Newbie trying to Hover _ Help

[greddy]

I bought a esky honey bee 4 recently with trainners...
After reading some post on set up, i have been trying to hover the heli, but to no avail.
Need some help guys,...
I can get the heli to float on the trainners but everytime that happends, the heli tends to float to the left, it cant stay put hovering.. is this the norm? Do i have to constanly adjust when the heli to hover? or should it hover without me adjusting constantly?

Thanks, it would really help.

[dark_fox]

You have pretty much just started your first hover.

RC helicopters arn't like their large brothers, they require constant attention, and they never hover themselves. The moving to the left you can see, thats natural and happens with almost every RC heli (some excluded). The reason behind it is the small rotor on the rear of the Heli creates thrust, the thrust stops the helicopter from spinning, but also pushes it slightly along. As you gain experience you naturally compensate for this slight left movement at low altitudes. After lifting about 5 feet this effect usually seems to disapear, or at least feels like it.

To hover the heli, you will require constant attention, watching how it moves and reacting. The best place to hover for the first time is a large indoor area. At first, let the heli get light on the base, so it slides around, then make it slide around the ground. Get used to which direction goes where, getting a sense of what the controls will do.

After you are sure you have a grip on the controls, slowly give it throttle till it just lifts off the ground. From experience, let the heli go down straight away. You will be shocked and/or over excited that the Heli flew and in most cases that leads to a crash.

Be calm, learn to hover it at a safe height (Just off the ground) within a small area (1x1m square is a good start, then work it smaller.) Once you have got this down pat, lift it a little higher, a foot or two. You will notice it seems to hover easier at higher altitudes, this is also natural (And thus the reason you learn to hover it low first.) From then on its about learning now a Helicopter moves, getting used to keeping it level.

Remember, no matter WHAT you do with a Heli, it will always start hovering, and end hovering (Unless your crashing) so untill you master hovering, you can never master flying. Also, simulators help a huge bunch here. They help you get a grips with the controls, and gain some sense of balance. Remember, unlike a plane, Heli's won't always fly in the direction of the nose. Watch the cone that the blades make, and keep that level.

::EDIT:: I almost forgot, make sure the tail is pointing towards you at all times when you first start hovering. When you fly with the nose pointing towards you, all the controls are reversed. Nose in hover (as they call it) is best to start once you get good, or even master hovering with the tail in.

[greddy]

thanks for the heads up...
Your reply is really more then i expected, very detailed..
this helps as it would point me in the right direction and telling me if im doing things right.

Thanks again.

[dark_fox]

These things are challenging at first, and the challenge never seems to stop. But the satisfaction of finally getting one to fly under your control, and where you want, makes up for it in the end. I still love flying my little Coaxial Heli around the house, landing it on things. I have landed it on just about everything in the house, yet no matter how many times i do it, its always challenging.

Plus, the adrenaline rush when you first get it off the ground never goes away, at least not for me.

[chaos]

hello greddy.

the heli tends to float to the left

The single rotor contraptions are gonna do that in a hover. Like dark_fox says, it's because of the tail rotor thrust and you just gotta lean to the right a little to compensate. This is true of full size helis also. In forward flight the air passing the vertical fin helps keep the heli straight so you can get away with less tail thrust and so less of a lean is required. Also, when you're moving forward or high up any drift to the left is less noticible.

If you were to lift off very slowly, little at a time, the left side of the heli should come off the ground first, so that it's leaning just a little to the right to stop the drift, then the left side becomes airborne. And backwards when landing very very gently... the right skid contacts the ground first and then the left side comes down. But to avoid any risk of tiping the thing over just lift it off and then tilt a little to the right to stop the drift. And for landing, get a good stationary low hover and then just set it down pretty quickly. With trainers on you can more safely keep the right side on the ground when the left side is off the ground. It doesn't take much of a tilt to stop the drift so be careful not to get a big tilt going. But you can "keep one foot on the ground" so to speak, if it's the "right foot", and that will stop the drift.

The main rotor is the thing that's doing the flying. The rest of the heli is a support package for the main rotor. You're flying the main rotor so you need to be attentive to what it's doing, in terms of tilt. Try to keep it close to level. If it gets tipped very much it will soon be hauling in some direction or another. Avoid the habit of looking at the training gear because you won't have a reference when you remove it. Get used to looking at the "rotor disk"... the blur that you see when the main blades are spinning. Don't let the rotor disk get tipped very far in any direction. Keep the tail pointed towards you, keep low to the ground, and keep the disk close to level... tilting it a little in whichever direction you want to go. Cut the power if you get confused or things get out of hand. If you're dangerously near some obstruction don't try to fly it out of that area. Just land, pick it up by hand, and move it to the center of your operating area. If you crash be sure to cut the throttle immediately. But you won't crash if you stay low... the training gear will save you.

should it hover without me adjusting constantly

It ain't gonna do that. Helis are not very stable contraptions. Flying them is a busy activity. If it's set up very well, and balanced very well, and there's no wind, it may hover for a short time by itself.

[egale eye]

I am a airplane piolet but I have a heli and I know that you have to constitly move the ruder left to nose the heli right or move the ruder to right to nose the heli left. I hope I was some help to you just let me know if you need more help at rtworek15@yahoo.com.

[Bagman57]

Hello all,

I'm new to RC heli flying and just got a new ESky Honey Bee King 2. I came across this helpful site and read all the heli setup and flying articles by Val Campos. The problem I'm having is my heli wants to pitch backwards when "light" on the training skid or just about to hover. The swash plate is level all the way around and moving the pitch trim all the way up doesn't stop it. I even added more weight on the front to balance it out but that didn't work. Also nothing is ever mentioned about the paddles and/or adjusting them in anything I've read.
The only way I can get the heli to lift off level is to tilt the swash plate forward a lot witch just doesn't seem right. Am I missing something in setting it up right?

[JukeBoxGuy]

Originally Posted by Bagman57

Also nothing is ever mentioned about the paddles and/or adjusting them in anything I've read.

The paddles should be parallel to the paddle control frame as well as parallel to each other.