Need help on electric RC Dragonfly

I have a new beginner and bought a electric mini-dragonfly from GWS to try it out.

Whenever I try to ?take off?, the heli will tilt to the right hand size (the heli is still on the ground, did not hover yet ). Lucky for me the ?blade? did not break.

Did I do something wrong? May be I did not balance the heli well?? Do I need to make some setting changes on the servo?

Can you share some light? Thanks for your help in advance.

[darren_uk]

Hi hkfooey,

I'm not familiar with this helicopter, so I can only offer general advice.

Balance could be an issue as you've suggested. Hold the helicopter by the main mast and confirm the skids are reasonably level to check.

The other reason for the helicopter not going straight up is because the lift from the main blades isn't going straight up. Check that when the cyclic(1) control is centred the swashplate(2) is level.

Note (1): The cyclic is the control on your radio that springs back to the centre in the up/down and left/right directions.

Note (2): The swashplate is just below the main mast and tilts in the same direction is you move the cyclic. When the cyclic is centred, the swashplate should be level.


Finally, there is a certain amount of "one skid low" anyway with all helicopters, including full sized ones. This means: when you lift off and settle back down again, one skid will always lift off the ground first and other side last. The helicopter will always hang to one side.

This is because of the tail rotor blowing the helicopter to one side, therefore the helicopter has to tilt very slightly against the blowing from the tail rotor to keep itself over one place.

I'm going to try to post a link to a lovely video of a turbine model helicopter that demonstrates tail rotor drift perfectly: His blades go anti-clockwise (as viewed from above) which means the nose will want to twist to right (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction). Nose to the right = tail to the left. Therefore the tail rotor will need to blow the tail to the right. When he lifts off from the ground, the helicopter immediately hovers to the right because he lifted off both skids at the same time.

In full size helicopters, both skids will rarely lift off together - and the helicopter will always hang to one side slightly in a hover. Quite a pain when you're landing on sloping ground when the low skid is down hill....very unnerving!! (Sloping hill landings was my sticking point in my training, I don't like the feeling I'm about to topple over and wreck a perfectly good helicopter...!!!)


Let us know what you've found.

Hi


I also have the same problem.
I bought mine off ebay

But the swatchplate and the cycil control seems to be ok and still it tilts to the right, I just don't know why. I'm too scared to fly it off the ground just now because I think that it would tilt to the right and crash.

But I tried the heli with the training kit on, the heli does not tilt to the right but instead spins round crazy

I had the same problem with my heli i bought off ebay. After many attempts to hover.. I finally got it. What is important is that your heli is balanced almost perfectly first. Blades should be in track and of the same pitch. Make sure the heli is properly trimmed. If the heli wants to run away as soon as you try to lift off something is out of balance. It should rise without tilting to one side.. but it will drift due to the rotor trust at takeoff. I've found to my surprise that tilting the flybar padels at a 45 degree angle really adds to stability in hover.. I think it stabalizes or buffers the flybar which therefore stabalizes the main blades. Try to get away from the ground as soon as possible because the heli will become more stable once out of ground effects. Try to make the heli hop up first. If the heli is perfectly balanced and everything is centered it will hop up fairly straight when throttle is applied quickly and released. You have to develop a quick reflex of applying compensating stick movements during lift off to get into stable hover above ground effects. Once you get it.. it will come suddenly, like riding a bike.