[Sherlock]

Well... I couldn't help myself, and I went and ordered a Mcpx to "learn" on.

Problem is... I'm a newbie. Other than a cheap old 3ch micro, I have never flown a true helicopter yet. Not even on a sim.

Question is, seeing how I didn't order any training gear with it... how durable do they need to be if I was to make my own?

Here's what I was planning. Couldn't I just use some bamboo shish-kebab skewers, and some of those small styrofoam balls that craft stores sell?

Will that be strong enough / light enough for a micro sized heli? The skewers I was planning on using are 10" long. I have never used training gear either, thus I don't know how long the legs should stick out. The longer the legs, the heavier the training gear... but I'm assuming the safer/ easier to fly the longer they are? Any one have a set of training gear? How long are the legs?

Or should I just suck it up... order a good set of training gear online and leave the heli alone until it shows up.

oh...And feel free to shoot me any other newbie tips that you think I would benefit from.

[rotormonkey13]

Well the skewers, and little foam whiffle balls would probably work. Generally length is just a little longer than the span of the rotor blades.

That said, I'm not sure they'd be really practical on that size heli. Problem is the smaller helis tend to be affected a lot more by "ground effect". Basically the heli sits in a cushion of it's own dirty air and makes it real unstable. For your training gear to work you'd have to be pretty close to the ground with that little heli, close enough that you'd be in ground effect probably.

Thing about training gear is it's really only good for bunny hops and sliding around. Once you get any kind of height, they're useless anyway.

So all that being said, my advice is to forget the training gear, and just take it out over some nice soft grass. Stock up on links, keep your finger right next to the throttle hold switch, and go to town. A little sim time wouldn't hurt either

Try the "training wheels" too if it makes you feel better, but I'm not sure they'd really work well on a tiny heli like the mCPx. Maybe they will. Either way.. Good luck!

Oh - newbie tips: Keep the whirly side up!

[Froghammer]

Training gear on a flybarless heli sounds like a bad idea. It could lead to some very interesting takeoffs though.

[rotormonkey13]

Another good point.

Froghammer is talking about the tendency of training gear to cause resonant vibration. Take the already vibrating heli (no matter how well balanced) add in a bunch of floppy weight at the bottom, and you end up with a heli that shakes a lot more than without training gear.

On a flybarred heli, it's no big deal, but flybarless electronics don't like low frequency high amplitude vibration.

That said, the heli and gear are so small and the skewers would be pretty rigid, so I'm not sure the resonant vibes would amount to much.

[Sherlock]

Originally Posted by rotormonkey13

Another good point.

Froghammer is talking about the tendency of training gear to cause resonant vibration. Take the already vibrating heli (no matter how well balanced) add in a bunch of floppy weight at the bottom, and you end up with a heli that shakes a lot more than without training gear.

On a flybarred heli, it's no big deal, but flybarless electronics don't like low frequency high amplitude vibration.

That said, the heli and gear are so small and the skewers would be pretty rigid, so I'm not sure the resonant vibes would amount to much.

When you say the electronics don't like it... does that mean it might cause them to fail?

Has anyone here every used training gear on a micro heli?? Or are they tough enough with their lack of weight that there is no need.

[rotormonkey13]

Vibration in general will cause any electronic device to fail EVENTUALLY. But not that's not what I meant. As a general rule gyros don't deal well with vibration. Heli could become uncontrollable.

I'm sure there's somebody out there who's put training gear on the little micro-type things. But as a rule there isn't enough mass in them to do a whole lot of damage when you crash them.

If you're going to fly the mCPx w/o training gear, do it over grass (cushions the impact further) and make absolutely sure you have killed the throttle before you hit the ground (or anything else for that matter). Do that and the likelyhood that you break anything no matter how many times you crash is pretty low.

[Beerwiser]

Could a guy use some light wall aluminum tubing with the ends bent up? Maybe save on a bit of weight and vibration? Just a thought don't shoot me down too hard lol. I would recommend a sim though. If you are lucky enough to have some tall grass (12" +) as a cushion you could fly high enough to be out of the ground effect and still have a safety net. Never mind rotor monkey already mentioned the grass.

[DoubleCH]

Forget about aluminum tubing. Even if you roll up aluminum flashing into a tube it's still double the weight of 2mm fiberglass rod (same diameter as mCPx tail boom) which is a bit heavier than 2mm carbon fiber rod. And the training gear for the mCPx uses smaller diameter rods and is much more flexible than aluminum tubing.

I don't think anybody needs training gear for the mCPx. First, the mCPx is so durable that dropping from waist height with throttle hold does little to no damage, especially on grass. Second, with the AS3X FBL system, the mCPx is so stable you don't need to worry about slowly lifting off into ground effect before getting up to waist level. Just go straight up to waist level before giving cyclic input and don't fly low into ground effect if you're newbie.

With the mCPx, the most important thing as others have said is to get ready to hit throttle hold. That's not the same as throttle stick down which gives negative pitch and slams the bird to the ground. If you tie the pitch links with fishing line you won't lose them when they pop.

If you're intimated by the high headspeed (relative to micro FP), up your pitch curve or (if you run stock DX4e TX) lengthen all servo links by 2-3 full turns. This will increase pitch at hover which in turns means lower headspeed, which in turns means tamer cyclic and lift response, no negative pitch on throttle down to slam the bird to the ground and lesser crash damage from the lower stored rotational energy. Once you're more confident hovering, change back to stock pitch setting and anticipate the extra cyclic and lift response.

[d12bn]

Hey all you need is grass. I've crashed so many times and no broken parts. If you fly over hard surfaces its still tough but you will break stuff.

Here's my Mcpx with a couple of upgrades and a crash at the end

You Tube

You Tube

[Sherlock]

Unfortunately I might have waited too long to order it, as winter is around the corner. The wife wants new carpet in the living room... think I could convince her to go for a nice long shag