Helicopter question

[Guest Rocko]

Hiya all

 

Now, I know diddly squat about helicopter flight, apart from it's pretty tricky, and takes a lot of training, I gather.

 

So, here's a noob question, so be gentle ;)

 

When RC helicopters were first introduced, they took hundreds of hours to learn to fly properly. Many people totalled their aircraft before even learning the basics. Then, in almost a revolution, we're suddenly inundated with "easy to fly" remote copters, some quite sophisticated, that anyone can learn to fly with little effort.

 

So, while I realise RC gear is quite different to RL gear, does anyone know what was introduced to RC helicopter design that made them very stable and easy to fly, and why such a concept cannot be converted to full size aircraft? Or has it already?

 

Curious as to the reasons. Anyone shed light on it?

 

Scotty

 

 

[facthunter]

Gyro's.

 

Think they are gyro stabilised, Rocko. Like yaw dampers they make it easy, eliminate dutch roll... Nev..

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

A lot of the popular 'toys' have counter rotating main roters which help with torque problems

 

the high $$ stuff is gyro stabilised.

 

 

[Guest brentc]

Yeah, it's both of those. I once bought a Bell 47 twister that has both counter rotation and gyro's and it's ultra simple to fly. Don't be fooled though, as many of the helicopters you see in the shops from $100 - $300 don't fly well at all, particularly the ones with the proper tail rotors as they are too light and suffer from dynamic rollover of sorts. Even the good contra rotating models have been copied now and don't work that well. The best ones at the moment in the cheap range are the Twister range. They come in Bell, Blackhawk and Chinook plus a few other variants. The ones with the tiny little vertical (horizontally mounted) tail mounted rotor aren't much good.

 

 

[moy71]

i think the tail gyro has made a significant contribution. pair that with a good digital servo and the tail is locked on. it is sensitive enough to contra any gusts of wind that hits the r/c heli so it does not rotate unless you give the input in your joystick.

 

the counter-rotating or coax rotors also did wonders in the field of r/c helis. those things are so stable at hover you'd think it is on strings.

 

i started off in coax helis, progressed to traditional helis and finally to motor/nitro powered helis and i must say that the learving curve is steep, but certainly doable and a lot of fun. sim work also helps a lot as you can practice on your pc before letting loose on the real thing.

 

 

[Guest Rocko]

So, I guess the $30 million question is, can any of this be used to make a stable ultralight helicopter? ;)

 

 

[Guest keeffe]

Helicopter

 

For those of you interested,

 

Hanna Rietsch was the first person to fly a fully powered helicopter, meaning not a gyro in 1938. She was also a woman.

 

Search Hanna Rietsch in youtube and watch her story what a girl :)

 

Cheers,

 

Michael

 

 

[Skykid]

Heres what I know about Hellicopters

 

Helicopters can't really fly - they're just so ugly that the earth immediately repels them.

 

Helicopters don't fly. They beat the air into submission.

 

Chopper pilots get it up quicker.

 

Helicopters don’t fly, they just vibrate against the earth and the earth rejects them into the air.

 

Helicopters are for people who want to fly but don't want to go anywhere.

 

Sorry couldn't help myself :hittinghead:

 

Thanks

 

H :yin_yan:

 

 

[Guest ROM]

Ring gyros which are solid state gyros that are no more than say 20mms square by about 5 mm thick are basic to the easy to fly [ relatively easy to fly is the operative word here! ] RC helicopters.

 

Some RC heli modelers install at least 3 of these ring gyros to give both redundancy and to stabilise in all three axis plus to stabilise tail rotor control.

 

These ring gyros are also now found in the more advanced automatic steering systems now found on the later model farm tractors and headers.

 

They are used to compensate the electronics in the steering systems for the instability of the moving tractor or header and enable automatic steering accuracies down to about 2 cms.

 

The Australian RC heli site is ; arcHELI/IV:BK-117 - Powered by vBulletin

 

They talk a different lingo to the average guy so take some understanding at times and the level of their discussions when they get onto the RC heli technical issues leave your average PPL and UL pilot technical discussions looking rather simplistic.

 

 

[BLA82]

Just to add to Rom's post re the twister range. I own a blade cx which is eflite's take on the twister models. They are slightly more expensive but FAR superior. The come with spectrum radio gear and eflite just finishes their models off alot better.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Walter's comments on Helicopters

 

"you know the fixed wing i get, you have the throttle, ailerons rudder and elevators that's it. Helicopters, it's round and round and round and round and round and round. and you're not even flying!

 

 

[Guest ROM]

Until you see these RC model heli pilots in action you just don't realise just how good they are and the level of technical knowhow that goes into these RC heli models.

 

Following is the home site of one of Australia's top RC heli pilots, Nigel Brown.

 

.:Nigel Brown 3D - Videos:.

 

My DIL took the videos of Nigel flying an electric powered heli in the Wimmera Machinery Field Day's big exhibition shed at Horsham.

 

This was the first time a exhibition of RC heli flying had been held in an enclosed building [ the weather had turned very nasty and my RC heli flying son organised the shed as an alternative.] and the university web site it was loaded onto was crashed in a few hours from the world wide interest amongst RC heli drivers in this particular piece of flying.

 

After watching these guys, even the average local RC heli drivers, I have the greatest respect for the skills they have, their technical knowledge and their intricate and complex machines.

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

Helicopter pilots fly helicopters because they can't handle real wings, and most of them would eat their young at birth.

 

 

[moy71]

I don't quite get the idea of helicopter bashing here :(

 

I am fascinated by both fixed wing and helis which is why i fly both forms of r/c. For those interested, here's a photo of my Hughes 500 nitro fuel heli.

 

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Do you winch the boy up with that? wow now thats a helicopter.

 

when i worked at Camden for 'fixed and rotary" i helped rebuild a 47 and when it was done i had my first flight in a rotary wing in it with a pilot called Miles he had over 1000hrs in 47's. wow the things he did with it had me blown away. he could makeit dance. I tried to fly it but just ended up covering just about every part of the airport. i was so frustrated at not being able to pick it up and hover. after about 20 minutes i had a stinking headache from concentrating so hard. i finally found a aircraft that had me beat. Then i tried a robby and found it even harder. i tip my hat to fling wing drivers.

 

ozzie

 

 

[moy71]

Do you winch the boy up with that? wow now thats a helicopter.when i worked at Camden for 'fixed and rotary" i helped rebuild a 47 and when it was done i had my first flight in a rotary wing in it with a pilot called Miles he had over 1000hrs in 47's. wow the things he did with it had me blown away. he could makeit dance. I tried to fly it but just ended up covering just about every part of the airport. i was so frustrated at not being able to pick it up and hover. after about 20 minutes i had a stinking headache from concentrating so hard. i finally found a aircraft that had me beat. Then i tried a robby and found it even harder. i tip my hat to fling wing drivers.

 

ozzie

From experience, the bigger the helis are the more stable it is to fly. i started out with a 1/4 size of this Hughes (battery powered) and it was very touchy and squirrely to control. The beauty of it is that if you do somehow master the smaller ones, the big ones are a cinch to fly.

 

Flying fixed wing is the same, the smaller ones are blown around a bit but the bigger ones (think 2m wingspan) are so stable and are a joy to fly.

 

If you do happen to take an interest, start with an r/c simulator such as REALFLIGHT. The transition will be easy and cheaper rather than crashing the real thing.

 

 

[wanabigaplane]

Pro's

 

Helicopters are pro's because they screw themselves into the air and have no visible means of support.

 

:rotary:

 

 

[Guest High Plains Drifter]

Hey, I've just read the Twister R/C Helicopters ad in Classic Fighters and the claim is "Australian designened, developed and backed" :thumb_up:

 

...now, who do I talk to ? my Chinook caught fire one its first flight - a worry because it was taking off from my lounge room carpeted floor :ah_oh: Fortuitously, the ceiling fire suppresion units did'nt go off as there would have been problems explaining it to the body corp :black_eye:

 

 

[Guest brentc]

I've been running a Twister Chinook for a year now without issue. We bought 6 of them and sold them to people at the airport people. An absolute bargain at $99 as they were the runout RAF model, to be replaced at $250 with the Australian Army version which is exactly the same apart from the stickers!