Getting flighty

            You just can’t stand the itch to fly your heli. You have read up on how to handle your battery, you took the time to double check your setup. So why not have at it.

            Well, I’d say you might consider one of two approaches. Hook up with buddy who’s done it all and have him take you out for some real world lessons. The other approach is to take a look at a flight school and follow the lesson plan the pros teach. The Radd’s flight school site is a great place to start and contains other good info. as well. In the lessons you’ll get a real hands on feel for your heli without putting it at risk. You can learn nice skills like holding your tail (not between your leg) to make lift off and hovers a simple matter. This one lesson is one of the toughest for a Noob to get their head around.

            When you are on the heli pad and the tail of the heli pointed at you and it starts to spin, your instant reaction in most cases is to flip the Tx level hard the other way. Well if your heli is spinning to the right and you pull the stick to the left to counter it you just might find your heli spinning it’s self to death. Radd’s flight school will teach you the correct way to over come the spin.

 As a quick tip remember when you were doing that nice setup, The head is your directional point of view. I use few ways of thinking when it comes to tail control. One is the image I’m in the pilots seat, another is to think stick right CCW goes the heli, stick left Cw goes the heli. My personal favorite is follow to tail It goes right I make the stick go right, this in turn makes the heli go in the direction I want. Once your in the air you’ll have to get your mind around the idea of what to do when your heli is facing you and a bit of reverse thinking has to take hold. What really takes time to learn is the feel for how much stick pressure is needed to get the control you need to have.

Written by CaptKDS