hand/eye

as i get older(or lazier)the hand eye thingie seems to be leaving.
found what may be a cure(or atleast help)and a relife from winter time blues.
wandering around wall mart looking at the neat r/c toys that i wish i had as a kid and found a helicopter.
the little bugger has about a 6in rotor span and was less than $30.00 so what the heck!
on the way home thinking no way this thing can realy work!
so i sit down in the den(about 12x12ft)and charge it up
set it on floor and hit the power-WOW!bounced off ceiling in blink of the eye!
ok-try agin-now its hovering and is very sensintive to control and repeatedly bounced it off wall/ceiling/tv/wife/self and everything else.squirly squirly
added nose weight to help foward flight and trimed for right hand circle
now its getting slightly controlable
have been playing with it for about a week and 1/2 now and have moved to flying it in the shop(more room)
and now can fly straight lines(sorta)and land kinda where i want to.
dont know if its gona help with my flying but after about 3 day of playing with it i found that it help me to be more on top of the race car and what was going on with it--almost as good as it was 20years ago!(had a race this last weekend)
in the shop i have bounced it off(acidently)some of the airplanes hanging on wall and so far has not even damaged 30year old tissue covering!
for 30bucks its the best therapy and fun i have ever found!
does cut into the building time though.

David

Please let us know what brand and model. I have a walmart near by and would like to try it out.

What kind of Race Car do you have? What do you participate in?

Doug-I think it was air hoggs-threw box away.
i think air hoggs has a website if wally world dosnt have(may have been left over x-mas stock.

race cars-old fart(73year young dad) in red and white
dad flew(mom to)combat/speed/rat from 50s through 75 or so
bought him a quicker kit off ebay for X-mas and have good preped g.h. .35 to put on it--trying to make the bug bite him!hes ornery

younger old fart(me)in yellow

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Since the topic came up, and, I keep claiming there aren't any secrets (and I know most people won't pay any attention anyway), I have a training secret as well. I play video games, specifically, Gran Turismo 4, a driving/racing simulator.

I find that it allows me to train to keep my emotions under control in stressed physical situations. It's accurate enough of a simulation that the cars exhibit the "slow down to go faster phenomenon" - if you twitch the steering back and forth trying to correct for every move it takes on it's own, you really lose a lot of speed. When you calm down, it's like you are out for a Sunday drive, but, your lap times go WAY down. This is EXACTLY the kind of mindset I find necessary to fly model airplanes well. It has many advantages over actually going out and flying, in that I can do it any time, it costs nothing, and doesn't require wearing out the equipment. It's sometimes fun, but at this point I have mastered it to the point that it can be a little boring at times. I also find it has a very good capability to *predict* how well I am going to fly or have been flying. If I do poorly in the game, I can tell I am not going to do so well with airplanes. If I do well in the game I am going to fly well.

I am not sure it really has a lot of effect on my hand/eye coordination, but getting that "zone" mindset comes a lot easier now. And of course, since we are hyper-competitive, there are numerous internet "lap time boards" where you can duke it out for fast lap. I have a few "top 10s" on various tracks, and have had a few #1s over the years. But remember that the harder to try, the more you try to "force" the car to go faster, the slower you are going to go. You have to keep "ahead" of it.

If someone wants to try it I can give some "optimum" paths through the game. But bear in mind it is really more of a simulation than a game, and you start from pretty much zero. It is quite difficult and sometimes quite tedious. As an example, to get 100% completion the first time through it took something like a year of lengthy late-night sessions, and that was after I had trained up using the previous version (Gran Turismo 3) and completed that a few times. There are a few races/tasks that are incredibly difficult. But if you can complete Driving Mission 34 and keep a Formula 1 car on the track for a complete lap of the Nurburgring, stunt you will no longer be prone to panicky twitching when you fly model airplanes.

Brett

Exactly Brett!
nothing in the cockpit is ever done in a rush and never force anything.
if anything rushes at you(turns)you are in over your head and will hurt your car or yourself soon(or someone else)
when i coach drivers i push the in like a lamb out like a lion(corners)
and need the slow down and lap times will drop stapeled to fore head of most.
if lap times vary more than 1/10s your over your head.(i like to see times stay in the same 1/10th and slowly lowering)

the only time you can push for faster lap times is after alot of seat time--and then only if the car/driver/track combo is realy good--and more than a couple of laps like this will realy cook things--tires-driver-brakes-and sometimes engines.

i think the years of ama fast combat flying growing up help make me a compent driver.


sticker on my steering wheel
slow down stupid before dont break the car
has been good for a dozen or so championships and about 300 green flags and 299 checkers(had first dnf this past sunday-clutch)
this sticker is mainly used to make students go look at my "special"steering wheel that allows me to turn faster consistent lap times than they do.amazing how long it takes for some to figure out what is special about it!also if you dont hurt the car you wont hurt the driver.


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There are other ways to do the same thing. I saw an example just yesterday.

Heading south on I-405 the traffic was real slow. I looked down and in the lane next to me was a Porsche 912 Targa. Looked nice, a pretty good green paint job, although clearly not a Porsche color.

Ah, but I noticed two braided steel lines hanging just slightly below the right hand sill.

Coolant lines? Nah, can't be.

I managed to pull slightly ahead, looked down and back. Yep, big old air inlet cut in, just under the bumper.

I slowed to get a look at the rear end. Big, fat mufflers laid on their sides and what appeared to be some relatively evil exhaust piping feeding them.

And from these mufflers came the characteristic sounds of a healthy Chivvy small block. No, not a V-6; didn't have that "flat" note to the exhaust. A real-deal V-8.

Now this guy could have installed a motor from a 911, and with that lump hanging out the rear end of easily the most flexible Porsche ever made, had himself quite the thrill ride. I mean, can you say, "lift-throttle oversteer" in both English and German?

But no, he had to go for stupid-fast and stupid handling all in one shot.

I'm thinking that just a few miles of driving this car on the road to my son's house, well outside the 'burbs, in fact out in Monroe where it's real country, to be the rough equivalent to Lapping With Brett, albeit an experience where real wrecks cause real damage.

Alas, he didn't look like a flyer of model aircraft...

Dan

I agree with Brett that the sims really help with the reflexes. I also use the racing sims, and they help me to stay concentrated lap after lap. I sometimes fly a pattern and halway through my concentration lapses. The other sim that helps me, and this brings me back to the start of this thread, is chopper flying. I have Ikarus Aerofly Pro, and the 3-D heli stuff is incredible. I do fly R/C but don't really want a "real" model chopper. They cost plenty when you ding them, so the sim is great fun and makes your really concentrate. Unlike the airplanes, you need to use 4 controls all at once, and this really keeps the old reflexes working. This is most likely the best exersize for eye/hand coordination that I've ever used.

used to use the sims(games)like aces over pacific and car sims and they were a big help.
then computer went down and bought new one--games dont work on it-to fast or some bull.

realized last night that straining to see this $30.00 copters heading across the shop has helped my vision/concentration--the sims seemed to damage it(vision)photon guns pointed right down the eye ball cant be good--lcd is probably better but that a set of race rubber or 3-4 serious stunt planes

crazy cars--my nephews(just turned 17) mom told him to find a car on ebay that he wanted and she would try to get it for him
he did and she did (oopps!)
i must say now that she is cluless when it comes to cars.

well- the car came---an older eclipse all wheel drive add on turbo and ect 700+hp---SEVEN HUNDRED PLUS HORSE POWER!

700+HP?

OK--SO ONE DAY I borrowed it for test ride--big block corvets ect need to stay home.this thing could leap a school bus in a single gear!

best make shure nothing is in front of you for a block or so if you go to the floor--you WILL eat it.yea god er ugh goodyear er ugh good god this thing is scarry!the noise alone scares my wife to death and shes ridden in all kinds of hot rods with me!

now for the adult(rare) in me--there is no place on public roads to drive through turns in a manner that realy helps the upper end of the hand eye ect thing at the limit of adheasion(when a car is sliding it is way below this point).no run off room--no repeated laps for hours to get to that point--other traffic that hasnt a clue how to drive(99.99+ of all drivers)--no saftey gear-no corner workers/ambulance or other at site to save your life if it goes bad wrong.
for those who want to do it most tracks hold laping days where usualy its run what you brung(suburbans?)and a helment is all that required.

found another copter at harbor freight--12in or so rotors contra rotating--very sedate but squirly.
the p factors/torque/gyroscopic/progression forces are un beliveable and should lead to a better understanding of props on airplanes--we will see---i have a new found respect for pilots of the runaway fans.

fixin to go to town to lhs and get a full house eletric indoor with inverted flight capabilities--
i hate helicopters but its winter time and i tend to go grazy when deprived of sunlight for long periods.

did any body else see the micro film modles on the today show yesterday mornin?coool

David

hey Doug

did you find a copter?
add nose weight so it flies foward(i used 2 perfect wood screws)
and trim to fly in right hand circles 6-8 ft dia

let me know how it works
David

Sounds like the Silverlit helicopter. A couple of us at work fly them in a meeting area at work. A lot more sensitive than my E-flite Blade Cx. I'm hoping someday I can come up with a small electric CL job I can fly there after work. I've already flown Easy-Bee FF, rubber FF helicopters, RC Helicopters, and several Micro-X Parlor Mites.

50plus

man---i bought a blade cp pro the other day---this thing is sensitive like crazy
so far no prolong hover and when i do lift it off i wish i hadnt!

finaly got it trimed and slowed it down at servo arm and kinda had it

now i have a broken some kinda thingie/a missing tooth on main shaft gear/bent main blade pivot/bent fly bar.

now have found info on how these things react in flight--one direction of stick is more than one for copter and left drift is normal when trimed?
just begining to get a understanding of this swash plate type stuff after toys--big diffrence!

if i master this thing my racing/flying/love life should be incredible!

and the little copter is airhoggs---less than 5 1/4 rotor span(total)
bullet proof squirly fun!

David