AllMYRC.com-A Radio Control Helicopter, Airplane and Car Community » R/C Helicopters » Ask the Pro's » Curtis Youngblood

[DWS6]

Curtis,

We have had a few mishaps at our field with stopped blades on an auto by either intentional blades stops or by wind/collective management issues where the blades simply stalled and were not able to be recovered.

The question is, in the event of a stalled disc and a tumbling heli what method of recovery is best with a flybared machine.

A. working the collective by adding negative when upright, positive when inverted.

B. staying with one side whether it be pos. or neg. in which you think the heli is favoring on a fall.

C. other?????

I seem to remember on one of your Auto clinincs at Heli Invasion you stating that you pick a direction and stick with it but I may have misunderstood you or it was in relation to flybarless. I cant remember.

Thanks for the site, this is a much welcomed addition to the hobby!

Dave Williams
Team Heli Wholesaler

[helivig]

If the heli is tumbling and the heli is high enough that you cannot tell if it is right side up or inverted I tend to just pick a side, either positive or negative and just hold maybe 5 or 6 degrees of collective and wait for it to spool up.

If the heli is tumbling but low enough to tell what it is doing, I add the correct collective for the up coming position. So if it just went inverted and is about to tumble back to right side up I move the collective to negative so when it does flip over the right side up it will start to build head speed. Once it starts to get head speed then I start messing with the cyclics to see if I have control.

I hope this helps, and we hope everyone enjoys the site.

[DWS6]

Excellent, Thanks for the reply

[rob p77]

Is there a certain altitude that if your not above then your " screwed "
The reason I am asking is because I was one of the people that DWS6 was referring to that had an accidental blade stop on Sunday that turned into my bird tumbling towards the ground and even though I have never tried to get into a blade stop before, common sense told me to give it positive when it rolled over and as I saw it come back to upright I gave it negative and then posive again as it rolled inverted again but even doing this, the blades would not start spinning again. They did not fold but they would not start spinning again. If it matters the machine is an align 600 nitro with the align blades. If I had to guess I would say I was probably 150 to 200 feet high. Just curious if there was anything I should have done differently, for what its worth the bounce when it hit the ground looked pretty cool.

[blt4ice]

oh no, the 600LE went bouning

[rob p77]

Originally Posted by blt4ice

oh no, the 600LE went bouning

Yeah you missed it, it was my last flight of the day weather I wanted it to be or not!

[helivig]

I find the larger helis startup better from blade stops than the little machines, 600 or smaller. I cannot say that you did anything wrong in your attempts as what you did sounds logical. The important thing is you want to have the collective in before it flips over. So if the heli is upside down and just starting to flip over, you want to already be in negative so it is in the correct pitch as the heli flips right side up. If you put it in too late it will not spool up.

Now having said that I had a Vibe 50 in Australia that I was doing blade stops with, but one of the days it would not spool back up no matter what I did. So some times it just will not come back.

On the minimum height, it depends a lot on what the heli is doing. If the heli is falling flat and stable you can be pretty low, 100 to 200 feet and get it back. If it is tumbling it usually takes a lot more height to catch it.

[rob p77]

Originally Posted by helivig

I find the larger helis startup better from blade stops than the little machines, 600 or smaller. I cannot say that you did anything wrong in your attempts as what you did sounds logical. The important thing is you want to have the collective in before it flips over. So if the heli is upside down and just starting to flip over, you want to already be in negative so it is in the correct pitch as the heli flips right side up. If you put it in too late it will not spool up.

Now having said that I had a Vibe 50 in Australia that I was doing blade stops with, but one of the days it would not spool back up no matter what I did. So some times it just will not come back.

On the minimum height, it depends a lot on what the heli is doing. If the heli is falling flat and stable you can be pretty low, 100 to 200 feet and get it back. If it is tumbling it usually takes a lot more height to catch it.

Thanks a lot, that's exactly what I wanted to know. I don't think I was giving the input as it was tumbling. I just know that if I saw it roll upright then I was negative and when I saw it go inverted I was positive but like you said, sometimes it just wasn't meant to be. Really liking the site, this is just what we needed. Take care

[floop]

Having this section is great. Exactly the kind of help we all needed from Pro's in the hobby! Thanks Curtis and everyone who put this together.

Dave, I need to see these blade stops! Sounds cool