kenh3497

I didn't read all the posts so here is my take on learning to fly RC helicopters. First off, when I learned to fly there was no such thing as a gyro so I will relay my experience of learning from that point of view. And, I may be old school but I still think that the gyro should be turned off for the first bit. I'll explain. Also, I'm assuming that you want to learn to fly a 30 or larger nitro or electric heli.

First of all, set-up is very important. Find somebody who can help with setup and understands that YOU are a beginner. I had neither when I learned. Once you have the bird set up, make sure you have a suitable training gear installed. Get the heli light on the skids but still on the ground (with the gyro turned off) and learn to control the tail. Make sure that you "fly the nose" and not the tail. By this I mean that you should concentrate on the nose of the heli as to which direction you want to yaw, right stick moves the nose right. As you learn to control the yaw make sure that you spend equal time looking at both sides of the heli so as not to become handed. To this day have a hard time looking at the right side of my bird becaues nobody told me about this handed buisness. If you get in trouble and the nose gets away from you SLOWLY close the throttle until the heli has stopped doing what it was doing. By slowly closing the thtottle I mean do not just slam the stick back to idle. This practice will come to bite you in the back side later so DONOT get in the habit now. If you never leave the ground you have all the time in the world to SLOWLY close the throttle.

Now that you have mastered the yaw control you can turn on the gyro and start jumping in to the air. Start as before by getting light on the skids. Now add just a tiny bit more power until you lift into the air. If you get in trouble, just slowly close the throttle, land and start again. You might want to try just closing the throttle immideatly after you leave the ground even though you arn't in trouble the first few times so that you get the feel of being airborn. Your choice here. You will make about six milloin of these tiny hops. Each hop will be a bit higher and longer than the previous hop. Soon, you will be two or three feet in the air and sooner or later you will have a bad moment and will have to SLOWLY close the throttle to land. Chopping the throttle three feet in the air is not the best thing to do. Here is where setup by somebody who understand beginners will help a lot and practicing to close the throttle slowly will pay off. Oh, make sure to keep looking at both sides of the bird to avoid at all costs becoming handed.

Some will progress very quickly to hovering and some will take a bit more time.. Once you have learned it you will not forget. You may get a bit "rusty", but you will never forget. Just keep after it, and soon you will be helping that beginner like you were a short time ago.

A note on practice. At first keep your practice sessins short. No more that ten minutes at a time. Wait for twenty or thirty minutes and then another ten minute session. A couple of sessions a day is enough at first. It takes a lot of brain power as a beginner and you will become tired before you know it and will stop learning. So stop while ahead and save your bird for another day. Once you progress to the forward flight stage you can lenthen your time in the air as you have leaned the hardest thing to do with a R/C heli.... HOVERING

Forward flight is a whole new ball game left for another discussion. Feel free to comment, I just might learn something, as I'm still a begeinner.........

Ken

edit; I'm going to copy and past this in the beginners forum where it really belongs.