Ok so I'm pretty comfortable hovering nose in, and transitioning from front to back and sides, but can't turn slowly, can I progress to forward flight, or should I spend more time slow turning?

Pat

If your comfortable with nose in and side on, I would move into foward flight. I moved into foward flight a long time before I could do nose in [X(], and I'm still not real comfortable with nose in, but I don't seem to have any problem when I'm in foward flight.

well for some reason turning slowly is REALLY hard to keep the heli still.

Pat

What are you using for a radio? If it has Expo, did you try putting in a little? It will soften the sticks up a little, it won't be so twitchy. Worth a try, it might help you a little keeping the heli still. I use around 20% to 30%, depending on what heli I'm flying.

yeah I have my expo at %10, after that it gets too musshy

Pat

I guess the only thing to do is keep practicing, you will do fine. You know the old saying "practice makes perfect" .

well I for one moved to forward flight before I mastered nose-in. what I started doing is holding a hover and going forward and back a bunch of times until I felt comfortable bringing the heli from a forward flight motion to a standing hover. I then started going side to side and doing the same thing. After I got really good at doing that I started attempting to do turns but not actually completing the entire turn, i would fly it away from me (still keeping the tail in) and then turn it a little while moving away to start the bank a little as if I was going to turn, but I would then try to stop and and bring it back into a hover. I kept doing this, then one day I decided to go for a real forward flight + full bank turn and I was able to do it better in one direction then the other which I've heard is normal. After that I went to banked circles, and figure 8's. It doesnt take long after that to master the whole turning and forward flight thing. most of it is orientation, I think. Another thing I did was some forward flight to where I wanted to go, then, bring it to a hover, turning with the tail, then forward flying to somewhere else and doign the same thing, this helped me more towards the real transition to a fully banked turn with cyclic.

I'm no master, i've just started this whole heli hobby about a month ago, although i've had R/C for years. Just my 2 cents..

Good luck!

I think one of the greatest things about this hobby is that no matter how good you are, there is always something to improve on. I think that this statement can apply to someone taking first steps in hovering and to someone who is comfortable with hard 3d flying. The challange to improve is always there.
As for me, Im trying to work on landings nose-in and it seems like i'll be on it for quite some time !

I'm thinking about inverted auto-rotations already. [8D]

Haha

Next time you try that, videotape it for me. I'd LOVE to see an auto-rotated inverted landing! Might be a bit messy though.. the whole..landing..part..

lol credence !
I got no plans for inverted landings in the near future ! Nose-in is enough of a challenge for me thanks ! But I did see a video of a guy who was trying to hover inverted really close to the ground and I think he got a bit too close. You could call it an unintended inverted landing .... but I bet he only tried it once!

I've never quite understood the whole hovering 1/4 inch off the ground inverted thing. I mean, it just seems like a needless way to endanger your helicopter. All it takes is one quick movement of dumb thumbs and you've got a completely destroyed rotor head. All you're doing is tempting fate . I'll stick to doing my inverted flying in the air, thank you very much

I seen a video or a raptor 90 inverted and you could hear the head spinning on the ground for several seconds. The Pilot's last name was Youngblood