buzzkill
Senior Heliman
Location: Portland, Oregon. Astoria Oregon
| Since you asked...
I didn't crash for over a year when i started, something like 100+ flights. But i did not push the envelope too hard - quite the opposite. I was very, very cautious. I don't beleive that crashing is (or should) be a normal part of learning to fly heli's. You don't see people learning full size aviation by crashing over and over do you? And I think learning to fly r/c heli's takes the kind of skill, attention to detail, and seriousness (word?) as full size. These are not toys like other areas of the r/c hobby - which sets it apart. These are serious machines that command respect.
I pushed the envelope on the simulator, but tried new things for 'real' only after I felt very comfortable with the current thing I was working before I went on to the next thing. try the PPP from ircha. part of this 'go slow' was probably because I learned on a TSK 46, which flew great but was very expensive to fix. I can afford the hobby, but that doesn't mean I can throw money down the tubes doing it.
The exception I found to the above is autorotations. I could shoot them all day on the simulator, but doing them for real was hard, and I botched quite a few of them. So i bought a raptor for this :-). You'll do 50 good ones in a row, and number 51 with be a total. I wasn't afraid of crashing the rappy, and i think that helped. If you can't get good at auto's on raptor you should be set, since raptors don't auto that great (t least mine doesn't).
I also think (opinion only) that accepting a lot of crashes leads to (or is a symptom of) being sloppy - aka 'sh*tty wrench award'. I have seen a lot of crashes blamed on 'mechanical failure' that could have been caught by a thorough pre-flight, preventative maintenance, or just slowing down a bit. You have probably seen this person at fun-fly's - jumping from brand to brand, with the last brand of kit they totalled being a 'piece of crap'.
When you do crash - do a serious post-mortem and figure out what happened and try to prevent it. Don't just see how fast you can get replacement parts and get it back in the air. If you are getting ahead of yourself, admit it and go back and practice. if something failed mechanically - find the root cause before you fly again. I keep a logbook to help me track stuff like this (see www.sportys.com Pilot's Flight Log and Record )
Just my $.02
george |
Go figure?
(pushing a trainer too far with a dodgy engine, have better now)
