Ya, crashes happen. Best thing to do is get back up as soon as you can and just take it easy the first couple flights to get your confidence back.

Nose in - there are two different methods people use to learn:

One is to do figure-8's and make them rounder and rounder so that as you come through the middle you're closer and closer to nose in, then when it's nose in slow it down a little bit, each time getting slower and slower until you bring it to a hover. Pause for a second in hover then continue the figure-8. Then each time you come around, pause a little longer and eventually add a correction or two. Slowly work your way up, just like inverted hover.

That didn't work well for me. I just got too freaked out as the nose came around on me. With more time and patience I'm sure it would have worked eventually, but the second method worked much better for me:

Start over. Remember how you first learned to hover? You found a nice flat area and set the heli down tail in and just kept practicing tail in hover until you were solid. Well, do that again but nose in. Nice big flat area, set the heli down nose in, scoot around on the ground a little to get comfortable with the direction. Forget what you've learned tail in, it's all backwards now. Clear your mind and let it absorb the new orientation without trying to think too much about it. Don't remind your self that it's the opposite of tail in, just watch how it reacts to your stick movement and let it sink in. Very zen. [8D]

I got the hang of nose in much quicker doing it the second way, but everyone is different, you just have to see what works best for you.

BTW, one of the worst crashes I've had was learning nose in. I was only about 8 inches off the ground and started to lose it so set it down, guess it was at a bad angle or something and the thing just exploded. I just looked at it with wide eyes going "what the **** just happened???" (haha, this thing filters out w, t and f ) The rotor had hit the tail boom and just wiped the thing out. I couldn't believe it. I've planted my HBKII straight into the ground upside down from 10 feet up with less damage then that one from 8 inches.

But, eventually I got the hang of it. Didn't take as long as tail in hover since it's still the same feel, just gotta get used to the different direction but you'll get it. After nose in I started doing circuits and reverse figure 8's. With normal figure 8's the tail is mostly in the whole time, the nose never crosses you, with reverse figure 8's the nose crosses you each time around, good practice, not easy to learn (again, I freak out whenever the nose comes around, still dealing with that but getting better ). I did all this before attempting a loop. Actually, my first attempt at an inverted maneuver was a roll with the HBKII before learning all this. It ended as I described in the paragraph above [:'(] so I didn't try anything inverted again until I was doing nose in, circuits and reverse figure 8's with some confidence.

It'll come, just remember, fixing 'em is half the fun


Thanks. Just work up slowly starting with stall turns like I said. It also helps if you know someone that can do loops and have them fly your heli to make sure it's setup properly. I felt MUCH better about trying it the first time knowing that the heli would be capable.

Oh ya, and get comfortable flying with some altitude and distance from you if you aren't already. I had to make an effort to get used to that as well as I kept it in really close for quite a while. Altitude is your friend when trying something new