If you have all of the maneuvers down from “learning how to 3D part 1” then it is probably time for you to learn some new tricks. As in each section of this continuing article the maneuvers will get harder and harder. As promised we will get to learn the Leap frog and Consecutive stall and fall. The others will be just as exciting: Death spiral and Flipping loop.

Leap Frog

Start out at a hover in idle up, then add full positive pitch accompanied by a small amount of foward cyclic to move the heli in an arc until the model is inverted. At this point you will quickly add full negative pitch still holding foward cyclic. Repeat this a few times to make it look like a frog jumping in arcs. To give it some real excitement pirouette slowly over a spot instead of hovering and then start the maneuver. Remember a symmetrical pitch curve (same amount of negative as positive) will make this maneuver a lot nicer.

Death Spiral

This maneuver will definitely scare the person watching if they have never seen it before and provided you do it properly. Climb to a really, really high height, the roll the heli to the right or left and go to zero collective pitch, now add full foward cyclic and watch it spiral all the way down until you are at a comfortable exiting height. To exit roll to the left or right depending if you prefer to do it inverted or up-right. The lower the scarier. When you get really good at this you can add stuff to it such as a pirouette in the middle of it or simply changing the direction of rotation or maybe even doing it in four points as you did with you roll.

Consecutive Stall and Fall

This is what you need to become proficient at 3D flight, at least that’s my opinion, it will really add to it. Start in a backwards flight mode, with a good speed. Push the cyclic foward a bit to start the heli into a backwards loop like figure, but when the model is nose to the ground and tail to the sky you will let it fall to the same altitude that the model entered the maneuver, and then add foward cyclic once again. This will put the model into inverted flight for 2-3 seconds before you add foward cyclic to bring the model to the tail to the ground or nose to the sky position. You will once again let it fall to the entrance altitude and add foward cyclic to bring it back into a backwards flight mode. You may repeat 2-3 times to complete a consecutive stall and fall. As you get better at this you will learn to make the arch entering and exiting bigger or smaller with the collective. You can also do the maneuver from foward flight to backwards flight if you wish.

 

Funnel

When I first saw this done it was preformed by a well known JR sponsored pilot Scott Gray, it looked very good and I was amazed how the heli even stayed in the air. Start the heli is a medium sideways flight and poke the nose or tail down and add full roll to get the heli spinning in a funnel shape. Remember the heli has to be on a slant or it will not work and most likely roll into the ground. As Scott said me, “it is hard to get at first but eventually you will find the sweet spot for your controls and it will come to life.” I find that I can control the steepness of the funnel using the tail rotor control. This one trick you’ll have to play with because each machine handles differently.

Pirouetting stuff

Now its time to start adding pirouettes to some of you tricks! Such as: At the top of your consecutive stall and fall you can add a 180 degree pirouette but remember when you are falling you will have to pull back instead of foward as the nose is now facing the ground. You can have some fun with you death spiral by adding a 360 degree pirouette half way down the spiral. Also the beginning of a piro flip is to add a 180 degree pirouette at each point of you four point flips. It is to hard to explain a piro flip (chaos) so the most I can offer you is that you have to move the tail to the left while moving the cyclic in a curcular motion clockwise or vice-versa. Remember left goes with clockwise and right goes with counter-clockwise, this is mandatory and if not followed the flip will not work or turn out correctly. You can add pirouettes to lots of tricks! You just have to be creative!

Extended Knife-edge Fall

This is another maneuver that will scare the crowd because the’re not ready for it! This looks better if the heli is going fast, so you will want to pick up a good air speed then do the first point of a four point roll but before you go to the next point let the heli fall nearly to the ground. Then carry out the next point of the roll but instead of completing a four point roll fly away inverted.

Sideways loop

Like a normal loop you will want lots of sideways speed (tail in CW rotor rotation) for this one, preferably flying to the right because it will not pull the engine down as much. It will be the same as a normal loop but you will use roll instead of fore/aft.

I hope you enjoyed this article and learned from both 3Ding part 1 and 2. In the next article we will learn how to put a 3D flight together with and without music! We will combine maneuvers with the mucic to make a specular flight.