Typical Newby Needing Help

[Cpt Marvel]

Hiya; Finally got me first R/C Heli after wanting one for years. HoneyBee King II. Comes with stock tx 0406A. Working on doing the sim first, then destroying the aircraft. Problem I seem to be having is I can't seem to get the trim for the tail rotor or ailerons set. Just rotates around slowly or pitches over when liftoff. Using both FM sim and Clearview, does the same thing. I carefully calibrate before each use. Also with the FMS the tail rotor quits responding once it gets a little distance away. Could this be a tx problem?

[grnbrg]

Hiya; Finally got me first R/C Heli after wanting one for years. HoneyBee King II. Comes with stock tx 0406A. Working on doing the sim first, then destroying the aircraft. Problem I seem to be having is I can't seem to get the trim for the tail rotor or ailerons set. Just rotates around slowly or pitches over when liftoff. Using both FM sim and Clearview, does the same thing. I carefully calibrate before each use. Also with the FMS the tail rotor quits responding once it gets a little distance away. Could this be a tx problem?The King 2 is a CCPM helicopter, and the pitch mixing is done by the transmitter. The sim expects unmixed channels, so it is being confused by what the TX is sending it.

Fear not! It is easy to disable eCCPM mixing on the 0406A TX. Here is a description of what the switches under the battery compartment (http://www.helifreak.com/showpost.php?p=617208&postcount=2) do. Basically, you need to flip the switches marked 1 and 2 in the image.

Don't forget to flip them back before you try to fly the King, or Bad Things will happen. :D


grnbrg.

[poboy62]

Cpt, not to be discouraging, but I have been flying ccpm heli on fms and able to do rolls, stuff like that. I just got a tail rotor heli and the sim helped zero. I am not exagerating, it helped not one bit. When I was on the sim, people would say they were different and I would say, well it still has to help, but really man it didn't. Someone needs to invent a lite cage like thing that goes around the whole heli to learn with. good luck.

[simages]

Hiya; Finally got me first R/C Heli after wanting one for years. HoneyBee King II. Comes with stock tx 0406A. Working on doing the sim first, then destroying the aircraft. Problem I seem to be having is I can't seem to get the trim for the tail rotor or ailerons set. Just rotates around slowly or pitches over when liftoff. Using both FM sim and Clearview, does the same thing. I carefully calibrate before each use. Also with the FMS the tail rotor quits responding once it gets a little distance away. Could this be a tx problem?Hi CPT Marvel - Welcome and glad you filled the "heli" void after waiting all those years. Now I don't have a HBKII, 0406A or fly FMS however; Maybe I can help. First, how are you connecting the Tx to the PC? Perhaps your using the Esky EK2-0900A USB cable..... and I believe there are a couple dip switches (red switch block) inside the transmitter that have to be flipped. Have you seen these under the batteries? If so, how are they set; 1=Down, 2=Up or 1=Up, 2=Down.

grnbrg (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/member.php?u=189391) - must have been posting as I was typing.....

[grnbrg]

Cpt, not to be discouraging, but I have been flying ccpm heli on fms and able to do rolls, stuff like that. I just got a tail rotor heli and the sim helped zero. I am not exagerating, it helped not one bit. When I was on the sim, people would say they were different and I would say, well it still has to help, but really man it didn't. Someone needs to invent a lite cage like thing that goes around the whole heli to learn with. good luck.FMS may well be helpful for planes, but is absolutely useless for flying helicopters.

If you want free, download HeliSim RC (http://www.marksfiles.net/HeliSim). If you can afford US$40, download Clearview (http://www.rcflightsim.com). Both of those will actually teach you to hover. You can pay more (a lot more) but the extra $$$ tends to get you a lot more eye candy, and marginally better physics.

FMS will teach you bad habits, but if you can manage a steady hover in HeliSim (with anything but the "EasyBeginner" setup), you'll be able to hover a CP heli on your first battery.


grnbrg.

[poboy62]

Grnbrg, that's good to know that it is just FMS, you know I researched a bunch of posts about sims and no one ever said that in the ones I found, they just talked about how it was "different" in a sim vs. heli.

[jasmine2501]

FMS is kinda crappy for helis. If you get the thing set up right though, it can help with the basics. HeliSim is the free one that is pretty good...
http://www.marksfiles.net/HeliSimRC/index.htm

[grnbrg]

Don't get me wrong -- there are huge difference between flying a sim and a real model. Foremost among them is fear -- I can do all sorts of things in a sim now -- flips, figure 8s, short inverted hovers, etc -- but I can't do anything more than side-in hover with my real heli, because I'm afraid I'll crash it and have to buy a bunch of parts.

You don't have to deal with trembling fingers in the sim. :D

But there is a huge difference between FMS and just about everything else.


grnbrg.

[Jimbo45cn]

FMS may well be helpful for planes, but is absolutely useless for flying helicopters.

If you want free, download HeliSim RC (http://www.marksfiles.net/HeliSim). If you can afford US$40, download Clearview (http://www.rcflightsim.com). Both of those will actually teach you to hover. You can pay more (a lot more) but the extra $$$ tends to get you a lot more eye candy, and marginally better physics.

FMS will teach you bad habits, but if you can manage a steady hover in HeliSim (with anything but the "EasyBeginner" setup), you'll be able to hover a CP heli on your first battery.


grnbrg.
Cmon. FMS is not the best but it's certainly not useless. It teaches stick movements and reaction to the heli. It helped me and countless others get started. helisim is better, yes, but FMS is still useful. Jim

[jasmine2501]

Yes it can help with the basics of direction and orientation. It is hard to configure though - once you have the controls set up right, it will work ok for the basics, but setting up the controls is kinda of tricky. I did manage to make it work with a 4-channel radio, but it took a while to get it right.

[racin06]

Hiya; Finally got me first R/C Heli after wanting one for years. HoneyBee King II. Comes with stock tx 0406A. Working on doing the sim first, then destroying the aircraft. Problem I seem to be having is I can't seem to get the trim for the tail rotor or ailerons set. Just rotates around slowly or pitches over when liftoff. Using both FM sim and Clearview, does the same thing. I carefully calibrate before each use. Also with the FMS the tail rotor quits responding once it gets a little distance away. Could this be a tx problem?

Welcome to helis. The HBK2 is a quick and agile little rascal; however, IF you take it easy, work on RADDS and add copius amounts of sim time, you can succeed with the HBK2. The HBK2 was my first CP heli. However, I began with the HBFP. Once I could hover the HBFP in all orientations and fly figure 8s and circuits in both directions (in other words, really fly the heli), I moved up to the HBK2. However, there are many routes to learning to fly helis.

Below is a video of me flying my HBK2 last summer. This was only my 8th flight with the HBK2. However, I had spent the previous year flying the HBFP and spending many hours on the sim (Real Flight and Phoenix RC). You can do it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzuKQBWl8V4&feature=channel_page

[Cpt Marvel]

Alrighty folks. I flicked the dip switches and d/l helisim. Still gets away from me but overall it is much better. Thanks for your help. Another question: How tight are the main and tailrotor blades supposed to be? They move on their mounting screws very easily. Tail blades won't even stand up straight. This thing is supposed to be "ready to fly" out of the box.