Thursday, August 5, 2010

Learning Nose In Hover

Learning to hover your RC helicopter with the nose pointing at you is commonly referred to as "nose in" and is very important for a beginner to learn. Eventually, you will will want the control inputs necessary for nose in to be instinct, not requiring any conscious thought, but In order to get to this point, you will need to develop muscle memory so that your brain knows automatically which direction to throw the cyclic stick.

I found the trick below to be very helpful in developing this muscle memory. You visualize the rotor disk and look for the low area. Then to bring the heli back to a level state, you put your cyclic stick under the low part. For example, if the heli is leaning forward you pull the stick back to prop up the forward leaning disk. Same thing if the heli is pitched up and leaning back, push your stick under the rearward leaning disk and the heli will start to pitch forward, leveling itself out. This works the same for side to side lean as well as any other position in between. Just put the stick under the low part of the disk.

Click Image for a Larger View

You will find that after many hours of simulator practice, you will no longer need to think about the low side. Your brain will begin to automatically make the correct movements without thinking about it. It's at this point that you are ready to give nose in hovering a shot with your real heli.

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