circle too small

[rsw2526]

a newbie, learning upright forward circle (lesson 6). somehow my circle is very small and i cannot figure out how to enlarge it. any help is appreciated.

in the thread "From tail-in to all 8s and funnels in 6 months- lesson 6 ", it says
"... Next is elevator; less elevator, wider circle; more elevator, tighter circle. "
it confuses me since i was holding down the elevator to keep tail down. no way i can use elevator to enlarge or shrink the circle.

also, it says
" Last is the collective. More collective, faster turns, less collective, slower turns. "
what i got is more collective, the heli went up, not faster. no way to make the heli go faster or slower once into the circle.

thanks.

[gitbse]

Yes, in general.. for a tight circuit pattern you need little collective and more elevator. To widen that circle, you need more collective and less elevator.

What's missing there is that when you want to change the speed or size of the circle pattern, the bank angle of the machine needs to change. Think of it like a Nascar track. The cars can go all day around a small baseball sized circle at 40mph on a flat track. However, to turn a 2 mile track at 200mph, they need to bank at 30 degrees.
Just like the lesson says, collective controls the speed, and elevator input controls the arc. Put the two of them together, and you have a circuit.
If you add collective and the machine rises, you need more bank angle. It's all about putting every piece together.

[rsw2526]

what does it mean, more elevator? like moving upward (passing the 50 mark and go up)? won't that give me more speed?

on the video, i see elevator stick always on the low side (below 50 mark).

[Raptorapture]

There's three main aspects for holding a flight pattern.

The first is orientation made up of attitude, that is the angle with respect to the horizon (level surface) and facing, the direction the canopy is pointed.
The second is the direction and speed of motion.
The third is control input.

Speed is fueled by collective pitch and rpm which is controlled by the collective stick.

Elevator referred to here is the amount of cyclic input from the elevator control, right stick, vertical axis in mode two. In forward flight more means additional down input from neutral or center stick.

You want to first stabilise your speed in forward flight by controlling the relationship between amount of collective and elevator to get level flight at a desired speed. Collective chooses speed while elevator moderates speed while achieving level flight.

Next you want to initiate a turn. To start the turn you need to bank into the turn by applying the appropriate amount of aileron cyclic, right stick, horizontal axis. Once you have achieved the approximately desired angle you then need to apply elevator to initiate the turn. The turn is then held by the appropriate balance of elevator, continued cyclic input and finally rudder to keep the tail following the path of flight. It's important to note that the continued cyclic input will most likely be much less than the amount required to initiate the turning attitude.

To answer your question about speed, for level flight it is based on the amount of collective input. The two remaining controls of aileron and elevator determine the circle radius chosen. Depending on how much you bank the turn the appropriate amount of elevator will have to be applied to keep the turn level. So the faster you go and the more you bank the more elevator you will need to apply.

[slamdance]

My guess is you don't know how to "swim" the helicopter.
Unlike a planker you do not just dive and bank the helicopter.
(if you do that, you need "speed"...in which case it will be too much and too quick coming out...dangerous).

If you think about it, there is only 3 fundamental turning actions:
1.) Carving turn(like an airplane...but you need speed and watch the drop). You don't do this with heli unless you have space, speed and ready for slingshot back.
2.) Flat turn. You work the elevator back/forth. Stop and go. Then add some rudder turn the heli. Then more stop/go. Repeat...etc. When done smoothly it's like ice skating. Thus....you will be doing it very slow.
3.) Sliding/drifting turn. This requires all 3 controls at same time: elevator, rudder and aileron(you have to work side/side just like elevator). If mastered, you will be capable of doing 2 things at the same time. Slow down and turn, simultaneously. It's just like skidding your car in a turn or doing a hockey stop ice skating or snow skiing. Visualize that?

Now go hit the sim.

[ArchmageAU]

Originally Posted by rsw2526

a newbie, learning upright forward circle (lesson 6). somehow my circle is very small and i cannot figure out how to enlarge it. any help is appreciated.

in the thread "From tail-in to all 8s and funnels in 6 months- lesson 6 ", it says
"... Next is elevator; less elevator, wider circle; more elevator, tighter circle. "
it confuses me since i was holding down the elevator to keep tail down. no way i can use elevator to enlarge or shrink the circle.

also, it says
" Last is the collective. More collective, faster turns, less collective, slower turns. "
what i got is more collective, the heli went up, not faster. no way to make the heli go faster or slower once into the circle.

thanks.

gitbse's reply below is spot on.

Originally Posted by gitbse

Yes, in general.. for a tight circuit pattern you need little collective and more elevator. To widen that circle, you need more collective and less elevator.

What's missing there is that when you want to change the speed or size of the circle pattern, the bank angle of the machine needs to change. Think of it like a Nascar track. The cars can go all day around a small baseball sized circle at 40mph on a flat track. However, to turn a 2 mile track at 200mph, they need to bank at 30 degrees.
Just like the lesson says, collective controls the speed, and elevator input controls the arc. Put the two of them together, and you have a circuit.
If you add collective and the machine rises, you need more bank angle. It's all about putting every piece together.

More speed, more bank, more collective.

Tighter more elevator and keep it in line with the rudder.

Originally Posted by rsw2526

what does it mean, more elevator? like moving upward (passing the 50 mark and go up)? won't that give me more speed?

on the video, i see elevator stick always on the low side (below 50 mark).

In the video, the 8's are relatively slow and wide. Little collective and little elevator.

The whole turn is a balancing act between rudder, collective, elevator and aileron. The balancing act gets harder in wind (should see what is required to keep an even circle in a 30mph constant wind - It's even harder if the wind is gusty )

The rotor disc is always performing 2 functions. Steering and propulsion. The rudder is mainly doing heading (which affects steering controls).

Two ways to learn, practice (trial and error), education (understanding the theory of what's happening). There needs to be a balance as you must apply the knowledge. I strongly encourage with the sim, trial and error then acquire more knowledge once you have some experience of what is happening and have questions. Rinse and repeat this process in sim till doing it 100% of the time at 100% speed, THEN do it in the real world. (do not back out on this last step - 3 mistakes high and trust the training).

Best of luck.

If not understanding, keep asking questions here and devise your own experiments in the sim to get greater understanding. (ie. In the sim experiment with: What happens if in a circle I do full elevator back? or What happens if I over-steer the rudder and the tail blows out? or If I jam it on full collective for 1 circuit, how do I make a circle of any size without gaining height?).

Experiment and have fun and learn.

[rsw2526]

ok, thank you all. will go on the sim and apply what you guys said.

one thing did surprise me. i always thought collective is for up and down (at idle up-constant rpm). did not realize it actually controls the speed as well! i always thought elevator is for speeding the heli up (especially for forward flight).

go back to sim now.

[ArchmageAU]

Originally Posted by rsw2526

ok, thank you all. will go on the sim and apply what you guys said.

one thing did surprise me. i always thought collective is for up and down (at idle up-constant rpm). did not realize it actually controls the speed as well! i always thought elevator is for speeding the heli up (especially for forward flight).

go back to sim now.

Collective just increases thrust. Elevator (and aileron) rotates the angle at which the thrust is applied. Gravity just tries to bring you straight down.

In general, balance the upward portion of the thrust acceleration vector with the downward force vector of gravity and height is maintained. The lateral portion of the thrust acceleration vector is needed to counter drag.

More lateral thrust, less upward thrust, faster lateral movement. Not enough upward thrust (too much lean and too little collective) and gravity will pull you down.

Once you get the mental picture of flying the disc it all starts to make sense and becomes semi-intuitive. The rotor disc is just your thrust vector.

Best of luck. Sounds like you are most of the way there.

[DoubleCH]

Banking angle doesn't determine size of circle when you're in"orbit". It just determines how much centrifugal/centripetal force there is. You can fly continuous small circle banking at 45 degrees very slowly or fly a super size circle super fast also banking at 45 degrees.

It's easier to fly bigger circle faster because if you fly big circle slow you'll need very little banking.

[ArchmageAU]

Originally Posted by DoubleCH

Banking angle doesn't determine size of circle when you're in"orbit". It just determines how much centrifugal/centripetal force there is. You can fly continuous small circle banking at 45 degrees very slowly or fly a super size circle super fast also banking at 45 degrees.

It's easier to fly bigger circle faster because if you fly big circle slow you'll need very little banking.

This is correct.

Just to expand a bit.

The rotor is a thrust vector (both vertical and horizontal). You need enough vertical thrust to counter gravity (I'm ignoring translational lift for the moment - this is the extra lift you get from horizontal motion of the blades).

At 45 degrees, 1/2 the thrust if vertical and 1/2 is horizontal. In order to fight gravity, you need 10m/s^2 vertical to stay aloft. Which gives you 10m/s^2 that you can use to accelerate in any direction.laterally.

If you point the lateral acceleration at the very center of the circle you will eventually rotate on the spot (turning pretty fast too, just not going aynwhere) as you are using none of your lateral acceleration to flight drag.

If you point the lateral acceleration a little behind the center of the circle, you will slow down the circle.

If you point the lateral acceleration a litlle ahead of the center of the circle (enough to fight drag), you will maintain a constant velocity circle.

If you point the lateral acceleration a lot ahead of the center of the circle (enough to fight drag), you will increase speed round the circle.

Therefore you can do laterally sow or fast circles at a constant bank angle of 45 degrees.

If you can keep the tail the the horizontal to the ground at all times, the aiming of the lateral component of the thrust acceleration is done with elevator.

Also, if you increase collective (thrust), you must increase bank angle to reduce the constant gravity fighting component of the rotor induced acceleration. This way you get more lateral acceleration which you can use to speed up or slow down the circle. (ie. Hurricane instead of just a normal circle)

Note: If you level the disc (aileron) you will rise as more of the thrust is now downward instead of lateral.

All this becomes intuative after practice mentally getting around flying the disc. Before then it all feels wrong.

Once you get all this, then we will introduce wind
And when used to that we will introduce wind gusts

[gitbse]

[Kap'n Krunch]

Start by learning to fly a circle by keeping the disc almost flat and gradually learn to steepen the bank