How-To: Piro Flips with Video

[neverland]

hi heliopilot, hopefully RaZa will reply.

im no way to his level, but i think half of the knack with piro flips is good collective control. when i consciously try to use much less collective, my PFs seem more controlled- less up and down and side to side. the heli tends to shoot about more if you use too much. saying that, ive never got them completely still, or with a completely level disk, or one that doesnt veer off at an odd sideways angle as it rotates.

the amount of stir someone needs to give depends on the set up of the servos on the individual heli. if a heli is set up for quick response, you need to move the stick less, which might account for him only moving the sticks slightly. when im on phoenix, i find piro flips easier when the heli has a quick cyclic. if its sluggish, not only do i find it more difficult to complete the stir in time, it seems to become more 'knobbly' the further out my thumbs move, making the stir inaccurate. try speeding up your cyclic servo response and use less collective. basically make the heli less powerful and more responsive.

i couldnt even begin to describe how to get nuances of the cyclic stir correct. you just follow the tilt of disk round with your thumb in a circular manner, making sure your thumb uses down cyclic as much as up, left and right. you need all these points to get the disk rotation correct. and make inputs smaller as the heli goes to a flat disk - i think thats why you disk isnt flattening. as soon as i made that realization my PF were much better. you do it the same stir for both the upright and inverted parts. what still gets me a lot, is that the tail spins the opposite way (visually) on the inverted to upright section but the cyclic is the same. that odd input feels normal to me now, after about 2 years of practice! but my PF are still no way near completely consistent

[s0laris]

Collective control is absolutely part of the maneuver. It's really no different than stationary flips and rolls. Think where you are adding and removing collective.

The piro flip is the exact same only the tail is also spinning around

[fulcrum2]

For me, the second part (inverted to upright) is also difficult. I realised that I tend to add more negative collective as soon as I move the rudder. Is it a good idea to modify the Tx in order to get more resistance for the gimbal? Might just try it tonight, the DX6 has an internal adjustment for this...

[neverland]

personally i find its easier to give more accurate inputs with a looser stick. also you dont want to make it notchy and imprecise. thats the last thing you need when giving tiny inputs. my 2 year old dx6i was getting very notchy so i loosened her up and found it much better. its a pretty easy mod to do, so you can easily experiment either way.

not sure what you mean when you say 'as soon as you move the rudder'. isnt the rudder input more or less constant when doing piro flips? only the collective alters surely.

one tip that might help with timing. although you time off the tail (and nose) as the heli rotates, my timing seems to work better when it has rotated on a bit further, with the tail sort of more to the side (i could be wrong, its hard to tell whats going on lol). in theory a later input makes sense as the flipping over of the disk has to be gradual to look right so you dont want everything to happen too soon. but try experimenting with your timing and see if it helps. theres some very subtle things going on with piro flips. ive changed my technique several times to get closer to perfection but aint there yet after two years. i've get a feeling i'll never really get them spot on.

[fulcrum2]

Thanks heaps for your very valuable inputs neverland, they are much appreciated.

I agree with you on the "notchy stick" comment. Collective feels much better when the stick is loose, so I will have to work on my inputs.
Because my full piro flips are still all over the place I practice a lot going inverted, pausing, going right side up. This is where I have to apply negative collective and delayed rudder. Actually a bit of neg. collective starts the move in order to get some upwards monentum and then the rudder input follows. This is were things get messy.
Have no problems when starting from right side up going to inverted, so I guess I have to train my brain and thumbs a little bit more...

Thanks again!

[neverland]

although you do need a blip of negative input as you flip over to upright, or you'd just crash down, i dont think much is needed. a sustained collective input at the wrong time can make the heli go over the place as it flips. this is the same with many other heli manuevers, like ordinary static rolls and flips - your aiming to be pretty neutral as it goes over. this is so as not to interfere with the cyclic inputs as the disk transitions to the desired new angle. very easy to say - much harder to do of course.

ive been trying to get my piro flips to stay vertically stationary by giving only very small collective inputs each way. but its incredibly difficult to get the balance right. they still pogo up and down a bit (as well move about to side to side for some reason). this is on the trex 500 in phoenix. my PF are better on the bigger birds, probably because they are heavy and have more inertia, and fight against movement more.

"Have no problems when starting from right side up going to inverted, so I guess I have to train my brain and thumbs a little bit more..."

the cyclic stir from inverted to upright does does feel very unnatural for along while, like its the wrong way, but eventually it will be easy to do. i dont really think about it anymore

[Steve Graham]

I think the "give it a little pop of collective just before you start to flip or roll" causes a lot of problems. Think about it. You are already holding collective just to keep it from sinking out of a hover. Try this experiment next time your practicing. Set it in a level hover. Note the position of the collective stick. Now flip it and note the position of the collective in a stable inverted hover. These two positions are your collective range for flips and rolls. Not much for most setups. Now when when you go to flip or roll concentrate on NOT adding ANY more collective than you were when hovering. Use full cyclic and smoothly try and transition to zero as the disc approaches vertical.

OTOH if you are trying to do a very slow flip or roll it can help to very gently "toss" the heli up a little to give some hang to the maneuver. This is where stick displacement and timing get really critical though. Too much or at the wrong time leads to the heli moving around the sky.

[fulcrum2]

Thanks a lot Steve and Neverland. Excellent tips!
I was in deed using to much collective. Worked on using less and things are looking much better now...

[Sambuka]

Best tip if doing CCW piro flips (left rudder start the stir when the tail is pointing LEFT. Just made a massive difference to my piro flips this one tip I read from another HF member.

[B6328]

Raza

[Flying Dutchy]

subscribed

[Icanfly]

Nice vid raza, but if I might critisize ALL instructional videos seen to date, when have they been slowed to 40% so the viewer can examine stick and heli positions at the same time? A step frame will help also when things get complex.

Thanks for enlarging the tx, that helps.

[Indydrt]

Started my practice today on the first piro half flip ,, on my logo 400 . After a few nervous tries and corrections I think I am comfortable now with the first part.. Now I will study the second part while inverted to flip it back to upright,with the tail 180 flip again,, IAM used to rolling it over with right cyclic just not used to the orientation of using the rudder to get the tail around , thanks. Great help,, can't wait to get home to try this on my simulator..
I been flying in straight lines inverted etc .. Flipping and flopping to get used to using more collective , but spinning the tail around very little. So theses vids are great. Thanks so much for the help .don

[Chevy2035]

Thanks for this Video!!!!!!!
about 45 days of watching and practicing on a sim, I just went outside and tried my first Piro half flips and was successful, Very very sloppy, but i was able to do them on my 450, my Full Piro almost crashed me so i just stuck with moving back and forth in the half Flips.
so once again, this is a great video and many thanks for taking your time to teach me and the countless others im sure have learned alot from it!

[Indydrt]

So Sunday mourning at the field I'm up in the air with the 700 logo extreme. And IAM doing my half piro flips with confidence now..all of a sudden my friend Carlos says.. They are full piro flips and I freaked out..hahahah. So I remember just moving the sticks but in a more fluid movement and little earlier elevator movement because I noticed I was getting into a bad habit of not flipping it quick and it was throwing off the whole trick,,,like it was not tidy..so all of a sudden. I was doing full piros,.as he says.. So. I laughed and got nervous and stopped and had to go fly a plane to relax..hahah. Thanks for your help..so after only two months of hard sim work and lots and lots of half piros,,I am able to do full piros..yeaaaa.

[PauloG]

There is a video from Nick Maxwell going over the piro-flips as well.

Nick Maxwell One Tank Tip #2: "Piro" Flips (5 min 8 sec)

[Indydrt]

Yea great vid also. Nick is awesome.. Thanks for posting

[leokat001]

Been at this for a couple of days just wondering if Im heading in the right direction ? Thanks guys [YOUTUBE][ame]http://youtu.be/8Dui29FI6QE[/ame]

[ArchmageAU]

Originally Posted by leokat001

Been at this for a couple of days just wondering if Im heading in the right direction ? Thanks guys

That's a big 10/4 buddy. CW and CCW too, even better.

Some call what you do a half piro flip, but it's 360 degree tail rotation for 360 flip, so it's a bonifide piro-flip according to FAI competition regulations (and me).

Just more practice to string them together (3 or more in a row).

Others will also encourage you to do more than one rotation per flip (as they call a prio-flip, 2 rotations (or more) per 360 flip). It's worth learning (and not a big jump from where you are).

[leokat001]

Thanks for taking a look . I have been working on the ccw but still need a bit of practice . As far as adding more rotations well it makes my brain hurt thinking about how to do it . Any tips/thoughts ? Thanks again.