New Pilots can help protect helis with a whoola hoop

[jmbits]

I have learned the hard way but I found in other forums a pilot suggested a whoola hoop so I tried it.

Went to walmart and bought a hoop and to wooden dows and heavy duty tie wraps to secure everthing together
drilled 4 holes in the inside ring of the hoop 90 degrees apart and inserted dows in a crisscross fashion

The results are as follows:
1. Easier to trim the controls because you can see what the heli wants to do in advance.
2. rotors are protected from a tip over as well as preventing tail strikes
3. I can see where the main rotor in relationship to the ground
4. The hoop acts like a ballast weight keeping the skids aimed down



Hope this helps somebody like it helped me

[nas_matko]

Could you post a picture please?

[thumbtime]

i did that with 3 ten foot canes aswell as 18 inches ov rope and 2 good tent pegs it kinda worked but still did boom strike when shuttin down to fast lol i didnt learn to fly that time lol but it couldnt fall over which was a good thing now i would say get out and up over ground afect but didnt know that in 1985 +it might ov helped to have a gyro

[Mysterious]

wouldn't that be kinda heavy? I mean, I have training gear but its feather light... the protection sound great....I'm just wondering how hard the motor needs to run to compensate for the added weight

[swatson144]

Of late I've seen several unique ways of protecting helis. With the popularity of RTF (heat N Eat) helis more and more popular are leaving it in the box it was shipped in. This seems to protect it from crashes very well. I suspect it may have an adverse affect on the learning curve though.

Steve

[don_m8856]

golden rule of helicopter flight, dollars will fix anything you break so don't worry about all the training gear lol if you have deep pockets that is !!

[Skytrek]

WOW, must say somebody had an imagination coming up with that one.

I would be afraid someone would see me and I would have to explain why I stole a six year old little girls toy. It would crack me up to see one of us heli guys standing in line at the local Walmart with one of these in hand.

Some people seem to be looking for away to learn how to fly a heli, without flying a heli. Not sure I get it but ok.

[Mysterious]

$ fix all broken parts but thats an expensive learning curve

[Skytrek]

Yea, I see your point!! These crashes do cost some $$ after a while. I have just become a firm believer, that all these contraptions slow the learning curve and wind up costing more $$ in the long run. Understanding that crashes are an unavoidable part of the hobby is a must if you want to do more than hover in one place.

Every crash teaches me something.

Just my opinion though, my wife will tell you I'm wrong about most things. :D

The main thing is to have fun, so if your more comfortable with a hoop on you heli and having a good time, I say go for it!!

[thumbtime]

wouldn't that be kinda heavy? I mean, I have training gear but its feather light... the protection sound great....I'm just wondering how hard the motor needs to run to compensate for the added weight

it was a bit, but was a big ish nitro heli so could handle it no worries. it did save me a good few times from tipping over but slam down still chopped the boom

[basic]

Kinda chuckled at this - I have a hoola hoop as a bigger gear for my 90size gasser. It's basically to help with stability in landing/taking off since I don't have a good flat grassy patch to fly from. It also is nice when tuning so I don't have to worry about things quite as much. Plus replacement blades run $100 a set so i try not to break them. If I did break a blade, they could kill a person, so another reason to not break any blades, especially while tuning pitch and throttle curves.

[Mysterious]

holy, $100 for a st of blades, yikes

[basic]

Yea...thats why I try not to. Believe it or not, $100 is kinda cheap. Most of them I find are about 130 a set.

[The Broker]

Totally agree with a hoola hoop over training gear for gassers, Not sure about for smaller heli's though, I would guess the motor is gonna be really working hard, now floats make a good training gear lol
Sue