flew an R22 today for the first time, hover and pedal turns were easy!

"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

"Beav" wrote in message
...
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.

That's a fair point I guess. I'm sure they'd be more than welcome at any
club, so by extension the heli-chair might well be too. Though I can
imagine a lot of able-bodied flyers being cautious of putting themselves in
an unnecessarily vulnerable position.

Si

"Simon Robbins" wrote in message
...
"Beav" wrote in message
...
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.

That's a fair point I guess. I'm sure they'd be more than welcome at any
club, so by extension the heli-chair might well be too. Though I can
imagine a lot of able-bodied flyers being cautious of putting themselves
in
an unnecessarily vulnerable position.

Si


One of the senior members of our local RC club flies his airplanes from a
seated position. He's of an age now that he has a hard time standing still
for even the 10 to 15 minute duration that his model will fly. One of the
other members assists him with getting the model started and safely to the
runway and he takes it from there. He's still an able pilot even if it's
not quite as precise as he was in his younger days.

FWIW!
Fly Safe,
Steve R.

"Heli-Chair" wrote in message
oups.com...

6) i do not recommend using any of the mixing functions of the radio or
features such as a heading hold gyro or governor to assist in flying
the helicopter. they can be helpful for some aspects of initial
learning but it is critical to turn all that stuff off and do it on
your own.

kas


Now "that" should make things a lot more interesting. I've never flown a
model helicopter where the throttle and collective were separate functions.
It's always been a matter of setting the throttle and collective curves in
the radio and living with what you get.

Does the Heli-Chair have any kind of throttle collation with collective
movements or are you making the student to all the work manually?

Also, I agree with not using a heading hold type of gyro but are you using
any kind of gyro stabilization on the tail? When I first starting learning
to fly an RC helicopter, I didn't have a gyro at all and things got
"interesting" from time to time. I eventually had the models tail controls
setup as mechanically soft as possible. That is, having the shortest
possible arm on the servo and longest possible arm at the tail rotor itself.
I would think that having a small amount of gyro stabilization would keep
the models responsiveness a bit closer to what the student would feel in the
full size bird.

Just wonding?
Steve R.

Steve, in response to your questions:

The Heli-Chair is simply an extension of the radio transmitter and thus
any mixing function, program or configuration that you can setup on a
Futaba, JR or whatever it is...you can do it with the controls of the
Heli-Chair.

I do have a gyro on the tail. I found that unless you have a perfectly
slop free and stiction free linkage (also friction free) you really do
need a gyro or it will be unpredictable. Like you said though, heading
hold is definitely cheating!

Some of the people that have purchased my Heli-Chair have done so
having absolutely no remote control helicopter experience. For that
reason alone, when I ship them a unit it includes a program with
throttle mixed to collective appropriately. The main purpose of this
is to give them a way to judge what the proper rotor speed is. They
can choose to learn in that mode for a while, then switch over and do
the controls independently. I also program revo mixing on the third
mode to use to make things easier to get used to. I make sure to point
out in the "pilot's operating handbook" that these are learning aids
and not the way a real helicopter will work. Students take advantage
of these programming modes to help get a head start and then turn them
off as soon as possible.

I have a video on the website that shows all this quite nicely. It is
a 30 minute orientation video found in this folder:
http://www.heli-chair.com/videos_pub...over_training/

The filename of that training video is "heli-chair_training_1.wmv" You
can also locate the PDF pilots operating handbook at:
http://www.heli-chair.com/heli_chair...HC_1_POH_2.pdf

kas

"Simon Robbins" wrote in message
...
"Beav" wrote in message
...
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.

That's a fair point I guess. I'm sure they'd be more than welcome at any
club, so by extension the heli-chair might well be too. Though I can
imagine a lot of able-bodied flyers being cautious of putting themselves
in
an unnecessarily vulnerable position.

I taught my pal (another Steve as it happens) to fly his RC heli, and he's
in a wheelchair. He was no more dangerous than any other guy I've taught
over the last thouand years (I'm getting on now Steve:-)

No-one even notices his chair anymore, so I suppose a heli-chair set-up
would soon be seen as "nothing special" from a rules or fear POV. I've
always fancied building something like the chair myself, but I've not got a
round tuit I can use


--
Beav

Reply to "beavis dot original at ntlworld dot com" (with the obvious
changes)