**Interesting Flying Area**

[jahatton]

Hi all, what changed on the site? I hardly recognise anything now. Different paint different carpet..?

Been down for a while... nothing to do with copter problems.. She run's great.
Our church had a corn roast this afternoon and I brought the Raven to give a flight demo. The area I chose to use was anything but heli friendly. Having a group of people and kids behind me and all the obstacles would make any pilot think twice. Actually it wasn't bad..
There was about 30 feet in front of me with 18 foot trees, on the left a house with 40 foot trees on the back side. To my right was 60 feet to a power pole and a 5th wheel camper to my right front corner.
Did I mention the car's? lots of cars just behind me.
I started the heli and set it down ready for spool-up. Starting with an easy hover I took off like normal to my right. Then it was up around 40 feet doing a fly-over the house.
The weather was cool with a spot of rain and no wind. As soon as I got it in the circuit I realized this isn't a very good idea but with rock stable fingers I overcame the fear and piloted it around and then back into a hover in front of me. I could hear the children and the members talking and that... flying back and forth and raising it to a 30 foot hover then back down to do some sidway's maneuvers then backwards, finely to a perfect landing and spool-down then engine off.
Back in the car the Raven went and quietly went back to the house.
I don't recommend flying in any such area unless you have a lot of time and experience in knowing your machine and your capabilities.
Jim

[Daz(DJLFlapper)]

JaHatton,

Well all things concidered blinking good job of not panicing. the No1 enemy in this hobby is panic and if I could give a dime for all the times I have seen panic to a strange situation cause a crash I would be very poor indeed.

Anyway fella good job glad you didn't Kill anyone and you got the heli home in one peice.

[jahatton]

Hi Darren, thank you for replying. This site is great because when going through the off season the seeds we sew during the on season come up and encourage us greatly. Thank you again.
I'm gearing up for a pretty heavy work load this season. The helicopter had crashed hard on Oct 31st 06 and is ready to receive the new parts which will be ordered in Feb. We bought an expensive video camera and I made the leap to having a co-pilot for the camera radio.
At this moment I have to learn to use the camera and all the software to burn DVD's etc.
Jim

[Daz(DJLFlapper)]

Hi Jim,

It certainly sounds like your investing a lot in the heli project. I wish you the best of luck with it. There are a lot of problems with carrying hardware like cameras. most problems are due to the work needed to balance the heli out. This is without doubt the most critical part of having a camera heli. Heli's also fly very much differently with weight on them. It will help you later if you can get used to this soon as.
Again I wish you the best of luck.

[jahatton]

Hi Darren!, thank you for the tip. Before the camera takes flight I will add 1.2lbs to simulate the camea and practise some hovering. When I set the old camera up, I went to hover and found it rock stable which was a suprise. I started transitioning to forward flight right away. Landing wasn't hard but have to be patient on finding the best spot where the ground is level.
Been almost 4 months since I flew heli but been out some with the airplane.
Practiced a little on the simulator and found the learned skills are very fluid yet. I will fly for a while and get my confidents back before moving to the camera rack.
Unknown problem to solve..
Vibration? if any..
Dust? Will wrap the camera in plastic with Seran Wrap over the lense..
If this all fizzles we still needed the camera and it is a great tool at the field.
Cheers
Jim

[Daz(DJLFlapper)]

This is not my bird but it is set up beautifully. It may give you an insight into what others are useing.

[jahatton]

Thank's I haven't seen anything quite like that yet. Jim

[KrashMaster]

Originally Posted by Daz(DJLFlapper)

This is not my bird but it is set up beautifully. It may give you an insight into what others are useing.

I will be setting up my new Raptor Titan 50 Hyper with a cam mount and downlink, far better then the one I have been using posting videos on MySpace.com My biggest concern is vibration slow nose-in hovers , witch is why I am taking lessons from pro's with a buddy cord to improve my "SLOW" 360 degree pirouettes nose in and high altitude hovers, so I can video Stunt Pilots at a fun fly from a straight downward shot getting the Pilot and Chopper in the Picture at the same time. As long as I have been flying it seems I need a little boost in the arena of knowledge and flying skills to help calm down my fumble thumbs when I have my Sony DVD DAT cam strapped on as not to wreck a $3000.00 camera .

Lessons with the buddy cord far outweigh a Flight sim because you are actually flying your real helicopter and have the financial fear factor still in the picture making the experience more real and less forgiving to Cocky mistakes, however that doesn't mean the flight sim is a lesser value, it's just you can't beat the real thing when It comes to learning with of course a bailout option when your instructor hits the switch and saves your financial @$$.