A Beginners Guide How to Turn Your Helicopter Crash-Free

EagerBeginner

Hi All,

I wrote the article "A Beginners Guide How to Not Break Your Helicopter" after my second day of flying and I got a lot positive and encouraging feedback, thanks for that! Now, 6 weeks into my flying experience and about 5 crashes later, I decided to write the next chapter. Here we go!

Once you are able to hover your helicopter (and as impossible as it seems initially, it actually becomes very easy after a while), you will certainly have started to go left/right and forward/backward. You probably brought it back o.k., but I am sure if the heli turned on you for some reason you did the wrong stick input at least once and crashed it. If not, do not read this, it is not for you Smile

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Anyway, after a while it becomes really boring to fly without turning. Also, your friends look at you funny if you go forward, sideways and back only. So you start using the left stick and: You lose control quickly, at least if you turn more than 45 or maybe 90 degrees at a time.

There is a simple reasons for it: Turning the helicopter will give you a side component (and maybe also a forward component, depending on the wind), which you have to counter-act. But since you're so excited about turning, you see that too late, and then you forgot that you just turned, so your sticks are no longer aligned with the helicopter heading and: Trouble here we come!

So what helped me? I started with small turns into the wind (that is important unless you fly indoors) because it is a lot more stable than going with the tail through the wind. Sailors know that. Since you only do small turns and you are still facing almost the same direction as your heli, correcting should be easy. If I wanted to be safe I flew the heli back to me backwards. If not, read the next paragraph...

The next step is tricky: I crashed twice before I finally bought a simulator because I ran out of spare parts and had to wait for replacements. Once I had the simulator, I got it on the first evening. FMS is a free simulator, but you need an input device. My remote has an output, but it was easier to buy a 6-ch USB remote, which set me back 12 bucks, if I remember right. A small price for a great fun learning experience and it also allows you to fly an airplane for fun. And I thought initially simulators were uncool!

So I really recommend you get a simulator at this point and practice the following: Fly the heli away from you, turn 180 degrees, fly it exactly towards you, over you, turn yourself by 180 degrees (your simulator will kindly do that for you) and repeat.

Important: This is about as easy or difficult as flying circles in a simulator, but circles are a lot less forgiving in reality. So I really recommend doing these fly-overs first.

Once it becomes second nature to you that you reverse left/right when the heli faces you you are good for outside. Really, you'll make it, it was very easy form me after the simulator and it is awesome when the heli flies over you and you hear the wind effects of the rotor blades. Don't do all the cool super-banked turns you did in the simulator, though, or at least wait until you read the next section.

So why didn't I just write buy a simulator and practice? Well, here is the advice when you get into trouble. Very simple, but helped me avoid so many crashes. You were used to just rev the throttle up when you were getting too low. Revving up now accelerates the heli (assuming you are banked to some degree), and if the bank angle is steep enough the heli will pick up horizontal speed but still sink slowly and eventually crash with full speed into the ground. Not pretty.

So what is the one emergency thought that you have to hammer into your brain at this level of your flying experience? If you are about to drill your heli into the ground, simply counteract the bank angle with the right stick. That's it! Always works (unless you are so fast that you don't have enough upward lift, which should not happen with a 4ch heli).

So what is the difficult part about it? Well, chances are that you got into this situation because of some additional side component from your new favorite friends, the turns, and you were not paying enough attention to completely stabilize the heli after the turn. Remember, I said fly it exactly back to you and then over you. In this case you would have certainly leveled it out, but it is a lot more difficult when the heli flies in front of you. So forget what you didn't do and think for 1 second (that's about the time you have) what the bank angle is and then pull the stick in the opposite direction. Then you can gain complete control again and somehow get rid of the adrenalin in your veins.

The more advanced alternative, of course, is to turn the heli forward-facing while leveling it out and then pull it back up. But especially if it is more than 30 yards away you may have difficulties seeing the exact heading, and the turn will throw you off additionally. However, since you see the direction, in which it moves and the rough heading, you can figure the counter angle out a lot easier. I didn't say easily, I said easier Wink

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So here's the good thing if you get into trouble and use this method to get out of it: The same friends that were ridiculing you because you were only flying forwards/backwards and sideways now think you are sooo cool because you did this awesome near-ground maneuver where the heli popped back up and then just stood still in the air and you flew it back and landed it safely... Well, you learned in the mean time, they still don't know what it means to fly a heli. So let them believe what they think, and:

Happy Flying!!!

nick_onelove · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 4:53 am Post subject:

Excellent advice, orientation is definitely the trickiest part once you gain the muscle memory to hover comfortably.

I've found that flying the heli back to yourself nose-in is actually easier than just hovering nose-in. I think the speed adds stability.

When I lose orientation, my top priority is getting the heli upright if it's inverted and the tail pointing back in towards me so I can make the necessary cyclic corrections to avoid a crash without having to think about orientation.
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