How to progress..

[peterkjr2009]

I currently feel a bit stuck in flying, i can do flips, rolls, stall turns inverted hover, but i can't string things together. I seem to spend a lot of each flight hovering gettin ready for the next flip etc. I currently trying to learn funnels as well. Would like some advise on how to put moves together and progress in my flying. Thanks

[Steve Graham]

It sounds like your are approaching flying as a series of tricks.

Can you.

Hover upright and inverted in all orientations without crashing?

Fly forwards and backwards upright and inverted without crashing?

If not you are putting the cart before the horse and will have to come back at some point to learn these skills. One of the smack talk episodes has a nice segment on putting together moves in a flow that looks nice. Flow by definition means that the heli will be moving from one place to another between maneuvers. Being able to fly smoothly in all orientations including sideways is fundamental to doing this.

Also key to stringing things together is mastering transitions. These are changes in orientation. Forwards to backwards, upright to inverted, flipping to rolling, and on and on. Take funnels. They come in CW & CCW, upright & inverted, tail in & tail out orientations (the possibilities are endless really if you consider all conceivable orientations). Smooth transitions are another fundamental for developing flow.

The more you fly the more you will be able to use your creativity to string together pleasing sequences but it takes a certain disciplined approach to your training.

Also do a search here for flying to music. Like dance the tempo of music is a perfect match for the motion of flight.

I am a big believer in mastering the fundamentals. Like the scales when learning to play piano they can become mind numbingly boring so leave time for play. The IRCHA website has an excellent program for advancing that I highly recommend.

[Epoweredrc]

Keep at it i used to feel the same sometimes when i watch my videos compared to others i still do... just start doing things bk to bk
I like to take off flip inverted do a punch out turn go ff toward me rotate do some tic tocs then stop go into frt or bk flips i like doing lots bk to back then stock go invert punch out do a piro while invert punch then maybe go into tail slide come out doing a backwards loop go into a backwards funnel. Go into ff do some rolls loops half invert flight..... hey that sounds good imma try next time i fky i norm do all that but not bk to bk

Sent from my ZTE-Z990G using Tapatalk 2

[peterkjr2009]

I can hover in all orientations upright, and nose and tail inverted. Can do backwards upright one way. Can do backwards both ways and inverted one way on the sim, haven't tried in real life yet. I guess i just keep simming till it clicks.

[SMOKEMASTER60]

Originally Posted by peterkjr2009

I can hover in all orientations upright, and nose and tail inverted. Can do backwards upright one way. Can do backwards both ways and inverted one way on the sim, haven't tried in real life yet. I guess i just keep simming till it clicks.

In my experience , even if you can do it on the sim, you will have to learn it in real life as well. I can fly like a mad man on the sim, but I still have to learn each thing on the field if that makes sense. The sim is a GREAT help, but there are just certain things that the sim cannot reproduce IMO. Happy flying

[peterkjr2009]

Spent the last week or so, on the sim, practising backwards figure 8's. Doing one half upright then the other Half inverted if that makes sense. And just generaly trying to go from upright to inverted. can just about manage inverted backwards counter clockwise but i really have to think about it, clockwise is easy. I have slowed the him down a bit and that really helped to get the stick moments down. Im back up to 85% speed now and the 8's are still fairly tidy, will keep practising still i get back to 100%. Wish the weather wasnt so bad so i could fly for real.

[colcha]

Rather than going straight into figure 8s (whether upright or inverted), have you tried breaking down your learning down into smaller steps?

What I mean by this is:

1. starting with slow, stationary piros. This is much more useful than just practising static orientations as it teaches you the 4 basic orientations plus every orientation in between;
2. once you have this under your belt, start practising slow and controlled round circuits (if you are stronger flying clockwise, make sure you spend plenty of time flying anti-clockwise otherwise you will always fear this direction, and vice versa). It is important to do the circuits slowly as this will highlight any areas where you are not fully in control;
3. when you can fly circuits in control, you should then be able to move onto figure 8s without too much difficulty. Until you have mastered figure 8s in both upright and inverted orientations, I wouldn't spend too much time trying to do one half of the figure 8 upright and the other half inverted. The idea here is to build up the basics before moving onto the more advanced stuff.

I am sure that there are other ways to learn but this is what has worked best for me.

[peterkjr2009]

Thanks colcha, i can do upright circuits in both directions, just trying to make my flying a bit more fluid, as i seem to spent a lot of time per flight just hovering to get from one more to another.

[clicky]

Colcha plan is definitively what I would stick with. If I am to learn to fly helicopters again (which I might if I get bored - I am flying mode 1 and I have an idea to learn to fly mode 2 equally good) - I would do exactly what colcha said.

Until you are comfortable with slow (as in 6s or preferably more!) pirouettes in both directions and both orientations (upright and inverted) continuously - you shouldn't really try anything else. Not that you mustn't, of course, but the moment you get those 4 'simple' things conquered everything else might feel far harder than it should be. With them you won't crash your helicopter due to orientation troubles (which I did quite a lot for 4 years until I decided to learn instead of just fool around).

As I said many times - pirouettes will, almost automatically, give you very easy path into learning:

• flying in circuits + figures of 8
• backward flying
• funnels (nose down and tail down - both orientation)
• piro circuits

and open doors to more demanding stuff like piro flips...

Don't skip them - teach yourself properly and do them each time you have chance... After you go through first few you might find them quite relaxing and fun thing to do (as I did)...

[Big Island Guy]

Big thanks to clicky and colcha for their advice on pirouettes, which makes total sense. It was like the doh! moment. So obvious, once you think about it. Upon reading it, I immediately went to the sim to try out this seemingly innocuous maneuver. I mean, how hard can it be just to get a chopper to spin around in one place? Damn hard actually, and that, to me anyway, flags a big hole in my skills that needs to be filled.

Someone else here compared getting the basics down to learning to play a musical instrument. No argument from here. Each day when I sit down at the piano, before the Bach comes an hour or so of repetitious, boring drills. Even the dog leaves the room. But, that's how you get good enough at anything worth doing to make it look easy.

[peterkjr2009]

Will give this a go. Next time Im on the sim. All good advice from helifreak as usual.

[peterkjr2009]

Been praticing hovering piros on the sim. Its not as easy as it looks lol. Clockwise upright isn't to bad, but anti clockwise is terrible.

[Big Island Guy]

Originally Posted by peterkjr2009

Been praticing hovering piros on the sim. Its not as easy as it looks lol. Clockwise upright isn't to bad, but anti clockwise is terrible.

Yeah, no s**t eh? It's, on the sim anyway, actually harder than fancier looking stuff like loops and rolls. Which means of course that now I'm gonna have to get all anal about it until it's perfect!

[peterkjr2009]

The slow controlled stuff is always the hardest. Im sure ill crack it........ Eventually. I remember when i wanted to learn inverted hovering, thinking ill never get it. But now.i can hover a couple.of feet of the deck with out fear. Just practise i guess