Inverted Heli Flying… first steps

January 27th, 2007 Submitted by: Adrian

Though I haven’t had the chance to fly my real helicopter inverted before, I have had the chance to  fly inverted with my trusty Aerofly Pro simulator. I would have to say the simulator has save me loads of money when it comes to learning new maneouvers especially inverted heli flight.

I have noticed that inverted forward flight is somewhat like backward flight in terms of cross controls for the aileron and rudder. When you input right aileron, left rudder is needed and vice-versa. And most of the time, it is also followed by forward cyclic to help keep the forward portion of the heli (either nose or tail dependng on inverted FF or normal backward flight). That’s why I recommend anyone going into inverted flight to master backwards flight first.  Once you are comfortable with backward flights, all you need to do is then flip the heli over and do your cross control turns like how you would do it while in upright backward flight. One thing you need to bear in mind is of course the collective pitch is totally opposite so to go up, you need to push down and to go down you need to push up on the collective stick. Once you have had enough practise… everything will come in naturally.

As mentioned, you should learn on a simulator first. It helps keep costs low and definately helps speed up the learning process because you’re more relaxed and you can try over and over again without the fear of crashing. However you should be as disciplined as possible to treat simulator flying like real flying, as though the model is real because you wouldn’t want to learn to acquire bad habbits and bring them to the field unknowingly. Once you’re comfortable enough, then its time to take the big leap of faith and go into inverted flying with your real model. Of course it would be best if you’re able to perform inverted hovering before hand. Haivng a good bail out plan and lots of altitude should help until you’re comfortable with inverted flight.

Entry Filed under: Radio Control