"Simon Robbins" wrote in message
...
"Heli-Chair" wrote in message
oups.com...
i went and flew an R22 today. the helicopter was parked on a trailer,
so the instructor insisted on doing the initial lift-off. 15 seconds
later i was hover-taxi-ing to the base of the tower and the video link
below is me doing a hover with pedal turns and a landing, all within
the first 3 minutes ever of flying a helicopter. i seriously doubt any
pilot could fly this helicopter so well, so soon, without training
before hand.

Well, that looks about the same as I managed on my first flight. Maybe a
tad smoother, but only just. And my only previous experience has been with
R/C helis and PC simulators. After handing over the controls to me one by
one, after about 3 or 4 minutes I was hovering like that with the
instructor
off the controls (but ready to pounce!) I think you should encourage a
(conventional control) R/C only friend to go do a trial lesson. You might
be
surprised at how well they do.

The trouble with RC helicopters, especially well set-up ones, is that
there's very little cross-effect from the controls. Revolution mixing and
tail gyros take so much out of the pilot's hands, and feedback flybars
stabilise the cyclic to the point where on a calm day I've had a Raptor 60
hover motionless with my fingers off the cyclic for about 30 seconds.

I like the idea of the heli-chair, but I would never use it for RC
training.
In fact no club I know of would likely allow an expert, let alone a
student
sit there trapped waiting to be decapitated by an out of control model.


So your club wouldn't let someone who's confined to a wheelchair fly?

Doesn't seem very fair to me and I suspect it's not actually legal either.

Beav