iKarus FUN Piccolo Notice De Montage page 32

Flying
32
WARNING: Do not attempt to lift off your Piccolo until you are
confident you have adjusted the flight controls correctly.
If you have the yaw problem solved, let's start to work on the
forward/backward cyclic. With a little throttle, the helicopter
should begin to get light. Observe whether or not the
helicopter wants to tip forward or backward. If it tips forward,
trim the elevator trimmer rearwards (and vice versa). Do this
until there is no detectable forward or backward tipping when
you give even a little more throttle. Be careful! The helicopter
can easily climb all the way to the ceiling if you let it. Therefore,
be sure that you throttle up and down slowly.
Roll control (left and right cyclic) is a little more complicated. All
helicopters exhibit a small amount of unavoidable drift at take-
off due to the side thrust of the tail rotor and the clockwise
rotation of the main blades. This is mainly noticeable as a drift
to the left just before and during take off.
To compensate this and to enable the trim out of the roll
function in the same way as the elevator function, the left
undercarriage struts are longer than the right ones.
Next we need to briefly let the helicopter leave the ground.
Use the procedure we have already learned: Slowly apply
throttle, let the machine 'get light', increase throttle until the
Piccolo lifts off, watch for trim changes and land at the first sign
of instability or vibration, or if you are losing control. You are
now learning to fly your Piccolo and thorough practice is
required from now on.
This method works, but it is not ideal. Indeed, thousands of
model helicopter pilots have learned using this method of
practice. Of course, an alternative is to go to a flight school.
This dramatically speeds up the learning process (and
minimizes the crash risk). Another method is to use a
computer flight simulator. The Ikarus Aerofly R/C flight
simulator is by far the best method for teaching yourself to fly. It
is an astonishingly realistic (yet risk-free) simulation of
helicopter flight. A beginner can literally learn to fly on the
simulator, while more advanced pilots can learn to fine-tune
their hovering skills and learn advanced maneuvers.
A useful training technique is to start slowly with 'short hops'. At
all times keep the helicopter within an inch or two of the ground
and watch the model carefully. Try to control the mode
accurately from your transmitter.
Put the Piccolo in the middle of your flying area, or a little to the
right of the middle. Many champions started out in exactly the
same way, so don't lose patience! After practice, you will
notice that your flights become longer and you will be 'saving'