My RC Helos

[parsifal]

Hi all



For some now years I have been interested in RC boats and done quite a bit of sailing. Though I still have one yacht, it is not nearly good enough to be considered competitive, but it is still a lot of fun to sail

Over the last couple of month, however, I have been getting into RC Helos. Its a great deal of fun. I am not expewrienced, and not very good at it either, but I have a lot of fun just the same.

About a month agao, I purchased a new model that carries an on board video cam. Ive posted one on U-Tube, which you are welcome to have a look at. I can poost more if people are interested

Here is the link to my vid

YouTube - PICT0088.AVI


And are some shots of my RC collection

[vikingBerserker]

Very cool, always been interested in getting into something like that.

[Thorlifter]

Nice helos. I have a Lama v4, which at the time I bought it was said to be one of the easiest helos to fly and I can't get the dang thing off the ground. Funny thing is, I take it into my local hobbyshop and he fly's it all over the place, no problem. I bring it right back home and I give it gas and it falls over. hahahaha. It has now sat in my closet for over a year!

[Gnomey]

Cool! Nice shots too, any videos of you flying them?

[parsifal]

Cool! Nice shots too, any videos of you flying them?

Yes. I posted a link of one short flight in my post, but here it is again....

YouTube - PICT0088.AVI

I have plenty more vids i can post if you would like to see them

[parsifal]

Nice helos. I have a Lama v4, which at the time I bought it was said to be one of the easiest helos to fly and I can't get the dang thing off the ground. Funny thing is, I take it into my local hobbyshop and he fly's it all over the place, no problem. I bring it right back home and I give it gas and it falls over. hahahaha. It has now sat in my closet for over a year!

Will have to look up the specs for your chopper, as i am not familiar with that model off the top of my head.

However just be aware that flying indoors is far easier than outdoors. My model is roughly 1:32 scale. That means that when i am flying in a two knot crossbreeze, its like flying in a 64 knot gale in a real chopper.

You also need to determine if the chopper is outdoor rated. That was a big mistake i made with my "Volitation" (the big orange an black thing). Its the biggest chooper in my collection, yet its a useless piece of cr*p outside, simply because the tail assebly is not powerful enough to push the thing in anything other than dead calm conditions.

If the unit uses IR signals for control, you will crash every time you are in open sunlight. The best commercially available control wavelength is 2.4 GHz. There is no interference at that wavelength.

You also need to learn by small steps.....control the thing gently, try and adjust the trim controls gradually and start off with small toe hops until you get the hang of the thing. Every time you crash, or land heavily inspect the thing carefully for damage. I didnt....once, and watched my model climb vertically, then descend exactly the same way, because I had a bent control surface and didnt check.

Small tip....always power up your control unit, before you turn the model on. This is to allow "binding" of the RC receiver to your control unit. It will allow your controller to get control and establish communication protocols with the model. this is really important if you fly with other people who nearly always are also operating on the 2.4 wavelength as well.

Finally, though I have never done this myself, you can splice controllers, so that an experienced pilot can "sit in the backseat" and override you if get yourself into trouble. This is a technique often used by the big boys where a model can cost thousands of dollars. I usually just let fate have its way, because my models arent that expensive.

[Thorlifter]

GREAT advise Parcifal. Maybe I'll drag it out again. Mine is not a 2.4GHz, it's a 900Mhz and it is rated for outdoor use. There are several video's on YouTube showing the Lama in action if you care to take a look.

Thanks again for the tips.

[mikewint]

Parsifal, i have a helo too but i've had a terrible time trying to fly out doors. the winds, even mild ones a a big factor and the house isn't big enough for too much error. that video can is really neat. i've seen them mounted in model trains and RC planes
Thorlifter the bigest thing i found is trimming the darn thing. when properly trimmed it should hover in place. inside you create a ground effect which makes control difficult i try to get the helo up to about three feet up as quick as possible. control is then much easier. i also fly indoors at a local high school whenever the gym is not in use and that makes everything much easier

[parsifal]

Hi Mike

All I can say is yes, the wind is a big issue for these ultra lite models. You need to wait for the right conditins. as flying skills improve more difficult conditions can be tackled.

Be prepared for your first model to take a beating.......

Apart from that, all of your advice is spot on. I agree with your summation .

When I get home tonite i will post another piece of vission.

[mikewint]

Parsifal, is the video feed real time or a digital download when you (hopefully) land? had a rocket that took pictures on film which could be developed and printed, provided you could find the rocket

[parsifal]

Mine is a "wait till you land job. It takes still and AVI format videos. You can control turning on and off the camera from the ground, and whether it is taking video or stills (every 4 seconds), but beyond that its wait and see.

Streaming video is a lot more expensive. My camera costs $70 , wheras the nearest streaming video with viewer equivalent (ie micro) is about $250

I am currently working on a concept for a statis dive submersible with streaming video. Its been done before, though you need a co-ax cable to the surface attached to a bouy and a transmitter back to the receiver. Its been done before, but the unit costs about 43-500$ which is getting a bit pricey. There is a US model company that builds conversion kits for static models (they currently have a Gato class conversion for a Revell scale kit). The conversion costs Circa $600 and the camera gear is $300. The camera is apparently very cool, with 3D glasses that apparently good enough to give you seasickness. Company name is Caswell Plating. I would need a very good tax refund to afford that kind of expenditure.....

[mikewint]

Parsifal, pretty cool sounds like you're getting pretty close to one of the deep submersibles like they sending down to the Gulf oil well. you'd have to have really clear water to get any real use out of it. have a friend REALLY into model railroad. he has an engine with realtime video with a big screen monitor built into a console with all the controls. with the scale scenery it's just like actually being in a real engine. also seen a few RC flyers with the realtime video in the aircraft.

[parsifal]

ah the principal is similar, but the budget, the equipment, and such means that whereas those guys can take their RVs down hundreds or thousands of metres, I will be happy with 5 or 10. Their equipment can cost hundreeds of thousands of dollars, my budget is about a thousand......

I did some diving in the past and got right into the underwater photography. Amateur, and hopeless, but I always wanted to have another go some time. This stuff I am expewrimenting with now is a variation of that.

[Night Fighter Nut]

Those are wonderful birds you have there Michael. How often are you able to fly them?

[parsifal]

probably for about 30 minutes per day, but I have enough battery to fly about two hours in eight.