sed6

All-
I'm about three gallons into my Raptor .50. I'm fine with tail in hover and am getting proficient at nose in hover too. I'm not bad in slow sideways and psuedo forward flight. My problem is staying oriented to the heli. Sometimes when my heli is facing 45 degree away from me my brain will tell me it's actually facing me at 45 degrees and I'll get disoriented and almost crash! This happens only when the bird is above my head and more in FF than hover. Along the same lines, when in FF passing myself I have a difficult time keeping it level, sometimes my brain will tell me the bird is rolling when in fact it's level, and vice-versa.

I need some tips to overcome these orientation problems. I can kinda overcome the roll/level issue by watching the landing gear, but I think I read somewhere that is a bad habit to get into. I welcome any suggestions.

-Scott
OKC, OK

Sawdust48.5

This sounds like something I might soon experience. I'm going to start practicing a pirouette next week. I think orientation will be improved by having certain parts of the heli painted different and bright colors. That's why I bought the 2 piece canopy off ebay. It's bright yellow. A friend of mine is going to 2 tone it for me. This should help with orientation. I'm considering the tiny battery operated flashing lights offered on ebay.
Just my thoughts. Maybe it will help you.
Dennis

hellofacopter

PRACTICE..... PRACTICE..... PRACTICE. If you're not crashing, you're doing good. Just keep burning fuel. You will get it.

You might want to practice more hovering so that the heli is closer to you to get more comfortable with the orientation. When I learned to hover, I started tail in (12 o'clock), then learned hovering 90 degrees (9 o'clock and 3 o'clock). Then when I was learning nose-in, I just couldn't do it. The copter would get away from me and I'd have to bail-out. So I started going a little beyong 9'oclock to 8 o'clock. When I got out of control it was immediately back to tail-in. then practiced at 7 o'clock and eventually I made it to 6 o'clock (nose-in). One thing I forgot to mention is that I taped a very large 'R' to the right side of the copter and an 'L' to the left side. I used bright RED so I could easily see it. This really helped so I knew which way to move the cyclic. If I could see the "L" I knew which way the copter was going to go. After I could do this in my sleep I started doing it to the right, 3 o'clock, then 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock then 6 o'clock (nose-in again, only from the right this time). Piroettes are now very easy.

I always have a plan for every flight I make and have a bail-out plan.

I also have to mention that I learned to do this all in a 40 by 60 area of my driveway. I have a house on 1 side, large shed on another, and dense trees on the other two. The rest of the driveway is overhung with trees. So I didn't have a lot of room for error.

Hope this helps, it really helped me alot. I thought I would never hover nose-in.

Good Luck,

Sawdust48.5

When I first started hovering on realflight , a pirouette was IMPOSSIBLE. I took it 1 step at a time. after countless hours of basic hovering, I started working the baby steps in a piro. tail in, tail at 8, then 4 oclock. then tail at 9 and 3. Then it was off to nose in. after only a couple nights, I make random tail movements and find it's pretty easy to keep heli in a hover regardless of orientation.

One important point. If you plan to fly at a club, you aircraft should NEVER fly over ANYONE.
A man went to the doctor and told the doctor : When I move my arm like this, I get a terrible pain in my arm. Doctor replied: Don't do that. lol
Ok not funny

sed6

I burned through another gallon today and became a little more comfortable with the orientation. But I could still use some other tips.

thanks much

-scott

Sawdust48.5

Are you any better doing same maneuvers on sim?

-pkh-

My Feedback: (2)

Sounds like you are loosing orientation due to optical illusion or depth perception... you basically have to keep track of what your are doing and not let your eyes fool you! I've had the same thing happen to me a few times... when I was first learning it scared the crap out of me... now, I "know" what position I've transitioned into, and I know not to be fooled by my eyes. If you are following what you are doing, you're mind is less likely to flip things around on you.