Flight School
Basic Flying
Advanced Flying
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LESSON 6 - FORWARD FLIGHT
Now it's time for some real action! We will start doing forward flying and figure 8 circuits.
This diagram shows your flight path.
- Take off and hover at point 1. Hover about 10 ft high. Don't descend any lower than that.
Altitude is your friend.
- Rudder input to nose LEFT. Hover sideways a while. Keep height.
- Input forward cyclic to point 2.
- While still moving forward, at point 3 and 4, slowly rotate the heli to the right so that it's now facing you on approach.
- Continue forward flight to point 5, but you should now be making the heli approach you. ie: flying towards you and not away.
- At point 6, let it pass you, so that at point 7, it is ready to turn around, again and come back.
- At point 8, give it rudder input again to turn left this time, and back to approaching you.
- Continue on to point 10 and back to point 1 to repeat the figure.
Remember, to keep your height high throughout the flight. This will give you a lot of space for your heli to move up and down if you forget to concentrate on your throttle / pitch control.
At first, as you make the corners at points 3,4 and 8,9, it might be a good idea to hover at that spot, and rotate the heli to a nose in position then start your approach.
As you get more confortable with the forward flights, instead of stopping and turning at the corners, perform a smooth bank with the cyclic and apply the rudder in the turn at the same time. If you do it nicely, it will be a continuous figure 8 forward flight.
When you want to stop, let the heli approach you from position 10, as it passes point 1, slowly pull back on the cyclic. Adjust your height at the same time as pulling back to a hover will initially cause the nose to pitch up and the heli to climb. Immediately reduce throttle to prevent the heli from climbing. As the speed slows to a hover, reduce cyclic and increase throttle at the same time to get the heli back to hovering at point 2. |
