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day one (June 15)

Thou shalt have no flights until thy Elders hath verified the correct and true operation of all thy servos and linkages.

I checked the servo reversing, I checked the construction manual agains the servo reversing and linkages, I stopped the motor and observed the flybar action in reponse to cyclic input, and determined (or so I thought) that all was well. So fired it up, I gave it a bit more throttle and things got really odd. I thought "hey, it's almost like the controls are (thwap! thwap!) switched?" And it looked like someone had been golfing on the helipad - big divots. A broken blade.

Pack up, go home, scratch my head... A light bulb appeared in the air above me, just like in the cartoons. Gyroscopic precession. What I thought was correct operation of the cyclic controls was in fact 90 degrees off. I had the elevator and aileron servos reversed. Like I said, I want to kick myself.

Damages: main rotor blades, $40

day two (June 18)

Thou shalt make certain that thy radio control apparatus is functioning properly before thou applyest thy starter to thy engine. The devastation of the clutch liner shall surely come to he who overlooks this necessity.

The devastation of the model helicoptre itself shall likely come to him who does not pull the fuel line from the engine immediately.

Totally boring to watch, I'm sure, but it was quite a thrill to see hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours of labor hanging in the air under my control. Kind of worrisome, too. But I built a lot of confidence, learned to take off and land smoothly - it was great!

After filling the tank for the 4th or 5th time, I stared the engine with the throttle maxed out. In retrospect, I want to kick myself (where have I heard that before?). Luckily, a guy I had been talking to was quick to pull the fuel line off of the carburetor. It only cost me $1.50 in clutch liner material and several minutes of trembling hands. Lessons learned:

1. test the radio and servos and their positions before starting
2. don't let go of the rotor head
3. pull the fuel line if things get hairy

   Damages: clutch liner, $1.50

day three (June 21)

Thou shalt be mindful of the quantity of fuel that remains in thy tank during flight, lest the ground rise up and smash thy helicoptre into little bits.

After a minute or two, I had the revolution mixing and the cyclic trims set up to where it would hover hands-off - breifly. After this, it became much easier to control. I guess I hadn't realized how much I had been correcting it subconsciously.

It was definitely a real thrill to see this thing fly past me, at about eye level and 5-10 miles per hour. To watch this thing I had spent so many hours and dollars working on, to hear the engine humming, the blades spinning, the gears whirring, as it cruised past me just a couple yards away. And best of all, I was really honestly flying it, not just reacting to its attempts to auger itself into the ground from a hover.

A couple of minutes later, I did my first autorotation. One moment, I was hovering in complete control, and in the next minute the engine was racing and the heli started twitching and I tried to bring it under control but it started dropping like a rock and I gave it full up-collective but it still hit the ground really hard, and parts went flying. "It all happened so fast." I ran it out of gas, failed the autorotation, and suffered a nasty boom strike upon touchdown.

Damages:
tail boom, tail rotor, tail everything, approx. $100
main rotor blades, $40

day four (June 28)

The pilot who heeds the admonishments herein shall reap rewards, and those rewards shall include great personal satisfaction and a helicoptre that is whole and unbroken.

...and it helps to have a watchful girlfriend looking over your shoulder

Damages: none, $0 (so important, I'll say it first)

Damages: none, $0 (in fact, I'll say it twice)

day five (June 30)

See above.

Damages: wow, it's still in one piece...

day six (July 1)

Damages: still none.

Day seven (July 2)

Thou shalt not permit thyself to hover when thou hast mastered this most basic of skills. No! Thou shalt force thyself to fly forward, and at a distance, lest ye miss out on the great fun.

After the wind died, I went back to hovering. Before long, I realized that I had learned hovering, and wasn't really gaining anything from it anymore. I had been limiting myself to hovering because the idea of letting the helicopter get more than a stone's throw away from me was really scary.

So, I thought of the simulator, took a deep breath, lifted off, pointed 45 degrees to my left, and pushed both sticks forward. I started a wide right turn when the heli got about 50 feet away and 15-20 feet up. When the helicopter was pointing at me (50 feet away, to my right) I did a 180 and backed in, setting it down in front of me. My heart was pounding, but my sphincter was still holding, so I repeated the process, this time flying off to my right, banking/turning left and returning to my left, again backing in. I landed it, and probably had a really big really silly grin all over my face while I refueled.

That did it. I had some kind of mental block about letting the heli get more than a few feet away from me, and now that block was gone. Hovering suddenly seemed like a done deal, a boring way to spend fuel. On my next flight, I spent about 3 seconds hovering - just be sure - and flew the same paths again. Hover up, turn left, fly away, bank right, back in from the right. Mirror and repeat.. I did a couple of figure eights, and even spent 15-20 seconds hovering nose-in, 20 feet up (so I would have time to climb and turn around if I started to lose it) and 30 feet away (so it wouldn't land on my head if I lost it anyway).

The bad news is, my receiver battery started getting low at this point, so I had to call it a day and go home. The good news is, the heli itself is still in one piece. And, just for the record, forward flight in reality was not much different from forward flight in the simulator. Really.

Damages: amazingly enough, none at all.

Day eight (July 4)

Weirder still is the optical illusion created by training balls and a mental hiccup. I was cruising around in forward flight when I stopped for a moment of nose-in hover, up high so I would have time to correct myself and get tail-in before things got out of hand. Naturally, I didn't stay nose-in for long before wanting to turn around. Somewhere along the way, my brain lost track of which balls were which.

I had been looking at the whiffle balls for orientation clues (bad idea), so this led me to give the wrong inputs while trying to get back to a hover. I started dive-bombing in the direction of the flight line! Fortunately, I figured it out and was able to regain control before I actually got close to anyone or anything.

Those training sticks have got to go.

Day nine (July 5)

Know ye that the weeds and long grass are thy friends and allies.

Lo and behold, the trailing edge of one blade is dented where it folded back into the blade grip, and the feathering shaft for that blade was a little out of true. I replaced the shaft and was able to hover for a moment (with the training sticks in place). Everything still works!

I had hoped to work on the engine some more, but the radio started acting up so I had to go home and recharge... Apparently, the low-end valve is too lean. At hovering throttle, everything seems OK, but at higher throttle the mix gets too rich and bad things happen.

Damages: feathering shaft, $5 or so

Day ten (July 6)

Thou shalt beware of glitches in thy radio transmission, for they may portend of worse things to come.

Thank goodness (and thank Rusty, who found the problem) that I didn't get airborne before I found out just how bad things really were. I sent the radio out via 2nd day air on a Friday, and got it back just over a week later on a Monday. Futaba must have turned it around in no more than a day or two. The radio arrived fixed and functional, no questions asked, no charge. One could scarcely ask for better customer support.

One could, however, ask for better quality assurance. I found out later that two or three other folks have had exactly the same problem with their Futaba 8U transmitters. If you own a Futaba 8U system, check the solder joints on the RF module connector. If they're shiny, put the transmitter back together and go about your business. If they look pitted or dull, resolder them. Consider shipping the unit back to Futaba so they can resolder it for you, and to make sure they know that this is a problem.

Days eleven through thirteen (July 23,25,26)

Listen to those who know, for they can save much time with their advice.

Unfortunately, the heli started making an odd high-pitched whine and I'm not yet sure where it's coming from. Hmmm...

Day fourteen (July 29)

Fear not the helicopter without training sticks, for their comfort is at the expense of progress, and their advantages outweighed, when one has control over one's helicoptre.

With the engine running quite nicely, my trusty assistant (alias: girlfriend) started clocking the rotor speed using my shiny new optical tachometer. With some adjusting, I got it hovering (pun intended) around 1700 rpm throughout the idle-up-zero and idle-up-one ranges. After another tank of fuel to dial in the revolution mixing, everything pretty much came together.

The moment I had been waiting for: I took the training sticks off and flew with the skids alone between the heli and the dirt. Funny how a half-tank of fuel seems like an eternity after getting rid of the security blanket. My first naked flight went up, forward 20 yards, and down. It went smoothly, but still my nerves were on fire.

It turns out to be not so difficult to take off and land without the training sticks. I had grown accustomed to a lot of yawing and a bit of tipping when the heli was less than three or four inches off the ground. With the sticks off, this extra motion is gone. It seems that it was due entirely to having one corner of the training gear still on the ground while the rest of the heli was very light on its feet. Now that the whole heli lifts off and sets down at once, it's actually a bit easier to take off and land smoothly.

I'm happy to report that I went through two or three more tanks of fuel before running out of sunlight and going home. Spent most of the fuel going figure-eights, messed with side-to-side forward flight, and even did a bit of nose-in hovering. The helicopter is still in one piece, and now it's much easier to fit into my trunk.

Days fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen (July 30, 31, Aug 2)

Thou shalt listen for the whine of the gyro before thou makest any attempt to start thy engine.

Every now and then, when I feel I have enough momentum in the middle of the figure-eight, I try for a 180 stall turn at one end. I'm slowly learning to ease off the throttle while I stall, but I'm still coming out of them at something more like a 45 degree glide than a quarter-loop.

At one point I took off and noticed that the tail rotor control was really slippery. The heli just would not sit still. It yawed all over the place and I nearly landed in some weeds out of desperation. Luckily, I was able to land back on the helipad so I could turn on the gyro and start over. Whew.

Burned the last of my third gallon of fuel, too.

Day eighteen (Aug 3)

Thou shalt be weary of the looping ability of the stock Concept 30 SR-X.

I'm still not sure if my cyclic response is too slow, or if it just seemed like it took forever to make it all the way around to level again. I suspect a lot of the former and a little bit of the latter. The other 'interesting' aspect is that the loop started from right-to-left forward flight, and ended almost 90 degrees off, flying away from me. Or maybe towards me? It's only been a few hours, but I can't remember which way it twisted - must have been tail-in or I my chances of success might have been greatly reduced.

I also did a 540 stall, which was actually a bit more scary than the loop. It wasn't pointed straight down when I came out of the spin, which meant it wasn't level when I came out of the dive, which generally messed up the exit pretty good.

In other news, I'm also getting the hang of nose-in hover and flying directly at myself (hmmmm... is that wise?). At this rate, I'll have to start working on autorotations soon. (yeah, right)

The next few days (first week of August)

I'm not sure if the tail rotor is getting sloppy, if I'm getting more aware of the way it twitches, or if it's the wind, or what, but I've ordered a tail-boom mounting kit for the rudder servo. On the bench, there is just way too much slop in the linkage for my liking.

Finished gallon four and started on gallon 5.

Gallon six (middle of August)

Near the end of gallon five, I installed K&S flybar paddles and a Hatori muffler. The new paddles make for somewhat faster cyclic rates. I was hovering like a jumping bean for the first tank or two, but after getting used to it I'm just having much more fun with stall turns. It would have helped to have practiced with the simulator set for lighter paddles, but I didn't think of that until much later.

The Hatori muffler is nice too. Much quieter! A spectator said that he thought my heli was electric powered until he saw the exhaust trail. Engine power seems to be unaffected. Groovy.

Near the end of the sixth gallon of fuel, I started doing loops. One of the guys I fly with calls them flips, since I try to do them "in place" (very right radius, with half-throttle and -4 pitch at the top of the loop). I managed two of them without incident and was really happy about it.

On my next flight, I went for another loop. As I reached inversion, the engine went to idle and the head speed went WAY down. I wasn't in idle-up-1. I was in idle-up-zero. I gave it half-stick and full back-cyclic, and lost sight of it behind some tall grass. Those who saw it report that I did get level, and was nose-up about 30-45 degress when the tail hit the dirt. At this point, I heard a "whack!" and saw the tail boom fly into the air.

Damages:

1. Tail boom, drive wire, etc: $35
2. Tail gear case: $10
3. Main blades: $40
4. Main shaft: $7

Consequent upgrades:

1. "Pipe drive" (read as: tube drive) for tail rotor. Note: this unit uses the same ball-bearings as the pitch slider bearings on the tail output shaft. Knowing this up front could save you some time (don't ask me how I know this). With luck, I'll be able re-use the end fittings and use simple tube stock for the shaft, making future boom strikes less expensive...
2. Metal, ball-bearinged rudder bellcrank. Funny that this piece, intended to remove slop from the tail rotor control linkage, is made for the stock z-bent rudder control wire. I drilled it out a bit and installed a ball link. Also, the stock 2mm x 12mm bellcrank bolt seemed too short, so I cut an inch off of the stock rudder linkage (also 2mm diameter), bent the non-threaded end over, and am currently using that. It isn't very pretty, but it seems quite sound.
3. Tail boom rudder servo mount. This is a Helimax product. Having installed it, I think know why Helimax also sells a longer canopy and longer servo tray - it moves the center of gravity quite a bit rearward. I'm currently using dead weight (quarters, in fact) to balance the heli. I suppose a larger battery pack would do the trick too...

   In use, my tail rotor control is greatly improved. Still, the dead weight up front bothers me a bit. One of the guys I fly with has managed to get his radio stuff packed up front so that the heli balances as it should, but I'm not sure how...

   I later ditched the boom mounts, and moved the rudder servo back to the factory location. The current linkage is an experiment that just happened to work the first time: I bought one-foot and two-foot 4-40 rods, and ball ends for each. The original pushrod guide (on the side frame, next to the main gear) was drilled out to accomodate the larger rods. The shorter rod runs from the servo through the guide and out the back, where it was cut to extent only a couple inches past the guide. The longer rod runs from the rudder bellcrank on the tail gearbox, though one of the original tail boom pushrod guides, up to meet the shorter rod just aft of the side frame pushrod guide. The two are joined with a pair of 5/16" wheel collars. The tail boom pushrod guide keeps the rod from flapping around under vibration. It seems very secure, though the weight worries me a bit. I might use a carbon pushrod for the rear section, as some of my fellow fliers do.

   Rudder control with the 4-40 pushrod hack is just as good as it was with the tail boom servo mount. Better yet, the dead weight is gone, and the heli loops noticeably better now with the improved weight distribution.

Gallon Seven (September 4)

I didn't fly much around the end of August, due to hecticity at work. Having worked my butt off all weekend (including a 24-hour all-nighter before the deadline from hell), my employer let me take the rest of this week off. I used one of those days to burn my entire seventh gallon of fuel.

My first rolls! Not nearly as scary as I had feared. Since the heli's weight is mostly along the fore-and-aft axis, it rolls much more quickly than it loops. Inverted flight! For a total of perhaps 10 seconds or so. Rolling stall turns! Not that hard, and they look really cool.

1. Get in fast forward flight (high up, just in case!)
2. Pull back as with a regular stall turn
3. As you get vertical, push the aileron hard to one side
4. Having rolled half-way, push the rudder to the opposite side
5. Facing straight down? Good.
6. Pull back and add collective as with a regular stall turn

Slow hovering pirouettes. Not much fun to watch, but you have to be very careful with the cyclic control to keep from wandering around as you turn. Don't do this until you're pretty comfortable with nose-in!

A few words about idle-up pitch and throttle curves... Until just about the end of the sixth gallon, I had been flying with identical normal and idle-up pitch curves, from -3 degrees at low stick to +10 degrees at high stick, both hovering with about 6 degrees at half-stick. The main difference was in the throttle curve: in normal mode, low stick brought the engine to an idle; in idle-up, low stick brought the engine to about half throttle.

In normal mode (or idle-up-zero, as I tend to think of it), I found that I couldn't descend as quickly as I wanted to without losing a lot of rotor speed (which made it much too exciting when it came time to stop the descent!). The more negative pitch I added, the more difficult it become to maintain the right hover pitch. I gritted my teeth and learned to deal with it.

Then it hit me that the normal / idle-up-1 / idle-up-2 switch was there for a reason: I was supposed to be using it. Idle-zero could be set for a low head speed and a bit of 'exponential' collective pitch to make it easier to maintain a smooth hover. Idle-one could be set to give an even sensitivity top (full climb or fast forward flight) to bottom (enough negative pitch to do axial rolls and such). I just needed to set the pitch and throttle curves accordingly, and to learn to switch from one mode to the other when I left the helipad area and when I returned to land.

Gallon Eight (Sept 5 to Sept 10)

The first few gallons have been Cool Power 12.5% nitro. The local hobby shop is now carrying 15%, so I've switched to 15% for this gallon, and I suspect I'll be using 15% for quite some time.

The engine appears to run best a bit richer and a bit cooler on the 15% fuel. This is good, because I think I have been running a bit lean up to this point. I was surprised to hear that glow plugs should last as long as ten gallons - my longest-lived plugs lasted no more than two gallons. We'll see how the plugs fare with 15% nitro and some minor carb adjustments...

Having fixed the pitch curves (the figures above are outdated - I'll post better ones ASAP), I've done a bit of experimenting with inverted flight. This is like starting over again, only instead of having the heli right in front of me where I can watch it closely, I've got the heli way way up high where I can flip it right-side up if it gets out of hand (which usually takes less than 30 seconds).

I switched to the '3D' mounting position on the K&S flybar paddles, and I noticed no difference in response. Go figure. I'm satisfied with the roll rate, but it doesn't loop nearly as fast as I want it to. I've got my exponential rates down to 35% now, so I think I'm ready to get some hotter paddles and crank the expo up to 45 or 50 percent.

Helicopter Fun-Fly, Bremerton, WA

Near the end of this eighth gallon of fuel, I entered my first contest, as an 'intermediate' competitor. Events: the "ring toss," 180 stall turn, loop, and four-point hover around yourself. I took 2nd place out of four entrants. Not bad, but I wish there had been more people to compete against... A larger field would probably have reduced my chances at a plaque, but it would be correspondingly more satisfying as well.

Gallon Nine (Sept 10)

My first immelman (how do you spell that?) turns. Half a loop, half a roll, twice as fun as either one. Scary, though. It took most of this gallon before I figured out how to do them smoothly. I have to think of it as half (or slightly more than half) of a loop followed by a moment of inverted flight, followed by a half-roll. This seems to keep the whole maneuver in the same vertical plane. Otherwise I wind up wandering sideways and/or corkscrewing the roll.

More inverted flight: gather speed and altitude, fly way off to one side, do a 180 stall to get more height and a bit of speed... after exiting do a half roll, moving the collective stick down to the bottom (this is idle-1, by the way) and immediately pull back on the cyclic just a bit to maintain forward speed. I aim for as much straight and level flight as I can manage, then another half-roll and start over.

I'm flying and I can't come down!

An interesting obstacle that is starting to bother me a bit... after messing around with forward flight and primitive aerobatics "upstairs," I find myself making two or three gradually slower and lower figure eights before I can return to a closer, eye-level hover. I often aim to fly right into that 'comfort zone' hover, but I always wind up too fast or too high when the helicopter arrives. It's kind of funny, but I really need to work on this.

Hoping for more cyclic reponse, I switched the flybar link attachment point on the Zeal seesaw to the inner hole. The roll and loop rates are now fast enough that I can do rolls, loops, immelmans, and short stints of inverted flight with much more confidence (no inverted figure-eights just yet). Hovering is a bit touchier, but I'm getting smoother with practice. I think it helped quite a bit to practice with the simulator set to much higher cyclic response (15-gram flybar paddles) for a day or two while the weather was crappy.

The SkyTach shows that in forward flight my head speed is just over 1500 RPM, much lower than I had realized. I knew it was bogging down a bit on transtion, but I hadn't realized that it wasn't recovering! I think perhaps it's time for a tuned pipe or something. I'm told that 30% nitro and a muffler will put out power comparable to 15% nitro and a pipe, so I might go that route in order to stay with the nice quiet muffler I just bought... [Eventually, I did just that]

The normal-mode (idle-up-zero) pitch and throttle curves are getting much better. Idle-up-one is close, but I'd like to have more head speed (in light of the above observation, that might not be possible right now). Idle-up-two still needs a lot of work.

Gallons Ten and Eleven (Mid-September to November)

More refinements to the pitch and throttle curves for more constant head speeds... It's almost there now. I'm even getting used to the way the heli jumps when I toggle the switch while hovering. The easy way to deal with this is to switch modes only when in forward flight.

I put a longer servo arm on the rudder servo and had to turn the gyro gain down considerably. I'm not sure if this has always been possible, or if I'm only just now noticing it, but I can do 540s in 'high' gyro gain now. The heli starts the yaw fairly slowly, but the yaw rate speeds up to rate that is just perfect. This is with the gyro gain turn up until it can't be turned up any further without wagging in forward flight.

Once I found that I could do 540s without switching gyro gain, I redid my gyro setup as follows... a) what was 'high' gain is now 'low' gain; b) 'high' gain is as high as I can get it without wagging or hunting during hover; c) gyro gain has been reassigned to channel 8, which is supposed to be a mixture control channel. The 'mixture' settings allow different 5-point curves for normal and idle-up flight modes, so I have high gyro gain for hovering in idle-up-zero, low gyro gain when climbing out in idle-up-zero, and low gyro gain throughout idle-up-1 and idle-up-2. Interesting.

I've been practicing autorotations for weeks now in the simulator, and I finally got serious about it at the field. I started out thinking that I'd just do throttle-hold until about 20 feet, and which point I switched out of hold and flew away under power. I did the recovery at 20 feet, then 15, then 10, then 5, then 3, at which point I realized, "hey, I could land this one..." so I did. Wow. My nerves were on fire! But it worked. Simulators are too cool for words.

Fifth case (starting mid-November 1996)

Fortunately, Doug Adams' carburetor modification fixed things up nicely. See this page for more information.

Time flies!

I stopped updating this page regularly after the first year or so.

For that first season, I was learning new things every day, and I came home from the field all excited about what I'd just done (nose-in hover for 10 whole seconds, woohoo!), so it was easy to add something to that page every day.

Lately though, my progress has been much slower, harder to quantify, and harder to describe. I spend more time refining old maneuvers, making them smoother and slower and lower, and less time learning completely new things. I think it would make for a dull web page when all I have to report is things like "I did several sideways traveling tumbles today, and two of them were kinda low."

Summer of 1997

In 1997 I stepped up to a 60-size machine, a Robbe/Schluter Futura SE (say that one three times fast). I purchased it slightly (very slightly) used, with a YS 61 ST1, NHP Sport II 710mm main blades and NHP 105mm tail blades. I filled it with a mix of JR and Futaba servos, and had a ball with it. At first it used an Arcamax PEG-S1 standard piezo gyro, then later a JR 3000, then later a CSM 360 when those came out.

The stability of a top-notch 60-class machine gave me the confidence to push myself a little bit harder, to try new things, to do old things better. The fit and finish of the Futura kit is head-and-shoulders above the Concept. The control system is as precise as it gets. The Futura flew like a BMW where my Concept flew like a souped-up VW bug. The Futura has a driven tail, so I learned backward autos - something that was out of the question with the Concept 30. My flying took a big step forward, thanks to the confidence instilled by this elegant new machine.

The expense of a 60-class machine also had an impact on my flying. I didn't realize it for some time, but it hit me later in the year when I went back to flying my Concept 30 for a change of pace. Suddenly I was no longer quite as worried about crashing. With the Futura, I had about $2000 of equipment in the air; I total-loss crash with the Concept wouldn't cost me half that much. My flying took another big step forward, thanks to the boldness instilled by this cheap old chopper.

The CSM ICG-360 heading hold gyro was released near the end of the year, and I was one of the first people in the US to try one (I ordered mine directly from overseas, as Horizon took forever to begin importing them). I had been working on backward and sideways flight with the JR 3000 gyro, but this new gyro technology was a major boost. Backward circuits, loops, and even rolls were suddenly within reach.

In September, I entered the first Northwest Freestyle Championships event, in Brooks Oregon. I finished well behind the pack, but had a blast.

Summer of 1998

The LMH-100+ didn't do anyting for my flying ability, but it has proven to be a lot of fun.

This year I focused mostly on learning more and more maneuvers, more unconventional orientations (high-speed backward flight, inverted hovering nose-in and tail-in, sideways flight, and so on).

I grew more and more frustrated with the limited power output of my YS 61st, and purchased a YS 1.20 SC-H 4-stroke at the end of the year (the heli version, direct from Japan). This necessitated a new motor mount and clutch pulley from Schluter (special order from Germany), and a bit of creativity to get everything to fit. While preliminary tests suggest that this beast is exceptionally powerful, it doesn't seem to want to run quite right. When it finally does settle down, I'll be mounting 810mm blades (these, from England; the internet has made the world a whole lot smaller).

Near the start of the season, I entered the "Expert" event at the Spring fun-fly in Brooks Oregon, and earned third place. This was a great surprise. I had not been planning to enter any contests at this event, and was only talked into it by some friends. I flew not expecting to do well, not even thinking that I was in the running for an award. I've never flown so completely relaxed before or since. This taught me something about the mental aspect of contest flying: as one's blood pressure goes down, one's chance of a good finish goes up!

This makes me want to enter every contest I can, just for the sake of getting practice at flying before an audience. That way, maybe I won't be so petrified when I go before the judges at future events.

I started working on chaos (pirouetting tumbles) in the simulator, and managed a few reasonably good tumbles before the season was out.

Near the end of the season, I just barely made it onto the podium at the second annual Northwest Freestyle Championships. Or at least, if there had been a podium, I would have been on it - I got another third place plaque (but I like this one best!).

Summer of 1999

I didn't get in a lot of helicopter flying this season. The Futura's new engine hasn't been cooperating, and the Concept's gyro hasn't been performing up to par (actually I now know it's not the gyro, as two separate gyros have the same symptoms). I missed most of the start of the season with a broken collarbone from my other love, snowboarding, and missed much of the middle of the season chasing my new love, Elizabeth.

I learned very little in the way of new maneuvers this season, but my flying still progressed quite a bit. What flying I did get in was mostly spent smoothing out maneuvers I already knew. I'm working on getting everything down around eye level, and slowing it all down, so the helicopter stays closer for the duration of the flight. Sideways four-point rolls at eye level are always good for quick shot of adrenalin! I wasn't sure if the simulator would help with this goal, but I think it really has. I've made a lot more progess this year than my limited flying time would otherwise allow.

<Shameless_Self_Congratulation>I think the slow-and-low practice paid off, too - I came home from the 1999 Northwest Freestyle Championships with a 2nd Place plaque in my hands.</Shameless_Self_Congratulation>

Summer 2000

Backward inverted circuits at eye level

I can do circuits up high, and passes at eye level, but carving turns down low still scares the crap out of me. I almost killed myself doing that (literally) a couple seasons ago so I'm being more careful this time around.

Asynchronous loops, nose-in/tail-in and side-on

I'm pretty happy with my progress in this department. I need to work in a couple of different orientations, but the basic form is at least presentable.

Chaos, two piroeuttes per tumble

I can do it, but not consistently enough. This is going to be a goal for 2001 now.

Rolling circles, and IRCHA PPP Level IV

Rolling circles? Not even close. I can manage a half-decent rolling loop about half the time, but rolling circles still evade me completely. Another goal for 2001.

Everything slower and lower

Another half-accomplishment. I'm getting there, but I'll still be working on this next year.

Another plaque at the Northwest Freestyle Championships

Nope. Russ McCutcheon, Erich Stoltz, and Remi Epron all taught me a thing or two about freestyle this year. Damn foreigners. I coulda had second place if it weren't for the Californian and the Frenchman.

Get the 1.20 running happily in the Futura SE

Early in the season I realized I was putting a lot of energy into tinkering and not nearly enough into flying. I shelved the 1.20 project until I have a second 60-class helicopter to really fly while I struggle to get that motor to run right. I'm glad I made that decision, too. I enjoy flying these things a lot more than I enjoy working on them. I'm shopping around for my next helicopter, and I'll get going on the 1.20 again after I make up my mind. Besides, the ST2 is running strong enough that the monster-motor doesn't seem quite so necessary now.

Have as much fun as the last three years, if not more.

This one was easy. Burned four cases of fuel, only one dumb-thumb crash (two mechanical failures though), and I made a lot of progress. The not-crashing part means the most to me. I made a change in the way I approach flying, and it's made me quite a bit more comfortable, which in turn has made my flying better and my progress faster.

Naturally, a week or two after writing this, I dumb-thumbed it again.

Knife Edge Flight

Been working on extended knife edge passes and they're extending longer than I would have thought possible. Now that I have a motor that makes decent power I'm getting somewhere with the metronome as well. Knife edge flight might be an optical illusion, but it's still pretty cool.

I noticed that most of my crashes happened when I was in a much more relaxed frame of mind than usual - goofing off, basically. I just got too comfortable, and after dumb-thumbing my Concept early in the season, I swore I would not let that happen again.

I like to keep the helicopter's orientation in constant flux - for me, that's what freestyle is all about. The challenge lies in keeping your mind in sync with all of the orientation changes as they happen. When you fall a step behind, the earth rises up to smite thee. The solution? I try to keep my mind one step ahead of the helicopter. If I don't have two maneuvers planned out, I just make a simple pass while I put my plan together. It's helped a lot. I still push myself to learn new things, but I don't push myself to do one of everything with each tank of fuel.

The only side effect is that I've built these sequences of maneuvers in my mind and I sometimes feel like I'm stuck in a rut. The advantage is that once I start one maneuver, I can execute two or three more while I think of something new. The drawback is that I'm kind of predictable most of the time. Hopefully with practice I'll be able to mix things up a bit more. Meantime, being stuck in this sort of rut is a small price to pay for a whole season with only one (two) pilot-induced crash(es).

That second dumb-thumb happened after I got a little too bold (and a little too low) with pirouetting tumbles, where I'm still only just barely keeping up with the helicopter, and not yet one step ahead of the heli like I want to be. Sigh. Pride goes before a fall, right?

My ground crew needs an ass-kicking though.
Oh, wait... I am the ground crew. Nevermind...

I've had an interesting realization, too - for the last two seasons most of my flying has been done along a straight line, making low passes from left to right with rolls and travelling tumbles at center stage, and stalling turnaround tricks at either side. During the time I spent working on getting that stuff slower and lower, I lost the ability to make big swoopy graceful turns. Now I get all jealous when I see people flying smooth circuits. Funny how some of my skills have atrophied while I've been working on other things.

Winter 2000

Daylight savings just hit, so it's time to focus on simulator practice.

I'm on a mission to learn everything over again, this time while pirouetting. This means pirouetting while hovering, flying circuits, hovering inverted, inverted circuits, plus at least the basic aerobatics: pirouetting rolls, pirouetting loops, pirouetting stall turns, pirouetting tumbles, and pirouetting async loops.

Following a tip from Curtis Youngblood, I've set my maximum rudder to a rate that I'm comfortable with (probably about 3-4 seconds for a single pirouette) and I'm flying around with "full" rudder applied the whole time. There's only three controls to worry about this way, and the pirouette rate never changes.

As of the end of October and a several hours of sim practice, I've been able to do this outside the simulator for one and one half tanks of fuel. See above r.e. second dumb-thumb of the season...

Summer 2001

Goals: