Stupid questions from the Been Flying for ever department

Ok, so there are a few things I wonder about R/C helicopters (no laughing- you know you've thought of more crazy things!!!)-

Anyone ever fly in the rain? Successfully?

Smoke trails on a helicopter (like on the planes)?

R/C boat recovery? (I've done this one!)

Launched fireworks from their skids? (Done this too...)

Any other kinds of weapons on R/C helicopters?

Forward flight obstacle course?

Drop things from the helicopter?

Ever use that auto-horizon finding device from Futaba? Successfully?

Do any kind of SAR missions? With GI Joe? Barbie??

Put out any fires with a heli? (I've done the cup on a string and picked up water from the pool)

Ever chased your helicopter in a car while in forward flight?

Pulled a sign? (seen a flag done once)

Thats all I can think of to embarrass myself for now....Love to know your comments!!!

[darren_uk]

One of the things I've always fancied doing (thought about this way before I even got my model in 1998) is flying the helicopter in forward flight from a car :-)


Now then....there is a disused runway near me, might go down there with my friend sometime....


Some Full-size heli answers:

Flown in the rain? On one of my early solo flights in the full sized heli, I had to fly out to the training square. It started to rain... Taxying back to the tower, hardly being able to see anything through the rain being thrown onto the windshield, still an early beginner in my pilot's licence.... Quite an adventure!


Drop things from the helicopter:
No because I don't fancy it hitting the blades. And then one day..... I was hovering around the pad when (goodness knows where it came from) I saw this football-sized ball of tinfoil. Too late for me to do anything, I watched as it was swept up in my turbulence, up in the air, then down through the main rotor blades. Nothing seemed to happen, controls still OK. I continued flying. But I did notice an ever so slight oscillation, same frequency as the blades rotated.

When I landed and shut down, what had happened was a piece of tinfoil had wrapped around the leading edge of one of the (three) rotor blades, towards the end. Just enough to spoil the lift from that area of the blade hence causing the oscillation (I doubt it was from imbalance - wasn't that much tinfoil)



Chase a heli in forward flight? No, but I've raced cars I've seen in the fast lane of the motorways :-) I do about 90mph airspeed, so I wanted to see how I'd fair against them. I chased the Eurostar train once or twice too but that's before it gets up to speed.

Legal disclaimer: Never busting the 500' rule though (mustn't fly within 500' of buildings, people, cars, etc).

I travel around servicing digital xray equipment at hospitals that buy our equipment. yesterday I was at the University of Virginia Medical Center. Had to go to my car for something, and I was just in time to watch a Virginia State Police helicopter take off. Now I can't tell you what kind it was or anything, but it did have 4 blades. Quite an awsome sight watching it rev up to speed and then take off.

After that heli was gone, I noticed a pilot was standing beside the Medical Centers' heli that was still on the pad. I went over and had a good discussion with him. I told him about my hobby. He let me look inside the hospitals' chopper. This one of course was modified inside to acommidate a stretcher in the back. I talked with him for quite a while. made me late getting home, but all in all it made my day.