Landing/Hovering/Stopping

[Matt]

Greetings,
I'm currently practicing on an R/C simulator and was wondering if anyone
could offer tips?
I have taking off and flying down.. but am having difficulty figuring
out how to
A) hover after moving and
B) stopping to land.

Seems the helicopter just wants to keep rocking back and forth from one
stall point to another... how do I stabilize it?

[CMJ Ramakers]

You have to stabilize with the sticks.

"Matt" <matth+newsgroups@matthoppes.org> schreef in bericht
news:c6jjil06gt@enews4.newsguy.com...
> Greetings,
> I'm currently practicing on an R/C simulator and was wondering if anyone
> could offer tips?
> I have taking off and flying down.. but am having difficulty figuring
> out how to
> A) hover after moving and
> B) stopping to land.
>
> Seems the helicopter just wants to keep rocking back and forth from one
> stall point to another... how do I stabilize it?

[Matt]

I figured as much =) how does one do that?

CMJ Ramakers wrote:

> You have to stabilize with the sticks.
>
> "Matt" <matth+newsgroups@matthoppes.org> schreef in bericht
> news:c6jjil06gt@enews4.newsguy.com...
>
>>Greetings,
>>I'm currently practicing on an R/C simulator and was wondering if anyone
>>could offer tips?
>>I have taking off and flying down.. but am having difficulty figuring
>>out how to
>>A) hover after moving and
>>B) stopping to land.
>>
>>Seems the helicopter just wants to keep rocking back and forth from one
>>stall point to another... how do I stabilize it?
>
>
>

[Nigel]

Can I make an enquiry first. You say you can take off and fly around okay.
Am I right in thinking you have fixed-wing experience?

I ask this because I started helis after about 15 years of fixed wing
flying. With the simulator I could take off and fly around without any
problem because whilst doing this the heli behaved pretty much like one of
my planes. But hovering was a real nightmare.

With helis you learn to fly the opposite way round to fixed wing. That is
you learn to take off, hover and land before doing any forward flight.

Use the simulator to just practice hovering a few feet off the ground.
Start with the tail pointing towards you. Then when you have mastered that
try it side on - you will find that you will have a 'chocolate-side' that is
a side that you like and are comfortable with - the other side will likely
be hard by comparison. When you have these cracked try hovering with the
nose pointing towards you - really hard.

Imagine you are standing on a large ball (like in the circus) and you are
trying to balance. You will have to continually shift your weight to stay
balanced - hovering is quite similar with the heli on an invisble ball of
air. It will keep trying to slide off and you must counter it with an equal
and opposite cyclic movement. At first the heli will jiggle all over the
place as you react to slowly and then over-react, but with practice you will
begin to anticipate the movement and counter it without noticing - keep
practicing and 'small stick movements'.

Cheers,

Nigel


"Matt" <matth+newsgroups@matthoppes.org> wrote in message
news:c6jjil06gt@enews4.newsguy.com...
> Greetings,
> I'm currently practicing on an R/C simulator and was wondering if anyone
> could offer tips?
> I have taking off and flying down.. but am having difficulty figuring
> out how to
> A) hover after moving and
> B) stopping to land.
>
> Seems the helicopter just wants to keep rocking back and forth from one
> stall point to another... how do I stabilize it?

[Matt]

Nigel,
Yes you are correct, I have flown the fixed-wings for some time now, and
am just recently getting into helis..

I have logically figured that it was like the ball example that you
said.. I guess I just need to physically figure out how to do that =)

~m

Nigel wrote:

> Can I make an enquiry first. You say you can take off and fly around okay.
> Am I right in thinking you have fixed-wing experience?
>
> I ask this because I started helis after about 15 years of fixed wing
> flying. With the simulator I could take off and fly around without any
> problem because whilst doing this the heli behaved pretty much like one of
> my planes. But hovering was a real nightmare.
>
> With helis you learn to fly the opposite way round to fixed wing. That is
> you learn to take off, hover and land before doing any forward flight.
>
> Use the simulator to just practice hovering a few feet off the ground.
> Start with the tail pointing towards you. Then when you have mastered that
> try it side on - you will find that you will have a 'chocolate-side' that is
> a side that you like and are comfortable with - the other side will likely
> be hard by comparison. When you have these cracked try hovering with the
> nose pointing towards you - really hard.
>
> Imagine you are standing on a large ball (like in the circus) and you are
> trying to balance. You will have to continually shift your weight to stay
> balanced - hovering is quite similar with the heli on an invisble ball of
> air. It will keep trying to slide off and you must counter it with an equal
> and opposite cyclic movement. At first the heli will jiggle all over the
> place as you react to slowly and then over-react, but with practice you will
> begin to anticipate the movement and counter it without noticing - keep
> practicing and 'small stick movements'.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Nigel
>
>
> "Matt" <matth+newsgroups@matthoppes.org> wrote in message
> news:c6jjil06gt@enews4.newsguy.com...
>
>>Greetings,
>>I'm currently practicing on an R/C simulator and was wondering if anyone
>>could offer tips?
>>I have taking off and flying down.. but am having difficulty figuring
>>out how to
>>A) hover after moving and
>>B) stopping to land.
>>
>>Seems the helicopter just wants to keep rocking back and forth from one
>>stall point to another... how do I stabilize it?
>
>
>

[Nigel]

Try looking at the disk of the rotor and respond to movement of it. Which
simulator have you got. If you can you will want to set your heli up nice
and docile -

- limit the cyclic throws
- limit negative pitch (say -1 or -2 degrees, positive to +9 or 10 degrees)
- put some exponential in the cyclic (say 30%)
- make the paddles heavy (say 30 to 40 grammes)
- make the gyro operate as heading hold (some say this is bad practice for a
beginner but I think it gives you less to worry about and lets you
concentrate on the collective and the cyclic)

How you set these will depend on the simulator and the transmitter that you
are using.

Unlike fixed wing looking at the fuselage isn't that helpful because that
does not necessary have any bearing on the direction that the aircraft is
moving - so don't get fixated by the nose or the tail.

Also note that a real heli (and a simulator if it is any good) will tend to
sit in the hover with one skid lower than the other. With the tail pointing
towards me, I think mine sits with the right skid low - not sure the exact
reason for this but probably something to do with the direction (torque) of
the rotor - more experienced flyers please feel free to correct.

Cheers,

Nigel

[Mike]

Good deduction Nigel, and good description...

Matt, 6 inch hops should sort you out. Lift off really slowly, then as soon as
it moves dump it. Next time up, watch which way it goes... put in a correction,
and dump it...

Repeat about a million times, until you can feed in the corrections
automatically and dumping it becomes less and less frequent. When you can get
it to stay in one place without too much effort then start moving it about
intentionally...short trips ( a few feet) then land.....

When you get bored, fly it round the sky like a plane and crash it..hey, its a
simulator!!

When you want to land it, come in like a plane, imagine its got wheels, but
don't touch the ground. Extend the flare until it stops (unlike a plane it
won't stall), then quickly land before it starts going backwards. As you
progress, the approach angles can get steeper but the principles are the same.

Personally I wouldn't do the nose-in stuff until you have cracked the basics of
take offs, hovering and landing.

Good luck, keep practising.


>
>Nigel,
>Yes you are correct, I have flown the fixed-wings for some time now, and
>am just recently getting into helis..
>
>I have logically figured that it was like the ball example that you
>said.. I guess I just need to physically figure out how to do that =)
>
>~m
>
>Nigel wrote:
>
>> Can I make an enquiry first. You say you can take off and fly around okay.
>> Am I right in thinking you have fixed-wing experience?
>>
>> I ask this because I started helis after about 15 years of fixed wing
>> flying. With the simulator I could take off and fly around without any
>> problem because whilst doing this the heli behaved pretty much like one of
>> my planes. But hovering was a real nightmare.
>>
>> With helis you learn to fly the opposite way round to fixed wing. That is
>> you learn to take off, hover and land before doing any forward flight.
>>
>> Use the simulator to just practice hovering a few feet off the ground.
>> Start with the tail pointing towards you. Then when you have mastered that
>> try it side on - you will find that you will have a 'chocolate-side' that
>is
>> a side that you like and are comfortable with - the other side will likely
>> be hard by comparison. When you have these cracked try hovering with the
>> nose pointing towards you - really hard.
>>
>> Imagine you are standing on a large ball (like in the circus) and you are
>> trying to balance. You will have to continually shift your weight to stay
>> balanced - hovering is quite similar with the heli on an invisble ball of
>> air. It will keep trying to slide off and you must counter it with an
>equal
>> and opposite cyclic movement. At first the heli will jiggle all over the
>> place as you react to slowly and then over-react, but with practice you
>will
>> begin to anticipate the movement and counter it without noticing - keep
>> practicing and 'small stick movements'.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Nigel
>>
>>
>> "Matt" <matth+newsgroups@matthoppes.org> wrote in message
>> news:c6jjil06gt@enews4.newsguy.com...
>>
>>>Greetings,
>>>I'm currently practicing on an R/C simulator and was wondering if anyone
>>>could offer tips?
>>>I have taking off and flying down.. but am having difficulty figuring
>>>out how to
>>>A) hover after moving and
>>>B) stopping to land.
>>>
>>>Seems the helicopter just wants to keep rocking back and forth from one
>>>stall point to another... how do I stabilize it?
>>
>>
>>
>