setup for good collective managment

[danyl]

We hear all the time about collective managment during 3D maneuvers, but I wanted to share an observation about the heli setup and how it applies to your finger control.

In theory, the more resolution you have on servo throw the better. This means that the more you can move the left stick for the same amount of servo travel, the more percise you can be.

But this isn't always a good thing. I have a Trex 700 that can go from upright to inverted hover with the slightest collective movements. My trex 500 however takes almost a quarter of stick throw to get into a stable inverted hover after a rotation. I find that this makes my maneuvers worse, not better. I never seem to get the timing correct from one execution to another. Sometimes my fingers don't cover the distance fast enough or smoothly enough. I am much more gracefull with the more aggressive setup.

I will drill this down further: My Trex 500 hovers at 4 degrees of pitch at idle up 2. That means an inverted hover needs 4 degrees of negative pitch to assume a hover after a flip (or half way through a flip). Therefore, my fingers must move the left stick tthrough 8 degrees of pitch every time I flip. That's about a 1/2 to 7/8 of an inch of stick travel timed appropriately.

On my Trex 700, in idle-up-2, I hover at 1-2 degrees. That means less than half the amount of stick travel needed to complete the maneuver! For me, this is much easier to execute smoothly, and more importantly, time with the maneuver.

As headspeed increases, your hover pitch will decrease and your stick travel from upright to inverted hover will shorten. But what if you have max'd your headspeed and still have too much travel?

There are other options. For one, you could decrease your overall pitch range. if you don't need +/- 14 degrees of pitch, don't setup your heli for it. I am just beginning true 3D and +/- 10 degrees is fine. It give me less stick throw to cover more ground.

If your servo's have enough torque, you can also move the ball links out one hole farther on the servo arms. this will give you faster travel at the expense of torque, but will also reduce the amount of stick movement to acquire it. You will of course, have to adjust your endpoints in the TRVL ADJST screen.

Hope this though might help someone.

[Rªzª]

Good writeup. One thing to note however. Moving the links on the arm of a servo does trade torque for speed, but that doesn't necessarily change the stick position for a given degree of pitch. I.E. If you are +12 -12 pitch it's likely the same stick position will get you to a hover regardless of where the balls are on the arms. The option of lowering the ends of the pitch range does work well though.

Another option is to play with the pitch curve to focus hovering upright and inverted to be closer towards center stick, but may require a 7 point curve to work well.

If at all possible try to get all your machines set up as close as possible. Having one machine that is nimble around center and one that is very lethargic won't help your overall flying if you like to fly both machines.

One bad thing about too little stick movement is you will loose a little bit of fine tuning pitch control. When you try to do any maneuvers at a constant altitude you'll bounce up and down in pitch (especially in wind) without being able to control it very well.

[danyl]

You are quite correct. That's the resolution I was referring to. You can make much finer changes to the heli the more stick throw you have. My problem has been timing the overall stick throw so that it keeps up with changes in the heli. Maybe my fingers are just too short, but I have found that trading some of the fine control I have over the stick movement, for a shorter total distance that I move the sticks, has allowed me to TIME the maneuver better.

I experienced the same problem with coordinated turns. I had too low a piro rate and wasn't getting the tail whipped around fast enough. I couldn't move my left finger and thumb (pinch) fast enough to keep up with the rate I was giving cyclic. When I sped up my piro rate my turns improved.

[Rªzª]

Here's one more simple tip for a tighter resolution. Shorten the sticks Seriously shorten them to a length that's comfortable yet short enough to give you a good feel for the pitch range. if you feel the range is too tight you can try lengthening the sticks.

[mnekap]

Why not set dual rate and expo on your tx? Use a softer setting for flying in wind and when you require FFF or hovering and an aggressive setup when 3D. During take off and landing I use dual rates and expo such that I have better resolution and feel of the heli and when going crazy, it's convex curve on expo with 120% dual rate travel.

Works for me.

[Dave Snider]

Try lowering the engine power output on your flight sim by maybe a 25% or so,you can learn collective management this way.Just my opinion but Comparing a 500 to 700,their is a big difference.Sounds like your 500 needs faster paddles or/and more cyclic pitch or your 700 needs the opposite.Nothing beats stick time.

[danyl]

I appreciate everyone's suggestions for my Trex 500. But I have it the way I want it. I was just using the comparison to explain stick travel and how it can affect the smoothness of a maneuver. I guess I didn't do a very good job of getting my point across. Oh well, I tried.

I use my 700 for my 3D and the 500 for forward flight and practicing inverted flight. I have Helicommand on the 500. It allows me to safely hover inverted, while learning rudder movement and tail forward flight. I need the collective to be tame because some times I move the collective the wrong way and I need room for mistakes.

I don't try anything that I am not comfortable with on the 700 because I can't afford to crash it. It is however, set up very aggressively.