Where I live it is dificult for me to fly anywhere other than right in front of my house, but i live in the end of a court so trafic is not my problem; wind is. MY street channels wind so that even on the calmest of days i have atleast a slight breeze to deal with. I want to know all your techniques for flying in the wind, wether it be strong gusts or a calm breeze, i wanna hear it. So please tell, i am here to learn! Thanks in advance.

I would first learn to fly in the wind in an open area away from homes, cars, and people. You can be amazed at how fast something can happen especially if you arent use to flying in that condition. I almost lost my Heli in a big open area flying in the wind as a newby. I fought to get it back close to me and the wind kept taking it further and further away. I had to ditch it because it became a speck in the air and I couldnt tell whether it was comming or going. It took me about 1-1/2 hours to find in the tall sage brush. only damage missing z-link. Now, after much practice i can now navigate the wind pretty good. I can fly pretty confidently in 5-10 mph winds. Above that Im grounded. You always want to keep your nose into the wind as much as possible. In fwd flight you have to be careful especially comming out of a turn into the wind. If your nose is down, the heli will want to drop very quickly because the wind will be pushing the aircraft down. that is why you want to try to keep the nose close to level as possible. If your nose is to high and comming out of a turn and into the wind, your heli will want to balloon up quickly. One thing to remember the lower the rpms of the mainrotor translate into less tail rotor effectiveness. best thing Ive found to be able to fly in breezes up to 10 mph is to add weight. My added weight comes from my bodies such as the Bell222, huey, Hughes 500, etc... I also have made my own custom landing gear. 4-4 blade grips are a must. I fly using 4-4 blade grips all the time. And you have to practice. They say practice make perfect. Ive learned to just about do spot landings in the wind. when landing, remember nose in the wind.

Saturday I mounted a 2 oz. Dubro fuel tank on my LMH and I just had to try it out.....I was so determined that even 15mph wind gusts were not going to stop me. The 1st tank was fine....conditions were fairly calm. But on the 2nd tank the wind started again......it was as if I was in a wind tunnel.......I kept fighting the gust but it just wouldn't let up. I even said a quick prayer........finally I managed to land the heli.......at which time I removed the remaining fuel.....said a quick "thank you"......and packed everything up. That wind gust was pushing the heli in every direction...up/down.....westward away from me......it must have lasted 2 minutes or so. I believe that Darth is right....about 10 mph wind is the upper limit for the LMH and then you need plenty of room.
Mark

That yearning to fly sometimes gets the best of us when we want to fly.

Amen to that!

Well, the highest wind I've flown my Corona in is wind gusts to 30 km/h, approx. 20 mph.. Challenging but fun..

Luckily, I had my wife with me and have a video of the flight [link=http://www.cybertool.org/corona/corona.wmv]here[/link]. There was less wind at the beginning of the video. You can also see the Corona fighting the wind and pitching up in the middle portion of the video.. Wind gusts were high enough that I was having problems getting any head way..

Hi colstonman, I think Darth said most of it. But "blustery" and "change-able" winds are the most difficult to deal with. If the wind is producing a steady "blow" I don't mind flying in it at all (I live in England and if I was to wait for perfect flying conditions I'd probably never get to fly at all!)

One thing I'd add though is this: Always try to fly up-wind whenever possible. This way the wind will always blow the model back towards you and you'll have to work to keep it up-wind. This is much better than flying down-wind and then having to work to get the model back to you (although I know this doesn't help with "blustery" conditions)

Another thing I'd say is: Once you are competent flying in the wind, you'll be a lot more competent when it's calm. For me flying in the wind adds an extra challenge, and these days I enjoy the windy challenge just as much as flying in the "good" conditions we sometimes (rarely!) get here

Good Luck,

Tony

I also don't really mind flying in the wind... It's been said before, and I agree that 10 mph winds is about as high as you'll want to fly in. Then flying in a hover is really just flying foward flight... Slightly gusty wind kind of complicates things because then keeping your altitude in a hover gets pretty difficult because the amount of translational lift is constantly changing.

Be carefull when making a turn back downwind, the wind will tend to increase the rate of roll pretty quickly, and you'll concequently loose altitude pretty quickly as well.

Ha, I was just going to post the same question. I was flying in about 15-20 mph winds the other day and just couldn't turn(yaw) left. Has anybody else noticed this? I just couldnt turn left at all and everytime I turned all the way around right to come back another gust would spin it further right until I was going away again into the distance. I eventually managed to get it back and land it, said my thanks too, and packed up. I think the wind gusts may have slowed the blades and the torque turned the heli, not sure.

Hmmm.. What blade grips are you using? If you're using a 4 pitch and a 6 pitch, the main rotor speed would be pretty low in high winds, since you'd have the throttle below what you'd normally use for hovering, just to keep the Corona from going higher.. This will slow the tail rotors significantly, giving little to no left yaw authority since you are working against the normal rotation of the main blades.

I'm using two 4 pitch grips on my Corona and have also noticed this problem in high winds, but I can still make it yaw left, although at a much slower pace...

cherikeered, I was trying so hard to get back to my landing zone that I didn't notice if I was having trouble with yaw ( I was having trouble but you know why). I did notice something unusual though......the heli was wobbling.....not yaw but L/R cyclic during the wind gust. Maybe I've got some swash plate/linkage slop.....or maybe it's just normal with high wind conditions. Anyway I have learned something from the experience.......March sux.
Mark

Yes, i am using 2x 4degree grips as i found i had little-no controol with 2x 6 degree grips, and T.W., thatks, u've gived me something to look foreward to, a day with completely calm weather, i dont think i have flown in these conditions ever, so ya, thanks guys for all your help!

4x4 grips and series 1 blades on a nitro 117 vmax7, I did have a little left turning capability but it was VERY slow, then a gust would come and override it.