The short story is, I feel that I've pretty consistenly found that folks want you to really try hard to do your best to get a good, square, solid, correct "static" setup. "Static" meaning, when it's just sitting on your workbench (or carpet or ...). When you are working on it "on the bench" always disconnect 2 of the leads to the motor (any 2 - its OK, just do it *always*). If you've never been smacked by the rotors accidentally, then you probably can't appreciate exactly how much they can hurt you. Just make a practice of *first* disconnecting the motor in this way, before you do anything to the machine.

So back to static setup. This is about:

I'm sure there are more items that should be on the list.

The thing is, that all this work on your heli only gives you a good shot at having a controllable, flyable machine. You still need to be prepared to do some tweaking before you can actually just go and have a good time.

Some of the dynamic tweaks you should check for include:

Blade tracking

It can help if you put some colored tape on the ends of your blades - say red on one and black on the other - make them just squares of electrical tape, for instance. I'm using some red and black colored tape that came with the wood blades I bought - dont know what it was for, but it works pretty good for tracking. Note that this will affect the balance of the blades, so the placement and weight of the tape *must* be identical on both blades. Then you can eyeball the tracking by looking at the plane of the blades when they're going nearly fast enough for liftoff. If you see just one tip then you're good, but if you see 2 tips, then you have a tracking problem. What color is the top (or bottom) blade? If red, then you'll know what kind of adjustment to make to the red blade. The tape in this picture is actually barely sufficient - In the past, i've also used plain old electrical tape - it comes in colors, so red and black tape - wrap a piece around the end of each blade at the same location, and make sure it's the same length of tape. This seems to work a little better to me.

Red and black tape on blade ends

But I'm afraid that if my progress is too slow I might loose interest in the hobby alltogether. Not a good thing! So I try to find ways to make sure that I'm able to progress as rapidly as possible. And I've come to the conclusion that, since it's my equipment, I can do anything I want to make it so that I can learn as rapidly as possible.

Which has led me down this path of trying to figure out how to tweak things to help. And there are lots of opportunities to change things! And that's what this section is about.

So far I've found 3 important areas where tweaking can make my learning faster, and reduce the chances of a crash (in no particular order):

1. tweaking the transmitter D/R settings
   This is about changing the effect any given stick movement will have on the heli - so you're changing how responsive the heli is by changing the expo settings and by changing the % settings.
2. tweaking the transmitter throttle/pitch curves
   Throttle/pitch is most normally about ensuring that you keep your engine/rotor speed in a certain small RPM band during flight - for optimal performance or optimal battery life or whatever. You can also use these settings to rein in your machine to reduce the chance of it darting off somewhere in *any* direction (but mostly focusing on the vertical), out of control.
3. tweaking the flybar
   It turns out that you can tune your heli to be more or less responsive by changing aspects of the paddles, their size, shape or weight, and likely the easiest would be by either adding weights to the flybar arms, or by installing heavier paddles.

(20 feb 09) And here I need to continue a little. There are really 2 distinct areas for you to focus on: the cyclic and the collective.

• For the cyclic, the flybar and the D/R settings for elevator and aileron channels are relevant
• For the collective, the pitch/throttle curves are relevant

Dont forget that the transmitter works for airplanes as well, and I'm pretty sure that folks were flying RC airplanes long before helicopters. Your transmitter will work equally well for planes. And due to history, folks seem to have continued to name the stick functions (as well as the receiver functions) according to their airplane useage. So let me try to help translate.

The short story is: aileron = left/right rotor tipping, elevator = front/back rotor tipping.

The long story is: the ailerons, located on the outer rear edges of a plane's wings, move opposite of each other, and cause the plane to tip it's wings to the left or right. The helicopter corollary to this is tipping the helicoper (actually the rotor disc) to the left or right, causing the helicopter to move to the left or right, pretty much the same effect as for planes. The elevators, located at the tail of the plane, caused the plane to tip back or forward, (nose up or nose down), pretty much like the rotor disc. The effect is of the elevator is, of course, totally different. In planes it influences airspeed and altitude, in helicopters it's more associated with a direction of movememt, namely forward or backwards.

To further complicate things, on the plane, it's quite common to have an aileron servo and an elevator servo. In the helicopter, it's equally common for all 3 swash servos to move for pretty much any movement of either stick. Fortunately the transmitter (or sometimes mechanical devices) help you out with this, so that all you really need to sort out is which servo plug goes into which socket on the receiver.

So my first advice is, if your heli is RTF (ready to fly), then when you find yourself disconnecting the plugs from the receiver for the first time, label them...

And if you're building your heli, follow the manufacturers setup and installation directions.

But don't forget we're talking about making the machine so that you can more quickly and easily learn to fly it. Your radio will likely talk about aileron and elevator and those stick functions will likely work correctly, so that when you give full right stick (3 o'clock), the heli goes to the right (the swash tips to the right) etc. So all you need to do is figure out how your radio identifies these 2 channels and then adjust your D/R settings on those 2 for cyclic issues.

• For the collective:
  • use your transmitter (pitch/throttle curves) to limit the pitch of the blades.
    
    
• For the cyclic:
  • make the flybar heavier - that will make the heli more manageable (the flybar is mostly about cyclic). My machine came with flybar paddles for 3D and for beginners - the beginner paddles are just a lot heavier.
  
  
  
  • if the flybar isn't enough, use the D/R (dual rate) on your transmitter to help you manage the little thing.
• For the rudder:
  • use the D/R (dual rate) on your transmitter to help you manage the little thing (this is about cyclic and rudder).

The throttle and pitch curves relate the stick position to the function, and for the collective, its both the pitch and the throttle. Which means that the one stick controls both functions, hence the pitch/throttle curves. And what we're doing here is relating the stick position to some particular pitch or throttle setting. So when you think about this, think: when the stick is at x%, where will the pitch (or throttle) be? For my futaba, the stick positions are: 0, 25%, 50%, 75% or 100%. So there are 5 values. The factory default (for pitch and throttle) is 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100, meaning that for both functions, the pitch or throttle is at 0, 25, 50, 75 or 100%.

So, if you relate those default factory settings to the typical heli setup (for pitch), then 0 = -10deg, 50% = 0deg. and 100% = 10deg.

And if you try to relate the factory settings to the throttle, well, good luck. It seems like folks seem to be OK with having liftoff being around 3/4 stick or so. For electrics, it seems reasonable to presume a linear curve for throttle response, from 0 to [motor maximum] equalling 0 .. 100%. My motor has a max RPM of 21000 (the round number bothers me - I think it's an approximation). So theoretically my motor will be running at 10500RPM at 50% throttle. Some day I might actually be able to confirm this. For now I'm going to just punt.

But I digress, and another digression is coming - sorry...

There are *2* curves: the "normal", and the "idle-up" curves. I dont know where the names for these came from, but "normal", to me means - the curve you can use when you need to takeoff and land your heli. the "idle-up" curve is when you're going to be flying inverted. At least this seems to be the normal meaning given to these things - you can, of course, make them anything you want.

But there actually is a need for these 2 curves. Think about it. For takeoff and landing, your blades will start from some negative pitch, and as you advance the stick, your engine spins up and the blades spin up, and the pitch increases, and eventually you have liftoff, and the more stick (pitch) you give, the higher you go.

But when you get to the point that you're going to be flying upside down, OK, well here is when you want the engine to keep on spinning the blades even when you give them a negative pitch (as in collective stick down)! So you flip the switch to "idle-up" mode (the pitch curve looks somewhat like this:) and you can do all your 3D just fine, but you'd have a darn hard time landing the machine.

I've met guys who basically want you to leave these curves at the factory settings, but, especially for the newbie, I dont think that is a good idea. It seems to me that the really big problem w/ the RC helis is that they are so darn sensitive. So give yourself a break - when you start, change the normal pitch curve to be something like what I describe below. As you become proficient, then change that curve to be more aggressive. If you have a natural gift then that change will come soon. If not (like me), it'll come later. No matter - you can progress at your own speed.

Here's what I'd recommend for the pitch settings you should adopt: I'd go with -1 - +5 degrees, with 50% stick at 2deg. This (for my futaba radio translates to settings like: 45, 57, 60, 67, 75.

The reason for these settings is, for the -1 deg: you'll likely be inclined to slam the collective down in a panic, and -1 deg. will be a lot easier on your machine than the default of -10. For the midpoint, I just like to have takeoff be a little closer to midpoint. For the +5, this will help to keep your heli closer to the ground.

The throttle factors into this also. And, if you think about it, the faster the blades spin, the more lift they will generate, so if you want to tame the altitude grabbing capability of your heli, tame the top-end of your throttle.

These curves are along the lines of what I recommend - it'll really depend on your particular machine, but hopefully you'll have the courage and inspiration to take matters into your own hands.

Newer ideas on the pitch curve in my Journal in the 27 Feb 09 entry.

Basically, for now, the important point is that adding weights to the flybar will slow the response of the heli to your cyclic commands.

I'd encourage you to view this as the first avenue of exporation.

My helicopter came from the manufacturer with heavy and light flybar paddles included - explicitly to help beginners and folks who what a slower response.

But there's a good chance that you can buy "collars" to fit your flybar rod - 2mm or 3mm donuts with a set-screw in them to hold them in place on your flybar rod out next to the paddle. These will do the job just fine.

Again - as far as I'm concerned, this is the *first* place to make an adjustment in your quest to tame the cyclic.

The light flybar with 2 weights -
the paddle weighs 20 grams
and the weights weigh 1 gram each.

the D/R has 2 parts - the % part and the Expo part.

• The % part is about what % of capability will 100% of stick throw equate to. Lets look at right cyclic (aileron - remember?), for example. At 100% (meaning: you shove the stick all the way to the right) you should get a full +- 10 deg blade pitch change in the blades. This will produce a *huge* reaction in the heli. How about softening that to something a little more reasonable, like 75%, or possibly even less?? And if you do that, then going full right stick will produce only 75% of what is possible, so instead of a +- 10 deg blade pitch change, it'd only be a +- 7 deg pitch change, which means that the response by the heli will be less dramatic, and this might give you a little more confidence.

  **Note**: Experienced pilots will caution you to not make huge changes in this value. Going from 100% to 50% is a pretty darn big jump. Use a little caution and go for 10% increments or so, so first try 90%, then 80% etc. You should notice the heli becoming more stable, less reactionary with each change. The problem here is that it *is* possible to reduce the throw of the servo so much that you can't correct movements that the heli makes. This will definitely cause a crash. Use up a full battery (or tank) on each setting before reducing it more. I didn't really understand this when I first flew my Raptor on 8 feb 09. When it first went airborne and started gently drifting off to the right, I nearly panicked because I had to give it nearly full left stick to counteract the slow drift. The cause of this was that I had set the washout transfer arm ball location on the inner (beginner hole), and *also* had the DR at 70%. I immediately set it down and adjusted the transmitter back to 100%, which helped quite a bit.

• The Expo part is about softening the response of the stick. At least thats' the way I think about it. Other folks will talk about expo deadening the stick near the center, and about reducing the sensitivity near the center, and it will usually be mentioned that, unlike the % rate, at the full stick position you'll still get 100% of control travel. If it helps at all: the radio will modify the responsiveness of the stick according to an exponential algorithm. This graphic shows the factory linear response vs a couple of exponential response curves. The stick throw is on the bottom, the control response is on the left. You can see that on the linear curve, any movement of x% of the stick will always produce the same y% of movement. When you look at expo curve 25%, tho, you can see that the the control response lags a little from where it would be in linear. And when you look at expo curve 75%, you see that there is extremely little control response until the stick reaches about 30%. For my Futaba radio, you can specify + or - expo, and typically you'd be asking for less responsiveness, so -. And I've set my radio for 1=-10%, 2=-10%, 4=-25%

I've decided that since 3D is totally out of the question for me for the forseeable future, I've made the D/R be mine vs factory. And in the "mine" settings, I'm doing whatever I think I need to to help me learn faster and spend less money.