SierraHotel

Hello all.. New Dragancrasher here. I have a couple of questions:

1. After taking my first powered 'hops' today, I noticed the instability of this beast. I have ZERO R/C experience, so I'm not surprised. I did, however, notice the tendency for the DF to tip onto a motor doing the 'skid' lesson. Would the motor savers I saw on eBay do me any good to help keep my rig healthy? These are what I'm talking about:

http://www.radiocontrolled.com.au/ne...nding_gear.htm

2. When I recieved my rig I noticed I have no rotor decals. No disappointment there, as they look a tad cheesy in my book. My question is, can I not paint the front rotor, say, yellow and leave the other three black for the most contrast possible? Or any other color you want if you're a color person...

I'm a tad disappointed in myself. I don't seem to be getting ahead of the DF yet. I know it's only been 30 mins of hopping, but it seems like I'll never get the hang of this.. I'll keep trying, though.

Thanks for listening.

Mike

jodaboda

by the time you get your "motor savers", you'll already be flying fine (assuming you can't resist flying while waiting for your shipment).

I didn't get decals either. I can orient fine without anything, and you can too since right now you're just flying nose-out all the time. There are threads already about how to decorate your DF for orientation.

make sure you have the blades/motors level, all frame parts tightened, and TRIM as per the manual. I had only flown helis on the Realflight simulator (learned to hover), and was able to hover the DF no problem on the first try. Therefore I cannot recommend strongly enough that you use the simulator (the free one is fine; not as accurate and not as pretty, but it works and there is a DF model for it). If you go on any RC heli forum anywhere, every person will tell you to use a simulator before you try the real thing, otherwise you'll be out $100 in parts in the first 10 seconds of flight. The DF is more resistant to breakage, cheaper to fix, and only about half as difficult to fly, but I still recommend the sim first.

If not, make sure you are on grass that is soft, but not long enough that it reaches the rotors and will put resistance on them. But first (for trimming), be on smooth cement so you can skid around without actually leaving the ground.

good luck

Fesfly

I built my own landing gear to learn but removed them once I got used to it. They will protect the motor mounts when your beating around in the house (most of your landings will be HARD flat landings, i.e. you went up hit the ceiling and panicked, cut the power...). Outside they will do little for your..ahem. angled landings.

I spray paint my front rotor - the paint doesn't stay on long but it doesn't really matter.

It won't take you long to get the hang of flying it - it takes more input than I had originally thought, when outdoors in Ti it does fly nicer. Others have suggested that you learn in a big open field (I agree), as the short flights indoors or in your back yard don't give you enough time to be a calm flyer.

techrtr

I think the manual that comes with the DF says that they recommend that you learn to fly with TI off, but the DVD says something about learning to fly with TI on. Anyhow, I flew for the first couple of weeks without TI on. I learned to hover really well 5 feet off the ground, but then got into a lot of trouble on those inevitable occassions when the thing hops up to 12 or 15 feet, gets skittish, and you can't recover fast enough to keep it from slamming into the ground at an angle that is pretty much quaranteed to break a main arm, a gear, or a motor mount (sometimes all 3). So, my suggestion is that you learn to fly with TI on. It will probably save you a lot of grief. Also, fly as much as possible over grass. Your motor wiring, capaciters, and the bottoms of your motors will take a real beating if you don't. A big open field is very nice too. It's amazing how you can freeze up when you start heading toward a tree or powerlines. You also don't want to be running around your neighborhood, looking for your DF after one of the inevitable forced landings that will occur while you are learning to fly.

TheHindmost

There really do seem to be two schools of thought about TI vs. no-TI, especially when learning. For me, since I had no previous helicopter experience, learning with TI was a must. I'm now just starting to learn to fly without TI, and I'm looking forward to mastering it. Some folks have had success learning to fly with the simulator (which has no TI), but I never really liked the simulator and sort of lost faith in its fidelity when it let me hover the DF upside-down.

Some folks here don't ever fly without TI, and others seem to never use it at all, even at high altitude. I think most who don't use use it/don't like it have some other heli experience (but not all of them).

I had a couple of just gorgeous TI-enabled flights yesterday (despite the motor falling out issue, which was only an annoyance since it didn't cause any damage)...The conditions must have been perfect (and there was no wind), because I was getting essentially hands-free take-offs and high-altitude hovers. My buddy was pretty impressed. One on takeoff, I literally just gave it throttle, made one quick adjustment at about 5 feet, and then shot straight up to about 50 feet or so with just throttle, no fuss no muss--and the DF just stayed there, hands off. The descent required some jockeying, but that's normal.

Will

TheHindmost

LOL at "Dragancrasher"...That was me for the first week or so of flying it for sure!

Nice username...haven't heard that in a while. My instrument (IFR fixed-wing) instructor years ago used to love that phrase, and a well-flown approach usually ended with him saying, "That was Sierra Hotel!"

Will

SierraHotel

Good point. I just saved $25.00!
Seems quite a few people just ignored the decals. If/When I have orientation issues, I'll worry about it then.
Blades/motors level and tightened - CHECK.
Trimmed per the manual - CHECK (The 'hopping method' was used. The DF now zips up to about 5' straight as an arrow.) I used the simulator, but found it continually frustrating - the view, the bad camera, nose orientation, etc. I'll keep at it, but my wife is getting tired of the yelling at an unresponsive flat-screen monitor.

I found some tennis courts today that I'm gonna go play on. I'm gonna skid the risers flat!
Thank you, Sir!

Mike

SierraHotel

I have, like the manual and others suggest, been learning with TI OFF. Maybe sometime soon I'll hit the local park and enable it to see if it does me any good. If so, more the better. If not, I'll just keep plugging away at it.

Thank you for the 'Dragoncrasher'. I can't believe I came up with that first. There are just TOO MANY people in this world with faster brains than me. As for the Username, I can't totally take credit for that one. One of my bestest buddies is a retired Air Force Major. He flew over 4000 hours in C-130's and when he retired at the ripe old age of 40, was an instructor/check pilot for his unit. I flew with him a couple of times and I trust him with my life. HE taught me all those cool military phrases.

My favorite is a euphemism for a crash: Glueing the shadow to the airframe. Or, Voiding the ground-contact warranty.

TheHindmost

If the TI conditions are good and you follow the calibration steps properly, you'll find flying with TI is pretty easy...and you can get a lot of enjoyment out of your DF while taking the longer route to learning to fly without TI.

I'm waiting to see how long it's going to take for someone to post (or ask) what it stands for... (My old IFR instructor was also ex-military, best pilot I ever flew with and learned from.)

LOL, hadn't heard those!

All I can offer is a take on "Keep the shiny side up!", which I'm sure we've all heard...During my aerobatic training (what a freakin' BLAST that was!), I modified it to: "Just make sure the shiny side is pointing where it's pointing on purpose!"

Will

htway1947

I am new to flying rc helis. I am going to order the DF with 6 channel Transmitter, but I have to ask" what is TI?

htway1947

I am new, but can you tell me what TI means?

Fesfly

Hello htway1947,

TI stands for Thermal Intelligence Ti Gyro. When used outdoors, it helps stabilize the DF. You can read how it works on the DF website under the DF info. Have fun and take your time learning or buy lots of parts and have lots of fun.

TheHindmost

Definitely take that advice from Festus (and everyone else here): take you're time to learn to fly it well and you won't spend most of your time on the bench!

As Festus said, TI stands for "thermal intelligence"...It's not a gyro system. It senses the infrared "horizon" and uses that info to keep the Draganflyer level. The major advantage of TI, as I understand it, is simplicity and light weight. The major limitation is that TI does not work at all indoors and has issues outside as well in some circumstances.

RCToys has the whole DF V manual available as a PDF file [link=http://www.rctoys.com/pdf/df5ti-manual.pdf]here[/link]...Page 15 has a brief description of thermal intelligence. Just make sure you don't confuse the TI with the gyro stabilization the Draganflyer also has. The gyro stabilization (without which the DF would be unflyable) simply helps avoid uncommended pitch, roll and yaw changes. It doesn't have anything to do with self-leveling (and it works indoors and out, of course).

Will

stevel0923

IMO, one of the best ways to learn how to fly is use a tether while flying in a big grassy field. The tether can easily be a lightweight string tied to one of Dragranflyer legs while other side is tied to some form of anchor or heavy object. Not only will this help you gain some confidence in hovering but in a pinch when you feel like you are losing control, kick the throttle way up so the Draganflyer will hover straight up until the string/tether goes taunt. You can try the power cable tether from RCToys but I've read articles about not running your motors for more then 15 minutes at a time.

When flying outdoors, remember to bring a large cardboard pad to launch the Draganflyer.

SierraHotel

Well, as I live near the Oregon coast, I aint been doin' no flyin' lately.

Comes the day this spring when I can get a few days without rain, clouds and wind, I'll take the beast out to a friends pasture and get up to speed. The tether sounds like a great idea. I'll have to try that!

Mike

SierraHotel

I'm going to try and sell my Draganflyer V TI. Any ideas on how much to ask for the beast?

Never crashed, not even a little bit. Just do not have the time (or room) to fly it and that's not fair - it wants to FLY!

It's complete and unscarred. Spare blades and battery, too. I'll even toss in a hard case to ship/travel it in.

So, any suggestions or buyers, let me know.

Mike

imwithadd

hey guys, ive just bought a draganflyer v ti pro and i cant get it to fly, it just flips off the ground, i replaced motors, i messed with trims and set the stabalization. what is going on!! just paid a grand for it