Flying a Single Rotor Helicopter
Single rotor heli's are a blast to fly but RC pilots who start by flying a co-axial heli need to understand that flying single rotor is a fundamentally different experience. The direction controls work the same but the helicopter responds much more quickly. And you must compensate for the side thrust from the tail rotor with a little right aileron.
Co-axial birds virtually 'fly themselves' and can hover hands-off; single-rotor heli's must be controlled all the time. The new pilot who 'waits to see what it is going to do' will quickly lose control and crash. You have to tell it what to do and keep it on a short leash.
Think it through before you fly. Gung-ho RC pilots spin up the main rotor and 'pop it up off the floor'. The next thing they do is crash because they have no idea what to do when the helicopter becomes airborne. More sensible pilots approach their first single rotor take off by spinning it up on the floor and observing how it responds to small amounts of control input. These so-called 'floor exercises' can help you get a sense of what is going to happen when you finally take off.
Single rotor heli's may be fitted with 'training sticks': a cross of carbon fiber rods with ping-pong balls on the ends that clip onto the landing skids. Trainers keep the helicopter from tipping over and striking the ends of the blades on the floor or ground during the first experiments on the ground and the early takeoffs and landings. When you can take off and maintain altitude and land softly the sticks can come off because they adversely effect handling.
A co-axial heli pilot moves to single-rotor helicopter. |