The day before my 450 Crash

[Ken Jackson]

Had the training wheels on because I couldn't get the tail shake out of it. Just hadn't taken them off yet. And it helps me see it, 500 or bigger is what I need to stick with. Anyway look how well this thing stuck the turns. Near the end if you see a fast moving object above me it was the guy in the blue car I buzzed a couple times. He was flying a 3 foot styrofoam plane with an FPV and had it wired to a monitor sitting on his front seat. He was up so high and flew horizontally out of site, it was amazing!




Heres my video the day before I crashed.

450 Following Camera - YouTube

Ken

 

[Doum066]

Nice Vid man,

You sure drive your bird with the training gear, i only used mine for my first few hovering, i took it off as soon as i could, it gives false protection habbit. Flying with it didn't affect your ballance? Anyways you sure give her a nice flying... i'm still scare to give mine a ryde. I'm no expert, but from my beginners experience, your tail wag might be your Tail Gyro Gain in your TX, being too high? And one advise if you're new, i've learn this, taking off on grass seems safer... but i discover, that, without the training gear, it can easily get the bird unleveled and get the tail rotor to spin in the grass, stripping the front or rear torque tube drive gear, i no more take off from grass, only concrete, asphalt or anything that stays level... striped a few gear set that way and grind some tail rotor blade on pebble trails.

I can't wait to feel confident as you do and starts doing circuits, my first crash really cost me a bit, and made my flying afterward nervous.... or scared.

Nice flying bro.

 

[Ken Jackson]

Thanks Doum066

I had a blade SR, it was so light I got used to flying with the trainer. Actually hadn't used it for 6 months. I did about 15 minor changes to the tail assembly and finally got it dialed in. I have moved the gain everywhere. It is now set at 32 or 35 and it was pretty awesome. Do you fly a simulator? It makes a difference, especially on keeping the learning cost down.

Flying with the training gear to me gives you excellent stability and solid orientation. The weight helps recover from abrupt movements quicker and doing rock a byes. Flybar birds only. You will fly more comfortable which gives more flight time. After a while you will have to part with it but if your breathing or heart rate still goes up every time you fly make it easier on yourself until your comfortable again. The other positive is you can set it down quicker if you need to. I do not take off or land in the grass unless I have the trainers on. I was using pavement but with the trainer it would do a 360 even on the slowest soft start.

Keep at it and you'll get some speed on when its time. If you don't have a sim try leaving the trainer on so you can do some figure 8s and get more flights. It may not look as cool but crashing in front of people is worse.

 

[Ken Jackson]

Doum066

Here is the next days crash, notice I took the trainer off. Maybe I should have left it on, hmmmm.

Crashed My 450 - YouTube

Ken

 

[Doum066]

Thanks Doum066

I had a blade SR, it was so light I got used to flying with the trainer. Actually hadn't used it for 6 months. I did about 15 minor changes to the tail assembly and finally got it dialed in. I have moved the gain everywhere. It is now set at 32 or 35 and it was pretty awesome. Do you fly a simulator? It makes a difference, especially on keeping the learning cost down.

Flying with the training gear to me gives you excellent stability and solid orientation. The weight helps recover from abrupt movements quicker and doing rock a byes. Flybar birds only. You will fly more comfortable which gives more flight time. After a while you will have to part with it but if your breathing or heart rate still goes up every time you fly make it easier on yourself until your comfortable again. The other positive is you can set it down quicker if you need to. I do not take off or land in the grass unless I have the trainers on. I was using pavement but with the trainer it would do a 360 even on the slowest soft start.

Keep at it and you'll get some speed on when its time. If you don't have a sim try leaving the trainer on so you can do some figure 8s and get more flights. It may not look as cool but crashing in front of people is worse.

Yep i have a sim (Phoenix 4), i flew for about 60 hours or so before i dare trying out my bird, i flew for about a week, around 2 packs per day, hovering with my training gear. On the week-end i went at our club regroup, which was indoor flying in a gymnasium because of winter time, but i started that week outside since the nve weather came. So that saturday a the club, one of the heli guy grabed his bird and we went outide, when w got to the soccer field, i then realised i forgot my training gear inside, and didn't felt to go back and get it, so i made my first try without the training gear.... thing went way better than that, avec ever since, never used the gear anymore.

The reason i crash is simple, no heli does actualy feel like a real T-Rex 450 Pro DFC with a AR7200BX (Microbeast)... in the sim i was doing pretty well... but that bird on idle up with no proper curves, does really, really surprise a beginner... i never was able to recover my gradualy out of control growing circles with bank turns... and ended up kissing some tree branches.. which, you can image the rest.

The 430 Pro DFC at normal is a demon, nervous for a beginner, at to that idle up curves, and the thing with the Microbeast, is, it has some preset settings in it, as for Control Behavior (Normal, Sport, Pro, Extreme and Transmitter.... by default it's set to Sport.... the main changes between each presets are D/R Expos... it made the bird so much sensitive to try on... so after the crashm i start playing around with curves, understanding stuf.. and the first thing i made was, change the control behavior to transmitter, which allows the use of the TX'S D/R Expos, so i was able to tame the monster down, i gave it positive Expo....

After a week of flying after my rebuild done, i now get confortable flying back the bird, no more shaking, i am now relax, and tonight i started some sorta circuits, but still i do lots of hovering, specialy nose in, lots and lots of nose in hovering, tail in forward flying, then turning 180 deg and bring it back to me nose in... I'm enough relax now that i fly in wind and stay cool and calm when the wind plays tricks one me I even fly at night in a parking lot well lighted. In a few day i'm sure i'll start doing circuits, i'm not in a hurry, i lvoe flying so much that even hovering please me

I've picked up hell of a heli to start with But one day i'll be able to fly like you do

 

[Lee]

Ouch!!! I don't think the training gear would have helped with that one. It was looking good until then.

 

[coolgabsi]

Nice flying though man!! Good job on that.



Crash...... Meh!! It happens ... The joy of building!! sorry it happened... But it's part of the fun!

Fly safe!! have fun!

 

[Ken Jackson]

Doum066

I don't know what others on this site think but I do not do much nose in hovering. I never fly towards myself. When I was learning on the little Blade Helicopters I flew nose in but once I advanced to bigger faster I stopped. It's not worth crashing over. Now if you can train yourself that initially I think that's better but not necessary to start flying. I fly every which way but nose in. If I have to go nose in its only for a few seconds.

Having said that the only time I do fly nose in at all is inverted hover. I decided on the simulator to pick either nose in or out for inverted and then stuck with it. Nose in inverted is nose out when you flip back over so it was the logical choice. I'm hoping my parts show up today for my 500 since its been 80 and sunny the last 3 days. I am much better with my 500 anyway.
Fun flights and good landings to you!
Ken

 

[Lee]

I cannot emphasise enough how important all the orientations are. It will only hold you back in the long run. Yes its fun to move on to bigger and better things, but your learning curve will stop dead in its tracks if your orientations are lacking. Do one full battery in each orientation and have your bailout move nailed to get you back to tail in if necessary. Do this and you will be flipping and flopping, doing circuits and other sports flying tricks in no time. Don't, and you will be drifting around for months and months.

 

[Doum066]

Doum066

Here is the next days crash, notice I took the trainer off. Maybe I should have left it on, hmmmm.

Crashed My 450 - YouTube


Ken

Sorry to see this vid. RIP :S

I'm not sure if the training gear would have helped, it was so windy, you still amaze me how much you kept control of your heli all that time. A friend told me that LiPos are not supposed to lost power when low voltage... but i swear i know when i fly mine (i know, only hovering and some closse moving) but when it's windy and it gets near my 5 min which gives about 30 % left on the pack, i'm having a harder time to fight the wind... but i'm gradualy raising my TH curves, so it fights anyways wind a bit more... but still dude, you sure give your heli some ryde.. i can't wait to make vids like that besides my basic maneuvers one I think i'm more of a F3C type guy than 3D, mt thrill is to control the bird in all orientation, speed.... flying an RC heli is because i know i'll never be able to fly a real one, or any plane so i enjoy flying it any kind of way... i find helis so graceful when doing nice bank turns. Which was funny, last evening flying my packs, one real heli took off from a yard near by when i was and went for a test ryde i think, landing a few min after doing a circuit... it was like a papa or mama goose flying with it's baby near by lol.. which also was funny, a kinda goose also landed besides me a few feets away..... odd evening that was

 

[Ken Jackson]

I think some of that is low head speed against the wind. Use standard mode to take off hover and check if she’s stable then go to idol up even if you are only hovering. 90-98% throttle isn't going to make it harder to fly, if anything it should make it easier. You control how squirrelly it is with your dual rates. So if you want to glide side to side you don't need 100% rate, so make it 60 or 80% so your stick will be less sensitive. Let the blade do its thing at a happy speed and depending on what you’re doing change your dual rates for how responsive and extreme you want it to be. On the simulator in idol up you control your altitude with blade pitch only the motor is at a constant RPM so get used to that now.

What you said about feeling false security using the training wheels (couldn't find your exact words) definitely applies here. Let the motor run where it’s happy one less thing to think about also. I pretty much fly wide open with full rates. If I'm just light floating around I'll drop the dual rate down and go to my 1st idol up which is 86%. But when I'm banking or flipping or rolling I want full power and full range of movement from my servos. Yes you can get in trouble easier but you have the power and stick to pull out of some things. So get used to the motor at higher RPM and keep your dual rates where you are comfortable with how she moves side to side.

My DX8 dual rates for my 500 with DFC head and 3GX Gyro/Receiver
Switch position 0 is 75 no Expo
Switch position 1 is 86 with 12 expo
Switch position 2 is 100 with expo of 20

I also run 15% Expo on my tail rotor so I don’t bump it when doing other stick movements. (May be DX8 Only Thing??)

Throttle Curve
Normal 0, 25, 50, 75, 100
Idol Up 1 85, 80, 78, 80, 85
Idol Up 2 95, 90, 87, 90, 95
Hold 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

Blade Pitch
All Modes
0, 25, 50, 75, 100

Light Hover I may temporarily change Normal to
40, 55, 65, 75, 100

I am no expert, so I would think there are a lot of differing opinions and the biggest is that it has to fit your style. This works for me. I will say since you seem a little apprehensive you might want to ask about backing off some of the roll rates because the default settings are pretty fast, I'm still thinking I may back them off a little. I haven't ventured into that yet.

Ken

You said you saw that real helicopter, On Feb. 7 this year an ambulance helicopter landed at this new hospital 4 blocks from my house. Two weeks later the same one or at least company flew over my office. That was icing on the cake for me that I would love flying RC helicopters the rest of my life.



Ken

 

[Doum066]

Woa, that is nice one. IT beats the little one i've seen.

Well as far as i'm concern, your curves are way too much for me for a start. I wounder if i would have start with a Flybar bird...My first goal, is to gradualy raise my throttle curves, i started at 0-60-75-75-75 as normal and 75-75-75-75-75 as idle up, and gradualy raise the 75 numbers, i'm now at 80, in a few days it wil all raise to 85, this way i'm not scared by the sound of the blades spining, i get use to it gradualy, that was cause sorta, my first crash, my old curves went from something like 70 in normal up to 90 in idle up.... that scared the **** out of me lol and was too fast and nervous, and i though a 450 Pro could shop a three...but guess what.. it doesn't lol, Mr. Tree Won... lol that'S why i tame mine so much for a starter, if not, way to nervous.. but i'm doing some slow circles now, when i get too nervous, i bring her in front of me, nose in... that's where my nose in training come in use.

Are you done rebuilding your bird?

 

[Ken Jackson]

They are aggressive for sure. I was taught that most maneuvers, rolls and flips are done around center stick. So there is no reason to keep the motor RPM as high when you have no positive or negative pitch. That's why I use the V curve. If your at 80 now I would try 80-75-70-75-80 and see how that works or you. I am going to drop my high one to 90-85-80-85-90. I am barely getting 5 minutes flight time so I'm hoping that helps.

Yes all back together but one or more bearings in the blade grips are grinding and I can't figure out which bearing. When its all apart individually everything seems OK but when I put it all back together I get the grinding feeling in the Grips. They are not smooth. Probably take a trip to my hobby store and see about some bearings.

I'm expecting a part for my 500 today hopefully it will come in and I'll have both birds back in the air.
Ken

 

[Doum066]

Well for now i'm fine with my cures, i'm not aiming yet for 3D or aerobatics, but when used to it i might try a V curve in real life, when i started training on the Sim, that is what i ad, a v curve, but again, all i was using before, was with the Sport settings preset from the Microbeast... with now, TX's D/R and Expo settings, anything would feel way less agressive, but for now, i still haven't yet went to our club's outside field which i joined this winter, so i fly in a parking lot after work, is closer so faster to get there, and there is lots of buildings near by, so i try to do close circuits and stuff... we'll see when i ge tto the field, i might be able to do larger stuff, allowing raised curves.

I exactly had the same problem when i rebuilded my 450, all was smoth, but when both screw tightened in the blade gribs/rotor housing, i started to feel grinding/stepping... i started to change both grips inside's MR84ZZ Bearings (4x8x3mm).. again, when not assembled, all was smooth, once the entire head reassembled, with the skew tightened toget in the feathering shaf.,.. felt the gripping... so i striped apart again the head and changed both main blade grip arm's outside MR84ZZ Bearings (4x8x3mm).. and voilà, then no more gripping, and each arms were now falling on their own weight, smoother than ever. See picture to show which one i changed, in case i miss names the bearings

 

[Ken Jackson]

I swapped the bearings with older ones but I just need to replace them, the spindle was pretty bent.

Thanks for the picture
Ken

 

[murankar]

In the light of progression yes you need all the orientations locked in. The folks of RCHN 2.0 were just discussing how orientation can hold someone back. They were talking about going into and out of funnels. Which is the best way to learn one and what you need to do to bail out. I am proof of not having my orientations down, I still get pucker effect while side in and I get terrified of nose in. Give me a sim and I am a god at the hovering stuff. I guess it's the fear of a crash.

 

[Doum066]

Well i guess it's different for all of us... yess i did lots, lots and lots of orientation hovering and flying in Sim... Lots of nose in.... and i can assure you, it saves me when i move around, still not confortable for full circuit (ok i got to admit that i'm not doing large ones, i try to master small movement, which is tougher, but when i feel it gets too far away, i bring it back nose in, i feel way more confortable nose in... why, i don't know, but i am way less nervous nose in... and i came up today at the flying field, the fact that, when nose in, you have a bigger surface to spot... when canopy is down you know your coming your way, canopy up, your going away from you, when level, there is a chance you'Re going backway a little bit, so you get the nose down a bit and bring it back.. tail in, when far away, not easy to spot if it's up, down... canopy is a bigger area to use as a reference... even with colored tail fin, rotor, it still harder to spot than the canopy...

As my first day i went to the flying field today, i found safer to spot my canopy coming my way than tail in,,, i rather see my canopy than quick give some cyclic tail down to brake... again it's different for all of us, but yeah when you get it way too far as a beginner, i really, really, don'T regret at all, all the nose in training i did and orientation in sim... but i agree side in is a bit tougher and nevrous when windy.... but with some training you get use to it.. but again, in real life and sim is difff.... in real life you have the fear factor of the heli comming your way...

But i swear to god guys... orientation does really help as a beginner... but yeah it's tough to learn.... at first you give yourself some trick to trick your mind/brain, ie, the trick i found was, when nose is... simply send the heli the way you DON'T want her to go... if she's drifting on your right (on her left) well simply give some right aileron since she is going your right.... sounds stupid but it works way better and trian your brain to react way faster than trying to analyse which side is which.... and after lots of training, now, it's became for me a reaction... i do it as reflex... when they say brain muscle training.. it does work.. now, i only got to get rid of one thing.... the fear factor of security zone... when training hovering, you get a kinda safe zone, close to you...but when starting to move around, it kinda scare the **** out of me when i kinda get too away from that zone...... when i get scare, i simply turn her so she is not side in (which doesn give a clue if shes coming your way or away) but when i turn, if shes tail in, fine, but, if shes nose in, i don'T get scared... which alows me to save some more maneuvers to bring it back.. instead of risking to lose her more while trying to turn around to get tail in, i simply correct her heading right away...

But damn flying an Heli is so much cool.... but so much hard.. i'm sure the bigger the heli, the easier it is.... a 450 can quickly get away from you and if too far eye sighting gets tough :S

 

[Ken Jackson]

I'm guessing your probably in the minority being a nose in flyer. Nothing wrong with it and in the long run you will probably end up being a better pilot. I agree with tail in at distance being hard to see. I was uncomfortable at first flying side in but if you twist your body slightly the direction you are heading then your brain can still think its right. That's why the figure 8 is good because your not really flying totally side in. All I did for a long time was hover, bank side to side and pyros. Once I started figure 8's it finally seemed like I was flying. I know for me I am not going to worry about nose in flight upright but I practice nose in inverted all the time. I have two bail outs. Upright, tail in and inverted nose in.


At 52 years old I know I don't have the reflexes and quickness as a younger person. I know this from playing video games with my kids. And believe me I evolved with video games. I started out on pong and look where things have gone now.

Your doing good the way you are approaching flying by focusing on the basics and we all look forward to hear your successes as you become more comfortable.

Ken

- - - Updated - - -

My 500 is back in the air. Check out fight and one normal flight with a few flips and rolls. I am only using my lower idol up and after charging the batteries I used I am definitely going to increase my flight time. Not sure how much yet. I was very nervous flipping at the lower head speed because I wasn't used to it and I was too afraid to do an inverted hover. But I'm sure it will be fine inverted at the lower RPM I just was too nervous.

Today is a new day!
Ken

 

[callsign4223]

I have a completely different system for maintaining my orientation. I found on the sim that I had no trouble with orientation of fixed wing craft. Something about it moving forward my brain just naturally sits in the cockpit. It may be from all the video games I have played. So all I do is pretend the heli is moving in forward flight, and the orientations come naturally to me. If I think about it just sitting there I can barely do side in.

 

[Doum066]

I have a completely different system for maintaining my orientation. I found on the sim that I had no trouble with orientation of fixed wing craft. Something about it moving forward my brain just naturally sits in the cockpit. It may be from all the video games I have played. So all I do is pretend the heli is moving in forward flight, and the orientations come naturally to me. If I think about it just sitting there I can barely do side in.

Well as i said, it comes all naturally, without moving or using trick anymore when your brain get's it as natural reflex, when i said i did lots and lots of sim before even dare trying my 450 Pro with training gears, i had over 60-70 hours in Sim, and on that a pretty good dozen of hours of doing nose in pattern, including side in.... and stuff, flying nose in, side in, in front of me, on my right, on my left and so on.... i guess the reason i started doing this, was simply because i knew, i would being way to stress in real life and i gave myself all the tools to avoid crashing.... I'm sure i would feel less stressed with fixed wings.... they do have the wings that are easier to spot if, vertical, sideways etc.. and some even have diff color patterns from under and over the wings, which from below also helps.... but in Heli.. not easy with a 450 size, with no colored stuff for a beginner.. specialy until you gauge up your confidetn distance, that'S where i am now, not panicking when it gets 50 feets or so away from the zone i want it to be, and doing circuits, or starting doing it, this happens a lot, thats why i was impressed with Ken'S video in this thread... i guess i envy him

I guess it'S my price to pay to jump in real life, from a coaxial up to a Blade 120ST indoor hovering, up to Sim then real 450 Pro DFC.