General Yay, no training gear!

[zenmetsu]

I just worked up the guts to start flying without the training gear on my 250. It has been almost 50 flights since I dumb-thumbed. My only concern is mechanical failure and crashing since I expect repair costs to be much higher without the training gear. But man, what a difference in performance! I was able to bump up the gyro gain by 3%, and I am guessing that this could be from the decreased angular momentum.

Still trying to get used to the new visual profile without having those 4 orange ping-pong balls flying in formation with my heli, but I think that it was a worthwhile change.

Some have said that the added mass below the CG helps to keep the heli stabilized, but I am finding that the hover performance is much better now. I actually took my thumbs off the stick for about 3 seconds and she stayed put in the air. The heli definitely responds to cyclic input much faster now, but it is by no means "twitchier".

Anyways, back to flying my figure-8s and other boring stuff until I work up the balls to throw the thing upside-down for the first time.

 

[murankar]

I was very scared when I took mine off. I think I was premature when I did because I ended up putting them back on few a few flights. The heli will perform much better without that extra weight.

Congratulations on the achievement.

 

[zenmetsu]

Yeah, I have probably had them on much longer than necessary, lol.

I had the hardest time learning the nose-in hovering, made extensive use of the training gear during that phase. Even following Tony's videos, I did not get much relief. What did it for me was walking around behind the heli and flying around trees, etc, practicing turns while maintaining an approximate tail-in orientation. Over about 15 flights, I found myself becoming more confident and doing much more side-in orientation flight. Something just clicked, however, after about 25 flights or so. Now my biggest problem is orientation when the heli is considerably high in the sky, or directly overhead. I try to avoid those situations now, but that is what the SIM is for.

 

[concept30]

dont do the flips or upside down hovers just keep taken it easy without the training grear, i got a blade 450 3d cause i heard good things about it, wasn't to happy about the tail belt, I just got done crashing with training gear on, i guess something was wrong heli adjustments, Good luck with the Flight and remember to take it slow

 

[Tony]

training gear is good if you are still doing the "panic landings" where you just chop the throttle. If you are to the point where you can take off and land without tipping the heli over, then get that gear off the heli. The vibration it makes will jack with your gyro hard core as you found out by being able to raise your gain.

I used to put gear on my heli's when I was going to maiden them, but I don't even do that now. You just have to be ready for it to do something and correct it. You are right that after so much flying something just clicks and you get it. All of us that have flown get this feeling and things get easier. Just keep doing your figure 8's where you are turning tail in. Once you get that down pat, switch it up and do your figure 8's where you turn nose in. This will help you out, or it should as it did with me.

concept30, the belt is best for the new pilot as well as the intermediate pilot. It doesn't rob much power at all over a shaft tail and you will only gain a few seconds of flight time. The belt is the way to go IMO.

 

[stokke]

Congrats

Practice-Practice-Practice!

 

[Lee]

Well done mate. I had the biggest landing you can imagine on mine for the first day. Then i ha a hard landing and broke them, so they became short stumpy ones. As Tony said, when you can take off and land without mishaps, its time to get rid of them. The flying characteristics are so much better.

 

[nitro208ca]

Here is something ironic. I have never been able to fly with training gear.I tried them once and flow really badly, the min i stopped using them (second ) flight my fling was better.I know that im one of those odd people that do better flying without training gear then with.That was when i first got into helis