Getting More Comfortable with Rolls

April 16, 2009 on 7:53 pm | In 3D, Flying | No Comments

I’m pretty confident in doing rolls now. They’re still a bit sloppy, but I think I need to increase my pitch/aileron swash mix a bit, and I’d like to upgrade the motor. When flying the Trex 450 in the RealFlight simulator, my rolls are all really clean and tight, and I think it’s because the sim uses the 450XL 3550 Kv motor, while my actual helicopter uses the 450L 3150 Kv. I think I also just have more confidence in the sim since if I crash, it doesn’t cost me anything.

Another modification that I’ve made that may tighten up my rolls that I’ve yet to test is in reprogramming my Align RCE BL35G ESC. This ESC came with my 450SA kit, but I never found any instructions on how to program it until recently. It is the newer “G” model, and unlike the older ESC versions, has 5 programming options. I realized that my 5th option which controls the throttle response speed was set to “Low” (1 beep), and have since changed it to “High” (3 beeps).

You can find the manual for the Align RCE-BL25G and RCE-BL35G here:
http://www.align.com.tw/html/en/c_rindexe.htm

It’s been really windy here lately so I haven’t taken it up in a while. Here is me doing some rolls from a few weeks ago though (forgive my retarded commentary):

Installed the CopterX Head, Did my First Roll!

March 21, 2009 on 7:19 pm | In 3D, Flying | No Comments

As mentioned in my previous post, I totaled the stock, plastic SA head attempting a roll. In hindsight, there were a lot of problems with my last attempt. I had the flybar weights on, and my swashplate settings weren’t set right. My pitch was also set up improperly, and when I went inverted, I didn’t have enough power to pull me through the roll.

Instead of trying to rebuild the plastic head, I ordered the CopterX head from ebay for $40 shipped, and it’s beautiful. No vibrations and very stable flight. I really can’t see any difference between this and the Align head that costs 3x as much. Hopefully my next crash won’t be as bad since I now have a metal head, but if I ever total it again, $40 isn’t too bad for a quick fix.

Today I tried the roll again, this time with the aforementioned adjustments, and I pulled it off! It wasn’t pretty and I was nervous, but I did it. My wife only got the first one on tape, the second one looked a little better, and hopefully tomorrow I can give it a few more shots. It really is a lot like the Realflight simulator so in the mean time I’ll keep practicing on my computer.

Back to the Simulator

January 28, 2009 on 11:23 am | In Flying, Simulator | No Comments

Most people these days will tell you to spend your first $200 on a simulator instead of a real helicopter to learn how to fly. As true as this might be, I was much more interested in buying the real thing and just paying the price in replacement parts. In hindsight, which is always 20/20, I would have saved a lot of money had I done the simulator first, but it definitely wouldn’t've been as much fun. Now that I can hover in all right-side-up orientations and fly simple circuits with confidence, I’ve decided to go the simulator route to learn the next level of flying.

Learning to hover and do forward flight isn’t too difficult, particularly if you use training gear and keep most of your flying only a few feet off the ground, even the worst crash from that height isn’t going to be too pricey. The other day, I lost orientation in my Axe CPv3 at about 30ft, and I broke/bent just about everything in the rotor head. So about $50 worth of ordered parts later and I decided to start flying in RealFlight G4 to learn more advanced maneuvers and start practicing some simple 3D. G4 comes with the Axe CP, and the T-Rex 450 is available as a download from the Knife Edge website. The physics of both helicopters seem to be pretty accurate so far, and virtually wrecking the T-Rex is a lot less disheartening than the real thing. I do however try to treat each flight as if hundreds of dollars were riding on it, and have only had a few disastrous crashes.

Once I get my replacement parts for the CPv3, I’m going to try some simple rolls and flips on the real thing that I’ve perfected in the simulator. I usually try to fly with a bit of wind on the simulator too just to be prepared for what it actually is like. I also can’t seem to keep the helicopter very stable hovering inverted. I can usually keep it inverted long enough to figure out the orientation, but since 2/3 of the controls are always reversed, I haven’t been able to do it naturally like I can hovering nose-in/tail-in (right-side up). I’ll be sure to film it when I try it with the real thing. I’m sure it’ll make for a fantastic crash :)