6th flight with my baby.

[Madman O Anderson]

Good Morning everybody.

I'm in a great mood this morning. I installed the main gear last night. Lost two of those little tiny dad-blasted nuts. That is very fidgety work for someone with larger hands. The work almost went straight forward. Except that the shaft inside the idler gear kept turning and blocking the bolt from passing thru. What might have been a 15 minute job turned into a 1 hour.

What put me in a great mood was the flight this morning. It went very well. I now believe that I can concentrate on learning to fly.

I was able to keep it within about 10 feet of the launching spot. The altitude was very much easier to control this time.

I wonder what you guys would suggest as a goal for time spent on just hover practice. Is it a certain amount of time or is there a litmus test that will tell me when it's time to start trying to move around a little bit?

Hope everyone has a great flight today. It really brightens the mood.

[blade-man]

Congratulations on your successful repair of your 450-3D ! I remember the thrill well of being able to get one back up in the air and flying well after the first mishap.

The 450-3D is a nice bird - well constructed, fairly easy to work on and won't break the bank fixing it.

I had a tough time with the CP helis at first as I started with fixed pitch and had to break some bad habits. I crashed, crashed, crashed my first one - Blade 400-3D - then dropped back to a MCPX and that is what I really learned to fly on.

No fear crashing - pick it up and start flying again and a biggie for me - could get a lot more practice in as I could just walk out in the back yard when I had a few spare minutes. I got pretty good with it then when back to the 400 and it was much easier.

To answer your question as far as how long to practice hover - it's going to vary a lot from person to person. My suggestion would be as you get more comfortable hovering just start moving it around more and more. I cannot stress how important it is to get to where you're comfortable in all orientations to where you don't have to think too much to keep it in the air whether tail in , nose in or either side in. This needs to become almost an automatic "no brainer" to progress to actually flying the bird.

My other big tip when first starting to move around is fly somewhere where you have plenty of room. I think your natural tendency will be to keep it low but you're safer higher up to give yourself more room to correct. And if you're flying in an area without ample space side to side it's usually not too long before you run into whatever borders one of the sides because as I'm sure you've seen - they can move "fast"!

Hope this helps - sounds like you're doing great so far and wish you the best in your continued pursuit of the hobby

[Madman O Anderson]

Thanks for the advice and kind words.

[Windmanquebec]

I learned the 450 with his videos..amazing