hard landings

[blades]

hello all and seasons greeting.
i have a problem whith my mini pred (simular to wd/60).
i get it to hover at around 1.5 metres no problem there, and very stable. but my problems start when i try and set the heli down, i can not get it to land nice and steady, i dont crash but its always has a heavy landing . is it pilot error or do need to set the tranny up for better landings any ideas, kind regards, martyn.

[chaos]

From a hover, if you reduce collective just a half-click you're gonna start down, slowly. As the thing gets lower the ground effect will tend to terminate the descent. If you do nothing it will just hover lower. When you see the descent slow down, reduce collective another half-click. It will descent a bit more, and as ground effect intensifies it will again tend to stop descending. So again, back off the collective another hair. Just keep doing that. At 1.5 meters you're clear out of ground effect. As you descent into ground effect it's kinda like pushing on a spring, as it gets stronger the lower you get. The idea is to maintain a very slow rate of descent, and to do that, you will have to back off the collective as you get very near the ground. But don't do that by-the-numbers, watch carefully and just keep a steady slow rate of descent going. Don't drop the collective a lot till you're on the ground or very nearly on the ground. Actually, the ideal would be to have the rate of descent reduce exponentially, tapering off to zero rate of descent just as you touch the ground. It's just technique. Try not to be in a hurry to get on the ground.

[hawkman]

Another thing is 'vortex ring state' sounds a bit dodgy huh?

as you hover the heli and descend to land....if the heli drops quickly enough the disturbed air being blown down can actually curl up around the blade tips and be sucked back through the blades. As it does this the overall airflow is spoiled....the heli loses its lift and down it goes...real helis suffer the same.

The only factor that alters this is wind....as you land pointing into the wind the disturbed air flow is blown backward.....and the heli can descend that bit faster without entering this 'vortex ring' .....the best way out of this is to either fly fowards....or backwards...in still air...or light breezy conditions it pays to descend nice and slowly.

Rob