and you feel it when it's not there. And I'm NO WHERE near that level lol...

BUT....

....it's a hobby and heck, if you want a governor and have the cash to spare, I say why the hell not. Go ahead, experiment.

Castle lite 50 is what most people recommend but I have heard many say there are better governors out there but it's got a lot of logging functions. Hobby wings are cheap. There are probably cheaper ones but I dunno.

Myself: I'm keeping my stock blade heli ESC and I'm going to experiment with my v-bar governor. I don't NEED to but I WANT to, lol.... It's as you say a stepping stone, for in my big heli I'll want to do this.

Still have to update the firmware though, might do it later today after I finish all this paperwork. It's raining outside.

[spykez]

Originally Posted by NickBee

Right! At this point I am comfortable hovering with the docile curves. The point of this post was to get some direction for the next step. And I will now be trying the more "standard" curves and report back (hopefully soon if the weather holds up).

Thanks again for all the help!

You can still do it (to some degree) even if the weather is crappy . God knows it's crappy here hehehe.

mCP X in your basement or simulator.

I think the simulator may be possibly of more use to you in your case perhaps, because of the heli you're trying to fly - the stock mCP X bogs easy, dial too much collective and you can bog the thing, needs a bit of tuning to get right, gotta be gentle with it.

They're never going to be a substitute for your B450 but it's better than nothing.

[NickBee]

So after some tinkering with the numbers you guys gave me I am now hovering at 3/4 stick with a head speed of 2800. Much more stable and enjoyable. My throttle is at 80% from mid to high. At this point I will switch over to a flat 80% for IU. Went through 6 packs today with no incidents

Thnaks again for your direction!