Since you may well be flying those large figure of eight loops and that will make you think that you are not required to learn the hovering nose. But let me tell you that if you did not give enough attention in learning the rc helicopter controls in all directions and orientations, you will never be able to perform advanced aerobatics. Nose facing your direction is somewhat has been practiced by you in the earlier lesson or it will be felt the way that you are relearning flying rc helicopter. However by putting little extra effort for learning today’s lesson will be more beneficial in the long run and is very essential. Because, even if you are only keeping yourself stick to just basic flying like normal hovering and basic figure of eight loop, your rc helicopter will be forced to face nose in hover. I can be caused by gusting wind or may be a result of an engine failure, radio interference or your own error. Moreover as said earlier, this is essential to learn if you ever want to perform some simple and basic aerobatics.
You must be thinking that why am I rambling to make you understand that nose in hover is very hard. Well the answer is very simple; your rc helicopter cyclic controls get reversed when the helicopter is facing you. Try doing it yourself, turn the face of your rc helicopter towards you and turn on your radio and receiver. When you give a left cyclic the swash plate moves right. So basically the difficulty is in understanding the reversed commands you will be required to give when the rc helicopter is facing towards you. Same thing applies to the tail rotor command, it gets reversed too. But if you get yourself used to taking the tail rotor commands make the rc heli move in clockwise or anti clock wise directions instead of it being turning left or right, the direction of the rc helicopter will not matter.
However, never look at the tail when you are giving tail rotor commands. Some people may tell you to see how the tail rotor swings left when you give the left tail rotor command. Keep your focus on the nose; this is the right way of flying the rc helicopter. Having said that, it is also very easy to learn the counter clock wise and clock wise orientation instead of getting used to left or right tail rotor movement. By the time you come to this point of practicing nose in hover, you must have got the command over throttle control and collective pitch. Moreover, if you just do all the exercises learned earlier with getting the clockwise and counter clock wise orientation for tail command, it will just become a part of your reflexes and you will not face any difficulty just focusing the nose.
Before we start the nose in flying lesson there are few points which require attention:
Keep you training gear on; it will save your rc helicopter from a possible ditch and also will sever as a guide for visualizing roll and pitch movements easily.
Since you are getting another aspect of the command controls, if the cyclic duel rates are set to more or are turned off, you must reset them back to the factory settings, the same when you were doing the basic hovering exercises. This way you will be controlling the radio control heli the way it is supposed to in the hover in nose exercise.
There are three methods for learning the nose in hover, and you will learn three of them one by one. We will start from the same method we are used to i.e. the ground up hover method. Then we will see the flying approach method and finally look into walk around method.
Nose tip in Hover Ground up method:
This method is almost the same as you did in earlier exercise of basic hovering when you were a beginner rc helicopter flyer, but now you already know the controls of collective/throttle and commands of tail rotor. Stand in front of you rc helicopter keeping a distance of around 10 to 12 feet and make sure that the face of your bird is into the wind. To get the feel of the reversed commands in cyclic, safely, just give a little throttle to make your heli lighter on the skids. Just make it comfortable and then hover a little above the ground, up to few inches and practice there. When you feel comfortable start doing the backward/ forward/ sideways and diagonal commands and see how the commands have reversed effect on your rc helicopter when you are standing in front of it having its nose pointed at you. Make sure the heli remains into the wind direction. Once you have got the hang of that, try doing a long figure of eight loop, just at the end of each loop you will turn the rc helicopter towards you instead of turning it away from you as earlier. When you feel that you are comfortable doing the long skinny figure of eight loop, try doing the fast and large figure of eight circuit from the previous exercise. Keep the altitude high enough to get away from any mishap. There are many situations when you see your rc heli ditching at the ground but can avoid it through increasing the collective/ throttle and climbing altitude again to gain time for getting the control over your remote control helicopter.
You will be doing the nose in hover exercise in an open area, preferably a ground. This is good for whatever method you try for learning it but having plenty of room around you will give you enough chances to correct your skills incase you get disoriented. One more tip which is usually overlooked but is very important that choose to do fly in hover lesson in an overcast day. This way you will be able to avoid the scenario when your rc helicopter passes in front of the sun and your position. On that very instant you wilt blinded by the bright sunlight and those few seconds may cost you the expensive rc helicopter. Because losing sight of your heli will make you disoriented and by the time you will acquire the position back, your bird might get the blow of its life.
Nose in Hover Flying Approach Method:
This is another way to get the taste of reversed controls. In this method, the beginner rc heli is already flying, you just turn it slowly towards you to let your brain learn the reversal of controls when the nose is pointed towards you. The more you will practice the approach of rc helicopter towards you, the more you will get comfortable with the reverse control and the time will come when you be able to hover the heli having the nose pointed towards you. There are two advantages learning nose pointed to you while hovering. One is that your rc hlei will be flying high already so, you will be safe even if you make any mistake and the other is that the heli will already be in a forward flight which will make it easier for you to get the hang of it because rc helicopter is more stable in forward flight than in the hover.
The disadvantage to this method is that you get very less time practicing the nose is hover because most of the time the rc heli is flying and the only time you get to practice nose in hover is when the heli is coming towards you. The other disadvantage is the instant when the beginer rc helicopter comes towards you in the first few instances, those are the moments when you can get it or lose it completely, if you didn’t prepare your mind for the reverse control commands when the heli is approaching towards you. This way of learning is good for you if you are in rc airplane flying already. Since rc helicopters behave the same way as rc airplanes when they are in forward flight, it is all natural for an rc airplane flyer.
Walk Around method:
This method is a lot easier to learn nose in hover because you will be standing behind the heli when you start, the same way it was during the basic exercises. You will be at ease doing it just put the rc helicopter into the wind and stand 10 to 12 feet behind it. Start hovering 2-3 feet off the ground and gradually walk from left or right of the heli to come in front of it. This way will give your brain the gradual learning chance and you will be able to learning a better way this way. When in front, practice your left cyclic/ right cyclic/ forward and backwards.
During that practice whenever you feel disorientated, just move your position to a more comfortable one even get behind the heli to be able to control it the way you are used to. You will have to act fast for getting orientation back or you will ditch your rc hlei to ground and that will cost you moolah. And yes, try to be careful when walking to get in front of the rc helicopter because your focus will be on the heli and something may get you trip over. So make sure you clear all the hurdles you can come across. When you get comfortable being in front of the helicopter, practice all the controls i.e. backwards/forward/ sideways and diagonals.
If you have a good flight simulator for rc helicopter, make use of it because it will help you learn faster. The walk around method will not work with the simulator because your position remains fixed in a simulator. However other two methods will work just fine. Whichever method you choose to go for, just stick to it with the rc helicopter simulator too.
Here I will call it the end of the basic rc helicopter flying training lessons. With the last one being nose in front of you hovering, you are now open to some advanced aerobatic maneuvers and are even able to handle large rc helicopters. Look at you! You are now a skilled rc helicopter flyer who is able to fly in whatever direction, in other words you have full control over your rc heli. No more rc helicopter training gear needed for you, great flying there you rc helicopter pilot!
