better setup for hover?

[3drules]

Hi Guys,

I know the answer to my question: pratice, practice
but I am also looking for setup hints.
My problem: my hovers are not stable. ( and yes I am praticing for quite some time now)
If I look at video´s some guys are almost doing it hands off.
I tried giving bursts, and also stable gas and very minimal rudder movements.
Could it be something in the setup?
I have a light Yak54 102" with a ZDZ 100, 26x10 wood, HS 5955 all around.
trust and CG as per standard advice in the manual. (QQ)
70% expo on all channels. All at maximum deflection (about 50degrees)

some more explanation: when in a hover, every little extra gas or wind will cause fierce reations from my model.
all help appreciated.

[aviti]

Get a profile. Several good ones out there. Example: Extreme Flight Edge. Take it out and hover it. It's very easy to hover. Get lower, then lower. Build confidence. Once you can hover it down low for as long as you want, then try it with your big plane. You'll find that once you get the technique down then the setup isn't nearly as critical. I learn new maneuvers in this order. Simulator, foamy, profile, gasser. It removes the pucker factor and makes stuff easy to learn.

[TeamFlatout]

reduce that expo. That sure is a hell of a lot of expo. Get the airplane just a little tail heavy. Not to much to where it is to sensitive on regular flight. Other than that practice is probably what you need.

[analog_boy]

alot of planes i see that are unstable it the hover its the pilot going nuts on the controls wall to wall, Im not saying this is your problem but alot of times its just a matter of settlign yourself downand the airplanes isnt far behind. I know it used to scare me to hover infront of meself with anything but a foamy but as time goes by i get mroe and more relaxed with that sorta flying. Hope thie helps. The airplane is defnitly a good flyer.

[yakwrecker]

Are you letting the airplane torque around? that could be the reason it is unstable. try holding right aileron to stop the torque and find a point on the throttle that will maintain a solid hover even if you have to move 2 or 3 clicks, just keep it smooth dont let it torque around on you because that could cause hell if you get confused.

[snapplane]

I have to agree with flatout. I think it is just too much expo, when you have it set up with too much the curve is so steep that you go from no control to full in a very small movement. I would try to get alot of it out or maybe set up a rate for your high alpha and hovers with less expo.

[XJet]

Learn to smooth out your inputs.

My hovering used to be really jerky and all over the place until I focused on being smoother with the control inputs and trying to anticipate a little more.

Now I find that I can easily second-guess my plane's next move in a hover, which means that my inputs are much smaller but better timed.

If you look at my fingers, you'll see that most of my inputs are relatively small and smooth -- but I am constantly stiring the sticks, despite the fact that the plane seems to be hardly moving.

The same can be observed when people hover a helicopter well -- their sticks are stirring so the heli isn't.

Until you can learn to anticipate the plane's next move, you'll always be one step behind and that means your inputs will be larger, faster and more distruptive to the hover.

The only way to get good is burn more fuel -- but here's what I've observed (at least with my profiles)...

There will always be some interaction between rudder and roll and throttle and roll -- learn to anticpate this interaction so that when you move one control, you're already inputing the necessary correction to the other(s) -- before the effect of the original input is even visible.

When you've practiced enough, all of this becomes subconscious and you don't even think about it.

Well at least that's the way it works for me.

[yaks]

throttle curve and dont play with the throttle aat the begining ... dont forget the right aileron and then .... ruder ruder ....

[flybye]

what i did to make it easier, is to turn it on high rates with like 50% negative expo. this way your inputs are smooth, but when you need it you have the high rates needed to correct a bad hover.

[TeamFlatout]

	Quote: Originally Posted by flybye
	what i did to make it easier, is to turn it on high rates with like 50% negative expo. this way your inputs are smooth, but when you need it you have the high rates needed to correct a bad hover.

Dont go 50% negative if you have a JR. Unless you want it to be super idiotic sensitive.

[rc4flying]

	Quote: Originally Posted by 3drules
	Hi Guys, I know the answer to my question: pratice, practice but I am also looking for setup hints. My problem: my hovers are not stable. ( and yes I am praticing for quite some time now)

Hello 3drules,
I feel your pain, I too experienced the same issues as I was trying to learn Torgue Rolloing and 3D flying, and I was around some of the best to learn from.
I wanted to learn, but not a the expense of losing airplanes, so
It was not until I played around with my cg's more and turned my expos up to soften up the center of the stick movements. I ended up learning with my Expos at -95% on my Futaba radios. Especially on the rudder and elevators. It seemed as though I had a hard time adjusting to the amounts of throw in 3D flying. I was always over controlling the inputs. I was mainly a precesion flyer and I like stick movement in my slow graceful type of flying. I never liked the idea of flying my planes with very little stick movement. Just too touchy for me. So it was something I had to learn to control and finally, turning up the expos helped me get a handle on it. Now, I can play with the expos to get the feel I am comfortable with and can keep the plane stable as you are looking for. Also played with the throttle curves to give me a click or two movement in the stick without making the plane climb or settle. The curve is also adjusted to get the stick in a position I am comfortable with. It, to me, was like trying to manage all these things at one time. Just to much to handle. So I took the approach to get one thing at a time under control.

To me, not all advice works for all pilots. Some look for different feelings in the stick. There have been some guys planes that fly 3D well, that I was uncomfortable flying their planes because of their setups, but I have been able to achieve the same thing with my thinking, it just took me awhile to figure it out. Especially when you have other experience pilots telling you to do it this way. I just had to find a different path and follow it and most of all, practice it and safely at that. I also found my self putting Ail input to stop the TR rotation without every realizing it. Guess that was from all my smooth flying kicking in and the input being automatic and I was not catching the input that I did not want. Too much concetrating on the tail group.

To me, it was breaking lots of old habits and learning new one that worked for me. But it was worth it, cause now it is a different style of flying to enjoy. But I still love the smooth precise flying as well.

Just my opinion and thought.

[3DGE 540]

I found when I first tried hovering I would let my plane start to fall out then correct it but I then found out you need to correct it before it gets to out of control in order to hover longer and more stable.