littlerotors.com Newsletter
27th May 2002

As always, I've been pretty busy lately. I'd love to say it was cause I was doing tonnes of flying, but the nasty weather here has ensured that that isn't the case.
In the times that I have been able to fly, I've been continuing to sort the Voyager out as well as practise the Sportsman schedule for our FAI competitions we have over here (Sportsman is the next level down from F3C) which has been going pretty well.

New Toys
I've been wanting to get a Futaba 9Z WCII for a while now, and I admit, for no real reason other to get the latest and greatest gadgets. I didn't need it, the helis all flew very well on the Futaba Super 8 that I've been using up till now, but you know how it is, you just gotta have the toys.
Cyberheli had too good of a deal to pass up (US$1200) on the WCII kit so I went ahead and got one. It's taken a fair bit of work to get my head around it, cause it's quite a different mindset to the old 8 and it took me two whole nights of work to get the CS setup on it, but boy, the programming possibilities are endless!
I'll have a more in depth review for the next newsletter.

Giving just a little nudge…
I've spoken a lot about helping new people to the hobby get started and such, but what about the already established pilots who are competent fliers, but need just a little push to progress?
I was recently at a competition where I saw about four or five pilots who are more than ready to get into basic aerobatics, but don't quite have the confidence to give it a go yet to move up to the next level. I know, I was exactly the same when I was at that stage. You're not quite sure of your ability and the fear of the unknown is preventing you from progressing. Hell it took months after I pulled my first loop before I tried a roll, and lets not even get started on autos! However, once you try one, you realise it's not that hard after all and wonder why it took so long to try one!
In order to help these guys along a bit, I reckon a little bit of buddy boxing is in order. Just the fact of having a competent flier hanging off the end ready to catch you if you screw up is just the kinda push that some people need.
I'm going to be buddy boxing a guy at our field as he wants to move up into the Sportsman class (loops, rolls, stall turns, split s's , and autos etc) next year and he's not yet done any of the manoeuvres, but I'm confident that this exercise will give him the confidence he needs to give them a crack.

Night Flying
I know I said I'd have an article on night flying for this newsletter, but I haven't. See I haven't done any night flying since my first time a couple of months ago cause it's winter here at the moment and I don't see too much fun in standing in frost on a cold night flying about, so maybe next time!

Articles this issue are:

George's Squirrel is finished!
Finally, George's Squirrel is all finished! Here he discusses the preparation of painting of the fuselage. Click here.

Follow up - Hirobo Freya
David Deluria relates his experiences of owning one of the most popular 60 size machines on the market, the Hirobo Freya. Click here.

Follow up - Hirobo Shuttle RG
Hakim follow's up with an article on his Shuttle RG after having flown it for a while. Click here.

Basic Aerobatics: Loops
Loops are a basic aerobatic maneuver that once again, is simple in theory but anything but simple to perfect! Click here.