450 Blade 450 3D Tail waggle

[Bradsd]

Alright I am a little over my head with this brand new heli but Im not going to do any 3d for awhile. But anyway on my first hover flight today the tail has a waggle in it, actually pretty bad. The waggle is sorta quick and violent but doesnt do it all the time. The tail was not as stable as I expected it to be either. Seemed I had to adjust the direction often. Only hovered about 6 feet high because this issue had me a little worried. Any ideas on what my problem might be, this heli is brand new out of the box on a Spektrum 6dxi set up on the intermediate settings. I am thinking maybe the gyro is over sensitive but not sure. Thank you for any advice in advance.
Brad

 

[Tony]

I'm thinking you are thinking correctly. Go into the gyro menu on the TX and see where the gain is set. On that Tx, anything over 50 is heading hold mode, and under 50 is rate mode. You should never have to use Rate mode for anything other than setting up and centering yoru tail blades before takeoff.

The farther you get away from 50 in each direction is going to add gain in the respective area (HH or Rate). A good setting that I used to start with was 65% for heading hold and 35% for rate (position 0 for HH on the switch and position 1 for Rate). Try lowering the rate in HH mode by 2% and hover it and test it out. It may take a bit, but you will get it.

As always, don't hesitate to ask questions.

 

[Bradsd]

Thank you Tony, I think I am like 73 or 76. Would it be possible for you to give me a little education on the HH or Rate mode. I'm gonna take a guess but heading maybe is keeping the tail straight when no input has been put on the stick but what is rate mode? One other note I am flying on normal to start out havent tried the idle up yet. Anyway I plan to do what you said as soon as I get a chance to get the heli out again. Thank You!

 

[Tony]

You bet I can. Schools in *bell rings*

Think of the heli as a clock. If you are looking down on the heli, the nose is facing 12 O'clock.

In rate mode, if a gust of wind hits the tail and moves the nose to 3 O'clock, Rate mode is going to STOP the movenent at 2 O'clock to stop the tail from moving.

In HH (Heading Hold) mode, if the same gust of wind hits the tail and again moves it to 2 O'clock, the gyro remembers that it was at a heading of 12 O'clock and will move the nose back to 12 O'clock from 2 O'clock where the wind pushed it to.

When we are saying heading hold, we are talking in aircraft terms meaning the heading of the aircraft. I'm sure you have heard pilots say "maintain a heading of so and so degrees". This is what the gyro is picking up and in HH mode will try it's best to keep it in the same heading unless you tell it to move to another heading.

This is why in HH mode, if you are on the ground and move the rudder, the rudder blades will stay pointed in the direction you moved them to. You told it to go to so and so heading, but the heli is not moving and it will keep giving an input until it reaches that heading.

When you are about to take off, if you flip your gyro switch into rate mode then back into HH mode, it will center the tail blades so that you are not fighting the tail on takeoff.

Hope this helps explain it a bit. If not, let me know what is unclear and I will try to clear it out.

*bell rings*

Schools out

 

[Bradsd]

Wow nice teaching there, wish I had someone like you to hang out with while I go thru this learning process. I been flying planes for 18 years but started on a Blade Nano and heli-max axe 100 about a month ago. I found the 450 blade on a crazy sale for $160 and even though I am not ready for it I just couldn't pass it up at that price.

 

[Tony]

I can understand that. Trust me, with enough practice on teh sim and outside, you will get the hang of it in no time. You already have the orientation down with the planes while in FF, now you just need to get the hang of it while in a hover or in reverse flight unlike a plane can do.