david4039

I have been flying rc airplanes for a long time. While I was on active duty with the army I had money to spend so I bbought a couple different electric helicopters. I have the Smartech Aero-Hawk and the Skylark. Both have proven to be really hard to fly and I gave up trying to fly heli's for two years. I have decided to give it another try and I just ordered the XRB wireless helicopter. I have I have the Real Flight simulator and I can fly them (hover) with no problems really. I know that electrics aren't the best for trying to learn to fly, but I don't want to devote a ton of $$ for anything untill I know I will like it.

I had a couple questions:

Is there anyone close to Columbus, Indiana that would be willing to help me a little bit with learning to fly a heli??

and

Does anyone know what I should look for when prepairing my heli for flight? What are some biggener things to try when learning to fly?

VinceHerman

Hi David,
My dad and my brother both have XRBs. Great indoor helis. Do not fly them outdoor unles it is absolutely calm. The mildest of breezes is faster than this heli can fly. You will be amazed at the stability though.
Buy some extra blades. If you are hovering at more than a foot or two, and think you are in trouble, you will be tempted to chop the throttle. This almost guarentees that the landing gear or tail will break in the fall. You cannot hurt furniture or walls with those foam blades, so try to get it down to lower altitude and land if you are in trouble.
Have fun.
Vince

DebianDog

Need help locally? http://www.pilotlocator.net

My only advice is to relax, practice on the simulator, try not to get over-confident on the sim, know that you will eventually crash it. Oh and have fun.

david4039

Thanks for the advise What should I practice from the beggining with the XRB? SHould I be trying to hover right when I get it? It just seems like there would be steps leading up to hovering.

-pkh-

My Feedback: (2)

Typically you start with training gear on the heli and learn to hover tail-in first, after you can consistantly hover it within a ~3ft diameter circle (for micros) then try side-in and then nose-in hovering.

If you've already done the above exercises in a simulator, then you will excel very quickly...

david4039

OK... on the simulator I have to give a LOT of little bits of input on the right stick. With the XRB...will I have to give that much or will it hover with very little from the right stick... I guess what I mean is will it be "hands off"????

david4039

Don't laugh, but I finally figured out why I can;t fly my Aero-Hawk. When I move the right stick to the right the heli goes forward to the left backwards. When I move the right stick up it goes right and when to the left it goes backward. I have NOOOO idea how to fix this one. ANYONE please help.

VinceHerman

Hi David,
If you have the servos plugged in to the wrong channels, you would get this result.
Another possibility is that everything is set up properly, but you are looking at a bound heli. A heli that is bound (clamped to a table or held in your hand) will show some mixing of cyclic response, where right with give right and some forward, back will give back and some right and so on.
Vince

david4039

It turns out that the battery was low. That's what caused the problems I hovered today for about 15 seconds. I am pretty proud of myself anyway Does anyone know of a better battery that I could use for the Aero-Hawk??? OR is there a better charger that I can buy..... I have to charge for 2-3 hours to fly 10 minutes.... I would like to have a better ratio if possible. Thanks for all of the help so far everyone..... I really appreciate it.

david4039

I really know VERY little about different types of batteries. Could someone possibly reccomend a Lipo battery to use with the Aero-Hawk. Also, I guess I would need a different charger right? With the Lipos, will it take less time to charge or will I get longer flight times?

credence

My Feedback: (2)

Since a LIPO is meant to be charged at 1C or less (A 1:1 ratio with the batteries capacity, e.g 2200 MAH battery should be charged at no more than 2.2 amps) They all take roughly 1 hour to charge.

As for good batteries, I can reccomend this here:
http://www.xushobby.com/

They aren't brand name batteries, however, my personal experience has been extremely good with them. The batteries feel well made and the quality really does feel good. The seller is very helpful and friendly aswell. They also ship from the US, not over-seas. The only real snag is that they don't come with connectors, you need to equip your own, which is actaully good, since I didn't want some crappy JST connector when i've got deans on everything else.

I personally use the 2200 MAH 7.4 batteries with my micro fixed pitch. I can get about 15 - 20 minutes depending on how I push it. I also use the batteries in my GWS Parkflyers. Really great batteries, and they cost me half the price of what brand name (electrifly) batteries do, even when US funds are converted to Canadian. The kicker is, they perform better, too.

However..
You WILL NEED A PROPER CHARGER! I can't stress that enough, if you want to go LIPO, get a REAL LIPO charger, not the cheap plug in the wall pack jobbies. Lipos are dangerous batteries, and you don't want them to burst into flames because of a cheap wall wort charger. There's some good LIPO only AC/DC chargers available, or if you've got the cash, get something that'll do them all, like the triton charger.

david4039

credence: Thank you very much for the reply. I will definately look into geting one or two of those. Does the Triton charger run about $150 ?? Can you reccomend a certain one? (I found quite a few triton chargers.)

Moe3754

My Feedback: (14)

David LiPo's in nitro's are a pain because if you are using any digital servos at all then you have to have a regulator for the lipo because the digital servo does not like any more than 4.8 volts and the lipo puts out more than that also if you have a tendency to crash well that is bad for lipo's also and you could end up with a fireball instead of a heli.I use NiMh packs in my nitro and they do just fine for that I get about five flights per charge and will probably get more when batterys are broken in.As for buying them I would say go here http://www.maxamps.com/ they build great packs for great prices and they back their products 100% you have a problem you send it back and they send you a new one no questions asked.I have bought from them and really like what I have gotten plus if you sign up on their web site you get a immediate 10% discount and the more you buy the more the discount and it cost nothing to join.