Earlgrey

As anyone who has used PPjoy will testify it is a neat piece of software developed by
Deon van der Westhuysen

PPJoy was designed for joysticks connected to the parallel port but it also supports other devices via the virtual joystick interface.

So why am I telling you this as if you have used or are using PPjoy you will know all about this?

Deon has spent months developing PPjoy and thousand of people around the globe are using it day after day.

But he has now decided to stop supporting it as for all of his hard work he has received a few postcards,a couple of small donations and thank you emails have been very few indeed.

When I first got my first rc helicopter in January 2006 I decided to download and install FMS along with PPjoy to enable my transmitter to work with the FMS flight simulator, but as I have a laptop I didn’t have the necessary port connection so I learnt to fly my rc helicopter without it.

When I heard about Deon decision to stop supporting PPjoy I emailed him and told him that even though I do not use PPjoy I thanked him for creating it, his reply was very sad to read.

So please could you do Deon a favour and at least send him a postcard of your hometown or better still a small donation just to say thank you.
His contact details are:-

Deon van der Westhuysen
6 Keurboom Crescent
Plattekloof
7500
Republic of South Africa

Email:-
ppjoy@inbox.lv

Below is his web site:-

http://www.geocities.com/deonvdw/Docs/PPJoyMain.htm

Thank you very much.

Or you can just email him with a thank you letter, please do not ask him for support as he will not reply and I don’t blame him at all.

If I was a complete and utter beginner without any knowledge at all of RC Helicopters all I would need is a helicopter and the heliguy.com forums as there I would find every answer to any question I would have regarding learning to fly.

 Apart from that Heliguy.com sells a hugh selection of RC helicopter plus spares!

The one thing I wouldn’t have is the thing that I would need most of all to fly the helicopter safety and confidently without having to think about what I am doing - this thing is 100% free but seems very elusive and unobtainable to beginners.

Humans, being what they are all have preconceptions about things in life we perceive things differently to other people depending on what angle of perspective we look at anything new, so it is with RC Helicopters we may start by watching a 12 year old in the park flying one or watch a video on the internet showing a Helicopter performing 3D stunts and on both occasions we perceive it to be easy because we are older than that 12 year old and we automatically assume we to can do it, and sitting back in a comfy chair watching a video also gives us the false impression that we too can easily do that.

Why do we think that way - we don’t think we can safety setup and launch a IBM or fly a real helicopter and yet we think we can do the same with a RC helicopter?

The answer can be found in our misperceived notion that RC Helicopters are toys and as toys cannot, by definition be hard to learn - this is the beginning of our downfall and the end of what I allured to earlier on Patience! - yes that is all that I would need apart from the Heliguy forums, its no use posting questions galore if you haven’t the patience to sit down and learn what your transmitter does or without looking in the manual - or simply pull out your Helicopter from its box and connect the battery up while thinking of that 12 years old or that video as believe me it will not ever work simply because whoever has inspired you has had that experience and they are reaping what they have sown - as you have not sown anything you can’t expect to reap anything you need practice and gain experience and you cannot obtain one without the other - so forget about this flying straight out of the box that perception of flying will keep you grounded.

It may sound hard and too much of a learning curve but in reality being human, is what we are and learning is what we do everyday of our lives.

Learn all about your transmitter and your helicopter and then take it step by step and soon you’ll perceive the world and learn what that 12 years old boy knew all along - patience and practice is all you need.

Things have to be practiced to be mastered.

Good luck not needed only practice.

I receive emails galore per day

and try to answer straight away

but oh how frustrating it can be

when some of my emails return to me!

I was convinced they had been read

but alas, in their spam folder they lay dead!

They then email again, asking why I haven’t replied

in CAPITALS as well , oh how I sigh

The answer to the problem is a simple one

Allow all emails from Heliguy.com

Thanks

Joe

Fitting your Training Kit is easy - click on the picture to see the full post.

Hi All,

Welcome to Heliguy.com Blogs,

Within minutes you can be Blogging all over the world, join up, wait for your email confirmation, goto your site, click on ‘Write’ say what you want then Publish!

Please remember to contact me should you have any account queries.

Thanks

Joe

Keep your training kit, when you no longer need it, the tubing that keeps the ping pong balls in place are ideal for your helicopter!

See the full post here

Click the picture to see the full post on heliguy.com

Use a hair bobble instead of elastic bands to secure your battery in place.

they are cheap and come in many colours!

Today the 18/1/07 is almost a year to the day that because of a rapid deterioration of my health I was confined to the house, that’s not to say that previously I was active, but at least I could potter around in my shed, making Tudor Dolls Houses, which had been my main hobby for 12 years.

Then I found myself collapsing without any warnings at all, this was all because of a stroke that I had in 2005, which left me with zero energy and serious heart and kidney disease, luckily I got a slight interest in Helicopters when my son asked me to repair a RC aeroplane that he had, I casually mentioned to him that a RC helicopter would be better as unlike a helicopter a RC airplane has to be all or nothing, whereas with a RC helicopter you can at least keep it within a confined area!

My son, then without me knowing anything about it until the last minute bought me a Syma 2 channel Helicopter from China, I was really looking forward to it as sitting around doing nothing has never been a part of my life, when I finally got it as usual excitement kicked in and within 5 minutes of receiving it, I had lost it it to the sky gods, never to be seen again.

Well to say I was devastated was an understatement as this was a present for my wedding anniversary from my son, I lost sleep over it and it did my health no good at all.

To my surprise my son bought me a second one but this time I killed the excitement before it had a chance to kill my second Helicopter, and I learnt to use it in minutes (no excitement allowed) and to this day I still have it and will never part with it.

My son then got an interest in RC helicopters, and bought a 2nd hand Walkera 4, from E-Bay, the only problem was he didn’t know what model it was and I was none the wiser, he tried it but felt intimidated by it so he gave it to me. I then posted a picture of it on another forum with a simple question “What is the make of this helicopter”, and all I got back was a flood of written abuse, but not one of them had told me what it was, I felt hurt, cheated and above all determined never to go back to that forum, I then came across Heliguy.com and before joining the forums, I sent Joel a picture of the Walkera 4 in the vague hope that he would reply and tell me what it was, in my sheer frustration to get an answer I had forgotten to resize the picture suitable for email so poor Joel got a 2.8mb picture of what had by now became known as “Helicopter X”.

Joel replied within a minute, and told me all about it, and put my mind at rest, so I joined the forums with one aim, to repay Joel and to make sure that no one else goes through what I went through - the rest is history.

As for the Walkera 4 it turned out that the E-Bayer who sold it, had crashed it and damaged a servo, which I quickly replaced with a Tower pro 90 and its been fine ever since.

Thanks for reading.

Joe