During day 3's RC helicopter training session, it was important that you had a smooth surface like packed snow or pavement to slide around on for your ground hover exercises, that same kind of surface should be used for today.

You will still be sliding around and spending a good part of the time on the ground today. You will also be getting much lighter on the skids and actually hopping around - a smooth surface will make this easier as the heli bobs and is able to slide along the ground.

Just like yesterday you will need a fixed reference point as the exact same exercises will be performed today, but this time you will actually be in the air a few inches at first, and then a few feet while doing them.

Ok, let’s get started with day 4 RC helicopter training.

Determine wind direction and place your helicopter over the reference point with the nose pointing into the wind with you standing about 8-10 feet behind your helicopter. Start the helicopter and slowly increase the throttle to get the bird light on the skids. If you want to get a feel for the helicopter, you can perform a few ground hover exercises from day 3's RC helicopter training session.

The idea at this stage is to get the heli so light on the skids, it is actually bouncing around a bit as you are getting more and more comfortable with the controls as it spends longer and longer times in the air. You will feel like you have very limited if any control and the helicopter will want to drift away.

Remember my analogy of hovering a single rotor RC helicopter being like trying to balance on a big ball or moving a marble around on a serving tray... You will be thinking this way too while learning to hover. The most important RC helicopter training tip here is not to get much more than a few inches off the ground, and if the helicopter gets away from you, land, regain your composure, get the heli back over the reference point, and try again.

This section of your RC helicopter training is usually the most difficult for most people – very much like learning to ride a bike. Keep at it, spending more and more time in the air after each little hop and staying over the reference point with the nose always pointing into the wind and you behind the helicopter. If you get tired or feel shaky – take a rest.

It may take you an hour or more, but something will just click and all of a sudden you will be able to hold the helicopter over the reference spot several inches in the air for longer and longer periods of time. Once you can hold it over that spot for a minute or longer guess what – you have done it – you now know how to hover. If you can hover at a few inches, you will be able to hover at a few feet or a few hundred feet.

I should mention if you are flying a nitro RC helicopter , keep an eye on your fuel tank – it is amazing how quickly time flies when you are so focused. You won’t be high enough to do any damage if the engine does run out of fuel, but because the engine is set a bit rich, as it runs out of fuel, it will lean out first and start running very fast. This might cause you to panic and with this sudden increase in power it is possible to over control the helicopter and get it several feet in the air. The engine then runs out of fuel and if you are more than three feet in the air, the helicopter will most likely be damaged as it comes down pretty hard.

For those with electric RC helis , this will not be a problem for you. As your battery pack runs out of power, your electronic speed controller will start limiting the voltage (to save the li-po battery) to the motor and you will slowly loose power. This is however where the benefits of being able to refuel and get going right away make the learning curve on a nitro bird usually a bit quicker. That is why I suggested having several battery packs with long flight times – you won’t have to wait around.

So you are now able to hold your RC helicopter in a nice solid hover over the reference point a few inches off the ground – what’s next? Time to gain a little altitude. Get into a hover 1-2 feet off the ground and hold it there. Once you feel comfortable holding the helicopter at that height and for an indefinite period of time it is time to start moving the helicopter around.

Remember the forward, backward, left, right, and diagonal movements from the RC helicopter training ground hover exercises during day 3 ... it is now time to perform those same RC helicopter training exercises while flying a couple feet off the ground. Start by hovering over your reference spot and slowly move the helicopter forward keeping the nose pointed into the wind and using very small control movements. If it feels like the helicopter is getting away from you and you start to panic, reduce the throttle/collective and land the helicopter.

Once you are comfortable with hovering forwards and backwards, now try left and right, always keeping the nose into the wind.

Got left and right down, now try your diagonals away and back to the reference spot.

Depending on how big your helicopter is you might notice it is actually easier to control when it is a couple feet in the air than when it was a few inches in the air. This is caused by ground effect and generally smaller RC helicopters are more susceptible to it than larger RC helicopters.

I think after todays RC helicopter training, you can now appreciate why I told you to get the largest helicopter you could afford in the best RC helicopter size discussion. After experiencing even how sensitive a larger stable RC heli is when you are learning, can you imagine trying to learn on a small super sensitive micro electric – not fun and many have given up because that’s what they started with.

Speaking of sensitivity, how did you find your controls? Remember from day 1 pre flight static adjustments, we set the cyclic at about half of normal range with our dual rates. Are you finding that is still a good setting? If not, increase or decrease the swash plate movement to suit your needs.