Incorporating rudder

Right, so you can hover between these two points ok, now, as you get over each point, use the rudder to start pointing the helicopter in the direction of the other point. At first, point it in a 45 degree angle towards the direction of flight and try to maintain a smooth consistent flight path. An example of this is displayed below.

You can see the helicopter moving towards the right most point at a 45 degree angle. As you become confident with this orientation, keep moving the nose of the helicopter around until it's pointing in the direction it should be flying.Once you can fly the machine between these two points with the nose pointing in the direction of flight, it's time to move on and start doing some REAL figure eights. Now you have to start flying AROUND the points!

Relationship between cyclic and collective controls

You may have noticed that the more cyclic control you put in, the more the helicopter will start to descend towards the ground. To counteract this, ie keep the helicopter at the same altitude, you have to feed in a little extra collective to compensate. Be careful though, if you feed in too much, the helicopter will climb as it starts speeding away! Not enough, and the heli will continue to descend.

As the helicopter picks up speed, the relationship between cyclic and collective controls becomes more apparent. You have to get used to this relationship, it's essential for fast forward flight.

Start out by doing these figure eights slow. Hover the helicopter around the course using the rudder to manage heading. As you get more confident and pick up more speed, the amount of rudder used gives way to increased cyclic control.

See that the helicopter now moves around the the points instead of over them. After passing around each point, the helicopter crosses the landing pad

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