I was working on my CX2 last night, trying to tune it up in a limited space and I was getting frustrated that I could not afford to really get it up above ground effect because of the space limitations. I kept thinking "if only I could tie this thing to the ground and see what she does under more than 60% throttle..."

Has anyone ever tried to actually create a tether line to anchor the CX2 and only allow it to travel X # of feet in any direction? My guess is yes, but would it provide any useful data?

Should I just suck it up and wait until I can fly in more space?

When she's tuned up for hands-off hover, I have no problem flying her in the house, but when she's not, I can end up wrecking her worse by trying to fix her.

Yeah I dont think this would be a great idea -- go back -- way back to the very first Superman, the 1970's or early 80's one (i wasnt born yet so what do i know) -- remember when that Heli got that cable wrapped around the landing skis and it came crashing down? That is what I predict if you try to tether your bird...most likely it would come crashing down on the side and distroy your blades and rotor heads.

Yeah, certainly if you DID do this, you would have to attach a string to each skid at the support and then tie all 4 of THOSE strings together to another string on the tether. The string on the tether would have to be mounted such that it could travel in a hemisphere-shape without binding.

Lord, I wish I had a bigger basement! [:@]

You'll have to find the EXACT center of gravity on the little thing, which is gonna be hard, to say the least.
Next you'll have to attach your tether onto the CoG and make sure the tether is straigth as an arrow.
Then you'd have to loose your skids, as the tether would probably get caugth up in them as it drifts aside...

So I'd say: No go .

But why would you want to anyway? If the space is too small to fly around in, you wont be able to trim/adjust things properly anyhow!
Ground effect, backwash, upwash, if low, downwash, etc etc! To see what it does under X% throttle, just firmly hold the thing :P.
Or invert your blades so that it pushes itself down

I know... it WAS a far-fetched idea. I'll go back to doing it the way I always have: adjust - fly - adjust again - repeat until correct.

For indoor tuneups I use a slippery table top. You can bring the power up slowly and get almost to a hover and the heli will rotate if the proportional is off a bit and it will slip on the table top toward whatever direction it would wander off in if it was in the air.
Because it's in a ground hover, it will not sit perfectly still no matter how perfectly you set it up. But when it's trimmed correctly you should be able to 'drive' it around the table like an rc car. Work the tail, work your directionals learn to slalom, parallel park move in all directions without ever leaving the table top. Strips of wood around the edges of the table prevent skidding over the edge. I set mine up on a 4 x 4 piece of sanded plywood finished with polyurethane and wax. It fits behind my workbench standing on edge and is a great tool for tune ups.

i have heard of people using lazysusans for that purpose. bolt/tie/whatever the skids to it, trying to line up the main shaft with center of the lazy susan. power up and spin away!!!!

PS. would you not tie the string directly under the shaft, since in a balanced heli that would be the cog? course, not much to tie to, but thats where the COG would be, i think.