First Loop Try

2008-11-29 Saturday 0815

Reached at Putra Heights Aircraft Flying site to find the field is not in good condition to be used due to heavy rain the night before. My car was all dirty with the mud, thank God, Alhamdulillah, I manage to go in and out without getting stuck there!!

From RC Helicopter - My Journey

Looking for other place to fly I called AXDFZ to find he is at Puchong Putra Prima Flying site. It took me about 20 minutes, with clear direction from him I found the place with no problem.

There are different Helicopters being flown here. They are Hirobo, Raptor, Knight and TRex as well.

From Puchong Putra Prima Flyer Site

From Puchong Putra Prima Flyer Site

From Puchong Putra Prima Flyer Site

I filled up my Raven's fuel tank, and then watched other flyers flew their airplane and helicopters. I realize that for heli they have a dedicated fly pad, which will ensure heli skid will not dirty at all for the flying session. Neat! However the usage of the pad is not a must and flyers are free to utilize other parts of the field for helicopters as well.

From Puchong Putra Prima Flyer Site

My turn to fly, I started TR3703 engine, let it run for a while, then bring it to the helipad.

From Puchong Putra Prima Flyer Site

Started with normal hovering, make sure the controls are ok, then checked the throttle/pitch response with rapid hover climb.

Then started my normal fly and thinking if I should try a loop inverted flight today (?).

These are what I have during the fly:

1. Familiarizing with normal mode and idle-up mode flight and switching between them.
   
2. Fast figure 8. Familiarizing with the control and improve my precision. I don't think the figure 8 I made is good enough, need to improve on altitude control and rate for cornering.
   
3. I tried half-stall turn climb, where I not yet dare to turn the tail at the stall attitude, instead, I leave the heli facing the same site. Just stop/hover before turning to the other side.
   
4. Then the time came where I am confident to try the loop.
   
   1. So instead of I push the elevator back to level up, I keep pulling until it was upside down.
      
   2. Then I noticed that the Raven stop climbing, I pull down the throttle stick, which should give full negative pitch but, now the Raven started to drop!
      
   3. Well I begin to panic, at the same time looks like the Raven also a bit rolling to a side.
      
   4. I continue to pull the elevator hopping that it can complete the loop before it reach the ground!
      
   5. Then I see another opportunity to safe it, since it was rolling I push the aileron further to assist and finally I manage to get the main blade on top again and it started to climb!
      
   6. I still thinking and thinking what actually happened, I need understand and the overcome the problem next time, looks like this is quite the same as before when Fendi tried the Loop maneuver with the Raven. Now I suspected these few things
      
      1. Head speed has slowed down during the inverted posture, it started to slow when climbing and reached the minimum there.
         
      2. The wooden blade is not giving enough lift (width is about 75% of other blades)
         
      3. Center Gravity is not balanced, resulting on the unexpected roll (which helped me to recover)
         

Luckily I have enough heights, if not, I won't be smiling now!

After that I landed my Raven, packed up and join the group for a quick break at a nearby restaurant.

Thanks for very good hospitality from the PPPF gang!