Day 3 - Balance the Marble

So, this morning I managed to hover through a whole battery with only 3 "landings"... I'm still practicing in my garage so that means that I'm holding it in about an 8 sq ft cube and avoiding my motorcycle, the little cord that hangs down from the garage door opener, my cabinets and most importantly myself. The big difference in the 3 minute hovers and the 15 to 30 second hovers is that I can now stop unwanted movement and initiate movement in the direction I want, most of the time...

I've read on a lot of forums that hovering a helicopter is like balancing a marble on a sheet of glass. I didn't believe it but it actually turns out to be a very good analogy. Controlling where the heli goes, countering any undesired motion and initiating motion in the direction you want really is very similar to what you would do if you were balancing a ball on a flat surface.

Imagine you have a ball on a sheet of ply wood. The ball starts coming towards you. To stop it you need to tilt the plywood away from you until the motion stops then level it out. Same with a helicopter. If it's moving toward you you actually get it tilted forward until it stops, it will hang there for a second and if things go well you will get it leveled out and stationary again.

Also if you have the same ball sitting still on the sheet of plywood and you want it to move away from you you tilt the plywood away from you and slowly the ball starts to roll away. If you leave the wood tilted the ball will continue to pick up speed unless you level it back out. Again, a helicopter reacts very much the same way. If you tilt the blades away from you it will slowly start to move away and pick up speed until, hopefully, you level it out and bring it to a stop.

So when you are flying if you watch the tilt of the disc made by the rotating blades you can get an idea of which way the heli is going to go and counter it before it happens. I've read several theories on what part of the heli to watch when you are flying, the nose the skids, etc. but for me right now watching the disc seems to work best.

I'm planning to go to the hobby shop today and pick up a second battery so I have more practice time. 10-15 minutes at a time is just not doing it for me. I may ask them about trimming and balancing my heli since it still has a very mild vibration at lower head speeds. I probably won't post anything this weekend but I plan to work on holding the hover steadier and longer. By Monday I should be hovering a whole battery and maybe working on some side in hovers.

Have a good weekend!!!