twitchy bird?

[LouP]

So finally, I got my fly barred 200 in the air for the first time. But boy was this thing twitchy. It was like a racing horse at the gate, the slightest movement on the stick and she wanted to bolt. I got myself caught over correcting a few times. Is this normal for this heli or do I need to re-check the build?

LouP

[DMala]

Do you have the longer flybar with the heavier weight? Next step is to reduce a bit the ail/elevator travel on the radio, maybe to 80% as rough start point. It should not feel too twitchy if you are familiar with 90 degree-flybarred helis. It will normally feel very twitchy if you have flown only 45-degree flybar helis so far.

[BHChieftain]

+1 on the longer FB plus stabilizer weights, this really worked for me. Note, do NOT just just use longer flybar without extra weight which by itself will actually increase cyclic response further!!! (the combo together adds enough gyroscopic stabilization to cancel out the faster cyclic rate).

Add expo on the radio to soften up the center, and then you should be able to hover fine. Once you get comfortable hovering and very slow flying, then go back to the short FB with standard weights which will give you the snappy response for regular flying.

Chief

[LouP]

Thanks guys, I was worrying that something was wrong with the build. Right now I am using the standard fly bar. I'll make the adjustments you suggest and see what happens. All my other collective pitch helis are flybarless. This is my first collective pitch with a fly bar.

LouP

[BHChieftain]

The bird is wicked fast-- it took me a long time to get comfortable with it but now I can toss her around pretty good. FBL would make it easier, but I like the FB head...

Don't try to do too much other than hovering and slow circuits with the longer FB and stabilizer weights.

Chief

[Jerrymac]

Hmmm, interesting. I picked up a used Gaui 200 here on HF a couple of years ago. It was always a real handful to fly ever since I got it. After reading this thread I just realized that it has the long flybar on it and NO weights. It came with a ton of spare parts and after poking around in them I think I found a package with 2 different sized flybar weights in it.

[BHChieftain]

Here's a good reference from:

http://www.rcheliwiki.com/Flybar


"In general, increasing paddle weight will reduce the cyclic response speed, while increasing the flybar length will increase the cyclic response speed (while also increasing the flybar's stabilizing effect). An easy way to temporarily increase the paddle weight (to slow down the cyclic for beginners) is to attach wheel colletts to the flybar near the paddles.""

So adding the FB weights even further out really cranks up the stabilizing effect, and that effect is much greater than the the increase in cyclic speed. But removing the weights just speeds up the cyclic response.

I used long FB + extra stabilizer weights at first for hovering and slow circuit training, then once got comfortable I moved to short FB with standard weights. I can still fly slow circuits with the short FB no problem-- it is just the longer FB + heavy weights got me over the hump.

Once you move back to short FB you can still mess around with different weights to speedup/slow down response. It is highly tunable!

Chief

[LouP]

Thanks for all the help on this one. I flew her the last two Fridays in a gym with the changes suggested and she flew much more tamely . After I fly her for a while I am going to start another build with a flybarless head this time . Anyone have suggestions for an electronic FBL stabilizer to use with the 200?

Thanks again,
LouP

[BHChieftain]

Yahoo!!! I forgot who gave me this advice when I started, but it was someone here on the forum-- just passing along what worked for me.



Chief

[DMala]

Originally Posted by LouP

(...) . Anyone have suggestions for an electronic FBL stabilizer to use with the 200? Thanks again, LouP

I have a BeastX+satellite that came with my used EP200 but I found it very sensitive to vibration and to swash gain adjustments. After several crashes I got it dialed in and it now works fine. I can not comment on other units.

[DMala]

I would do some research on this one if you do not plan hard 3D

http://www.robirdusa.com/G31-Gyro