[silkstone]

Well, today I had my first lessons in being a chopper pilot.

No, don't laugh! - you can teach an old dog new tricks y'know.

It's all the fault of a friend of mine who bought me one for Christmas. OK, so the rotor diameter was only about 150mm and after takeoff it invariably headed for the nearest wall, but it got me hooked. So I bought a better one and now I'm the proud owner of a heavily modified Twister Bell 47.

So far the modifications have involved supergluing a couple of struts on the tail following an unfortunate collision with a chair, gluing and reinforcing the cockpit moulding which came second in a battle with a wall, and a bodged repair to one of the rotor blades which lost a bit when I tried to land on a table and missed.

There are two big problems. The first is that this chopper is truly huge - 340mm rotor span - so there's not much room for error when going through doorways. Well actually there's a lot of room for error and I've found most of it.

The second problem is that I'm totally incompetent. I used to think that I knew the difference between left and right, but only when the damn thing is pointing in the right direction. If the nose is towards me, left is right, right is left, and by the time I've figured it out there's yet more work for the Air Accident Investigation Bureau.

Has anyone else tried to fly one of these things? Is it like riding a bike? Will I master it before I run out of superglue?

[Dave]

About 8 years ago I decided to treat myself with my yearly bonus, rather pay bills etc. Like you I had always been intrigued by RC Helicopters, so off I went to the local Hobby shop. Ended up walking out with a £650 Nitro engine Copter, plus a £200 Nitro off road car

Anyway the helicopter was a real build it from scratch event. It took about 20 hours in total & I ended up with a helicopter that had a 4 foot rotor span & could do 60mph

Now from speaking to the shop they stated I had to be careful on 1st go as sometimes the throttle sticks open wide. Slightly concerning. Also after reading more on the web I found that when these things crash, they usually cost around £150 to repair

Now common sense started to kick in & I eventually sold it on EBAY having never flown it ..... the most expensive airfix kit I've ever built lol. The guy who bought it had been flying em for years & already had 2 other copters. He bought mine as spares, as he stated even with years of experience he would often have crashes at great expense.

Re practising, there used to be an RC Helicopter Sim game on the Sony Playstation 1 that everyone ranted was as real to control as the real thing. I did have a copy & it was hard to master, but I did get there. Maybe I should have tried it after all On the RC helictopers they often attach two balsa wood sticks to make a cross & then attach practice golf balls on the end. Aim is to make it more stable & protect the copter from harder landings.

Anyway I'll stick to £15 RC Helicopter I had for Xmas

[Rob Barron]

ROFL, great post Silky, and don't worry, there will be plenty of men on here who have attempted the fine art of manipulating a highly complex piece of engineering in keeping with known laws of aerodynamics....

or as my wife puts it....

Boys and their toys!

Cheers,
Rob

ps Why do I just KNOW Sarah, Summer and Charlotte are not going to be able to resist a dig here? And as for Fiona, well that just doesn't bear thinking about <g>

[simpbow]

Sounds like a lot of technical stuff there Silky, a lot of fun but bags of skill needed,the young fellows got a Nitro rally car each something similar to Daves for Christmas 0ne year & joined the local club etc & used large car parks [LARGE CAR PARKS] to practice on, but after a few months the notion soon wore off after large maintenance repairs + parts, tried it me self, lighting speed plenty of fun but it was hard with a lot of years experience needed,keep at it though.

[Steve]

My uncle used to fly them and it was common for newbies to build 'a rig' that you could learn to fly before ever going near the real thing. The rig was simply a piece of flat wood about a foot square, it would be pivoted from the underneath central point and have the rc gear and servos connected so that it movements would mimic the rotas. On the centre of the wood you would place a marble/ping pong ball or something similar and then practice 'moving' it around the surface without it ever dropping off. He said that once you were able to move the ball to all four corners and then back to the center without any accidents you were ready to progress to the real thing.

My only first hand experience with a RC helicopter was at a model shop in Frodsham. I used to be quite heavily into 1/10th scale rc cars and knew the shop owner, on one of my visits for upgrades/spares he attempted to sell me a helicopter. I explained my fear of how fragile they appeared and unlike with RC cars where you only have to worry about two directions, I had no confidence in controlling one with the vertical plain to worry about too. In his efforts to convince me that it was definitely for me, he took it to the car park at the side of the shop to give me a demonstration.

The car park was quite large and on one side was a row of houses and the other two a brick wall of about 9ft. He set the helicopter down in the middle, fired it up and proceeded to make it hover at around 5-6 ft from the ground. After a few slow turns he took it a little higher, this was the point where he lost the sale. As he cleared the hight of the wall, a gust of wind took hold of it and flipped it 180 degrees with virtually no notice. The helicopter smashed into the tarmac surface and disintegrated into a several large and a few small pieces. Once we had collected them all and gone back into the shop we priced up the costs for replacing the broken parts...£190 At that point I picked up my new bits for the car and left, thanking him for the excellent demonstration

[Dave]

[silkstone]

Hehe! I don't think I'll be trying this one outside unless we get a totally still day, which tends not to happen up here.

The main problem I have is the absence of a brake. I mean, with a car, if you're getting into trouble, you can just take your foot off the throttle, apply the brake and stop. Unfortunately this appears not to work with helicopters due to one of Mr Newton's many discoveries.

[Dave]

Ah, Apple trees ... I see where you are coming from. Just move away from the orchards & you will be fine

[emmettleffel]

Got one for one of the grandchildren at Xmas, unfortunately he still hasn't got it as I crashed it on testing and am looking for a suitable replacement for the weighted paddle thingy above the rotor blades.

[fionaB]

well all i can say to this thread is, i am in complete agreement with Robs better half Di.......... boys and their toys......... WHEN are you lot going to learn that to successfully fly one of these things you have to be able to multi task, ( answer the wife when she is screaming at you to mind the windows, move things out the way as the helicopter heads with absolute certainty at the closest breakable item..... AND steer the thing!)and.............as we ALL know men just cant!

[WOODY]

THIS IS THE FLYING, I USED TO DO JUMPING OUT OF PERFECTLY GOOD PLANES.[IMG]http://[/IMG]

[silkstone]

Originally Posted by emmettleffel

Got one for one of the grandchildren at Xmas, unfortunately he still hasn't got it as I crashed it on testing and am looking for a suitable replacement for the weighted paddle thingy above the rotor blades.

Oops! It's called a fly-bar. That's about all I've learnt. (Except how to put it back on after a crash.)

Fi -

Woody - You are a braver man than I am. (Or dafter! )

[orangepeel]

not hekilopter related but anyone tried a Storm Launcher? quite fancied trying one but £100 for what will no doubt end up as a pile of mashed plastic at the bottom of a pond seemed a bit pricey to me.

[silkstone]

Get thee behind me Satan!

Looks fun, eh? But I think you need your own lake/field/car park.