Today's The Day - I Joined!

[tarai]

This is my virgin post and my first inroad to Radio Control Flying. A dual-citizen - Brit./Canadian, I've lived in BC for 13 years. My brother (deceased) was a rotary pilot with the UK Armed Forces but died in a crash in 2003 when the transfer gearbox seized on the Twin Squirrel he was flying/testing. With 9,500 hours in Gazelle and Lynx primarily, he was a civilian when the crash occurred. Rotary flight has fascinated me for EVER and if I had one wish (and a lottery win), guess what I would do?

I fly with Civil Air Search and Rescue out of Vernon as a Spotter and was out looking for lost snowmobilers as recently as this week. We didn't spot them but they did arrive safely home the next day.

I want eventually to fly a small quad-copter and I did buy a R/C Crawler car as well as a simulator to get some hand-eye coordination experience. My grandson flies a Mavic Pro - very well but the helicopter is my passion and I remember them from back in the 1970's when they were absolute pigs to fly.

My brother took part in a massive rotary air show display with 86 helicopters years ago and there was a guy flying a R/C version which lit me up - the fire has never died so here I am embarking on a new journey and so looking forward to it. I'll probably sign here as taraixp5 but glad to be aboard and under 'Air Traffic Control' LoL. Hi everybody!

 

[Tony]

Hey tarai, welcome to RCH! Sorry to hear about your brother, at least he went doing what he loved which is how we all should go. Sounds like you have an awesome job as well!

Do yourself a favor and stay away from the Mavic line of products if you want to fly helicopters. Mavic is a hands off flying quad and doesn't really teach anything. The only reason I would get one is for aerial photography or videography. Something I could put in the air, set my phone (phone, not a controller) down and fly what interest me lol.

If you do get a quad to learn with, and yes you can learn with a quad on how to fly helicopters, fly in RATE mode as soon as you possibly can. Using the self leveling to help you will actually hinder you in the future. Rate mode is as close to a 6 channel CCPM helicopter as you can get. And if you can fly a quad in RATE mode, you can fly a flybarless helicopter with a gyro such as the Ikon2 or MicroBeast or the like.

 

[tarai]

Hey tarai, welcome to RCH! Sorry to hear about your brother, at least he went doing what he loved which is how we all should go. Sounds like you have an awesome job as well!

Do yourself a favor and stay away from the Mavic line of products if you want to fly helicopters. Mavic is a hands off flying quad and doesn't really teach anything. The only reason I would get one is for aerial photography or videography. Something I could put in the air, set my phone (phone, not a controller) down and fly what interest me lol.

If you do get a quad to learn with, and yes you can learn with a quad on how to fly helicopters, fly in RATE mode as soon as you possibly can. Using the self leveling to help you will actually hinder you in the future. Rate mode is as close to a 6 channel CCPM helicopter as you can get. And if you can fly a quad in RATE mode, you can fly a flybarless helicopter with a gyro such as the Ikon2 or MicroBeast or the like.

Thanks for the advice Tony. My passion is for the helis as opposed to the quads - I will leave that to the younger generation, they seem to have more money than me anyway LoL (or their parents do?). I know this is an awesome (and frightening?) journey going forward and everybody and his dog has more knowledge than me so I will look forward to 'looking back' one day when i am at a more advanced level. Patience will be a test - we all want to fly without learning how like many other hobbies and sports. My skiing has come a long way in a couple of years - hopefully, this recreation will too - can you break any limbs? OK, silly question I'm sure I can manage to - LoL. Have a great day and thanks for the Welcome!

 

[Tony]

We all started out not knowing anything. I have a saying, "Nobody knows what they don't know until they know it". It's all about learning and having fun. I have been in the RC hobby since '92 and been flying since 2010 or 2011, not long before I started this site. And the reason I started this website being so green is because I could not find the answers to basic questions that everyone asks when they are new without being flamed about asking. So no worries on asking questions here, we are here to help no matter how basic the question.

 

[Admiral]

Welcome to the forum Tarai, sorry to hear about your brother, I lost a couple of friends a few years ago in New Guinea, through exactly the same fault in a Squirrel.
Doesn't matter how good a pilot you are there is no recovering from that fault.

Yes helicopters are the go, a lot more effort but much more satisfying.

 

[D.O.G.]

Welcome Tarai. There's no feeling like flying a heli vs a quad. I have both and I mostly love to fly helis for the challenge and adrenaline rush you get but while my batteries are charging, the quads give me something else to fly. I also use the quad to keep the trouble makers and drug addicts on there toes and away. When I fly the quad and they see it and they have the tendency to scatter like cockroaches which is funny as hell .