Learning a quad

[Western]

Sims. Hmm! I've got a Blade MSR and can hover it tail in no problems and nose in not too badly, but can I fly the thing in (or any heli) in Phoenix? No! I personally cannot get on with sims that much. I can fly fixed wing ok but not the helis, don't know why. Don't know if it's lack of visual feedback and reference points.
Anyway see if you can pick up a cheap MSR BNF to practise on. They bounce off the walls, floor, ceiling etc and you can pick it up and fly it right away. Great way to learn nose in. I was hoping to get back into larger helis a year or two ago and got one to get my hand in again. Fancy one of those flybarless MCPX now though.
Regards, Mark

[Jake Bullit]

Both of my brains are old.
What should I do? O:-)???:o^-^

[Flyboysee]

Thanks guys, this is all really helpful!

What I've done the last few days is keep fresh lipo's at hand and when programming at work gets too much, I take the quad out to 'unwind'. Ha!

I've been following a lot of the advice here - flying nose out and swaying, flying out fast and reversing same and edging past say 30 degrees right and left. All I can say so far is it is getting a bit more comfortable. I reckon flying an RC heli is way more difficult than flying a real one in the cockpit (when viewed wrong way round).

Thanks for all the great advice etc. - I'll try all methods.

Until then...



Richard

[venquessa]

I was hoping to get back into larger helis a year or two ago and got one to get my hand in again. Fancy one of those flybarless MCPX now though.

I can tell you the McpX is an awesome little machine.  I've just started to wear out the EFlite batteries that came with mine.  That must be 70-100 flights.  It flies very much like my 450 does, but indoors.  Haven't had it outdoors yet, but kinda looking forward to more room with it.

It has had about as many crashes as it has had flights and 9 times out of 10 it just gets back up again for more without any new parts.  The stock swash plate bearing pops out on a hard impact.  When I CA'd that in, cause it was annoying, I started to brake the plastic blade grip links, but you get 4 spare and another 4 is like £2.99.  I snapped the carbon fiber tail boom, but the new extended V2 tail boom with motor fitted was only £8. 

I have tried to flip it indoors, but through rushing the manouver I have not managed to get it upside down even with enough height to complete the manouver and it's a testament to the things robustness that crashing from a half completed flip onto carpet did little or no damage and I kept trying until I broke another blade grip link and decided it just wasn't going to happen in such a small cramped space.

Definately worth the £110 or whatever they fetch these days.

PS:  One weakness of the McpX that can be a bit annoying is... it's massively susceptible to enter "ring vortex" descents.  If you descend at anything more than a subtle rate it get caught in it's own rotor down wash and sometimes takes full collective to come back out, sometimes it doesn't get back out and lands hard on the skids.  Technically the best idea is to not firewall the collective but to tip the heli forward (or any direction really) to get transitional speed and it gets out of it's own wash.  But not always easy to do indoors.  It does make an awesome sound when it's doing it through :)

[Ratty]

Take your mCPx outside, you will love it. Youll be suprised at how much wind that little thing can handle.

[ak47]

Now while doing the 8s the model flys towards you and you turn out to go round and do the 8s and complete the circuit. Now you slow down the flying towards you and you'll stop and be nose in. if you have an issue you'll just turn out and continue the figure 8 as you'll be used to the escape route.

Might be a bit late for my comments but this theory above is spot on. This is how i learnt nose in but also made the transition to inverted flight and backwards flight - Small steps and keeping just within your comfort zone are the answer. If you can afford it i would get a second hand Thunder Tiger Raptor 30 and a big old training undercarriage. That way you can also practice with the heli just going into a hover but just touching the ground. Any problems slowly reduce the throttle to idle without damage. That seemed to work for me too. This doesnt work to well on the micro helis because of the ground effect.

Ant

[Liam B.]

i have a blade MCX2. When i fly nose in through rooms/corridoors in my house I can manage the rudder and forward flight fine. I just loose it on the roll. I'm getting better though! Nothing is better than actual stick time though. I was given a copy and transmitter of Reality craft. It helped a lot but it is not as good as actual stick time. Just get out and enjoy your helicopter/quadcopter!
Liam

[Dizzy]

Thanks all, especially for that very comprehensive insight Paul. I think the very reason it's such a struggle is because control nose in is very counter intuitive and it's great to hear it is mainly psychological :) that I can work with!

Surely then FPV is easier than LOS?

I thought i would mention flying nose in was natural for me until a few years ago, i had a tia which knocked me about a bit its taken four years to start getting my coordination back properly, i would just like to add that flying forward and turning in to your self will give you the confidence to finally stop in the hover and old her steady just take it easy one step at a time  :D
dizzy