Regular heli - much harder to fly than a contra-rotating?

[dealmaker]

So I got an Apache 4 channel Heli (Contra Rotating blade one) for Christmas (luckily came with spare blades!)- now being the God that I am, with Lewis Hamilton like reflexes!....it wasnt long before I'd mastered it (well sort of) - but I can now fly it "nose-in" and make a fair hash of flying round the family room.

So thinks I - this is EASY - I will buy a regular 4 channel Heli as a short term step before I buy a full-blown 6 channel!

well blow me.....I got an E-Sky Honey Bee thing (was about £70) - 4 channel (non contra rotating) - and it's a bloody bugger to fly! It's MUCH harder than the little Apache - despite the controls being basically the same?

The little contra seems MUCH more responsive and reacts to control inputs almsot immediatley - whereas there seems to be a lag or delay with the bigger blades of the Honey Bee - the servo's react immediatley - but the rotor blades seem to take time to "bite" the air - and so you seem to end up "over flying it" - by using too much control input - and then having to quickly reverse the input - and then over compensating...and then....crashing....!

So question is.....is this a normal issue when one progreses from small contras to slightly larger Helis'?? If not is mine buggered?

[agric]

Firstly dealmaker, thank you for vocalizing my own shortcomings.

Like you I bought (if not the same) similar 'bell medicac'
Which was a bugger to fly, and bankrupted me in blades,
I had to rid myself of it ultimately, but not a day goes by without me hankering after another one.

Coolcatmaz put me onto a dealer not far from me so I keep patting my credit card pocket maybe once a minute
(I'm not neurotic) and I shall watch your exploits and follow your triumphs vicariously


Continue......

[halo34]

I would seriously suggest getting a reasonable sim (you can get them cheap with a controller if you just want to practice).

It will save you some frustration and crash cash !

I did everything the wrong way round, got a contra - thought I could fly ok then got a little Trex.

Pretty much destroyed the damn thing 4 times before going to a flying club. Their advice was sell the Trex, get a decent sim and save money for a decent nitro heli - which is more stable and more forgiving.

Sure enough I put in hrs of sim time, built my raptor and never had a single crash, bar a few low pass incidents.

Thats not to say the little electric helis arent any cope - they are just quicker and less forgiving to pilot error than a bigger more stable platform.

Its a great hobby so my advice is to stick at it but shelve the heli for a few weeks and get some sim time...sadly many people give up after getting sick of repairing their helis.

[Andyuk911]

I have been flying model helicopters since 1983 ! Trust me it is just practice and then like riding a bike ....

best thing you can do is find a club via the BMFA website... also get insurance !

[Wedg1e]

Funnily enough I was talking to a guy yesterday, whose house I was visiting to collect something I'd bought via Ebay... and his garage was full of helis! Everything from King2's and Belt CPs to a monster with 8 foot rotorspan and a chainsaw engine
I've always fancied an r/c heli and an hour of yakking with this guy had me grinning like a loon. He set up the PC simulator and I was away; nose-in, side-in, woohoo! Er, oops, mind that fence
Eventually I had to confess that I fly PC flight sims so I have an idea of what to do, the big problem was adjusting from a PC twistgrip joystick to the r/c version where the rudder is on the throttle stick.
Anyway I'm sold, it's me borthdee in a couple of weeks and I still have a xmas bonus burning a hole so it's off to Ebay we go
I live next to a field with lots of nice soft things to crash into and my garage roof will make an excellent helipad

So, straight to a nitro or kick off with a carbon King2...?

[dealmaker]

Well the Honey Bee met its maker today and is now residing in the bin!!!

Hard to fly in the lounge - so tried it outside - thought I was doing OK...but it got too high and I gave it too many beans.....ended up augering into the lawn at high speed from about 30feet!...ouch.........I don't think there was a single salvagable part aside from the battery (whihc was the cheaper NiMh anyway)!

So now thinking of getting one of those small "sub-micro" 4ch Heli's something like the Buzz-flyer one - that I can fly in the house without risk of total destruction!

http://www.buzzflyer.co.uk/Sub-Micro-RC-Helicopter...

[Viper_Larry]

dealmaker said:

Well the Honey Bee met its maker today and is now residing in the bin!!!

Hard to fly in the lounge - so tried it outside - thought I was doing OK...but it got too high and I gave it too many beans.....ended up augering into the lawn at high speed from about 30feet!...ouch.........I don't think there was a single salvagable part aside from the battery (whihc was the cheaper NiMh anyway)!

So now thinking of getting one of those small "sub-micro" 4ch Heli's something like the Buzz-flyer one - that I can fly in the house without risk of total destruction!

http://www.buzzflyer.co.uk/Sub-Micro-RC-Helicopter...

I feel your pain! 17 (yes, seventeen) of us bought the Honey Bee as a FIRST helicopter from a colleague who got a deal. I think most of them are in the bin. I tried, failed, repaired, tried, failed, repaired, etc... for months, then bought a contra-rotating one which is so much easier to fly. Spent a few weeks getting used to that and thought the Honey Bee would be easy after wards - wrong! It's in the loft now, where it will stay.

[bloodyniceben]

These contra rotating copters really are taking off ( pardon the pun! )

Got a Esky Lama V3 which looks the business, really getting to grips with it, zipping around the lounge, chasing the cats ( and the wife ).

Got a flight sim too, getting on with that aswell, while im learning i will be building a 50 size electric Airwolf using either Align or Thunder Tiger mechanics.

I am using electric because:

1. I have nitro cars and they can be a pain

2. I have nitro cars and they are filthy

3. I have nitro cars and they sound like a moped

4. Electric sounds almost like a turbine, and as this will be highly detailed, it should sound like the real thing too.

Used to have a Raptor 30 a few years ago, i spent so much time on the canopy etcthat i didnt want to damage it, so apart from the odd hover ( ish ) it never flew, sold it and now im so gutted as i really should have kept all the radio gear!!

I will hone my simulator skills on the T Rex before i insert it into the Airwolf fuselage, and hey presto.

I expect it to take about a year in all to complete.

Check out the youtube clip below, this is exactly what i want to do!!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ5i0Cxpml8

Ben

Edited by bloodyniceben on Monday 26th January 16:08

[Davi]

biggest difference between a contra rotator and a proper heli is how forgiving they are on set up. A "proper" heli requires properly setting up to be anything like controllable, and these ready to fly out the box examples are often anything but that.

Also to note - the smaller the heli, the harder it is to fly. My large nitro's will pretty much hover hands off all day long. My smallest (5" rotor) will hover hands off for a fraction of a second - a gnat farting next door creates enough draft to knock it off in another direction.

[Nevin]

I've got about 3 but I learnt on a Graupner E-Trainer and I'm still not very good. Contra-rotating ones are way easier to learn on though.

Have a look at Vario Helicopters UK site to see some awesome looking scale kits and a place you could spend a hell of a lot of money.

http://www.vario-helicopter.de/rumpfhubschrauber.h...

Personally, I would love one of these:

http://www.vario-helicopter.de/lynx.html?&L=1

Edited by Nevin on Monday 26th January 20:46

[halo34]

bloodyniceben said:

These contra rotating copters really are taking off ( pardon the pun! )

Got a Esky Lama V3 which looks the business, really getting to grips with it, zipping around the lounge, chasing the cats ( and the wife ).

Got a flight sim too, getting on with that aswell, while im learning i will be building a 50 size electric Airwolf using either Align or Thunder Tiger mechanics.

I am using electric because:

1. I have nitro cars and they can be a pain

2. I have nitro cars and they are filthy

3. I have nitro cars and they sound like a moped

4. Electric sounds almost like a turbine, and as this will be highly detailed, it should sound like the real thing too.

Used to have a Raptor 30 a few years ago, i spent so much time on the canopy etcthat i didnt want to damage it, so apart from the odd hover ( ish ) it never flew, sold it and now im so gutted as i really should have kept all the radio gear!!

I will hone my simulator skills on the T Rex before i insert it into the Airwolf fuselage, and hey presto.

I expect it to take about a year in all to complete.

Check out the youtube clip below, this is exactly what i want to do!!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ5i0Cxpml8

Ben

Edited by bloodyniceben on Monday 26th January 16:08

Exactly same reason I am going down the electric route this time with my heli. Got fed up with my old raptor, change in weather, blades, fart, sneeze and need to retune engine.

[Davi]

halo34 said:

Exactly same reason I am going down the electric route this time with my heli. Got fed up with my old raptor, change in weather, blades, fart, sneeze and need to retune engine.

What engine was that? I haven't had to retune mine in the 6 years I've owned it since initial setup! (actually that's a lie - I have once, but then it had just recovered from a rather substantial helicopter-earth-interface situation )

[halo34]

Davi said:

halo34 said:

Exactly same reason I am going down the electric route this time with my heli. Got fed up with my old raptor, change in weather, blades, fart, sneeze and need to retune engine.

What engine was that? I haven't had to retune mine in the 6 years I've owned it since initial setup! (actually that's a lie - I have once, but then it had just recovered from a rather substantial helicopter-earth-interface situation )

TBH most of the time it was ok, but it would suddenly go out of tune for no reason then was a complete "£$%£$%er to get right again. It was the OS engine as I wanted something with a bit of poke as I developed my skills - even the pro flyer in the club got frustrated with it one day.

I was one of these people that learnt to fly quicker than I built my technical knowledge so in the end I got hacked off when grounded w/o help and packed the hobby in.

Now I want to get back into it via eletric so its something less to worry about.

However having watched some videos of the smaller choppers its reminded me how twitchy they are

[navier_stokes]

Is it not because the Contra-Rotating are non-CP whilst the larger models are? But the CP models being more representative of a proper heli?

[speedtwelve]

dealmaker said:

So now thinking of getting one of those small "sub-micro" 4ch Heli's something like the Buzz-flyer one - that I can fly in the house without risk of total destruction!

http://www.buzzflyer.co.uk/Sub-Micro-RC-Helicopter...

I've got one of those; it's a cast-iron bd to fly initially. Very twitchy, as it's so light it has very little inertia. It's also divergently unstable. Great fun when you get it right, but that took me a few weeks and £70 worth of crash spares. Once muscle memory had dialled-in it was fine.

Out of interest my day job is Army helicopter pilot selection, and I still managed to smash the Buzzflyer into a hangar door at Warp Factor 9 the day I got it (note that I was flying it in an aircraft hangar, not my house. And still managed to trash it).

Good luck. They're great helicopters, but be prepared for more bills!

[Civpilot]

speedtwelve said:

dealmaker said:

So now thinking of getting one of those small "sub-micro" 4ch Heli's something like the Buzz-flyer one - that I can fly in the house without risk of total destruction!

http://www.buzzflyer.co.uk/Sub-Micro-RC-Helicopter...

I've got one of those; it's a cast-iron bd to fly initially. Very twitchy, as it's so light it has very little inertia. It's also divergently unstable. Great fun when you get it right, but that took me a few weeks and £70 worth of crash spares. Once muscle memory had dialled-in it was fine.

Out of interest my day job is Army helicopter pilot selection, and I still managed to smash the Buzzflyer into a hangar door at Warp Factor 9 the day I got it (note that I was flying it in an aircraft hangar, not my house. And still managed to trash it).

Good luck. They're great helicopters, but be prepared for more bills!

Agree with Speedtwelve, apart from the crashing into a hangerdoor bit. Thankfully the only spare I had to buy was a new balance bar.

I notice you've linked to the SE version, good plan, it's much easier to trim... although still a total SOB to master.

[Holst]

Civpilot said:

speedtwelve said:

dealmaker said:

So now thinking of getting one of those small "sub-micro" 4ch Heli's something like the Buzz-flyer one - that I can fly in the house without risk of total destruction!

http://www.buzzflyer.co.uk/Sub-Micro-RC-Helicopter...

I've got one of those; it's a cast-iron bd to fly initially. Very twitchy, as it's so light it has very little inertia. It's also divergently unstable. Great fun when you get it right, but that took me a few weeks and £70 worth of crash spares. Once muscle memory had dialled-in it was fine.

Out of interest my day job is Army helicopter pilot selection, and I still managed to smash the Buzzflyer into a hangar door at Warp Factor 9 the day I got it (note that I was flying it in an aircraft hangar, not my house. And still managed to trash it).

Good luck. They're great helicopters, but be prepared for more bills!

Agree with Speedtwelve, apart from the crashing into a hangerdoor bit. Thankfully the only spare I had to buy was a new balance bar.

I notice you've linked to the SE version, good plan, it's much easier to trim... although still a total SOB to master.

I would like to buy one of these mini helis but im worried about crashing alot.

Is it possible to connect these Buzz Fly copters up to a PC sim so I can get the basic controls learnt before I try and fly for real.

I learnt to fly planes on a PC sim and I managed a few flights with my friends plane with no accidents (no landings) although he has since destroyed it without my assistance.

[speedtwelve]

Holst

I spent a good while on a PC sim as well, practising on progressively twitchier and less stable 3-axis helicopter models before attempting to fly the 'real thing'. While good for the basics, i.e. training the muscle memory in your thumbs to instinctively apply inputs in the correct sense on the correct axis on the controller, I found the sim didn't prepare me for the actual control rates and amounts for the actual model that you own. Only when flying an R/C model for real will you learn to instinctively apply the inputs that your helicopter needs.

For example, when lifting into the hover on my R/C helicopter, I need to feed in about 1/2 deflection yaw pedal to the right as well as a little bit of right roll input, all in proportion to the throttle input to keep it stable when it lifts off. This is instinctive and sub-conscious now, but resulted in a few prangs in the earlier stages! Co-ordination is the key, and there's no substitute for practice.

The actual helicopter I have is a Walkera 4#3, of which the Buzzflyer is a rebadged version. AFAIK the parts are interchangeable. I bought the upgraded 4#3, which has an alloy rotor head and 2.4GHz datalinked radio. The whole lot was £80 from a UK supplier. I don't think the Walkera/Buzzflyer radio has a USB interface. I bought a 'simtransmitter' USB R/C control box for £30 or so instead. AFAIK there is at least one commercially available R/C PC sim that has the Walkera 4#3 as a flyable model, but don't know how 'accurate' it'll be.

[Holst]

speedtwelve said:

Holst

I spent a good while on a PC sim as well, practising on progressively twitchier and less stable 3-axis helicopter models before attempting to fly the 'real thing'. While good for the basics, i.e. training the muscle memory in your thumbs to instinctively apply inputs in the correct sense on the correct axis on the controller, I found the sim didn't prepare me for the actual control rates and amounts for the actual model that you own. Only when flying an R/C model for real will you learn to instinctively apply the inputs that your helicopter needs.

For example, when lifting into the hover on my R/C helicopter, I need to feed in about 1/2 deflection yaw pedal to the right as well as a little bit of right roll input, all in proportion to the throttle input to keep it stable when it lifts off. This is instinctive and sub-conscious now, but resulted in a few prangs in the earlier stages! Co-ordination is the key, and there's no substitute for practice.

The actual helicopter I have is a Walkera 4#3, of which the Buzzflyer is a rebadged version. AFAIK the parts are interchangeable. I bought the upgraded 4#3, which has an alloy rotor head and 2.4GHz datalinked radio. The whole lot was £80 from a UK supplier. I don't think the Walkera/Buzzflyer radio has a USB interface. I bought a 'simtransmitter' USB R/C control box for £30 or so instead. AFAIK there is at least one commercially available R/C PC sim that has the Walkera 4#3 as a flyable model, but don't know how 'accurate' it'll be.

Ive ordered the brushless version of the same heli

Now I know that I wont be able to plug my walkera transmitter into my PC I will buy one of those simtransmitters as well.

I will make sure that I do lots of sim practice before I try and fly for real.
Its nice to hear that you bought the same heli and didnt give up or destroy it

[Davi]

speedtwelve said:

Holst

I spent a good while on a PC sim as well, practising on progressively twitchier and less stable 3-axis helicopter models before attempting to fly the 'real thing'. While good for the basics, i.e. training the muscle memory in your thumbs to instinctively apply inputs in the correct sense on the correct axis on the controller, I found the sim didn't prepare me for the actual control rates and amounts for the actual model that you own. Only when flying an R/C model for real will you learn to instinctively apply the inputs that your helicopter needs.

For example, when lifting into the hover on my R/C helicopter, I need to feed in about 1/2 deflection yaw pedal to the right as well as a little bit of right roll input, all in proportion to the throttle input to keep it stable when it lifts off. This is instinctive and sub-conscious now, but resulted in a few prangs in the earlier stages! Co-ordination is the key, and there's no substitute for practice.

The actual helicopter I have is a Walkera 4#3, of which the Buzzflyer is a rebadged version. AFAIK the parts are interchangeable. I bought the upgraded 4#3, which has an alloy rotor head and 2.4GHz datalinked radio. The whole lot was £80 from a UK supplier. I don't think the Walkera/Buzzflyer radio has a USB interface. I bought a 'simtransmitter' USB R/C control box for £30 or so instead. AFAIK there is at least one commercially available R/C PC sim that has the Walkera 4#3 as a flyable model, but don't know how 'accurate' it'll be.

This is the one drawback with learning off a sim if you have no experience and no-one to help you. My Sim is set up with my actual helicopters, down to the last little detail - and I fly it off my 9x transmitter exactly as I would at the field (well, it's actually a back up 9x but near enough ) so that it really is accurate.

Couple that with a decent quality sim in the first place and you can really use the sim for every aspect apart from the fear factor (fear of stuffing your toy into the floor...)