RE: Anyone Flying Esky V3 Lama?
J-Cube,
The Lama is very easy to fly once you get the hang of it. If you have not flown helis before, there will be a little learning curve involved but it's not impossible to be sucessful with it if you practice patients and practice often. Not to insult your intelligence, I'm going to start from the beginning on getting your Lama going as if you're totally brand new to helis. There may be others that read this that this will help as well...........
Initial set up is a real key in getting started off on the right foot. After you've charged up your battery that comes with the heli and install the AA batteries in to your transmitter, make sure you look things over on the heli to check things out before starting it up. Blow out all the little particles of styro foam packing that will collect on the plastic parts of the heli. Once you're satisfied everything is a go, center all the trims on your Tx except the throttle trim which needs to be all the way down to its lowest position. The throttle stick too needs to be all the way down to its lowest position and the Tx is turned on before you plug up your battery to the heli.
When all the above is done, you will turn your transmitter on first and then plug in your battery to the heli, making sure that it stays completely still after you plug it in. The heli takes a few seconds to calibrate so it's important that it is not bumped or moved until the little green light (that will blink during calibration) stays solid on the 4-n-1. Once you have a solid green light you're ready to start powering up the heli for flight. Be sure that you start out on a smooth surface like a hardwood floor or tile floor instead of carpet. You'll experience less problems this way and will save your blades, etc., because the heli will be able to slide on its skids easier once you apply throttle. You will, at first, always point the tail of the heli towards yourself. This helps keep orientation of the controls a little more user friendly because left is left and right is right when in this position.
The key to lifting the heli up in a hover is to not dilly dally with it but apply enough power to promptly get the heli off its skids and about 6 inches or so in the air. Otherwise, you will most likely just slide all over the place trying to get it in the air if you sloooooowly apply power. But on the other hand - DO NO just shove the throttle stick up to max power or you'll be in for a real surprise. This is something that you will just have to experience to see what I'm talking about.
Once you have the heli in the air, the nose will most likely want to turn to its left. This is caused by the torque of the main rotor. Instead of trying to correct this with your yaw (rudder) trim, bring the heli down, turn things off and remove the canopy and increase the porportional pot on your 4-in-1 unit. It is very small and hard to see, but look closely on the unit and you will find it. Look in the manual to see which way you need to turn the pot as I don't remember. Leave the canopy off, turn things back on and hover the heli. Keep adusting the porportional setting until you can get it as close as you can AND THEN use your rudder trim on your Tx to fine tune this setting until the heli's nose stays put. You will find that a freshly charged battery will keep things put better and the heli's nose gradually begins to want to turn left as you depleat battery power. So when this happens, you can either live with it by applying a little right rudder stick or re-adjust the rudder trim to compensate for this. I may have left out some things here and there but these are the "high lights" to setting up your heli.
Now, I've said all that to say this in regards to answering your questions above. Without proper set up, it is harder to fly the heli which in turn makes it waaay harder for a beginner. Even with a properly set up heli, it is a challenge for someone to learn BUT it is not impossible. Yes, you could fly the Lama "hands off" if yours is set up correctly however, I would not recommend it. Especially if you are a beginner!
My family members (wife and daughter) have both tried flying the Lama and with practice and instruction have managed to hover it for a short period of time. If they were to spend more time practicing with it, they would be able to fly it with no problems. Getting it off the floor in to a hover is the first obsticle they had to overcome. They wanted to slooooowly apply throttle to get it up which in reality makes it more difficult than it really is. But being totally new, they (as all of us are) reluctant at first to just give it power and get it off the floor. Once they got that down, holding it in place was the next challenge. Controlling a heli is not difficult once you get the hang of it but for a newbie, it is a real challenge that takes time and lots of practice to overcome.
So to sum all this up, helis are not for everyone but everyone that is interested enough to stay with it is more likely to be sucessful. If you do not have patience nor wish to devote allot of time to practice, my advise is stay away from them because you need both to be able to sucessfully learn to fly a heli. The Lama is an excellent starter heli for those who have the desire and patience to learn. This heli is about as easy as it gets and handles really fantastic besides just being tons of fun to play around with. It is one of the best investments that I've made because it has proven to be very reliable, well made and very affordable to boot. I would highly recommend it to anyone that wants to spend minimal bucks to give helis a try and wants to just have fun. Good luck!