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The Stall Turn was good practice for using both
thumbs and getting a feel for the heli in abnormal
flying positions.
Your head speed should now be well adjusted for
idle up and the tail rotor revo mixing has no
surprizes. The heli should be close to being able to
fly hands off at fast forward flight, in idle up,
without climbing, diving, or rolling. If adjustments
are needed they will be small, but will make a
difference.
Most radios will have a stunt trim adjustment.
Usually a little down (forward cyclic), left cyclic,
and left tail rotor will be needed.
Only 3 to 5 percent should be needed for cyclic.
(trim heli with 3/4 tank of fuel - when full heli
will dive a bit, empty it will zoom)
Your control setup should start approaching
maximim throws, using some expo (especially on
fore/aft cyclic), and your normal flying only
requires minimal stick movement. No more hauling the
sticks around from corner to corner for normal
flight.
Head speed is more critical, 1500-1600, to ensure
quick response if you screw up.
NOTE*** Head Speed is more
critical than lots of Pitch. No matter how much
pitch you have, if the head speed decays, you will
be in a lot of trouble. A head speed of around 1700+
will prove optimum once the collective/throttle
curves are set for more advanced flying.
Your Stall turns have taught you that it takes
little Aft cyclic to get the nose pointing up and
heli will carry some speed vertically for a while.
At least I hope so.
Loops can be done many different ways. Your first
will be surprizingly easy.
First Loop Attempt
You are flying by (Fast), about 50-60 feet up
(300 if your eyesight is good), INTO the wind, (if
any), and at 3/4 to full collective.
Start to pull Aft cyclic Slowly, leave everything
else alone, as the heli goes past verticle continue
pulling a little more Aft. Once the heli is at the
top of the loop and fully inverted, you can pull the
rest of the cyclic and release to normal just BEFORE
the heli appears to be upright and level.
Releasing to 'neutral' late will cause the heli
to zoom back up and kill what little forward speed
you have left. (You could then do one of your stall
turns which is now down pat ??)
Your first loops will resemble the small letter e
to begin with and you will have gained altitude but
at reduced forward speed. The 'head' may gain a fair
amount of speed during the down leg (pulling
positive pitch while inverted), or bog a little due
to additional cyclic pitch. (Idleup curves now
become more important)
Just keep practicing to get the feel of the loop.
After a while you can start varying the collective
settings, on entry, at the top, and on the down leg
of the loop to get them nice and round. By varying
the Collective and Aft cyclic you will learn what is
most effective and desirable.
Extreemly large loops are possible with high
entry speeds and very small loops are better
performed with reduced forward speed.
By lowering the collective pitch a bit as you go
over the top and then decreasing pitch even more
during the downward leg, the loop will be much
rounder and exit height will be much closer to entry
height with much more forward speed built back up.
Just remember to read collective at the very bottom
of the loop.
Your two thumbs will be going in different
directions at times so think it through BEFORE you
do it.
After a short time you could try a variation of
the loop, a traveling forward tumble.
Actually real easy.
At a moderate forward speed just pull full 'aft'
cyclic, followed almost immediately with full
'negative' collective, once the tail has rotated
past the forward position just reapply full
'positive' collective and release 'aft' cyclic when
heli is flying forward normally again. Its over
before you have time to panic.
Now burn another gallon or two of fuel and ROLLS
will be next.
The following article was obtain from
The Shuttle Page |