Logbook…
It all started innocently enough, with a gift… Now, I know what you’re thinking; somebody gave me a helicopter as a gift, right? Well, the truth is that *I* gave a helicopter as a gift to my wife for her birthday last October. My wife? Yes, she actually does like helicopters! So, when I walked past a storefront in my local mall, and saw one sitting in the window, I knew it was “the right gift” for her. Did she like it? Yes! She loved it! What kind of heli was it you say? It was the Syma 9093 “Fly Dragonfly”.
It turns out that I played with it more than she did. After I realized that I was hooked on helicopters, I started looking into them, finding out what was out there, and what a good beginner heli would cost (so that I could stop feeling guilty about crashing her heli!). I was amazed to discover that not only had I paid *WAY* too much for the 9093, but that it was also mostly useless as a helicopter. Ooooh look! I can go up & down! Crash to the right & the left. I was determined not to “be had” again!
Enter the King… Near the end of March, I managed to convince my beloved wife that I *needed* a heli of my own, and with her blessing, bought myself a Honeybee King on E-bay. A week later I was a proud new helicopter owner. Let the lessons begin!
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.
Saturday, April 7th, 2007:
Today I made my first flight. Unintentionally. Scared the living stuff out of me, to say the least! I was on the front porch at home, and was having a great time watching my little heli go back & forth in front of me on the cement. I was practicing following a specific path in an attempt to get a feel for coordinating the rudder and throttle. I was giving it just enough power (around half throttle) to make it light enough to move. I was trying to have it follow a joint in the walkway, when I accidently pushed the throttle the wrong way… I heard the motor spool up fast, and the heli jumped off the ground! Fortunately I have fast reflexes, and was able to shut it down quickly, before it got more than a few inches off the ground. No damage, thank God! Boy, was my pulse racing! I put it away for the day after that, so that my frazzled nerves could calm down… Lesson learned; *don’t forget which way is off*! Got it!