Many years ago I was a competent RC airplane flier. I even competed in some pattern competitions. Getting tired of airplanes, I purchased a used Concept 30 gas chopper that I became proficient with at hovering. When I decided to attempt forward flight, I found that the chopper flew like my pattern planes only needing elevator and ailerons for turns and very little, if any, rudder. Problem was, I could never figure out how to transfer back from "airplane" mode to helicopter mode and the result was a nasty crash. I lost interest in RC and stopped flying. Last Christmas my kids got me a Blade CP+. I am becoming fairly good at hovering and thinking ahead to forward flight. After all the preface, my question is this. How much rudder does one need to use to make turns during forward flight with a CP+? Or, do you have to continuously use rudder to even keep it flying straight with only the 3 in 1 control unit?

You don't need that much rudder to turn. Then you will always have to put small corrections in to keep it strait without a HH gyro.

When your forward flight exceeds a certain speed, as you noticed the flight characteristics of a heli start to act very similar to a fixed wing plane. The rotor disk acts like a fixed wing and the tail rotor acts like a fixed tail, even in real heli's. In fact, there is a guy that makes small model heli's that don't even have a tail rotor, just a flat disk. Of course they can't hover but he just tosses them and goes straight into forward flight and they fly fine.

The gyro complicates matters a little bit because it's job is to reduce yaw, so you may need some rudder input to let the gyro know that yes, in fact you are turning and would like some yaw in there A rate mode gyro (which the Blade CP+ comes with stock) will allow the tail to come around a bit on it's own without a lot of rudder input (depending on the gain setting). It limits the rate of yaw, but doesn't hold a specific heading so the tail will come around as you turn (or even "weather vane" nose into the wind when hovering).

If you upgrade to a heading hold gyro, then rudder input is essential to make a coordinated turn since the gyro will want keep the nose pointed in the same direction (holding the heading just like the name says) regardless of which direction the heli is actually moving (flight path). If you bank to the right without rudder, the heli will "slide" to the right while still pointing in the same direction (like a plane would if you banked right with left rudder)

Most (if not all) HH gyros can also be switched to rate mode since rate mode may actually be preferred for forward flight due to less rudder input being needed.

Very informative!..thanks, GND2...John H.

Thanks for the input, I really appreciate it. I have a large lawn, 100 feet in length, and I have a plan for my first attempts at forward flight. I plan on moving the chopper forward for the length of the lawn, then coming to a hover and landing it. Next I plan on trying a square box around me. Finally, I hope to shove the throttle forward and trying some flight at a higher altitude. Another question. When going to full bore forward flight, should I shove the throttle full forward?

You have to balance your throttle, elevator and speed to maintain altitude. You can max out the throttle, but work up to that slowly, don't do it in the first few attempts.

From a hover, the more throttle you give it, the more forward elevator you'll need to keep it from climbing and the faster it will accelerate forward. As you pass that threshold in speed I mentioned above you'll experience "transitional lift" and the heli will want to pitch up and climb, so watch out for that. It's a balancing act that requires coordinating a number of controls in order to keep the heli going in the direction you want it to.

Instead of just flying straight ahead down the lawn, you might want to try slowly working from a tail-in hover to gentle side-to-side movements, but keep the heli pointing the same direction. Slowly work up to wider and wider movements as you become more comfortable. As your side to side movements start feeling natural, start turning the noise a little bit so that it's pointed more towards the direction the heli is moving. Then slowly increase the amount you turn the heli as you gain confidence until eventually you are doing 180 degree turns at each side. Then you can start working your side to side movement into a continuous figure 8 which will really give you a workout coordinating all the controls.

Lot of people find this site helpful for learning to fly heli's:
http://www.dream-models.com/eco/flying-index.html

Thanks gnd2 you are very helpful. I will be in San Diego February 14 thru 19 visiting my son in Ocean Beach. He flies a CX2. Maybe we could hook up and talk helicopters and, if you still fly a CP, maybe we could watch you fly.

Haha, I can explain it better than I can do it but sure, drop me a PM when the date gets closer if you want.

I've moved on from the Blade CP to the Honey Bee King 2 and Trex 450SE, but it wouldn't take too much work to get the BCP airborne again. It's just that the wind never seems perfectly calm here and even the slightest wind makes the BCP a handful and I got bored hovering in my garage