NOTES FROM JASON KRAUSE AND TODD BENNETT’S 3D SEMINAR AT IRCHA 2002, AUGUST 17^th 2002

They held an open forum under a tent and just fielded questions from the crowd with an occasional discussion on issues they had come up in the past.  I found it to be very educational and funny at times, both are down to earth guys who are still excited about flying.  While I was hoping to find the “Holy Grail” which would transform my skills overnight I did walk away common sense ideas to move my flying to the next level.   I am typing these in bullet form to better facilitate review in the future.   They are in no particular order:

-Safety:

+Safety must remain our number one concern at all times.

+Get your eyes checked.  If you’re having trouble seeing the aircraft through maneuvers or just flying around you my just need some specks.  If you wear glasses wear them.

+Fly no closer than 15 feet from yourself and perform no tricks closer than 30 feet.

+Never come screaming in at yourself and pulling up, anything can happen and has.  Someone overseas had their eyes and nose removed by the rotor disk when their helicopter backed into them.  Several people have been injured from flying debris due to mechanical failure and parts flying off due to impact.  You cannot be to safe!   

-What do you want out of flying?????

+If you’re happy with your flying great, change nothing; fly as much as you wish….

+If you want to improve your flying than it’s going to take work on your part.

+First off, if you have three choppers put 2 away….

+Sims are fine for learning the correct stick movements.

+Practice, I use the term (WORK) no more than 3 flights a day.

+Use discipline in your flight and practice.  Be deliberate and control the helicopter, use small inputs.

-Set up:

-10/10 on a governor in all four flight regimes (Period!).

-Straight line pitch curves from -10 to +10, linier, not flatting out the middle.

-Straight line throttle curves in normal.  “V” curve for idle up.

-Make sure your idle up (3D mode) has an increase in RPM, that way there will be no mistaking your in the 3D mode. Normal 1450, 3D 1850.

-Set your Gyro gain at your flying style.  You don’t need a twitchy high gain setting unless you’re losing the tail in backwards flight.  Plus this will wear out your tail servo.

-Vibration will also wear out your servo and cause premature failure of other mechanical parts.

-Holding the radio: Fingers or just thumbs what every you are comfortable with as long as you don’t inadvertently input rudder while moving the collective and vice verse…  

-20% expo at the most for them..

-3D:

+Always add collective (Pitch) first! (Period).  Collective, positive or negative, should be added before cyclic to prevent the helicopter from stopping/stalling/hovering in the middle of a maneuver.     

+Manage your power.  If you add 10 degrees of collective and push in 5.5 degrees of cyclic you will bog down even a YS91 with 15.5 of overall pitch.  In the hands of a pilot that uses power management and collective first the helicopter looks over powered; however, this very same helicopter in the hand of a stick bangger appears under powered with slow response due to poor management of power and inputs.  One chief complaints pilots have is “my helicopter needs more power”, so they buy a big block YS80 or OS 90 and still have the problem.  It’s not the power plant it's the flying style.    

+Your 3D or cool moves will be limited by your foundational experience.   You can’t expect to fly around upside down if you can’t hover inverted, right…..  You must have total control of your helo before attempting moves like the Pirouetting flip.

+Jason said it took him ONE and a HALF YEARS to perfect the Pirouetting flip and the rest of his flying suffered in the mean time, Yeah sure…Suffering for him is like Tiger Woods getting 16 under par vs. 18 under par.

+Say you want to do a pirouetting circles; break the maneuver down into basic maneuvers..  You must be able to input and make corrections nose in, port out, starboard in, tail in etc… before putting it all together.

+Practice an out….An emergency recovery.   Say you’re working on nose in, and you’re up high, if you get spooked add collective and pull out…Practice both ways.

+Always easier to pirouette to the left, unloads the toque.  This was not so before HH Gyros.    

+Steer the furthers part of the helo, i.e. “nose in” fly the tail, “tail in” fly the nose.. While up right; however, when inverted fly the closest part of the aircraft…

+Use your peripheral vision.  Don’t be afraid of smacking into the ground.  Judge where your aircraft is in relationship to the where you are, the ground, and surrounding landmarks etc..

+As with any vehicle, fly it!  Don’t let it fly you.  Use control. 

+Practice in-flight failures.

+Don’t practice high risk maneuvers on a helicopter you can’t afford to fix.

+Practice (work) up high, give yourself time and room to make corrections.

Don’t just “Go for it”.

+When practicing autos bump up the throttle in “Hold” at first and remove it as you become more comfortable.   Dip the rotor disk so that air passes through the disk at a 45 horizontally and vertically..

-Equipment:

+Servos and other hardware wear out so preflight, check and recheck.

+The most you can expect from a tail servo is approximately 375 flights….

+Todd has got as much as 1200 flight on a servo, (not tail).

A little about them:

+They burn 100 gallons a years which equates to 800 flights a year.  For us weekend warriors that’s about 8 flights on Saturday and 8 on Sunday or two gallons a week…..

+Traveling school offered by them:  10 guys $200. each for 3 days of flying instruction which includes buddy box flying, helicopter set-up, plus one on one stuff.  A bit cheaper if you set it up during a sanctioned even, like a fun-fly.  I got the impression you also had to pay the cost of transportation and lodging??

+Do I think it would be worth it???  Well, let me say this, all this text was endowed to us in less than 30 minutes.  I couldn’t imagine what I’d pick up in 3 days of instruction…. 

+Jason has crashed 6 times in the past 3 years with four of those in the past 4 months.

+When asked if he steals tricks from Curtis Youngblood, Jason replied “No he steals them for me” LOL...  “Freestyle” is just that “Free, if you see something cool use it, change it and make it your own.” But don’t change your style of flying…

+When asked how it is to be a “Sponsored pilot” both replied “we all paid at one time…..”  Todd spent some $10,000 one year on the hobby.  

Note by Scott MacMurray, Pensacola, FL