The first time
April 3rd, 2007:
As soon as I got my heli, I opened the box, made sure that everything was there, set the heli on the floor in my office at work, turned on the transmitter, connected the battery to the heli (after ensuring the throttle was at minimum setting), and marveled at how the servos responded. Oooooh! Aaaah! Then… I added a touch of power. Not much, mind you, just enough to get the blades moving so that I could be sure everything worked. I could not wait to get home and try some limited ground maneuvering.
Once home, I immediately took out my heli, powered up the Tx & the heli, and let the games begin! Since I didn’t (at that time) have training gear, I was very cautious with the controls. I started by adding just enough power to make the heli slightly light on the skids; which, by the way was about 30-40% power. I found that if I applied forward cyclic, that the rudder gained much more authority, and I was able to practice turning my bird. By adding just a little bit more power I was able to get it to slide (barely) forward across the carpet. Did I have any close calls that day? At the time I would have said yes, but as I think back on it, I think it was just my lack of experience making me nervous; I would get scared when the heli would tilt more that a few degrees, and kill the power. Eventually I ran the battery down, and that ended my first day’s flight. The following few days consisted of pretty much the same thing. Practice ground-taxi maneuvering, drain battery, charge battery, and repeat.