I Flew A Dragonfly for the First time today!

3vw · Aug 06, 2004, 02:05 AM

Hi Guys,

I received my GD Dragonfly today (not on Wed… I made a mistake on the delivery date). I got it from Jerry at GWS Expert. He was very helpful in answering all my questions that I had before I made a purchased from him… and he actually had what I wanted in stock!

First off let me explain that this is the first time I’m flying an RC Heli in 20 yrs! Believe it or not I was actually messing around with a 25 size GMP Cricket back in the early 80’s and didn’t actually get very far but to hovering (it didn’t even have a gyro on board). I also had begun to build a 60 size Heliboy but never did finish it. I still have all this stuff in my basement. hehehe

Another thing I did back then was completely build my own transmitter and receiver from a kit (even built the servos… hand soldered all the individual components to the little circuit boards inside). Man, I was really committed to trying to fly an RC heli back then and on top of it I hadn’t even tried fly anything else prior to this.

Well after crashing the Cricket enough (and then buying rotor blades over and over plus all the work having to balance them) I then had a major battery failure in the RX and the d**n thing almost hit my wife and son and I said that’s enough and chucked the whole thing. I actually said this is a masochistic hobby and would never do it again. I got into stunt kit flying shortly after that and fulfilled my need to fly that way… it was a lot simpler and safer and the 4 line kites could even fly backwards.

So how did I get to the point where I’m at today you ask. I actually went crazy about 2 yrs ago when I first saw a cover of a heli magazine which featured the Hornet when it first came out and just fell in love with it. Ok, but I still had this haunting of all the problems that pledged me from the past. On top of that I got to see and talk to someone who actually owned a Hornet. After watching him fly his Hornet in my driveway I couldn’t stop thinking that I wanted to do that too…but I quickly had my hopes dashed when he informed me that flying the little guy was even more difficult than flying the bigger gas heli’s. Well now what to do I though, then shortly after that I was introduced to something I wasn’t aware of… a flight simulator. A light bulb went off in my head and I though this is it… I’m going to practice on that till I get the hang of it before I even attempt to try and fly an RC heli (gas or electric) again.

Well it’s been about 2 yrs now that I’ve been enjoying my Realfight G2 sim and have gone far beyond just learning how to hover with the sim (that really would have been enough to actually get me started with the real thing) but I continued to learn to do some really nice 3D stunts too. I know I didn’t need to wait this long but it surly has help my confidence in taking on the real thing now. I highly recommend that anyone wanting to avoid some of the hardships that come with crashing and repairing the real thing take the time to practice on a sim first before they attempt to fly the real thing… and you don’t need to practice for 2 yrs first (like me) but you’ll definitely start at a much better confidence level than without going the sim route.

So you can’t imagine how excited I was today when I finally got to fly the Dragonfly. It was too windy to fly outside so I hovered in my garage instead… here’s a little video made with my smartphone (SE P900) of one of my flights.

http://people.msoe.edu/~raud/forum/D...Day_Flying.mp4

BTW I have some pix of a Heli event I went to back in 1980 and if anyone wants to see them I can post a few if you like.

Many thanks to Wen and Homeflyer also for their helpful input.

Silverstreak328 · Aug 06, 2004, 02:15 AM

Awesome to hear you got it flying for real this time! I too spent a lot of time on the sim (over a year) and when I got my aerohawk I was hovering perfectly in 3 minutes! I started doing forward flight on my 3rd day

The video isn't working for me. There's audio but the video is just little flashes on a black background.

Those pics sound cool too! Post em up!

3vw · Aug 06, 2004, 02:25 AM

Thanks… The video should work (I’ve d/l it and tried it myself) using Quicktime.

It’s getting late for me so I’ll try and post those oldie pix tomorrow.

Aug 06, 2004, 02:05 AM	#1
3vw Registered User Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 513	I Flew A Dragonfly for the First time today! Hi Guys, I received my GD Dragonfly today (not on Wed… I made a mistake on the delivery date). I got it from Jerry at GWS Expert. He was very helpful in answering all my questions that I had before I made a purchased from him… and he actually had what I wanted in stock! First off let me explain that this is the first time I’m flying an RC Heli in 20 yrs! Believe it or not I was actually messing around with a 25 size GMP Cricket back in the early 80’s and didn’t actually get very far but to hovering (it didn’t even have a gyro on board). I also had begun to build a 60 size Heliboy but never did finish it. I still have all this stuff in my basement. hehehe Another thing I did back then was completely build my own transmitter and receiver from a kit (even built the servos… hand soldered all the individual components to the little circuit boards inside). Man, I was really committed to trying to fly an RC heli back then and on top of it I hadn’t even tried fly anything else prior to this. Well after crashing the Cricket enough (and then buying rotor blades over and over plus all the work having to balance them) I then had a major battery failure in the RX and the d**n thing almost hit my wife and son and I said that’s enough and chucked the whole thing. I actually said this is a masochistic hobby and would never do it again. I got into stunt kit flying shortly after that and fulfilled my need to fly that way… it was a lot simpler and safer and the 4 line kites could even fly backwards. So how did I get to the point where I’m at today you ask. I actually went crazy about 2 yrs ago when I first saw a cover of a heli magazine which featured the Hornet when it first came out and just fell in love with it. Ok, but I still had this haunting of all the problems that pledged me from the past. On top of that I got to see and talk to someone who actually owned a Hornet. After watching him fly his Hornet in my driveway I couldn’t stop thinking that I wanted to do that too…but I quickly had my hopes dashed when he informed me that flying the little guy was even more difficult than flying the bigger gas heli’s. Well now what to do I though, then shortly after that I was introduced to something I wasn’t aware of… a flight simulator. A light bulb went off in my head and I though this is it… I’m going to practice on that till I get the hang of it before I even attempt to try and fly an RC heli (gas or electric) again. Well it’s been about 2 yrs now that I’ve been enjoying my Realfight G2 sim and have gone far beyond just learning how to hover with the sim (that really would have been enough to actually get me started with the real thing) but I continued to learn to do some really nice 3D stunts too. I know I didn’t need to wait this long but it surly has help my confidence in taking on the real thing now. I highly recommend that anyone wanting to avoid some of the hardships that come with crashing and repairing the real thing take the time to practice on a sim first before they attempt to fly the real thing… and you don’t need to practice for 2 yrs first (like me) but you’ll definitely start at a much better confidence level than without going the sim route. So you can’t imagine how excited I was today when I finally got to fly the Dragonfly. It was too windy to fly outside so I hovered in my garage instead… here’s a little video made with my smartphone (SE P900) of one of my flights. http://people.msoe.edu/~raud/forum/D...Day_Flying.mp4 BTW I have some pix of a Heli event I went to back in 1980 and if anyone wants to see them I can post a few if you like. Many thanks to Wen and Homeflyer also for their helpful input.

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Aug 06, 2004, 02:15 AM	#2
Silverstreak328 Really Cool User Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Tampa St Pete, Florida, United States Posts: 1,758	Awesome to hear you got it flying for real this time! I too spent a lot of time on the sim (over a year) and when I got my aerohawk I was hovering perfectly in 3 minutes! I started doing forward flight on my 3rd day The video isn't working for me. There's audio but the video is just little flashes on a black background. Those pics sound cool too! Post em up!

Aug 06, 2004, 02:25 AM	#3
3vw Registered User Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 513	Thanks… The video should work (I’ve d/l it and tried it myself) using Quicktime. It’s getting late for me so I’ll try and post those oldie pix tomorrow.