Beginner RC helicopter flying training

In the last beginner rc helicopter flying training lesson we flew large and fast figure of eight in front of your position not around your position. In this lesson you will learn how to nose in hover. This can really be very difficult for so many people but there are many not one way of learning it, we will discuss here the three effective ones.

Since you may well be flying those large figure of eight loops and that will make you think that you are not required to learn the hovering nose. But let me tell you that if you did not give enough attention in learning the rc helicopter controls in all directions and orientations, you will never be able to perform advanced aerobatics. Nose facing your direction is somewhat has been practiced by you in the earlier lesson or it will be felt the way that you are relearning flying rc helicopter. However by putting little extra effort for learning today’s lesson will be more beneficial in the long run and is very essential. Because, even if you are only keeping yourself stick to just basic flying like normal hovering and basic figure of eight loop, your rc helicopter will be forced to face nose in hover. I can be caused by gusting wind or may be a result of an engine failure, radio interference or your own error. Moreover as said earlier, this is essential to learn if you ever want to perform some simple and basic aerobatics.
You must be thinking that why am I rambling to make you understand that nose in hover is very hard. Well the answer is very simple; your rc helicopter cyclic controls get reversed when the helicopter is facing you. Try doing it yourself, turn the face of your rc helicopter towards you and turn on your radio and receiver. When you give a left cyclic the swash plate moves right. So basically the difficulty is in understanding the reversed commands you will be required to give when the rc helicopter is facing towards you. Same thing applies to the tail rotor command, it gets reversed too. But if you get yourself used to taking the tail rotor commands make the rc heli move in clockwise or anti clock wise directions instead of it being turning left or right, the direction of the rc helicopter will not matter.

However, never look at the tail when you are giving tail rotor commands. Some people may tell you to see how the tail rotor swings left when you give the left tail rotor command. Keep your focus on the nose; this is the right way of flying the rc helicopter. Having said that, it is also very easy to learn the counter clock wise and clock wise orientation instead of getting used to left or right tail rotor movement. By the time you come to this point of practicing nose in hover, you must have got the command over throttle control and collective pitch. Moreover, if you just do all the exercises learned earlier with getting the clockwise and counter clock wise orientation for tail command, it will just become a part of your reflexes and you will not face any difficulty just focusing the nose.

Before we start the nose in flying lesson there are few points which require attention:

Keep you training gear on; it will save your rc helicopter from a possible ditch and also will sever as a guide for visualizing roll and pitch movements easily.

Since you are getting another aspect of the command controls, if the cyclic duel rates are set to more or are turned off, you must reset them back to the factory settings, the same when you were doing the basic hovering exercises. This way you will be controlling the radio control heli the way it is supposed to in the hover in nose exercise.

There are three methods for learning the nose in hover, and you will learn three of them one by one. We will start from the same method we are used to i.e. the ground up hover method. Then we will see the flying approach method and finally look into walk around method.

Nose tip in Hover Ground up method:
This method is almost the same as you did in earlier exercise of basic hovering when you were a beginner rc helicopter flyer, but now you already know the controls of collective/throttle and commands of tail rotor. Stand in front of you rc helicopter keeping a distance of around 10 to 12 feet and make sure that the face of your bird is into the wind. To get the feel of the reversed commands in cyclic, safely, just give a little throttle to make your heli lighter on the skids. Just make it comfortable and then hover a little above the ground, up to few inches and practice there. When you feel comfortable start doing the backward/ forward/ sideways and diagonal commands and see how the commands have reversed effect on your rc helicopter when you are standing in front of it having its nose pointed at you. Make sure the heli remains into the wind direction. Once you have got the hang of that, try doing a long figure of eight loop, just at the end of each loop you will turn the rc helicopter towards you instead of turning it away from you as earlier. When you feel that you are comfortable doing the long skinny figure of eight loop, try doing the fast and large figure of eight circuit from the previous exercise. Keep the altitude high enough to get away from any mishap. There are many situations when you see your rc heli ditching at the ground but can avoid it through increasing the collective/ throttle and climbing altitude again to gain time for getting the control over your remote control helicopter.


You will be doing the nose in hover exercise in an open area, preferably a ground. This is good for whatever method you try for learning it but having plenty of room around you will give you enough chances to correct your skills incase you get disoriented. One more tip which is usually overlooked but is very important that choose to do fly in hover lesson in an overcast day. This way you will be able to avoid the scenario when your rc helicopter passes in front of the sun and your position. On that very instant you wilt blinded by the bright sunlight and those few seconds may cost you the expensive rc helicopter. Because losing sight of your heli will make you disoriented and by the time you will acquire the position back, your bird might get the blow of its life.

Nose in Hover Flying Approach Method:
This is another way to get the taste of reversed controls. In this method, the beginner rc heli is already flying, you just turn it slowly towards you to let your brain learn the reversal of controls when the nose is pointed towards you. The more you will practice the approach of rc helicopter towards you, the more you will get comfortable with the reverse control and the time will come when you be able to hover the heli having the nose pointed towards you. There are two advantages learning nose pointed to you while hovering. One is that your rc hlei will be flying high already so, you will be safe even if you make any mistake and the other is that the heli will already be in a forward flight which will make it easier for you to get the hang of it because rc helicopter is more stable in forward flight than in the hover.


The disadvantage to this method is that you get very less time practicing the nose is hover because most of the time the rc heli is flying and the only time you get to practice nose in hover is when the heli is coming towards you. The other disadvantage is the instant when the beginer rc helicopter comes towards you in the first few instances, those are the moments when you can get it or lose it completely, if you didn’t prepare your mind for the reverse control commands when the heli is approaching towards you. This way of learning is good for you if you are in rc airplane flying already. Since rc helicopters behave the same way as rc airplanes when they are in forward flight, it is all natural for an rc airplane flyer.

Walk Around method:
This method is a lot easier to learn nose in hover because you will be standing behind the heli when you start, the same way it was during the basic exercises. You will be at ease doing it just put the rc helicopter into the wind and stand 10 to 12 feet behind it. Start hovering 2-3 feet off the ground and gradually walk from left or right of the heli to come in front of it. This way will give your brain the gradual learning chance and you will be able to learning a better way this way. When in front, practice your left cyclic/ right cyclic/ forward and backwards.

During that practice whenever you feel disorientated, just move your position to a more comfortable one even get behind the heli to be able to control it the way you are used to. You will have to act fast for getting orientation back or you will ditch your rc hlei to ground and that will cost you moolah. And yes, try to be careful when walking to get in front of the rc helicopter because your focus will be on the heli and something may get you trip over. So make sure you clear all the hurdles you can come across. When you get comfortable being in front of the helicopter, practice all the controls i.e. backwards/forward/ sideways and diagonals.

If you have a good flight simulator for rc helicopter, make use of it because it will help you learn faster. The walk around method will not work with the simulator because your position remains fixed in a simulator. However other two methods will work just fine. Whichever method you choose to go for, just stick to it with the rc helicopter simulator too.

Here I will call it the end of the basic rc helicopter flying training lessons. With the last one being nose in front of you hovering, you are now open to some advanced aerobatic maneuvers and are even able to handle large rc helicopters. Look at you! You are now a skilled rc helicopter flyer who is able to fly in whatever direction, in other words you have full control over your rc heli. No more rc helicopter training gear needed for you, great flying there you rc helicopter pilot!

Fly RC Helicopter Training lesson

In the last post we learned how to fly rc helicopters around a fixed position in a large circuit circle at high speed. How about flying that fast and large figure of eight in front of you instead of around your fixed position? This rc helicopter lesson is quite similar to the practice we did while flying large figure of eight, just the difference is that today it is going to be fast, at good altitude and its going to be in front of you not around you.

For flying your rc helicopter today you are required to get the skills you learned from flying the transitional lift exercise and from the lesson of large figure of eight, combined and apply them for the best results. I hope I do not have to remained you to do the pre flight checks? 
I will suggest that you leave the training gear on even for today’s lesson because you will be taking your rc helicopter quite away from you and it is very much necessary to keep them on for your orientation. Also we will still use the training gear for your last lesson of keeping nose in the hover.

You must be having flying figure of 8 at your pulse now so, start your rc helicopter and start flying the skinny figure of eight around 5-6 feet hovering and in front of your standing position. You will start making the figure larger and larger with increase in speed forwardly and not forgetting to increase the altitude. It will be better if you increase the half loop of figure of eight at the intersection section of the figure so will just be rounding the eight more and more with larger circles. Here we are playing the large and fast figure of eight in front of us. You just need to be very comfortable with the orientation and which you must have intact by now by seeing your rc helicopter fly big figure of eight and taking these large turns.
Keep this thing always in mind that as soon as you feel a little shaky and feel a little out of focus, just slow down your rc helicopter or even land to regain your focus and confidence to try again. Rushing into things will only get your rc helicopter into a crash which you never want. It is always better to go slowly with things rather than crashing and lowering your moral. I really flew my rc heli for good twenty days in practicing while I started flying these large figure of eight because I switched to next step only when I felt confident and comfortable. If you are in possession of a rc helicopter simulator, nothing better than that, it will take you half the time to gain the things than practicing in the air physically. Its just that some learn it fast than others but there is nothing to be embarrassed about in taking time to learn it the proper way because fast learners may not be better in flying rc helicopter at advanced levels.

Okay after regaining your confidence get back to your rc helicopter flying training lesson of large and fast figure of eight. You will be increasing the size, altitude and speed of flight while doing the figure of eight but you will have to keep the effects of transitional lift in mind all the time specially while turning up and down the wind. You may want to bank your turns when the speed of your rc helicopter is high enough with good altitude. You must be having so much fun doing it that you will lose track of time.
Although it will be a little tricky to always having your rc helicopter turn away from you for the sake of keeping orientation, but try to do that for this point of time, you can turn the nose towards you by doing the reverse figure of eight once you are done with the last rc helicopter flying lesson of nose in the hover training lesson. While on the right side of the figure of 8, bank or turn left and when on the left side of the figure of eight turn right this will keep you from disorientation.

The rule which applied to the small loop of eight applies to this large one as well – Don't try to turn the rc heli towards you instead away from you. You will have to practice to bank right when turning left and when turning right bank left. This will keep you from disorientation. After learning hovering nose during last exercise, you can then do even reversing the figure loop of 8 or fly ovals with the nose of the RC helicopter even turning towards you.

There are some people who always turn away from their position and never try to learn rc helicopter nose in the hover. That is all good till the time they are enjoying it and their rc helicopter fly smoothly.

A Little RC Helicopter Aerobatic for the Joy of your senses:
I thought why not teach you a little aerobatic maneuver only if you are totally comfortable with today’s rc helicopter flying training lesson. How about a 540 stall turn instead of banking on each turn of figure of eight why not this stall turn.
You must increase the cyclic pitch dual rate to around 75% or least to 70%. Rather how about turning cyclic dual rates off and seeing the response of your rc helicopter. Your rc heli will become more responsive if you are with good reflexes and you have done your tie on large figure of eight forward flight rc helicopter training lesson. You will be just good with quick controls adjustment.

This aerobatic maneuver will make you an addictive so be cautious of the results. Yes you will get the full high of the rc helicopter hobby while doing this move. Okay, it is not that difficult here it is.

While flying your rc helicopter in figure of eight loops, to take turns you were accustomed to bank it. Now instead of banking to take turn, strat bringing the rc helicopter nose up by pulling back on the cyclic. When the rc helicopter starts to slow down, turn it 180 degrees to point it in the opposite direction of your turn. The main aspect to understand is to pull back on cyclic so your rc helicopter goes almost straight up. As the momentum of going straight up slows the rc heli, give tail rotor a 180 degrees turn and bring the nose towards the ground. Now rc helicopter will start to come to the ground and gain speed, pull it out of the dive as it gains speed, of course it touches the ground.

You may want to do a little mild stall and give your rc heli a 45 degree instead of bringing it straight up and then add the tail rotor when it slows down while going up. You may not achieve a 90 degree stall but more practice will make you achieve closer to that.
That’s all for today, practice and more practice will make you have full control on your rc helicopter hobby and I believe you must be having great time learning these rc helicopter

flying lessons.

See you soon with last lesson of rc helicopter flying.

Tonja

RC Helicopter Flying Training Lesson

How to fly RC helicopter? was the question when you started to dream about flying RC Helicopter but not anymore because with all the previous flying lessons and today's comprehensive training lesson you will feel more addicted to this hobby.
Here is the next RC Helicopter flying training lesson to give you the real taste of flying RC Helicopter in this hobby. Today we will learn to hover RC helicopter at much higher altitude and will fly RC helicopter at a much faster speed. This one is an advanced lesson of your RC helicopter flying lessons. We will learn about transitional lift and will see its application in the forward flight. We will have large flying circuits around our fixed position, which is similar to the earlier lesson but the difference is of the flying speed and the altitude. Will be starting slowly with a smaller circuit and slower speed and will gradually increase the circuit diameter and the speed too. So, practically we will flying a 100 to 150 feet in diameter circuits with the speed fast enough which will demand you for bank it a little to counter the centrifugal force which tries to pull it outwards. To be able to fly RC helicopter at that much of a speed, you will have to keep the altitude high enough too anywhere 15 to 35 feet. You are thinking right that today’s mistake is going to cost you dollars.

Preparing your RC helicopter for the flying training lesson:
You will have to increase the collective pitch range which must have been at the beginner’s learning setting by the RC helicopter manufacturer for most general flying. Most of the RC helicopters come with the setting of minus -3 degrees negative pitch, at low stick and plus + 10 degrees positive pitch at high stick, not more than that. You will have to increase the dual rate through on your right and left roll rate cyclic too in order to get the roll cyclic controls more responsive. You can leave the pitch cyclic dual rate as it is but if you want to have more pitch control you are allowed to do that.

What is transitional lift?
When you start to hover RC helicopter and then get it moving, you might have experienced transitional lift during your earlier RC Helicopter flying lessons. The transitional lift is the extra lift produced when wind or moving air collides with moving rotor blades. Actually the speed the wind is passing through the moving rotor produces equivalent lift to the RC helicopter as if it was moving with the speed equivalent to the wind speed. The rotor system becomes a bit more efficient when wind pass through it hence produces more lift. This effect is called ‘effective transitional lift’ in the real world of helicopters or simply ETL. The increased efficiency is directly proportional to the velocity of the air passing through the RC Helicopter blades. Effective transitional lift is added with the speed your RC helicopter is moving since ETL depends on the air speed not the ground speed. You may understand with this small example: if you are hovering your RC helicopter facing the wind and the wind is blowing at 30 km/h, the ETL produced will be equivalent to the lift created by RC helicopter moving at the speed of 30 km/h provided there is no wind.

Transitional lift is produced even when you fly rc heli backwards or sideways or when you see tailwind or cress wind. The amount of air passing the rotor blades will produce either by RC helicopter movement or wind will create Effective transitional lift. We only used forward movement of your helicopter in the above example because that is what we are going to practice today.



Having collective pitch RC helicopters is what is needed to control ETL, that is why we the real RC helicopter Hobby people stay away from fixed pitch RC helicopters. I asked you to start your rc helicopter flying lessons in a calm day when there is no or very little wind because of ETL. If you were to start flying your RC helicopter in gusting wind and while hovering it you will experience sudden bounce in the hovering height of the RC helicopter. As a beginner of RC helicopter flying you might not be able to react fast enough to control this constant shift in lift and might have come across a crash, which would have caused your motivation to break and a hole in your pocket.

One very practical example I want to give to make you understand the practicality of effective transitional lift effect. What do you think will happen when you are flying a large circuit at 30 km/h and the wind is gusty at 30KM/h? As soon as you will point nose into the wind the ETL will double the lift and it will be 60 km/h. Well now that you complete half the circuit and wind is gusting from your tail end…. Yes the ETL will be zero and your RC helicopter will face a sudden decrease in lift and drop. To counter this you will have to increase the throttle or collective. You need to remember this while doing fast circuits in high velocity winds, you will have to increase throttle when turning opposite of wind direction to save your RC helicopter from sudden drop and an ultimate crash. This is specially required when you are flying large RC helicopters and at lower heights. Do this or learn the lesson the hard way…

The point of explaining transitional lift in detail was to make you understand the how your RC helicopter is going to behave in your forward flight RC Helicopter training lesson and how to control the sudden change in lift when your move in or out of the transitional lift effect.

RC helicopter Flying training Lesson:
You will be required to practice going into and coming out of transitional lift before getting into fast circuit circle. You will also be comfortable at RC helicopter flying left and right of your side which means at right angle to you; earlier lessons have already prepared you for this. Your pre flight checks should be automatic by now… hope you have done them.
You will start by hovering 5 to 6 feet above the ground and then turning it either left or right of your side, whichever is comfortable to you. Now start giving a little forward cyclic to get it moving forward at around 6 to 8 km/h only fast walking pace. When it gets 25 to 30 feet away from you stop it at a hover. What do you experience? You must have seen that RC helicopter have gained the altitude without your increasing the throttle/ collective. You just experienced transit experienced transitional lift.



To counter transitional lift effect, you will have to increase throttle/ collective when you come out of the forward flying back into the hover and will have to decrease the throttle/ collective when coming into forward flying into the wind to maintain the altitude. This will take your practice and focus to have good hands on it. The more you will practice it the more it will become your sense, and sooner you will be applying counter collective/ throttle for transitional lift without even knowing you are doing it.

Let’s do the RC Helicopter fast forward circuit flying lesson:
The only difference in last RC helicopter flying lesson and today’s one is that in the previous one you kept the circuit small and the velocity of your RC helicopter was not that fast. Today you will be flying fast larger circuits with more altitude.

Start with the speed of last RC helicopter flying lesson slow and with small circuit, you may want to fly it counter clock wise or the clockwise whichever suits you( you must have found your rotation type during the last exercise). Now start increasing the speed of your rc helicopter and start increasing the circle with gradual increase in the altitude. You may not want to fly too fast or it will create dizziness. You may start with a circle of 50 to 60 feet in diameter with an altitude of 10 to 12 feet in the air with a speed of 15 to 20 km/h. After completing few circuits start decreasing the rc helicopter and bring the diameter of the circle smaller to the size of last RC helicopter flying training lesson. Safely lad you rc helicopter and take a little rest.

Analyze your performance with the larger and fast circuits, if you feel nervous, you might want to spend more time practicing the last rc helicopter exercise and make yourself comfortable. When you feel comfortable, start the same large circuit with same speed and altitude but in opposite direction which will most possibly be in the clockwise direction.
This RC helicopter training should make you confident and comfortable with flying rc helicopter in 60 feet circle both clockwise and counter clockwise directions. Now it’s time to make the circles larger and faster with higher altitude. Do 80 feet diameter circle this time and go to 120 feet with more speed and with altitude of 30 to 35 feet. The larger the circle with more speed you can fly without getting the dizziness from it. You must maintain the higher altitude in order to give yourself chance of making up with your mistake with quickly reaching the ground.

Once you get comfortable with flying faster in both directions, you must start banking the rc heli. It will be felt very natural to you when flying clockwise give right cyclic and give left when flying counter clockwise. You will have to pull back on the cyclic slightly to help the heli on the banking turning edge. RC helicopters much behave like RC airplanes when flying fast and this effect may have been experienced by you if you are an RC airplane or RC Jets flyer.

While slowing down your RC helicopter in smaller circuit, don’t forget to increase throttle/ collective to make up for the reduced amount of transitional lift. I believe by the time you reach this stage you will be doing all this automatically without even realizing.

Hurray!! You have just completed a very important RC helicopter training flying lesson which must have shown you the actual potential of your RC helicopter and have made you a little more addicted to RC helicopter hobby. You can actually record your length of RC flying lesson on video and see the fly RC helicopter DVD video after you have completed the lesson to see what was going on. By seeing your own fly RC helicopter video you will learn a lot and improve faster.

The next flying lesson will be more thrilling…. Even I can’t wait to write about it. Till then..

Happy flying!

Tonja