ARE RC HELICOPTERS HARD TO FLY?"Are RC Helicopters Hard To Fly?" is a question I get asked so often. I also get asked many times by people who know how to fly micro coaxial RC helicopters if the larger single rotor collective pitch RC helicopters are as hard as people say they are to fly. These folks want to progress to single rotor collective pitch, but are scared and don't know if they should, or if they have the required skills to be successful. As with most things - skills are learned and almost anyone can learn to fly one of these things - I am proof of that.
Progressing to a single rotor collective pitch bird should not be scary as long as you understand a bit about them. It wasn't that long ago, starting out on a large nitro powered single rotor collective pitch machine was the only option after all. It was possible then and with today's better equipment, even easier. The micro coaxials were a break-through and have introduced so many more people to this hobby; but they do fly so differently over a true single rotor bird. This can be a big problem when people make the switch if they just think they will start flying a single rotor heli and it will be more or less the same as what they are use to on their micro coaxial. Crashing within the first 10-20 seconds is generally inevitable if you approach it that way. First off, any good single rotor collective pitch helicopter, coupled with a good computerized radio is very capable of becoming a nice docile trainer with the correct settings - that is the first hurdle to get past.
Next is to understand the differences in how single rotor birds fly compared to micro coaxials or even the new Blade mSR . One of my web viewers summed it up perfectly... 
"Micro coaxial RC helicopters or the new Blade mSR, behave like a ball bearing in a bowl. As soon as you stop moving them around, the ball bearing will settle to the bottom of the bowl and more or less stay in one spot, just like the micro helicopter settling into a nice stable hover.
Single rotor RC helicopters on the other hand, behave like that ball bearing if you flip the bowl upside down and now try to balance the ball bearing on the top curvature of the bowl."That is a pretty good assessment of how single rotor birds behave in a hover. It is basically a balancing act. The second you stop making cyclic corrections, the helicopter will start drifting away and accelerate fast in that direction; just as if the ball bearing on the outside of the bowl would start rolling off the top of the bowl down the sides the second you stop balancing it on the top of the bowl. Now, the control certainly isn't as extreme as that, but it is a nice way to illustrate the difference between micro coaxials and single rotor RC helicopters. 
Here is a much better example - the ball bearing is now on the outside of a plate. This is actually a pretty accurate feeling of what a single rotor RC heli behaves like while in a hover. Holding onto the plate in both hands, put a ball bearing or marble on it. Keep it steady and then start moving the ball around on the backside of the plate. If you can move the ball in all directions and stop it whenever you want on the backside of the plate, you will get an idea of what controlling a single rotor collective pitch RC helicopter is all about. Of course you have to deal with many other variables that are going on. The ball bearing/plate example only demonstrates the cyclic control , not lift or yaw ; but cyclic is the hardest to learn when you are first starting out. As I mentioned, if you have the right settings and right equipment to make it as docile as possible, that is the key to learning how to fly successfully. It sounds hard, but if you start with ground hover exercises and work up to small hops, spending longer and longer times in the air, you sooner or later get the feel for it until something just clicks and you are able to hold a hover indefinitely; not even thinking about the many control inputs you are naturally giving every second. As I say many times, learning how to fly a RC helicopter is just like learning how to ride a bike or learning how to ski. It takes time and practice. I use to be an instructor and the average time it would take a student to learn how to hold a solid hover was generally about 3-5 hours. That usually equates to about 3-5 days since you are not going to be flying 5 hours continuously. Learning how to hover a single rotor RC helicopter is mentally exhausting. An hour of flying, spread out over an afternoon for example, with several breaks in between is about as long as most people can handle before they start making mistakes. That time can usually be cut in half if you have been practicing correctly on a good RC flight simulator . If you go through my Flight School section on my web site, you will get a pretty good idea of the time line and the steps involved. Those lessons are the same ones I used while I was instructing. Hope that helps take some of the "fear" out of it??? The nervousness when you are spooling up never really goes away to tell you the truth. Flying a larger RC helicopter or plane generally produces adrenalin flow. The more you push the limits, the bigger the rush. It is heart breaking when you make a mistake, but absolutely euphoric every time you learn something new - be it your first hover, first nose in hover, first inverted hover, first auto rotation, etc... The learning curve never really ends and that is the main reason this hobby is so addictive. So... Are RC Helicopters Hard To Fly?
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