i bought an EP Calibre

hi all.

i am a newbie to r/c choppers and in fact, r/c anything.

i went out to buy the EP Calibre anyway and only afterwards found out about this website.

i did most of what the manual told me to but somehow the EP just doesnt lift off the ground. it keeps moving off to one side or the other and trimming does no good.

help?

[Daz(DJLFlapper)]

Hi
I'd say that a good idea would be to PM Colin. He has the same heli so should be the best here to advise you about this.
as for the heli not lifting all I can think of is that you may think your batteries are fully charged but they are not giveing full power.
it is normal for any heli to move to either side when it has not got the power to clear the ground. As long as it responds to your inputs and you can correct it I would concentrate on the lift problem first. As long as it is set up correctly in the first place then the problems can't be that bad.

Anyway good luck, PM Colin.

Regards
Darren

hi darren !

thanks for replying so quickly. i will check out the battery again and probably invest in a simulator like most of you suggested in the forums.

which simulators have you uses and what do you think of them?

thank you.

kok-heng

[Daz(DJLFlapper)]

I use the Easyfly/Piccofly simulator, This comes with the Gamecommander controller which is a dummy transmitter. You need a 3D graphics card in your PC to run most of the simulators to full affect. and if your computer settup is correct then it is as real as flying the models. In fact if you can fly the model on the sim with all options to maximum then you should be ok doing it for real.
The advantage with easyfly/piccofly is that you get 2 plains 1 byplain 1 glider and 2 helis (1 scale 1 3D) with the easyfly setup, On the piccofly settup you are able to fly the piccolo heli. this would have the same sort of flight as your caliber EP. so you would benifit from the learning. In fact I found that flying the sim was slightly more difficult so it will have you ready for the real thing.

But in general all the simulators available today are very good for learning. The new XTR simulator is so realistic it is hard to tell it apart from the film clips you see. I have a clip of it in action and can post it to this websight if you would like to see it. But I would need permistion from Colin because it is quite a large file.

Anyway if your PC is set up it will be very good for you. I still use mine to leanr 3D moves on I have just cracked figure of 8 backwards which helps with stunt flying.

Good luck with what you get.
Regards to you my freind,
Darren,

[colin]

Hi Kok Heng,

I've left you an email. You can call me to chat about the EP Caliber.

Off hand, it's not the battery. But you might like to cycle it a few times anyway. Rechargeable batteries reaches their full charge only after a few rounds.

As for the sliding, it's normal. If your heli has nothing wrong, it would slide to the left when it is just about to take off. This is due to the following:

1) Tail rotor wash, which is blowing towards the right, will
cause the heli to anti-torque to the left. Being such a
small heli, sliding instead of rotating would be the effect.

2) When the heli is just about to take off, actually, it doesn't yet
have enough power. It is actually resting on the Rotor's
ground effect, and the ground effect is very turbulent.
Again, being such a small heli, the effect of sliding in it's own
ground effect is very prominent.

As a beginner, I would strongly suggest that you don't try to lift off until you had some practice with a Simulator. You would very quickly loose control of the heli and bound to hit the rotor against the ground or some other object in the house.

Also, make sure there's NO WIND. The EP Caliber is an indoor heli. For space, give yourself at least 10m sq of clear space. Even for myself, I need at least 4m sq of space to hover as this heli is really drifty. It will lift off, slide left about 1 feet, then go into a hover. In the hover, if I'm concentrating, it will drift around a 1m sq perimeter. If I'm not concentrating, it will drift around a 4m sq perimeter.

I used to own the NHP/CSM sim, which was GREAT! But because it was a DOS program, and my Windows XP on my notebook don't seem to work to well with it, I changed to RealFlight G2. Sold off the CSM sim to get some $ back.

In comparing the RealFlight G2 to CSM, the CSM has more accurate physics. The G2 has better graphics but the physics seems too fluid. For eg, when I fly my REAL shuttle, I can hold it at a hover rock steady without it moving, even in strong winds. But on the G2 sim, any heli I choose drifts around as if the trims were all set wrongly. Holding a hover really takes concentration, which is not my real world experience.

Originally posted by kok-heng
hi darren !

thanks for replying so quickly. i will check out the battery again and probably invest in a simulator like most of you suggested in the forums.

which simulators have you uses and what do you think of them?

thank you.

kok-heng

[b]