Well today has been like all other days... cold, grey sky and wind. But I couldn't wait any longer to get out and do some hovering activities. So with 5 batteries charged, out the back door I went. The back yard is 40yrds by 90yrds so I thought I had plenty of room if I didn't allow the little Blade 450 to get away from me.
The wind / no wind really played a lot with the heli. My wife thought I had purchased a rabbit because it was bouncing up and down a lot...but really...she thought I was doing that. The HH gyro was doing fine and I seemed to have the gain setting about right so it allowed me to concentrate on keeping the same height by really working the collective stick. Ran out all five batteries, fingers really cold and the heli came back inside with no damage...just some green tail blades where it ate up a bit of grass.
It may not have been the perfect time to practice but maybe it taught me a lot with collective stick control even though the wind won 90% of the time. It really opened my eys to how sensitive these little helis are to wind. More sim practice but now I'm not too afraid to go back out with slight to mod. wind blowing.
The wind / no wind really played a lot with the heli. My wife thought I had purchased a rabbit because it was bouncing up and down a lot...but really...she thought I was doing that. The HH gyro was doing fine and I seemed to have the gain setting about right so it allowed me to concentrate on keeping the same height by really working the collective stick. Ran out all five batteries, fingers really cold and the heli came back inside with no damage...just some green tail blades where it ate up a bit of grass.
It may not have been the perfect time to practice but maybe it taught me a lot with collective stick control even though the wind won 90% of the time. It really opened my eys to how sensitive these little helis are to wind. More sim practice but now I'm not too afraid to go back out with slight to mod. wind blowing.