Learning to Fly

One of the gifts the kids got me for my birthday was an RC helicopter:

You see those little missile thingies on the bottom of the ‘copter? They actually fire and are controlled by the remote handset. Both kids have been extremely intrigued by those missiles and want “their turn.” Naturally, I have to wonder if they got the toy with me in mind, or themselves.

As it turns out, it’s a very tricky bugger to control. There are only 2 active controls- on for lift and one for rotation. There is a rotational trim which, theoretically, is supposed to be used to make sure the heli flies straight and doesn’t just fly in circles or spin uncontrollably in place. In practice, I’ve determined that the trim can only get so close and as long as it remains responsive to the rotation lever, a rough straight line can be navigated.

The lift lever is very sensitive making sustained flight difficult initially. It actually gets more controllable when the charge runs down a bit. But I’m starting to get a feel for it. I was actually able to steer it around a bit in the basement, with only a couple of crashes before the charge expired.

The most surprising thing about it is its ruggedness. Despite many nasty looking crashes, including the blades slapping into walls and the like, it has not broken. Definitely a plus for the trial-by-error learning curve.