Jazzy's Flight Deck

Helicopter Primer

2011-09-08T16:00:00.000-06:00

Helicopter Primer

Which helicopter to start with

Simulator - you can learn everything you need to know on a good simulator. RealFlight and Phoenix are the best, but there's some free ones which are pretty good (FMS is lousy and should be avoided).

- Heli-X - download at http://www.heli-x.net/

- HeliSim - download at http://www.marksfiles.net/HeliSimRC/index.htm

Coaxial - These are helicopters with two sets of main rotor blades rotating in opposite directions. The two sets of blades cancel each other's torque effects, so a tail rotor is not needed. These helicopters are very stable and less maneuverable. Most of them will hover hands-off, and they are only suitable for flying indoors. The coaxial can teach you maintaining altitude with throttle, directional control using rudder (heading) and cyclic control to generate thrust in horizontal directions. The coaxial will not teach you the behavior of the other types of helicopters with a single main rotor, and may lead to some bad habits - it is not possible to roll a coaxial upside-down! Examples are the E-Flite Blade CX/CX2/CX3, E-Flite Blade mCX, and E-Sky Lama.

Fixed Pitch - These helicopters have a single main rotor, and an anti-torque tail rotor. The main blades have a fixed amount of pitch, much like an airplane propeller, and the lift of the helicopter is adjusted using changes in throttle. These helicopters are generally less expensive to purchase and maintain, but most people do not find them any easier to fly than the collective pitch helicopters. The fixed-pitch helicopter will teach you to manage the helicopter's attitude using cyclic control to create thrust in various directions. It will help you learn to coordinate cyclic and rudder controls to make turns, and help you learn throttle and cyclic coordination to make the helicopter fly in various directions. These helicopters are not very stable, and are more manueverable than coaxial helicopters, but are not usually as precise as the final type of helicopter, collective pitch type. Examples are the E-Sky Honey Bee, and the Hirobo Quark.

Collective Pitch - These helicopters share many features with full scale helicopters. They feature a single main rotor and an anti-torque tail rotor, both with variable pitch. Some collective pitch helicopters use a fixed-pitch tail rotor with a variable speed motor for tail control - these are generally not as easy to fly as collective pitch helicopters with a belt or shaft-driven tail rotor with variable pitch tail blades. Collective pitch helicopters are fully aerobatic, capable of flying inverted, and doing loops and rolls, sustained inverted hovering, and many other exciting maneuvers. In my opinion, they are actually not very hard to fly - but they require careful setup and a lot of practice. These helicopters are more expensive than the other types, and the mechanics are much more complicated, making them more difficult and expensive to repair in the event of a crash. The other types of helicopters are usually electric, but if you love nitro power, you're going to need a collective pitch helicopter. Examples of this type are the Align Trex, and the Thunder Tiger Raptors - both of which come in many sizes. Bigger ones are easier to fly, but can be very expensive to purchase and repair. For this reason, the 400-class electrics such as the Align Trex 450, Thunder Tiger Mini-Titan, and E-Flite Blade 400 are very popular.

Collective Pitch Helicopter Setup

The coaxial and fixed pitch helicopters are usually quite easy to set up and maintain, but the collective pitch type can be very difficult to get "dialed in" and they require periodic inspection and maintenance in order to fly properly. I think that learning to fly a collective pitch helicopter is possible and beneficial because you can avoid spending money on the other types which are less fun and provide fewer opportunities for flying time due to their poor handling in the wind. However, many beginners do not understand or take the time to properly set up the helicopter, and this can make it very difficult to fly, and can lead to costly crashes. An improperly set up helicopter can be nearly impossible to fly, even for an expert, so learning proper setup is very important. This is true even if you have a RTF helicopter, as they are often not adjusted properly from the factory. Tonight I am giving a basic overview of setup, from top to bottom. If you do this correctly, your helicopter should fly fairly well the first time, but it will still need fine tuning. There is a step-by-step process to perfect helicopter setup.

Build it right.

- Lock-tite screws that go into metal - very important on feathering shaft!

- CA on screws that go into composite plastics

- Ball links sized correctly

- Servos centered properly

- Parts in proper orientation (some parts can be backwards or upside-down)

- Gear mesh set properly (test with paper)

- Flybar balanced, and paddles aligned

- Rudder push rod straight

- Tail fins and support rods aligned

- Bearings lubed (Tri-Flow)

- Blade grip tension correct

- Belt tension correct

Set up the head. (Top-down method)

- Hold the blade grips at zero pitch throughout this procedure

- Adjust the pitch mixing links to equal lengths, and until the pitch mixing arms are both level - 90 degrees from the main shaft and level with each other

- Snap the radius arms onto the swash plate

- With the blades and paddles at zero pitch, adjust the washout links and the long mixing arm links until the washout arms are level - 90 degrees to the main shaft, and level with each other. This can be tricky because you'll need to get them both correct at the same time - use the suggested measurements from your helicopter manual as a starting point.

- At this point, the blades should be at zero pitch, the flybar cage level, and the mixing arms and washout arms should be 90 degrees from the main shaft, and level with each other.

- This sets the height of the swash plate at zero pitch.

- Center your cyclic servos, and adjust the swash plate links so that the servos and swash can be connected with the swash at the 'zero pitch' height, and the servos perfectly centered.

Program the radio.

- Set CCPM mode, 120-degree swash plate

- unplug the motor

- plug in the helicopter and let it initialize - center the throttle stick

- Move the throttle stick up and down a little bit

- All three cyclic servos should move up and down together - if one doesn't, reverse that servo only.

- Go to your pitch mixing setup

- Move the throttle stick up - all three servos should move together, and your blades should get more positive pitch. If not, change the pitch mixing number from positive to negative - we will set the actual number later, just getting the direction correct now.

- Move the cyclic stick to the right - your swash plate should tilt down on the right - if not, change the aileron mixing number from positive to negative. Again, we'll set the actual number later.

- Move the cyclic stick forward - the swash should tilt down on the front side. If not, reverse the elevator mixing number from positive to negative.

- Double check your settings - make sure that more throttle gives you more positive pitch, and the swash is tilting in the right directions.

- Check that the blades are at zero pitch with the throttle stick in the middle - you have not adjusted the pitch curve yet, so this should be the case.

- Put the throttle stick all the way up. Adjust the pitch mixing number until the swash moves up to the extreme - the washout block should nearly run into the head.

- Put the throttle stick all the way down. Make sure there is no binding, and the washout block does not slip off the washout guide rods. If it is going too far, be double sure you are getting zero pitch at mid-stick, and reduce the pitch mixing number if you need to.

- Go back to your servo reversing menu.

- Move the rudder stick all the way to the left - the leading edges of the tail blades should move to the right. If not, then reverse the rudder channel.

- Program the pitch curves - this is a matter of personal preference and flying style. I set mine up to give me maximum pitch in both directions, positive and negative. A 5-point curve for normal mode would be 30-40-50-75-100. For my stunt modes I use 0-25-50-75-100. It is important that the last three numbers be 50-75-100 in all modes, so that when you switch modes in flight, you don't get sudden pitch changes.

- Program the throttle curves - again, this is a matter of personal taste. For my normal mode I use 0-50-75-90-100, which gives me high head speed very early, makes the transition to stunt mode less severe, makes the helicopter a bit more stable in a hover, but also makes it more reactive. For my stunt mode, I use 100% all the way across. Some people prefer a v-shaped throttle curve such as 100-90-80-90-100.

Set up the gyro.

- First you need to set the gyro direction. To do this, wag the tail to the left - the leading edges of the tail blades should move right. The tail should try to fight your motion. If not, reverse the gyro direction on the gyro itself. You should not need to reverse the rudder channel if you do this, but double check it to be sure.

- There are many ways to set the gyro gain - most setups have a remote gain setting programmed in the radio by signalling the gear channel.

- To adjust the gain, you will need to fly the helicopter. The gyro does not understand what is happening when the helicopter is not flying, and it may do weird things such as stick the servo to one side and stay there.

- Move the rudder stick to both sides and hold it there. Make sure the servo is not capable of driving the pitch slider too far. Use the limit feature of the gyro, or change holes on your servo arm to limit the travel. Do not use adjustable rates on the radio to try to limit the servo travel - it will not work, and you will risk having the servo bind and strip in flight.

- Using training balls to fly your helicopter the first time, you will adjust the gyro gain higher until the tail starts to wag back and forth forcefully. Then lower the gain from that point until the wagging stops. You may find that the tail starts wagging again after hard spins or loops, or during turns. Lower the gain some more if this happens. See my Trex 500 video on the "arvadamodelers" Youtube channel for an example of gyro gain too high, not causing tail wag in hovering, but wagging in forward flight. I lowered it 1% from there, and now it's perfect.

Balance and track the blades.

- Before your first flight, make sure the blades are balanced. You can use a blade balancing tool, or a very accurate scale to do this.

- Now bring your helicopter into an eye-level hover, and have an assistant look at the blades - there should be no gap between them. If there is, you will need to adjust the pitch mixing links to close the gap.

- Usually, I just pick a link to adjust and see if it makes the tracking better or worse. Mark the link with a silver Sharpie, and adjust it in the other direction if it makes the tracking worse. Do one full turn at a time, as this is a very sensitive adjustment.

- If you use carbon fiber blades, and you zeroed your blade pitch properly, they should track perfectly - if not, be sure to check the pitch again before adjusting the tracking.

Final inspections and test flight.

- Lube all the bearings

- Pull on the ball links and make sure they are tight

- Check the belt tension

- Check the blade grip tension

- Check the rudder direction while spooling up

- Make sure everything sounds smooth

- Watch for vibrations when spooling up

- Fly for only a minute or two the first time

- Check the parts temperature after first flight - motor, servos, gyro, and battery. Hot parts can indicate a problem.

Remember - the helicopter is the only type of aircraft capable of crashing into itself! If you build and maintain properly, this won't happen.

Blade mCP X

2011-03-18T21:47:00.003-06:00

The Simulator is Boring

2011-03-11T19:42:00.002-07:00

I hear this comment occasionally - "The simulator is really boring, and I can't stand to use it long enough to learn anything" - here's my response to that.

Are you trying to learn to fly? Or just pass the time? The simulator can be entertaining when your flying is fairly good, but crashing a lot can be very frustrating. This hobby is like that, regardless of simulators, it has always been like that. You do a lot of work, and it sucks and some of it is boring, some of it is difficult, a lot of it is confusing and frustrating, but then after a while, it all starts to click, you stop freaking out about the details all the time, and suddenly... you're having fun! Works that way every time.

So, maybe you just need to work through the training stage and learn to have some fun. In order to train most quickly, you need to practice every day without fail - do not miss a day. The part you will like is this: if your practice is focused and effective, you can only handle 15 minutes of it anyway, so you only need 15 minutes per day. You will improve much faster this way than if you have hour long sessions only once a week.

When you learn to fly on instinct, you'll have a lot more fun. You might not like the simulator still, but you'll be able to fly your real stuff without worrying so much about crashing. Fear of crashing is the single biggest source of stress in this hobby - get over it as soon as possible.

Stryker RED

2011-02-28T19:47:00.004-07:00

This is my new Stryker. I haven't clocked it yet but it's in the 90mph range - not ridiculous but respectable. It's a ton of fun to fly, and I did win a pylon race with it on crappy old batteries. I'm using the 35C Hyperion 2200 3S Lipos now, and she really screams. That's the only problem with Strykers - they are LOUD!

E-Flite Six Series 2700kV Motor

2200mAh 3S Hyperion 35C Lipo

HS-81MG servos

Castle BEC

AR500 Receiver

Align 35X ESC (heli ESC, has a nice LVC feature which shuts down slow)

Custom Painted with rattle cans (Testors Metallics, Black and Ruby)

2,3,4 and 6-Channel Helicopters

2011-01-28T21:39:00.004-07:00

I really wish the marketing department would call these what they are - the number of channels doesn't really help noobs figure out what it is. Just so you know, the number of channels is how many things you can control on the aircraft - so for example, an airplane with throttle and rudder only is two channels, add an elevator and it's three channels, add ailerons for four channels, control each aileron independently is 5 channels, etc, etc, etc....

On helicopters, there are two channel toys like the Air Hogs. They typically have throttle and rudder control only - so they can go up and down and they can spin around, usually in both directions. These are fun but they are toys.

Above that, we have the fixed-pitch helicopters. There's two types, the coaxial and the normal type. The coaxials helicopters have two sets of rotors on top, which spin in opposite directions, and they don't have tail rotors. Coaxial helicopters almost always have rudder control which is done by speeding up one or the other rotor and turning by the reaction force. These helicopters can be 3 or 4 channels - they all have forward/back, rudder, and throttle. The 4-channel coaxial also has side-to-side control. Coaxial helicopters are naturally stable and very easy to fly - they hover by themselves without pilot input usually.

The "normal style" fixed-pitch helis have a single main rotor on top and a tail rotor. As far as I know, they are all 4-channel helis. They have throttle, rudder, sideways, and front/back control. There's a wide range of these available now, from super easy (the Blade mSR) to fairly difficult (the Novus FP). These typically require a little skill to fly and they need constant management by the pilot - but some like the mSR are super stable, like coaxials.

OK that part is easy to follow - you have helis which fly by controlling throttle and direction, no problem... well, kinda. Since these helicopters change their lift by changing the speed of the blades, they can be difficult to control because it takes time for the motor to ramp up and down, and the pilot will need to be putting in throttle changes very early in order to maintain or change altitudes. Turns out, it's a whole lot better, and faster, to rotate the blades at a constant speed and simply change their angle of attack in order to change lift. This can be accomplished almost instantly. So... we want to control a 5th thing now, the angle of attack on the blades, and we need 5 channels. We call the angle the "collective pitch" of the blades, and these helicopters are more properly called "collective pitch" helicopters rather than 5 or 6 channel. The 6th channel is usually used to control the sensitivity of a gyro which assists the pilot in operating the tail rotor for rudder control.

Generally, we have people start with fixed-pitch helis, usually coaxials. To progress to collective-pitch helis, I recommend you start with a quality simulator rather than the real thing.

These are starter helis for flying indoors:

E-Flite Blade mCX

E-Flite Blade mSR

And this is a starter heli for flying outdoors:

E-Flite Blade SR 120

Is that what you are looking for?

Align Trex 250

2008-12-14T23:35:00.005-07:00

This is the Align Trex 250 micro 3D helicopter. It is a fully 3D capable micro helicopter, and since it's small and has no momentum, it can fly some impressive punchy moves.

Here's some videos of mine.

My Flying Videos

2008-10-12T13:48:00.001-06:00

My flying videos. I'm flying all these aircraft. Just kind of testing out the "widget" feature from Vimeo.

E-Flite Blade 400

2008-07-26T21:13:00.010-06:00

This is my E-Flite Blade 400. On the second flight, the tail servo stripped in mid-air for some reason, and the pitch servo stripped on the resulting crash. I replaced the cyclics with Hitec HS55 servos, and I replace the gyro with a GY401. The overall feel and performance of the helicopter was vastly improved by these upgrades.

Stock ESC and motor
HS55 cyclic servos
GY401 Gyro
Thunder Power 2100 3-cell
JR 290G tail servo
Align tail hub and carbon blades
Thunder Power Carbon main blades
Spektrum DX7 radio with AR6100e receiver

Here she is in flight:

And here's a photo of the new color scheme. I crashed it into a fence one day and had to re-build the whole thing. Instructional videos of how to build it are on Vimeo (search "Blade 400 Rebuild").

Here's the videos - first one is recently, but before the crash. After the videos are my radio settings for the Blade 400 and DX7 radio.

Blade 400 Light 3D from Jasmine2501 on Vimeo.

Radio settings
Aircraft Type: Heli
Model Name: Blade400
Swash Type: 3 Servos 120 degrees
Input Type: AUX2-AUX2 GEAR-GYRO
Thro recovery: INH
Trainer: INH
(Is it possible I actually have 17 hours on this thing?!)

OK then on the flight settings I have this:
OK on the dual rates screen, I have 30% expo on all three channels. VERY IMPORTANT: Make sure to switch the dual rate switch for each channel and program the same expo again. You will use the dual rate switches for other things and it's pretty important that you don't end up changing the expo when you do that, so program both options to the same expo and rate (100%) on all three channels.

Timer: 6 minutes - gives me time to land
No programmable mixes are entered.

OK, "Gyro sens" screen: Set it to Auto - then next to the "0:" set your gyro gain rate for normal mode. Then next to the "1:" set the gyro gain you use for idle-up. Mine are 74% and 71%, but I'm using a GY401 and these numbers are never the same for any two people, so you'll have to figure out the numbers for yourself. They may be different from the gain settings on your DX6i, but that's a good starting point. OK, then on the side I set NORM: 0, STNT:1, and HOLD:0.

No revo mix is used - I'm not even sure what it is.

Pitch curves are:
HOLD - 0-25-50-75-100
ST-2 - 0-25-50-75-100
ST-1 - 0-25-50-75-100 (these are all three the same, important for autos)
NORM - 35-INH-50-75-100 (INH lets it calculate the line for you)

Throttle curve for ST-1 and ST-2 are both set to 100% all the way across.
Throttle curve for normal mode is set to 0-50-85-100-100, with "exp" activated which smooths out the line. You may want something different - don't be afraid to experiment. I'm at high altitude, and I find that this setting gets me off the ground nicely and pretty much eliminates any jumping when I switch in and out of idle-up mode.

Thro Hold: -5.0% SW:GEAR (you could adjust this for your personal preference)

Swash mix: AILE:-65% ELEV:+65% PIT.: +85% (again, personal preference, and checked to eliminate binding on my bird - I had to reduce the aile and elev channels. I may change that around though and reduce the pitch channel and increase the others. Just make sure you don't get any binding)

My travel adjustments are all 100% at the moment. I've some CCPM coupling though, so I'll be messing with that eventually.

I have the subtrims set to various numbers - I replaced the servos, so these numbers will be different for you. NO subtrim on the rudder... !

Reversing: THRO:N, AILE:N, ELEV:R, RUDD:R, GEAR:N, PIT.:R, AUX2:N (again, this might be different for you because I use different servos.)

Align TRex 450

2008-06-24T00:45:00.006-06:00

Align TRex 450 - Custom Decals came out a little light. This is the most solidly built aircraft I have owned, but also the most expensive by far. If you count the battery and don't count the radio, it was a little over $700 all up. WELL WORTH IT!!!

Spektrum radio - DX7 + AR6100
Align 35 ESC
Align 430L motor
Futaba GY401 Gyro
JR DS285 Cyclic servos
JR DS3400G Tail servo
Thunder Power Extreme 2200 battery

Video of the maiden flight.

Blade CP Pro

2008-06-12T23:31:00.002-06:00

E-Flite Blade CP Pro with carbon fiber main and tail blades, and metal swash plate. Also, I set this up to fly with my Spektrum DX7, and it flies a little better with the expo and other features of the DX7 radio.

Seagull X-Ray

2008-06-12T23:21:00.004-06:00

This is my best 3D plane to date. It flies very nice and is way more durable than it looks. I did biff it in to the dirt one day pretty hard and all that broke was the wheel pants and prop. Pikachu is permanently mounted in the cockpit :)

E-Flite Funtana 300

2008-06-12T23:15:00.003-06:00

This plane exploded in mid-air (kinda cool actually, hehehee), so I returned it for store credit. It flew wonderfully though... one of the best planes I've ever flown. It just needs reinforcement around the motor mount.

Airfoilz Extra 260

2008-06-12T23:11:00.002-06:00

Airfoilz Extra 260 - I have crashed this plane 3 times fairly badly. It flies so well it tempts you to try moves you can't do. Click here for video where I didn't crash it :)

Pink Lightning - SIG Hummer Electric

2008-06-12T23:04:00.005-06:00

This is my SIG Hummer which I converted to electric. It goes over 100mph and is very aerobatic as well. Here's the video of the maiden flight, in which she reached 86mph!

Brio 10 Flying - Crash Landing

2008-04-28T22:09:00.001-06:00

Flying my Brio 10. When I was landing, the wind was blowing and it suddenly stopped, stalling my plane. There wasn't much I could do. The whole bottom of the fuselage needs to be re-built now....

Airfoilz Extra 260 - Lazy Aerobatics

2008-04-28T22:00:00.003-06:00

Video of my Extra 260 - I'm flying lazy aerobatics because I broke the wing completely off a couple weeks earlier and wasn't sure about the repairs.

SIG Hummer Maiden

2008-04-28T21:13:00.002-06:00

SIG Hummer Maiden Flight

Be someone's inspiration

2008-03-21T19:22:00.005-06:00

I have only been flying RC about a year if you don't count a few hours as a kid, but after you read this, you'll know why I think it counts. I have been building (flying) model airplanes all my life though mostly free-flight stuff, paper planes, and I built my own free-flight helicopter as a kid (a modified Guillows glider). When I was maybe 7 until I was 12, I would often be cared for by the town mayor and his wife, Lester and Mary Rogers. He was the mayor, and one of the coolest people I'd ever met. He built and flew model airplanes which were all gas-powered, and he invented a thing called a "ufo" which is a bizarre free-flight vehicle, and he also built a lot of 'toys' which were technologically interesting to me at that age.

This was Kansas farm country in the mid to late 1970s, and technology was nearly non-existent, and Lester (Mr. Rogers?) had HAM radio and other fun stuff. I remember he taught me how to make a pop gun with a manilla folder some typing paper and some tape. We must have killed each other hundreds of times with those things! Anyway, I must have annoyed the heck out of the guy, always begging to go fly planes, so he came up with other fun things to entertain me.

I finally understand what he meant by "it's too windy, maybe later" - but when it wasn't, we would go fly planes and always had a good time. You know, in all those years I didn't actually see him crash once, but my dad tells me now that he used to crash all the time and tell funny stories about it. I do remember people in town finding his UFOs on their roofs and in their yards and stuff. It was a free-flight vehicle made from pie plates, and (I think) powered by a .049 motor, and designed to fly in one direction - straight up. Needless to say they almost always disappeared, but it was a small town and I'd like to think he probably got most of them back. He was the mayor after all.

These days I know how amazing all this was at the time. It was 1976 and he was flying big 4-channel gassers, presumably with home-made equipment. Watching those airplanes in the beautiful Kansas skies at that age, I instantly fell in love with aviation. Ever since those days as an insufferably precocious child begging to go fly planes, I've been building airplanes in one form or another. I organized a paper airplane contest at my grade school one year, I've built hundreds of rubber powered planes of all kinds, and I've experimented with electric free-flight planes.

That experience as a child gave me a real love for science and technology, and as I grew older I spent a lot of time learning about airplanes and other technologies. In the 1980s I became positively obsessed with computers and this led to my current career as a programmer, but I have always also loved electronics, physics, math, and of course, aviation. In 1999 I graduated from Hastings College with a degree in Biology, but I only worked briefly in that field before I went into computer programming.

Now that I'm old enough to afford it, I have taken up RC airplanes and I really love it. It is the perfect way to combine my love of technology with aviation, and get out in the world and participate in a healthy hobby in the great outdoors, and meet other people who love it too! I have had the good fortune to meet many inspiring people over the years, but I credit Lester Rogers with starting a trend that has lasted a lifetime and has provided a lot of happiness, and led to a career that I enjoy. I sincerely hope that everyone has an opportunity, no matter what age they are, to meet inspiring people like this, and I hope that people will continue to take advantage of the opportunities to be inspiring and helpful to others as well, in this hobby and in all of life's endeavors. So get your neighbor, friend, or kid and get out there and fly some planes!

(If you haven't already done it, you should join one of the forums on Wattflyer or RCGroups and try to help out when you can, and if you can instruct, please sign up for the AMA Park Pilot Partners Program (I think they need more P words in that name)

Over and out!
Jasmine

Predator Bee

2008-02-26T22:26:00.002-07:00

This is a slope glider. That's right! No motors!

Practicing with a flight simulator

2008-02-09T00:10:00.000-07:00

Practicing with a flight simulator such as FMS or Realflight can make a big difference in your skills advancement. For beginners it can make the difference between crashing on your first flight and NOT crashing on your first flight. For experts, it can improve your precision and reactions with more advanced maneuvers and teach you how to "feel out" a new plane much faster.

These are not necessarily in order, but they do get harder as you go down the list. The first few should be done with 3-channels planes if you're new, and 4-channel planes as you get better... the last ones will require 4-channel planes.

1. Taking off in a straight line without stalling - practice this with an under-powered plane that stalls easily. Try it with different wind directions and try to do it with the plane out of trim.

2. Left turns and right turns - they are different. Try these coming toward you as much as possible. Learn to do it without losing altitude. Try big turns first and then make them sharper until you can do it in all 4 directions without losing altitude. Do this until it is second nature - until you don't have to think about it. Practice this with 3-channels first, then go up to 4-channel planes where you'll "bank and yank" - rolling and pulling up to make the turn. Return to straight and level flight after each turn. Then when you are good at that, practice linking your turns without flying level in between each turn.

3. Landings - same as take-offs - try it with different wind settings and try it with the plane out of trim. Try landing with an over-powered plane that glides well, and then try it with an under-powered plane that stalls easily and needs to be landed at a higher speed. The Pitts in FMS is good for this... you can't just cut the throttle and let it float down like a Slow Stick.

4. Practice flying a pre-determined flight path beginning with a take-off and ending with a landing. The take-off and landing should be in the same direction. Try it with different wind settings. Try figure-8 patterns and left-hand and right-hand circles. One of the mistakes I made when I was learning was to always fly left-hand patterns - this became a small problem at the club one day when the wind was blowing the other way... I had to fly a right-hand pattern, and it actually did mess up my thinking a bit. Practice both directions equally.

5. Practice simple loops - get some airspeed and pull full up elevator and stop when the plane recovers back to level flight. Gradually make your loops bigger and learn to reduce the throttle at the top of the loop to make a more perfect circle. Some planes can not do a big loop - learn to recognize this. Learn to recognize when your loop is not going to make it, and figure out how to "roll out" of a loop that is not going to end well. You will know what I mean when you practice it.

6. Practice recovering from trouble. Stall the plane and recover. Put it into a spin and recover. Get a 3-channel plane on its side and recover. Have someone move your trims to a weird spot and practice taking off and trimming the plane and then landing. If you have RealFlight, you can program it to simulate problems with the plane - this is very helpful, since problems during flight do occur and this feature can help you learn to save a plane that is not functioning correctly.

(Those are the basics - for the rest of these you will want a 4-channel plane)

7. Try simple rolls using ailerons only - point the nose slightly up and roll the plane all the way over and back to upright and level flight - then get back into the pre-determined flight pattern. Your rolls will make an arcing path (gaining and losing altitude), but this is ok at this point.

8. Fly inverted in a straight line for short periods. Roll the plane upside-down and use up-stick to hold it level. Then roll back to upright straight and level flight.

9. Practice perfectly straight and level flight. This is harder than it sounds. Learn what a plane looks like when it's flying level. If you are seeing the wing edge-on, you are not level. A plane that is higher than your head and flying level will show you a little bit of the bottom of the wing. Learn what this looks like. At this point, you will be practicing more precision flight, where before, you were just noodling around getting your reactions straight. Try this inverted as well, and in various wind conditions. Learn to use the rudder to keep your plane tracking straight.

10. Practice rolls using the rudder to keep the plane tracking level during the portion of the roll when it's on its side. For a left-hand roll, the sequence is this: holding left aileron through the whole roll, first apply right rudder as the plane gets on its side, then apply a bit of down elevator when the plane is inverted, then a little left rudder as the plane is on the other side, then return to level flight. You may want to break this up into a 4-point roll to slow things down, but eventually you should be able to do a smooth roll without stopping and without gaining or losing altitude.

11. Practice flying the pattern inverted. Learn to make turns when you are inverted, using the rudder and ailerons to bank and turn. Learn to control the throttle and use down elevator to keep the plane from losing altitude.

12. Practice knife-edge flight. Use the rudder to hold altitude and the elevator to make turns. Try to fly figure-8 patterns and try rolling from side to side. Practice entering the knife-edge from upright and inverted positions. When entering the knife-edge from upright flight, you will "cross the sticks" with the rudder and ailerons, but when you enter from inverted, your aileron and rudder direction will be the same. Do this until it becomes instinct. Learn the exact right moment to apply the rudder... too soon and your plane will not track straight... too late and you'll lose altitude. Try to slow down the knife-edge flight until you enter a knife-edge "harrier" maneuver. This is one of the easiest of the "3D" moves to do. Learn to control the throttle to hold the plane in the knife-edge at about a 45-degree angle, still moving to the side, but very slowly. This will help you to learn to hover later.

13. Try precision "pattern flying" - this involves doing loops and rolls and combinations of those while making very precise straight lines. You will be drawing patterns in the air, with smooth radii and straight lines. This is a competitive style of flying, and it is difficult, but it allows you to judge your progress because it is very easy to see when you've gone off line. The basic pattern maneuvers for the Beginner (or Sportsman) level of competition are listed here. Learn to do these moves perfectly. If you have Realflight, you can record your flight and play it back later. I find this very helpful in judging how well I did. As you progress, look up the advanced pattern sequences and practice some of the more advanced moves. Pattern flying is a never-ending challenge - you can never be perfect.

14. Practice harriers and other "3D" moves. There are entire articles about this. When you get to this point, you will know what to do. Learn to hover and harrier, and learn the flat spins and other fun moves. In my opinion, this is the pinnacle of precision flying. If you can do this stuff, get the hell off the simulator and go out and fly already. Or if you have Realflight, go online and find me and show me your stuff!

This by no means is a set order of learning. You can practice the advanced stuff in any order you want. This list is not intended to be a step-by-step lesson plan, but is more intended to help you identify specific areas where the simulator practice can help you improve your skills for real-life flying. Most of all, have fun!

Over and out!
Jasmine

Energy usage and motors and propellers

2008-01-14T13:45:00.000-07:00

(this is in response to this thread - questions about props and pitch and diameter and so on)

You're correct so far about props, but it's fairly complicated. Here's the long explanation...

We know that energy can not be destroyed, right? So that means that any electricity you send into a motor will either be turned into kinetic energy by spinning the prop, or heat, which is the enemy of metal parts. That's beside the point really, but keep it in the back of your mind for when I talk about efficiency, because the losses due to lowered efficiency show up as heat, usually in the motor wires, some in the bearings too.

First some definitions:
A Newton is a unit of force - it is the force required to accelerate a one kilogram mass by 1 meter per second squared. So, if you apply 1 Newton of force to a 1 kilogram mass for one second, it's final speed will be 1 meter per second faster than it was before you started applying the force.

A Joule is a unit of energy - it is the amount of energy expended by a 1 Newton force over a distance of 1 meter.

A Watt is a unit of the rate of energy usage - it is one Joule per second.

The units of electricity usage were set up deliberately such that 1 volt times 1 amp will be one watt of energy usage - 1 Joule per second.

So, if you have a 1 kilogram airplane, and you want it to accelerate at 1 meter per second per second, you need to have one watt of power. If there was no drag or gravity or anything, your theoretical plane would be going 1 meter per second after 1 second of time, and speed would be 2 meters per second after 2 seconds of time, and so on.

When you measure the wattage of your power system, this is exactly what it means... so for example, my Brio draws 250 watts, and it weighs about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds). This means that if all the energy put out by the battery were used to accelerate the plane, it would have acceleration of 125 meters per second per second. Obviously, the Brio doesn't go that fast... so there is some huge losses going on there.

The losses are due to the efficiency of the motor (about 85%), giving approximately 40 watts lost as heat in the motor. If you've ever put your hand on a 40 watt light bulb, you know that's a lot of heat. The rest of the losses are due to the drag of the plane and the propeller itself. Propellers are not very efficient - anywhere from 10% to 50% loss. On small planes at normal speeds it's closer to 50% losses. So now my Brio has about 100 watts remaining, and that is being turned into kinetic energy...

However, it is not all turned into forward momentum... some of it is lost to drag, and some of it is turned into lift by the wing. An airplane must consistently overcome the force of gravity time its own weight. That is 19.8 Newtons for my 2-kilo plane... every second - meaning I need 20 watts worth of lift just to stay in the air. Wings are horribly inefficient, so I'm wasting a ton of energy just turning forward momentum into lift.

It was a long journey, but here's where the propeller comes in...

A propeller has two measurements... diameter and pitch. Diameter is obviously just the length of the thing. Pitch is a little more complicated... it is defined as the linear distance that the propeller would move if it was turned one revolution in a thick fluid (air is not a thick fluid). A 10x6 prop will move 6 inches forward in one revolution, but a 50x6 prop will also move 6 inches forward in one revolution, but it will use a lot more energy - but it will use it more efficiently.

Thrust is the acceleration force of the propeller - it is the amount of Newtons that the prop creates. Multiply that by a distance, and you have Newtons times meters, and remember, that is the definition of a Joule. Multiply that by a unit of time, and you have Joules times seconds, which was the definition of a Watt. So, to bring that full circle, the Watts used by the prop are directly related to the thrust it creates, bigger diameter props use more Watts, have more Newtons, and we call that more thrust. The 50x6 propeller is going to have more of that, even though the pitch is still the same as the 10x6.

I know that was a convoluted explanation, and for those who don't want to know why things are the way they are, it's simple enough to say what Sir Raleigh said... more diameter, more thrust, even if the pitch is the same.

Pitch is indirectly related to speed, but it's fairly complicated. If the RPM is kept the same, more pitch will result in both more thrust and more speed, because the speed if there was no slipping or drag or anything, would be the pitch times the RPM... it would be 6 inches times the number of rotations, divided by a time period, and a distance divided by a time period is the definition of speed. It is not that simple though, and more pitch will only create more speed if you can keep the RPM the same. Due to losses from efficiency problems and drag and lift and so on, there is never a direct relationship between pitch and speed. Speed comes from thrust, so if you want the plane to go faster, you need more thrust (more Newtons of force). In practice, what we see is that increasing the pitch gives more force, and we realize an increase in speed, but it is not that simple. You only get more speed (which requires more thrust) when you can keep the RPM the same. With electric motors, the RPM will drop a little when you increase the pitch, but not by much, so we do see more speed.

I know that is more than what you wanted to hear, but these things are never simple. I just hope that if you could stand to read that all, you'll understand more why we have to measure things. It is not a guarantee that increasing the pitch will give more speed, but if you increase the diameter, you will have more energy usage, and that always translates to more power, more speed, more everything... but it also means you may overwork the motor.

SIG Riser

2008-01-07T22:43:00.001-07:00

This is my SIG Riser - it was fun to build and I covered it myself. It is a 2 meter glider, but I'm going to put a motor on the front. This is the first plane that I built and covered myself, and I think it came out pretty good!

Troubleshooting 72MHz RC Systems

2007-12-27T13:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you plug everything together and it just doesn't work. In this case it's good to be able to figure out what part is broken. Here is a step-by-step guide to help you figure it out. I assume that your radio is transmitting, and if it's not there really is no way to know. If none of this stuff works, you can assume that your transmitter is at fault, but that's usually the last thing to go wrong. This guide only applies to 72MHz systems with electric motors, and assumes that all your parts are quality parts. If you have low-quality parts, the first thing you want to do is replace them with higher quality parts and see if that fixes the problem.

First, plug everything together like in this video:
RC Wiring

OK, now what is the problem:

Servos don't move and motor won't start:
1. Possibly "transmission not received" - see below
2. Check the battery with a voltmeter - should be 4.2 volts per cell if using Lipo, and 1.2 volts per cell if using Nicad/NiMH. Charge it up if it's not fully charged.
3. Make sure the ESC is properly programmed for your battery type.
4. Try using a receiver battery on the receiver. If this works then you probably have a bad ESC, or the ESC does not have a battery eliminator circuit (BEC) or the BEC is not functioning. Replace the ESC with a new one that has a BEC.
5. Try reversing the plugs into the receiver on the servos and ESC. They won't work if plugged in backwards, but it won't harm them.

Servos work but motor won't run:
1. Check all the connections with an Ohm-meter. Make sure they are tight and conducting.
2. Make sure the motor isn't shorted or damaged. The easiest way is to try another motor that you know works properly. The other way is to test it with an ohm-meter or testing lights. For brushed motors, you should be able to run current through the leads and there should be no current between the leads and the housing. For brushless motors, there should be connectivity between each of the three leads to the other two, and no connectivity between any of the leads and the housing.
3. Try reversing the throttle channel on your radio

Motor runs but servos don't work:
1. Try reversing the plugs on the servos into the receiver.
2. Try different servos.
3. Try the same servos in different channels.
4. Try replacing the ESC - if this solves the problem then your ESC is bad, or it does not have a battery eliminator circuit (BEC) and you will have to use a different ESC, or use separate battery to power the receiver.
5. Try using a receiver battery plugged into the receiver. If this works, then again, your ESC is bad or its BEC is not functioning or it doesn't have a BEC.

Motor starts and stops or servos randomly move:
1. This is almost always a sign of "transmission not received"
2. Make sure the transmitter is on full charge. Some radios will have a very weak signal when the battery is down to 60-70% charge. Make sure it is charged up all the way.
3. Pull the antenna up on the transmitter and see if this helps. Make sure the antenna is screwed tightly into the base.
4. If you've done all that and the signal is still not received, continue in this list.
5. Check the receiver antenna. It should be fully extended, with no loops, and should not be touching any metal parts. It should be firmly soldered to the receiver.
6. Check the receiver crystal. It should be pushed all the way in and taped in place so it doesn't jiggle loose. Loose crystals are a common problem.
7. Check to make sure the channels are correct. Your radio will have a channel number on it somewhere, like "72.150" and the receiver crystal should have the exact same number marked on it. If these numbers are different, nothing will work and you will have to replace the crystal with one for the correct channel.
8. Replace the receiver and crystal with another one. If this does not solve the problem then it is likely that your transmitter is bad. Send it in to the manufacturer and have them fix it. You can not service your radio per FCC regulations. Don't even try it. To confirm that the radio is bad, you would need another one on the same channel, which you are sure works properly, and test to see if the signal is received from that one.

This guide only covers the most common problems, and there are many other things that can go wrong. If you haven't checked all this stuff though, please check it before you post a question on a forum. I will add things to this guide when I discover them, so please let me know if there's a problem you can't fix.

Over and out!
Jasmine

Blade CX2 Landing Practice

2007-11-27T00:13:00.000-07:00

Trying to land on a DVD box...

Blade CX2 - Better Flying

2007-11-24T22:06:00.000-07:00

This is after the upgrade with aluminum parts.

Blade CX2 - Guess my living room is too small :)

2007-11-24T00:58:00.000-07:00

Slow Stickin in Arvada

2007-11-23T21:58:00.000-07:00

Yak-55 Onboard Video

2007-11-23T21:56:00.000-07:00

Blade CX2

2007-11-22T23:38:00.002-07:00

My Blade CX2 with reflective tape on the blades for a cool effect in the sun!

Pitts Biplane takes a lot of abuse!

2007-11-17T22:40:00.000-07:00

Here's onboard video of my Pitts Biplane flying in too small of an area to line up a proper landing. It did have a small crack in the wing but otherwise it's all good :)

Slow Stick Field Goal

2007-11-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

Flying my Slow Stick in a little bit of wind. It is hard to keep it going in one direction when the wind is gusty. I did not mean to make the field goal at the end :)

Slow Stick Up High

2007-10-29T00:07:00.000-06:00

Flying my Slow Stick way up high. This video was longer and I flew a lot higher, but the file was corrupted by a crash later in a different plane, so I guess I was lucky to get this part. See the menu on the side for the crash video.

GWS Formosa Onboard with Crash

2007-10-28T18:36:00.001-06:00

Video from onboard my GWS Formosa. Crash at the end was due to total loss of radio control. Nothing I could do.

Slow Stick Touch and Go

2007-10-27T14:37:00.000-06:00

Landing practice!

Slow Stickin at the Park

2007-10-26T13:13:00.000-06:00

Park flying with my GWS Slow Stick. There's less camera vibration at the new location on the back of the wing.

GWS Slow Stick onboard video

2007-10-25T09:19:00.000-06:00

Here's some onboard video from my GWS Slow Stick. The camera was shaking from the motor vibration, otherwise it would look a lot better. Still pretty good I think.

GWS Formosa

2007-10-12T21:13:00.002-06:00

GWS Formosa with a brushless motor upgrade.

Brio 10

2007-09-29T17:55:00.001-06:00

Brio 10 with Park 480 Motor and rooster as pilot.

Video - Wiring up a 3-channel brushless electric system

2007-09-26T21:57:00.000-06:00

Here's a short video showing how to wire up 3-channel brushless electric system.

Art-Tech Pitts S2-A

2007-09-24T22:08:00.003-06:00

Click for the flight report.

Art-Tech Pitts with brushless motor and my own Berg Receiver.
Click for build log

Pitts Biplane Build Log (Art-Tech, Sapac, Hobby-Lobby)

2007-09-24T19:52:00.000-06:00

(Click here for the flight report)

This pretty little biplane is a decent quality kit, and is very similar to some kits from GWS and other Chinese builders. It is made of a fairly heavy foam, and I'm not sure what exactly it is. The decals look beautiful, but they scratch off fairly easily, so be careful. Overall, I'm fairly happy with this kit, but I haven't flown the plane yet. I will edit this report and include a flight report after the maiden voyage. My kit came with a brushless motor, and cheap radio which uses 8(!) AA batteries. I also got a charger, Lipo battery, and free "LipoSack", which is fireproof Lipo charging safety bag. It can be ordered in this configuration from Hobby-Lobby, for around $235.

http://www.hobby-lobby.com/pitts-bipe.htm

1. OK, the first thing I did was to get rid of the cheapo receiver and mount one of my Berg receivers. I just don't trust the radio it came with, and there's no substitute for quality stuff.

2. The second thing I did after mounting the landing gear was to turn on my radio, hook up the battery and center all the trims. This is very important because the servos were not centered when they were installed. I had to mechanically trim the rudder, which was really off-center. The rest of the surfaces happened to be correctly centered, but your kit may vary. Unfortunately, the rudder and elevator servos are mounted inside the rear of the fuselage, so I had to use the clevis in the back to adjust the centering.

3. The next thing I did was to pull off the Hobby-Lobby sticker. I love Hobby-Lobby, but I didn't like the look of their sticker on my lovely new Pitts.

4. Then I attached the wings as the instructions say, using the nylon bolts, and using the zip ties to attach the braces. The zip ties are hard to tighten, so I used pliers to pull them tight. Be careful attaching the aileron connectors, because the horns bend easily.

5. I was not happy with the attachment of the braces, so I put a small amount of foam-safe CA to hold them in place. Be careful not to let it run around because it can bleed the colors from the decals. Wipe away any excess right away.

6. I also applied a little CA to the landing gear fairings to hold them in place.

7. I applied a little CA to the aileron connector horns so they don't rotate back and forth on the aileron.

8. I used some packing tape to secure the battery wires into the battery bay, so it doesn't pull itself back inside and make itself a real pain. Then I also put some hook-side of velcro into the battery bay to help hold the battery in place. I put loop velcro on the battery.

9. I am having trouble getting the battery into the place it's supposed to go, and the CG is going to be a little too far back with the battery they sent me, so I'll have to figure something else out. Maybe a bit of ballast will help, but I don't like doing that...

10. As a last step, I hooked up a really big, powerful battery and my watt meter. This is because I'm at high altitude and have had bad experiences over-amping motors using recommended setups. Results were: 7.4 amps, 84 watts - I would like to see a lot more for a plane of this weight for aerobatic performance, but this will be enough to make it fly.

The only thing left to do at this point is wait for a good day to fly! Here's a photo of the finished Pitts S2A Biplane - isn't she pretty! (Let's hope she stays that way, hehee)

(Click for bigger image)

Pop Flyer Pitts

2007-09-22T17:16:00.001-06:00

Pop Flyer Pitts - this is a 3D plane of about 9 oz. with a very powerful motor.

Yak-55

2007-08-19T21:06:00.004-06:00

Hobby-Lobby Yak-55 with a carbon fiber landing gear from another plane. I built this plane exactly as the instructions say, with no extra bracing - it was fragile.
Motor: Himax 2812-890 - almost too zippy for this plane.
Battery: Thunder Power 900mAh 3-cell
ESC: Castle Creations Thunderbird 18
Servos: 3x Hitec HS55
Prop: 10x4.7 APC Slow Flyer
RX: Castle Creations Berg 4L - 4 channel micro receiver, very good 72MHz.

This is my new one... all taped up and ready to go :)
This plane is completely covered with packing tape - this adds a ton of durability (See first video) but it also adds weight.
Motor: Hobby-Lobby 400XT - almost too zippy for this plane.
Battery: Thunder Power 900mAh 3-cell (or a 730 mAh 3-cell)
ESC: E-Flite 10-amp brushless
Servos: 3x Hitec HS55
Prop: 10x4.7 APC Slow Flyer
RX: Spektrum AR6100e.

Getting Started

2007-08-15T13:40:00.000-06:00

OK, hopefully you came here before you bought anything. If you were smart like that, you should look into getting the GWS Slow Stick or the HobbyZone Super Cub. Those are the two best trainers out there and your local hobby shop should have them. The Super Cub is RTF(Ready to Fly) - meaning everything you need comes in one box. The Slow Stick is ARF (Almost Ready to Fly) - meaning you will have to buy a radio and a few other parts (this is detailed in my build log section - link on right side)

Before you buy anything, you should also check out the RCGroups beginners forum (link, right side of this page). Go there and register and read the "sticky" threads before you post. Don't ask what plane to start with... it's been asked and answered hundreds of times, and the answer is either Slow Stick if you want "real" stuff that you will be able to use on other planes in the future, and if you like building. The Super Cub is good if you don't like building and just want one complete plane that will get you up in the air fast. There are still some issues that you need to learn about before you toss it up in the air though - it is not "charge and fly" and many Super Cubs fly like crap out of the box - you will have to trim and balance it, so go to the forums and learn how to do that, or you will crash within seconds of takeoff. These things aren't easy to fly, and you should be prepared to crash, fix, crash, and fix again. If you're easily frustrated, this isn't a good hobby to get into. If you like to challenge yourself and learn something extremely rewarding, then it is a lot of fun. The Slow Stick will take a lot more abuse than the Super Cub, and once you finish building it, you'll know how to fix anything that you break.

You're going to spend about 200 bucks to do this right (probably more) but it is worth much more. If you want to go with the toy planes that are $40-$100 then pick any of the ones mentioned on the right side of this blog. I have tried some toy planes that aren't mentioned on here, and there's a reason why... they aren't worth buying. There are some VERY BAD toy planes out there, and all they do is crash and break, and I really wish that companies would stop making them. They scare people away from a hobby that can be very fulfilling if done right.

If you've already bought a plane, do yourself a favor and go to the forums mentioned above and get help to get your plane set up correctly before you try to fly it. If you've crashed it already, you know why I say this. If you haven't crashed it yet, you don't want to know why. If you are having trouble with a new plane and want to know why, the experts on the forums can tell you... just make sure you follow the rules when you post, be clear about what happened and exactly what plane you have. We'll get you all straightened out.

One last thing - if you know an experienced pilot who can train you, or if there is a model airplane club in your town - GO THERE and have them help you. A good trainer can teach you anything you need to know, and they should be willing to help set up your plane for you, they may have a plane of their own for you to fly, or they may simply teach you on your plane. They should not charge you for this, and if they ask for money, find someone else. There is no substitute for in-person help. Please don't get frustrated and trash your plane before you try these things!

Over and Out!
Jasmine

GWS Funny Park

2007-08-14T20:19:00.000-06:00

GWS Funny Park, with Pikachu at the stick.

Most Common Noob Mistakes

2007-08-08T14:13:00.000-06:00

[Adapted from this and my own experiences]

There are several things that new people do wrong almost universally, and a few things which people just don't know about ahead of time when they first try this hobby. It can be extremely frustrating to get this stuff wrong, because it often means you destroyed your plane. Please read this and get these things right before you fly. If it means you have to wait a couple weeks, trust me, it's worth it. I made these mistakes and nearly gave up on this stuff because of it. I also hurt myself very badly getting a plane out of a tree I shouldn't have been near in the first place. So please be sure to get this stuff right before you fly, and periodically refresh your memory until it becomes instinct. If you can't remember them all at first, make a checklist or print out this blog and take it to the field with you.

1. Buying the wrong plane - you should start with a high-wing trainer, like the Slow Stick or Super Cub. See the blog about Getting Started for more info about this issue. It is essential to start with the right plane. You won't be able to fly jet fighters or anything "cool" until you learn on something that might be a little less exciting, but it will be worth it if you start out with the right plane. Baby steps first, then walk, then run!

2. Too much wind - Flying in wind is difficult for experts and impossible for beginners. It may be frustrating to wait, but it's more frustrating to break your plane because you chose to fly in the wind. Wait until there is NO WIND AT ALL for your first flight. The best times for this are early in the morning before 10AM, and when I say no wind, I mean NONE. I still won't fly in winds over 5mph, and that is not very much wind. A 5mph wind barely tickles the leaves on the trees. Learn to watch the trees and flagpoles and check the weather on web sites before you go flying. This has nothing to do with your plane - it has to do with you. A very experienced pilot can fly in more wind, but a very experienced pilot usually knows better. It is common to go out to a field and see the experienced guys sitting around talking, while the newbies throw their planes into the wind and crash.

3. Ignoring wind direction - Wind direction is very important during takeoff and landing. At other times it is less important, but you should be aware of the wind direction at all times. ALWAYS take off and land going INTO THE WIND. Test this by throwing up grass blades before each flight, and be mindful of changes during your flight. I sometimes use a cigarette to test this in very light winds, but it's a bad idea to smoke or do anything else while you are flying. The wind can change direction while you are flying, and the wind is usually stronger at higher altitudes, and may be in a different direction as well. Since you can't go up there and test it yourself, you will have to observe your plane very carefully. If there is too much wind aloft, don't fight it. Land and fly another day. Land into the wind... always! There are hundreds of ways to explain this, but it's best to just trust me on this one. ALWAYS keep your plane upwind of yourself, and don't fly over your head. This is important if you lose power... your plane won't blow away from you, it will blow toward you.

4. Understanding orientation - This is something you just have to learn and get an instinct for. There are many ways to visualize it, but the basic point is that many beginners have a habit of turning the wrong direction when the plane is facing them. There are two things that helped me with this: simulators and visualization. I think everyone should practice on a simulator before going out to fly for real. The reasons for this should be obvious, but the one that applies here is learning your left from your right. There are simulator links on the right side of the page, but you want to get one that works with your actual transmitter, so it feels right when you go out to fly. The other way to understand orientation is to visualize yourself sitting in the plane, or imagine that you are actually facing the same direction as the plane. I will sometimes turn my controller to one side to reinforce this visualization. I also tend to ignore 'left' and 'right' and think in terms of 'clockwise' and 'counterclockwise', which are the same regardless of the direction your plane is facing (unless you're inverted). This comes in handy when flying helicopters too. Practice with a radio control car or a cheap plane like the Aero Ace.

5. Plane is not flight-ready - This can happen with RTF planes, so be careful even with these! Most RTF planes are not actually "Ready to fly" and they will need some adjustment before flight, and trimming as well. No plane can be trimmed properly before flight, so if you don't understand how to do this, get an expert to trim your plane for you. Be sure to check the Center of Gravity of your plane, and make sure it is in the manufacturers recommended location. This is probably the single biggest plane-related problem that beginners face. Get it right, or you're going down. Also check that everything works on your radio, all the control surfaces go the right directions and that everything is solidly put together. If you built the plane yourself you should be intimately familiar with it and check these things easily, but if you bought an RTF, be careful since many of them are not properly balanced and there are occasionally simple defects in the product itself. DO NOT FLY if any of these things are wrong.

6. Pilot is not flight-ready - Most of the beginner mistakes that are blamed on planes are, in my opinion, pilot error and not the fault of the plane. Make sure you are ready to fly. Practice in the simulator until you can fly very well without crashing. Practice landing, a lot. Keep the simulated plane out in front of you and at high altitude. The only reason I am a halfway decent pilot is because of hundreds of hours of simulator time, and I'm serious about that. I also have an understanding of how planes work mechanically and aerodynamically, and this helps a lot, but not as much as practice. Also, if you are easily frustrated, have high expectations, or other mental blocks, you are not flight-ready. Flying without confidence is a big mistake.

7. Flying in the wrong area - Make sure you have enough room to fly! For most slow trainer planes this means two football fields worth of space. That may seem like a lot, but trust me it's not. Also make sure there are no people or cars or trees or anything else in the area you intend to fly. It is also a good idea to check the legality issues. Stay away from airports, and if you're not at a designated club field, be sure it is legal to fly at the park, school, or whatever. Some places have outlawed flying because some dopehead probably crashed his plane into a house or a person(!), and you will make the problem worse for all of us if you ignore these laws!

8. Not enough altitude - Keep your plane away from the ground! Terra Firma is the enemy of your plane, and this becomes clear the first time you crash into it. Altitude gives you time to respond to mistakes before you hit the ground. Ideally, right after takeoff, you want to fly to at least 100 feet above ground, then trim your plane so it flies right, then have fun. Always fly high enough to recover from two or three mistakes. If you make a mistake, your plane almost always loses altitude. Once you get back into level flight, climb back up to a safe altitude before you 'try anything' again. Flying loops and such is fun, but if you don't have altitude, you're dead. Altitude is also 'stored energy' which you can use to gain speed if you lose power, so keep that in mind. In dogfighting, pilots learn early on that an altitude advantage can nearly always be used to kill your opponent if you have equally matched planes.

9. Misunderstanding speed - AIR speed (not ground speed) is key here. Too much and your plane will climb incessantly, too little and your plane won't hold altitude. Ideally your plane should be able to fly level with the throttle 1/2 to 2/3 of full power. If you have to use elevator to keep your plane from diving, then you need more throttle, and if you have to use elevator to keep your plane from climbing, you need to reduce the throttle. Remember, your plane is completely unaware of the ground, until it runs into it. What I mean is that you should disregard how fast it looks to you, and realize that when flying with the wind, it will appear to be moving faster, and when flying against the wind it will appear to be moving slower. Your plane doesn't care about this... it only sees the speed of the AIR. So, once you find the proper setting for level flight, use that setting for level flight, regardless of ground speed that you see. If you want to climb, use more throttle, and if you want to descend, use less.

10. Pre-flight setup - This includes many things and it might seem like a lot, but these things are absolutely critical to check every time you fly. Pilots of full-scale planes go through a much longer checklist than this every time they fly, because their lives are at stake. In your case, your plane is at stake, and the safety of people and property as well, so it's very important. I check these things every time I fly any of my planes. If you can't remember this stuff, print out a checklist and take it with you to the field.

Are the batteries charged up or do you enough fuel in the tanks.
Are the control surfaces properly aligned and secured to the pushrods and servos
Is there any damage to the plane - do not fly if there is!
Is your channel clear? DO NOT TURN ON YOUR RADIO IF SOMEONE IS USING YOUR CHANNEL! You will "shoot down" their plane, and they will be very upset with you. If you're flying at a club, they should have a board to reserve your channel and tell you if someone is currently using it or waiting for you to get off it. If you're not at a club, be sure to ask everyone what channels they are using.
Did you do a range check today? Check it for each plane.
Be sure your radio battery is charged up, and also the receiver battery if you're flying glow. Best to do this the night before!
If you have flown this plane before, check the trim knobs and be sure they are correct for this plane
Do all the control surfaces move in the correct directions?
Is your antenna pulled up all the way? (I've seen people take off without this, and you'll lose control eventually this way)
Are you taking off in the right direction (see above) and is your flight path clear of people and obstacles?
Do you have everything you need for yourself? Bug spray, sunscreen, sunglasses, a lawn chair if you're flying the Slow Stick! Don't forget to bring water and maybe some ice. A first aid kit and cell phone are handy as well, just in case!

If you keep all these things in mind and don't forget anything, you will enjoy a great day of flying, but overlooking any of these things can result in a very bad day! Good luck with your flying!

Over and Out!
Jasmine

Great Planes Flatana

2007-08-01T20:01:00.000-06:00

This is before I put the motor on. This plane didn't fly very well and I had to fix it after the first flight/crash.

Havoc Helicopter

2007-07-29T00:20:00.001-06:00

Havoc Helicopter (Air Hogs, $29)

Reflex Helicopter

2007-07-29T00:17:00.000-06:00

Reflex Helicopter (Air Hogs, $60) - hard to photograph it in flight.

Dragon Fly Ornithopter

2007-07-29T00:16:00.001-06:00

Dragon Fly Ornithoper - (Wowee Toys, $50) - major damage has not stopped it.

Aero Ace Biplane

2007-07-29T00:14:00.000-06:00

Aero Ace Biplane - (Air Hogs, $30) beat up and still going strong - highly recommended for new pilots! Seriously... get this thing.

Custom Stryker

2007-07-29T00:12:00.002-06:00

Custom Stryker built from the "Replacement Airframe" and spare parts.

GWS Slow Stick

2007-07-28T23:20:00.001-06:00

GWS Slow Stick with brushless motor.

Here's a bunch of onboard videos, and at the end is the night flyer version.

Build Log: GWS Slow Stick

2007-07-25T10:34:00.000-06:00

NOTE: I've made some changes to the plane due to a spectacular crash, which is less fun than it sounds. I'll post photos of the new setup with a brushless motor after the glue dries :)

So, I wasn't going to write this, because I figured it out OK, but I realized when looking through the forums, that many people have trouble assembling the Slow Stick, and that beginners are not sure of what to buy for a flight pack. I also think it's important to delineate somewhere what the total cost of this plane really is, in time and money. Right up front I will tell you, it was $313.28 for all the parts I needed and about 6 hours of assembly time. However, I didn't mind it because I'm currently immobilized due to a "messed up" (doc's words, not mine) ankle. I hurt myself pretty badly getting an Estes Sky Ranger out of a tree.
The Sky Ranger just doesn't fly very well at all, and that's to be expected because it is truly a $40 and ready-to-fly RC airplane. You have to do a lot of work just to keep it in the air, and it really only flies well when it's going straight into the wind. You get what you pay for with the cheap park flyers, and in my case that's about 200 bucks of medical bills. Now, I'm not saying to avoid the cheap park flyers, just make sure that you have lots of space (more than a football field) and you are not easily frustrated. It took me 3 separate flying sessions to figure out how to make the Sky Ranger stay up in the air, and then I crashed it in a tree (and it was just when I was starting to have fun with it).

So, in my frustration over planes that are so horrible that they lead to injuries, I went to a hobby shop in search of a REAL RC plane. I knew I either wanted the Slow Stick, or the Parkzone Slo-V, but the Parkzone is ready-to-fly, and with my bum ankle I kind of wanted something to keep myself busy with. The Slow Stick requires some assembly, and it affords you the option of purchasing equipment you can use with other planes in the future. All of the parts listed below could be useful on other planes, and it's up to me whether I want to remove it from the Slow Stick or buy another one. So here goes, here's how I built my Slow Stick!

The Parts List

GWS Slow Stick Kit ($34.98)

This is the basic kit, which includes the basic parts of the plane, and the motor and propeller. It's cheap, but it's not functional by itself.

Hitech Laser 4 Transmitter/Radio Kit ($117.98)

This radio kit came with the transmitter, and also the parts which are mounted on the plane. When you buy your radio, it will come with servos and a receiver which must be mounted on the plane. Same for the receiver. The servos and receiver are powered by a Ni-MH battery pack that came with the radio. You can buy extra receivers and servos, and the kit came with two extra servos that I didn't need for the Slow Stick (they would be for ailerons, which are not present on this plane). Overall this is a pretty important purchase, since you will be using this transmitter for other planes... hopefully ALL of them. Don't skimp on this one. Get a good one. This one I bought is about as cheap as you can go for a good radio. GWS sells some cheaper ones, but I don't think they are as good. This is the most expensive part you will purchase for your hobby, but don't be cheap... get a quality radio that will last a long time... otherwise you'll end up buying other ones, and your costs will soar higher than the planes you're building.

Thunder Power 3-Cell Li-po battery ($54.98)

OK, here's where you have some options. You need a good battery pack to power the motor. I chose this 3-cell Li-Po battery, which was a little expensive. You can go as low as 20 bucks on this one, for a Ni-MH pack, but I think a good Li-Po battery is a smart purchase. They are somewhat dangerous to mess around with and you have to be careful charging them and connecting and disconnecting them to avoid fire. However, the risk of fire with a Li-Po battery is less than that of gasoline, and if you're smart about it, you'll be fine. Electric power is the wave of the future, and messing around with gasoline is just a dirty pain in the butt. Li-Po will give you better power and less weight (important on an airplane). So, note that you have two power sources on the completed plane. These batteries are not 100% charged up on the first time, so you'll need to drain it and recharge it at least once before you fly. The best way to do this is after you finish the plane. Simply block the plane's forward movement somehow and run it at less than full throttle, until the ESC cuts off the power. It's not a good idea to put a Li-Po battery under heavy load until it has been 'broken in', so don't run it at full throttle for a long time until you have cycled the battery a few times. After your test, allow the battery to cool for about 15 minutes, then recharge it. Use a clock for this - 15 minutes is longer than you think! The first time I didn't check, but the second cycle on this battery gave me a little over 20 minutes of continuous running at 50% throttle.

Electrifly Electronic Speed Controller (ESC) ($34.98)

This is another fairly important part. It serves two purposes - it controls the throttle power via the receiver, and it protects the battery from over-discharging. This one I bought is a little better than the minimum requirement, and it will be able to run a slightly more powerful motor if I want to change motors in the future. This ESC needs to be programmed for this type of battery, and it only works with standard brushed motors. If you want to go with a brushless motor, you will need a different kind of ESC. The GWS kit comes with a brushed motor, so this is a good controller to start with. It has plugs for connections, but you'll need to cut and solder those to the motor wires. The GWS motor is already loaded with capacitors, so you won't need those, but they are included with the ESC.

Eflite Celectra Li-Po battery charger ($44.98)

This battery charger is fairly simple, and requires a 12V DC source for power. I have a thing that turns a wall outlet into a car cigarette lighter, and then I bought an adapter so I can plug this into my car as well. The charging leads on this had to be modified to fit my battery. I will explain below.

Plug Adapter for battery ($3.25)

The battery comes with bare wires, so you need a nice plug to use it. The plug needs to be soldered on to the battery, and you'll need to be really careful doing this because you don't want to heat up the battery wires too much - it's a Li-Po. Also make sure you don't strip the positive wire until you have completely soldered and insulated the negative terminal, because short-circuiting a Li-Po battery is asking for trouble. There is a male plug on the ESC already, so I put the female plug on the battery, and I used the male side of this kit to make a nice plug for the battery charger. I used plenty of electrical tape to insulate this, lock the wires in place and to give me something to grab onto. I can't seem to get a good grip on these ultra plugs so I always put a little tape on them, even if they already have heat-shrink, which you should use if you can get it on there.

Assembling the Plane

Although the instructions are written in poor English, they are reasonably easy to understand. I'll mention a few things here that aren't covered in the instructions or are not clear from the instructions. If you have additional questions, please post them in the comments and I will answer them there for everyone to see. Please do not send me a private email about this... any help on this subject really should be made public. The first page of instructions requires you to complete the tail assembly. You need to cut the foam of the tail and the stabilizer in order to make the control surfaces movable. Use a very sharp razor blade in your box cutter to do this. It does not need to be a 45-degree angle, as 45-degrees will be way more space than you need for control surface movement. Basically, you will make a V-groove by cutting some foam away from one side of the fold. You need to check the proper side to do this for. It may be incorrect in the picture in your instructions. One side of the foam will be pre-cut more deeply and the other side will be uncut. Put tape over the UNCUT side, and dig out your V-groove on the other side. The photo shows what this will look like when you are done.

The fuselage of my plane was pre-drilled with holes in the tail section. This made it easy to attach, but if you don't have holes, you might need to drill them. I wouldn't advise glueing this plane together. I just don't think it would hold. Also, I want to be able to take it apart, so screws are a better choice. You will use the double-sticky tape to attach the vertical stabilizer, and it seems to hold pretty well. At this point, I departed from the order in the instructions and inserted and glued the servo arms before I attached the tail to the rest of the plane. It's just easier to work with smaller peices, and I read the instructions completely before I started, and I anticipated those steps would be more difficult if done in the noted order. So after I got those done, I attached the tail and proceeded to finish the fuselage.

The instructions weren't exactly clear on this and I did it wrong the first time, but you need to put the battery mounts IN FRONT of the wings if you use the Li-Po battery, and follow the diagrams if you are using the NiMH batteries. It is a pain to remove everything and re-order the parts when you have the plane completely finished, so don't make this mistake if you can avoid it. The position of the battery will affect the center of gravity (CG) of the plane, and you want the CG to be in the front section of the wing. If it is balanced too far to the rear, the plane will be unstable, and if too far forward, the plane will be hard to turn. I had to put my receiver under the fuselage, instead of above as noted in the diagrams, because my receiver was too big and it kept running into the wings and the wings wouldn't mount properly. The photo shows where I had to mount everything.

So, the next thing I had to do was figure out my battery pack and charger. I mention above how I had to do that, in the section about the battery. Here's a photo of the finished plug from the battery. The plug on the charger was done the same way.

Probably one of the first mods I will make on this plane is to fix the taildragger wheel. The parts that are supposed to hold the wheel on do not fit, so I had to use a different part with a smaller hole in it. I got a few extra plastic parts in the Slow Stick kit, so I used one of those to fix the wheel onto the wire. I don't like this taildragger part because it doesn't turn. This makes it hard to taxi the plane on the ground, which would be convenient if you landed some distance away. You could taxi the plane back to where you were standing, rather than walking over to pick it up. With my ankle the way it is, this seems like a good feature to have. The photo shows how I attached my tail wheel.

That's about it. The rest of the instructions are fairly easy to understand in spite of the bad English. If you have any questions, please post them. The electric flyer community
will appreciate it!

Happy flying!
Jasmine