I can't do it!

[evad1980]

Hey,

Learning this 3d stuff is tricky eh? I've been at it now a while and it just feels like I'm not progressing. I'm kinda at the stage now where I'm trying to learn funnels, can do upright anti-clockwise (not perfectly) but finding it really hard to learn the other orientations. When practicing on the sim I get easily distracted when its not going too well and start messing around doing the moves I can already do, not gaining much.
I wonder do any of you experience the same problems? Should I just stick to one move and fly the hell out of it untill its mastered? Do any of you have some sort of routine or practice plan that you followed? I feel I need some sort of guidance or mentoring!

Would be nice to hear some thoughts or views on this...

evad

[AcidDrink]

Stop doing 3D and learn to hover upright and inverted, then slow piros (10 seconds or longer) upright and inverted. Then learn to do stationary flips. If you can do all of that in 2x2 meters box for full pack, then everything else will be easy.

[danyl]

I have to agree with AcidDrink. An please don't think I am an expert myself. I am really an intermediate pilot. I made the mistake for over a year of just banging sticks on both the Sim and in real life. I crashed a lot, and more importantly reached a plateau that I just couldn't get past.

Then I finally followed all the good advice that so many people like AcidDrink and others give: I went back to the basics! I really did! I stopped flipping and looping and SWOOPING about on the sim and focused on precision and simple maneuvers. I spent 30 minutes every day nose-in hovering for weeks. Boring but effective! I also downloaded the F3C lists and went every day to the flying field with orange cones and practiced hover flight and other precision maneuvers.

The results were astounding! One day I just tried a slow piro four feet above the ground and wow! It was so much easier than ever before! And now when I do flips and loops, it's like they happen in slow motion! I can actually think about what is taking place while flipping, and make small corrections! That never happened when I was just flipping and looping. I had to go back and master the basics.

best to you

[clank72]

I'm in the same boat as Evad. I was getting the same feeling this evening. For 3 months now I have been practicing with the sim without any training plan except for hovering and nose-in. The rest I've been flying at my own will and it is not paying off at all. I was treating it like a video game when it should be very boring and more mechanical. It's easy to slip into "playing around" with the Sim. Time to get serious again guys.

Now I am back to basics with hovering upright at different angles. I found out today that I can't hover very well when looking at the side of the heli, even though I have been using the sim for 3 months. Makes you feel like crap.

Orientation is everything, I think that shows a good pilot. Yes, you can do this trick, but can you do this trick as if you were on invisible rails in the sky.

We are already on the right track by using a Sim. But I still think we are trying to "hurry up" and learn, when you can't.

YouTube videos can make you feel terrible at times.

It's funny because I am an expert in other fields of my personal and business life. I tell people to "Stop trying to show off" in order to get better. And here I am doing the same thing as them, with RC Helicopters.

Back to basics.

[AcidDrink]

I am a newbie myself, I just followed what masters (Raza, Finless and others on this forum and Bert Krammerer in his videos) said.
It works amazingly well.

[clicky]

I was similar - enjoying 'general' flying - flipping, rolling, looping and crashing. A lot. Still it didn't put me off the hobby. Anyway - someone recommended that I might want to start piroing and after couple of really horrible attempts (in which I almost crashed each time) I decided to slow it down.

Even though it sounds kind of boring - I found it the opposite. I would forfeit flying on the 'open field' just to slow it down and do slow pirouettes a foot or two off the ground. At the beginning they weren't really pirouettes - just slow rotation to one side up to nose being at 7 o'clock and back. Then other side to 9o'clock and back. Slowly over time I was able to pass that 'scary' position (that before caused so many crashes)... I continued doing it for 6 months and slowly getting control in faster pirouette speed too. In the mean time I lost ability to slam rudder stick to one side and let it pirouette on its own - me not being in control at each point of rotation, but at the same time I was getting my controlled pirouettes faster and faster. And, again, enjoying it far more than anything else because I was, again, in control and was seeing the progress I was making.

Now, 4 months ago I decided to 're-learn' to fly inverted. I could hover inverted nose in and do, high up, figures of 8 inverted - forward. But, same as with flying before, I wasn't 'in control' all the time and I found out that I'm not getting anywhere with it. So I started with hovering nose in battery through battery (inverted of course) and now started doing small, controlled circuits (that's how I started doing my upright pirouettes at first) at around 3m high. I suddenly become able to do (not-so-in-control) backward inverted circuit too - all pointing to the fact I'm slowly getting there. I'm not going to give up doing it until I'm comfortable doing fast inverted pirouettes (same as I did with upright).

BTW - as I mentioned here already on several occasions: just practising/learning upright pirouettes I suddenly become able to do backward circuits (upright) and shallow funnels. All as result of learning slow pirouetting... Hope I'll achieve the same in inverted too.

One more thing - controlling pirouettes (upright) allowed me to do my first half piro flips (or something that reassembled them).

[bchrny]

Time and patience=success.Remember this, the word can't only exists if you let it ! YES YOU CAN !!!!

[Crash549]

Originally Posted by clicky

I was similar - enjoying 'general' flying - flipping, rolling, looping and crashing. A lot. Still it didn't put me off the hobby. Anyway - someone recommended that I might want to start piroing and after couple of really horrible attempts (in which I almost crashed each time) I decided to slow it down.

Even though it sounds kind of boring - I found it the opposite. I would forfeit flying on the 'open field' just to slow it down and do slow pirouettes a foot or two off the ground. At the beginning they weren't really pirouettes - just slow rotation to one side up to nose being at 7 o'clock and back. Then other side to 9o'clock and back. Slowly over time I was able to pass that 'scary' position (that before caused so many crashes)... I continued doing it for 6 months and slowly getting control in faster pirouette speed too. In the mean time I lost ability to slam rudder stick to one side and let it pirouette on its own - me not being in control at each point of rotation, but at the same time I was getting my controlled pirouettes faster and faster. And, again, enjoying it far more than anything else because I was, again, in control and was seeing the progress I was making.

Now, 4 months ago I decided to 're-learn' to fly inverted. I could hover inverted nose in and do, high up, figures of 8 inverted - forward. But, same as with flying before, I wasn't 'in control' all the time and I found out that I'm not getting anywhere with it. So I started with hovering nose in battery through battery (inverted of course) and now started doing small, controlled circuits (that's how I started doing my upright pirouettes at first) at around 3m high. I suddenly become able to do (not-so-in-control) backward inverted circuit too - all pointing to the fact I'm slowly getting there. I'm not going to give up doing it until I'm comfortable doing fast inverted pirouettes (same as I did with upright).

BTW - as I mentioned here already on several occasions: just practising/learning upright pirouettes I suddenly become able to do backward circuits (upright) and shallow funnels. All as result of learning slow pirouetting... Hope I'll achieve the same in inverted too.

One more thing - controlling pirouettes (upright) allowed me to do my first half piro flips (or something that reassembled them).

U mean piro's during forward/backward circuits or just piroing while hovering?

[clicky]

They started as piros (slow - like maximum 4 seconds for one pirouette) while wanted to hover at spot (it was all over the place), but slowly I learned to to keep it more or less at one spot and then to control the movement through pirouetting - so making circuits while pirouetting... Being able to keep it in the spot builds up skips allowing it to move to the direction you want, too!

So - to answer you question: both!

But, the point was that I started enjoying learning them!

[BaconRaygun]

Originally Posted by AcidDrink

Stop doing 3D and learn to hover upright and inverted, then slow piros (10 seconds or longer) upright and inverted. Then learn to do stationary flips. If you can do all of that in 2x2 meters box for full pack, then everything else will be easy.

+1

Going back to basics is the ticket... I have been at it with upright and inverted piro hover and stationary flips in the sim all winter long. Today I finally had some nice 45 degree weather and no wind so I got 20 minutes of flying in, it was great! Its amazing how much easier just general flying gets. Cutting the 'thinking about orientation' part out lets you focus more on what you want the heli to do and learning piro hover in all orientations does exactly that; it makes flying the heli natural no matter what orientation its in. I actually did my first FF flips today, they were harder on the sim.

[gothicbunny]

Something that I don't see mentioned is slowing down the sim to give your brain a little reaction time. Then once you have it worked out between what the heli is doing and what you need to do on the sticks start turning up the speed. If your old moves are getting boring, try practicing them at faster than normal speed or add other challenge factors like gusting wind.

[Raptor30_V1]

Hello,

Described a plan to follow here:

https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?p=2125475

Citing myself is arrogant, so please apologize for this and understand my post as the desire to try to help you, not just to appear as a smart-a** here on HF

There are 2 approaches - one off is IMO bad, as it will just make you feel progressing in the short-run. What I refer to (as of being wrong) are so called "stick-moves" .. use them only for certanin figures if you like, I do not as I think the goal of 3D is to master your bird any time in any position and learning stick-moves this won't help ..

Very important trick: if flying inverted foward, a nose-heavy bird simplifies your life, as you have enough to do then additionnaly all the time trying to give the bird an impulse forward .. to learn it, any stopping and/ or required impulse to keep your bird in inverted forward flight is a pain .. the opposite applies to backwards flight and backwards inverted .. later on knowing by heart, perfect CG and trim is no problem, as you will fly any orientation any time and you will prefer a well balanced bird.

If learning some special manouvers, always ask yourself, what this moves are composed of - doing so you will progress way faster ..

Best Regards,
Oliver

P.S: E.g. the very best method to learn piroflips is the one described here on HF
PPS: Stick-moves are really funny, as they separate people who really want to learn to master their bird from people that want to learn very fast to impress others (my opinnion)