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Heli Flying at Bonchester written by Ian.

 We currently have five heli flyers at our club at differing levels of expertise and experience. Other than Rob Beaton who was the pioneer of heli flying at our club as much as 15-20 years ago, I’m probably the longest in the tooth. Rob started in the days of the Schluter Cobra when gyro’s weren’t thought of for models and went on to fly Schluter Junior 50’s and Scouts. Around 11 years ago I got into heli’s with the Kyosho Concept 30. Things were a little better by then – you could get mechanical gyro’s which were cumbersome compared to the modern piezo gyro’s but offered basic tail rotor stabilisation. By the time I got my second heli, the Raptor 30, gyro’s were now lightweight, quick reacting piezo’s and offered heading hold – this allowed the helicopter to hold it’s heading into whatever direction was chosen regardless of wind direction and was another major leap in technology. By this time others were taking interest in heli’s – some names we’ll all recognise… Alan (Raptor 30 and 60), Derek (Maverick and Raptor 50), Richard (Raptor 30, 50, Heim Augusta, MS Hornet and soon to own Vario turbine), Ernie (Kalt Barons, scratch built Hughes 300, X-Cell gasser), Nick (Raptor 50, and 90SE) and me (Raptor 50, 90 and Align T-Rex).

The field offers the heli flyer open views of models without any obstacles and a large strip for sloppy or slightly mis-positioned auto’s. Safety is paramount when a club has shared fixed and rotary flying and is catered for at our club by alternating slots so that only one or the other fly’s at any one time. Some members have taken advantage of learning by buddy box method, others by sheer determination (and crashing) and at least one is trying an auto-pilot and having success with it. When I started flying I did the initial short hops and hovering using a pair of canes in an X formation with golf practice balls on the ends. When I got to flying circuits, I simply shortened the canes to around 40cm – this helped with orientation for the first attempts at getting the model further away and didn’t weigh enough to hinder the model.

Nowadays we have the luxury of flight simulators which makes the whole learning process much quicker (and less expensive in repairs). The simulator has definitely helped me with 3D flying but the best thing of all that I’ve found is to fly with people who are better than you. You get the benefit of their knowledge plus you get spurred on to try new manoeuvres.

Latest improvements include digital high speed, high torque servos, governor’s for engine management, turbine powered heli’s, electric powered heli’s, phase adjustable blades and carbon fibre this that and the next thing.

Helicopters never seem to lose their ability to keep you interested, the flight envelope is huge and there is always something new to learn…. welcome to all that want to learn – we’ll help you to our level at least.

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