You're a brilliant, lucky bloke. Seeing you fly your project from the FPV perspective is soooo emotionally powerful. You have achieved something that is far beyond most of us. I have made and flown kites, and an RC quadcopter... but, you have made from scratch your own flying machine. OMG! A true marvel! Cheers!

Great job my dear friend. You are one step away from flying high

Looking forward to the next video

Wonderful learning much better

One more cool video. like it

Wow as careful as you were before,you pointed out the shortcomings... I am so glad to seeing you hovering your machine well finally. Thanks for let us being witnesses of all your progress . With your machine . Congratulations brother

Outstanding... Would be delighted if I had even 1% of your knowledge to get to the stage you are here and it's good that you take educated advice from those offering. Absolutely amazing watching the developement and look forward to the day you shove this beauty down the lane and fly over that field in the air..

I remember you barely lifting off. And now you're hovering 1 meter above the gorund. Great progress, keep up with it!

Wow, that's fantastic - you're really flying a home made helicopter! Awesome achievement.

Thanks for sharing the journey! Quite as feast of the project you got yourself there.

Amazing craft!

Yessss! Glad to see you try some altitude! It makes a huge difference. Amazing progress!

This is spectacular

There is a difference in being higher and out of downwash compression. I would recommend trying to grip the cyclic lower so that your arm is resting on your leg, or at least add a pad of sorts to rest on. It stabilizes it and allows you to just use your fingers to manipulate the cyclic and less movement required overall. I used to fly 8 hours a day. Holding your hand up like that gets tiring really quick. Force yourself to see the big picture when hovering. It's like driving a car in traffic. You have to be aware of surroundings and the visual feedback. I would probably get rid of the tether after a bit more practice. Basically you can control it at this point. Tethers are meant to keep it from flying away when first starting out I believe. It could become a hazard. Wishing you calm winds and pedal turns! :D

Glad to see your progress ❤️. Safety first always.

Hello Sir, Just found you video series. Very nice content. When you switch to the pilot’s view my stomach tightened up a bit. (Just from watching) I will have to go back and view the previous material. At least you don’t have to “drag” your machine too far to fly.... Thanks again

Awesome!!!

Aaaahhh great hovering at 3ft I've been waiting with abaited breath for this........ well done. As someone else commented, I thought I was flying it myself, brilliant, you must be so happy. Thanks from Rome✌️🇬🇧

The Dixie Condor. You're welcome.

I myself am a trained aviation mechanic and think you do an excellent job. I would prefer to try to lower the center of gravity as much as possible. I've heard from helicopter pilots that it's easier to fly larger helicopters, they're not as sensitive in control because of their greater weight. When you can control hovering you learnd the most importent and you can go higher. You are a little genius, keep up the good work and be carefull!

Good to see you having fun, well done. I'd recommend a vertical line in the gun sight for better target acquisition, hehe.

I enjoyed it as if I was piloting it myself!

Never give up! Wow, what an accomplishment! Living the dream! :)

Glad to see your piloting skills and confidence level is progressing. Now lose the tethers and fly away! But seriously, regarding your cooling system; since outboard engines usually have an endless (nearly chilled) source of water/coolant to draw from, designing a close loop system to compete will be challenging. A much larger coolant volume with a larger capacity radiator will add significant weight... Recirc pump capacity is also a key element in this system. On another note, regrading asymmetry of lift in forward flight; an underslung teetering rotor head on a single main rotor set-up with collective (and cyclic) pitch control (in forward flight) will allow the advancing blade to tilt up but the pitch link will reduce its angle of attach reducing lift while the opposite will occur on the retreating blade... thus equalizing lift on rotor disc. A coaxial design often uses blade flapping hinges to deal with asymmetric lift in forward flight. I'm curious to see how your underslung teetering design performs in forward flight. JLR

I just now posted a comment about cooling on the previous video. Good flight today. You looked very much in control.

Getting there!!

You can see from the video that when you input rudder pedals as well as the side momentum you want it also add a tail down movement as a consequence, so you may not be 'tail heavy' as thought, just rotor thrust pushing down on the rudders.

I commend you for your enthusiasm. Above all else, safety comes first. Practice piloting slowly, step by step. 1. Make sure the harboring is complete. 2. Practice turning in the harbor state before the harbor taxi. 3. And master the harbor taxi. Do not climb more than 50 feet without fully mastering this. proud of you

Good job👍👍👍👍

So happy to see the progress you are making. I’m sure the higher (2-3 meters) air would be smooth. Then the fun starts. Good luck

Glad to see you are still at it! From a safety perspective I’d love to see a few more unmanned tests, with zero or slightly negative pitch, go to 110 or 120% Nr, and ensure nothing breaks. Then limit the Nr to 102% or so manned.

This is awesome, experimental aviation at its best! Keep up the good work.

Very impressive home-made adventure! Stay safe, it all looks quite impressive! 1) How much horsepower is at your command? 2) What sort of calculations give you your rotor sizing? Success and solid limbs!

Simply fantastik 👌

Next week on DIY chopper, we'll be looking at underslung loads as our hero moves his massive kahunas around the paddock.

Keeps getting better and better, stay safe 👍👍

For some reason, large electric drone motor, driven off the engine comes to mind, for direction.

Looking like a million bucks! Some airspeed should get you out of the ground effect hover (only when you decide to try!!!). Wish I had half of your talent!

Well done mate

What a great success! Thanks for letting us watch your video. To answer the last question you asked the foam balls weigh 250 grams including cable ties etc to secure them. If you find time, the exhaust from an outboard is water cooled. How did you set it up? A video of that would be very interesting. In regards to the radiator, is that getting any of the downwash to assist your fan cooling? Perhaps relocation if practical may help. Otherwise making a aluminium duct on the rear of the radiator, which reduces down to shroud the fan, and will greatly increase your cooling effect without enlarging the radiator. Also add “MOCOOL” to your coolant to transfer more heat from the engine. It works well!

As for cooling either a bigger rad or move the one you got more into the prop downwash.

That's awesome man, thanks

Would love to know the temperature drop across the rad. Once you know that, you are in a better position to understand if you need more rad, or more coolant flow.

Verry nice

Co axial remote control helicopters, can help u understand stabilty better, my experience with rc helicopters is wind doesn't effect them much at all, but rc fixed wing is affected very much, oh ya rc heli takes more power to hover than fly forward, moving into clean air, u get out of the down draft well heli blades create

Ahh part 7, thanks for reply on other vid,I hope that shaft size does not turn out to be an issue, I was thinking of stresses on it during forward flight due to vibration , time will tell I sappose. good luck.

This so crazy amazing, like doing a heart operation on yourself with a mirror and surviving!

Buen día.. felicidades.yo preparando todo para comenzar un proyecto. Lo que más me detiene es como hacer las palas principales, y también si hacerlo con rotor de cola o con rotores contratantes, veo que tú tienes todavía dónde ahorrar peso y también mejorar el centro de gravedad.

👏👏👏👏👏

Have you added a throttle correlator yet? It's a simple linkage that connects the collective to the throttle, so raising the former also opens the latter a bit. Seems like when you pull a bit to get more altitude, the aircraft does it but then sinks back down, possibly because you're not rolling on the throttle as you ask for more power and instead are doing it after asking for more power, after that sink back down already begins. There's a lot to think about in a hover, so a correlator function might help free up some brain bandwidth.

incredible seeing Einsteins relativity at work/ From my observation point , the progress has been overnight, from yours its been a grueling 5 yrs lol. keep it up mate

I didn't realise this was fixed pitch. I assume that means there is no option of autorotate in the event of an engine failure?

Imagine how the wright brothers felt respect

More height will not make it easier to hover a helicopter, these aerodynamic principals are called IGE(In ground Effect) and OGE(Out of ground effect), it takes more power to hover OGE than IGE due to the increased blade tip vortices(OGE is about 1 1/4 rotor diameter in height). While hovering IGE the rotor tip vortices are pushed away from the helicopter outwards by the ground, OGE the vortices recirculate at the tips of the blades and grow larger inward towards the hub causing less lift component on the blades.

Have you considered utilising the technology that’s available to the RC world with gyro stability and Gps combined. When you consider how much hard work and time you’ve put into this beautiful project any help to create stability would be an advantage don’t you agree.

I fly RC helicopters. In the RC world, hovering a helicopter is said to be like balancing a marble on a sheet of glass. It's easier to fly it than to hover, I don't know if this translates to the real world, just an observation.

Butterfly?? I think you need some attention to engine. Lack of power and overheating may be your mixture. EGT and narrowband or wideband o2 sensor may help.. or just give the carbs some love. How do the plugs look?

Once you get out of ground effect it will smooth out

Great work! Sorry if you covered this in a previous video but what are the legal requirements for you to fly? I presume it will have to pass an airworthiness inspection and you'll have to complete a PPL?

Huge respect!!! I just buy a mosquito or one of those micro LSA helicopters

marvelous

Fantastic project! It is very enjoyable watching your progress. My input would be to start shopping for a new motor. I think you will need about double that horsepower to get proper flight, especially with the costs of forward flight which can easily cost you 40% of your lift power. Also you need a power surplus to ascend at any decent rate. Hopefully you can get an engine with a lot more power and similar weight, maybe consider a 2 stroke or a turbo 4 atroke.

👏👏👏👍👍👍

Hi BTD1982, just started to watch your videos. Well done. Just curious, did you build from plans or from experience? Could you share a link or site where one can find it? Thank you

God job.please tell me How did you make the main blades?

why are you using throttle as a collective and not using a cyclic based collective? Looks to me, you might not have enough lift to get out of ground effect.

"WE CAN GO FLYING" 🤣😂🤣😂🤣 Just get a cherry picker... Please 🤣😂🤣

Looking good. I think your getting out of "ground effect" due to limited power/lift and that is limiting. Be safe.

You are doing great, congratulations. My observation of watching the hover is that your centre of gravity is still too far aft and you keep strugling to correct that , might be worth trying a little more nose weight.

V/good.

Is it me or does it look like the cg is too far back?

Have you thought about adding computer stabilization, or do you wanna keep it manuel? 😁👍✌️🇺🇸

Weight distribution: seems to me to much aft.

Добрый день! Вы большой молодец! Подскажите, как осуществляется путевое управление?

This might sound stupid but get a collective pitch RC Helicopter like the Blade Nano and practice to fly it. could spend a lot of time with it. Flying a Helicopter is like riding a bike while juggling balls. It takes practice and little hand, feet movement. I'm happy how well your doing though

I think now need minor settings trimmings, ready to fly

amigo una pregunta.. y volo? llego a volar?

I need on for the daily drive to the work

Imagine how much time and money you could have saved by using a cheap step ladder.

plywood cover

Your doing this in the UK? Without a permit or CAA registration... You know breaching the ANO like this can land you in serious trouble... I love what you have done but please be careful

Nice to get up above the ground effects. Look forward to you dropping by for a spot of tea.

What sort of RPM is the motor making.....I flew a 2 stroke microlight for years.....prop needed to be set in pitch to achieve a certain RPM.....finer pitch=more RPM. My motor was a 50hp Rotax 503 needed to hit 6250 rpm static on the ground RPM.....would hit 6500rpm in flight. 2 fine a pitch lets the motor over rev....and leads to a weak petrol air mix.....very bad in a 2 stroke.....overheating as the motor is loosing the piston cooling from the richer petrol mix it needs. Always run a tad on the rich side with a 2 stroke.

Kamov ka 26 Russian s r experts at counter rotating choppers

this guy (kzfaq.info/get/bejne/p7uTrZSKtL61loU.html) avery flies? Anyway he bought a cheap para motor and changing the exhaust made a huge difference in his engine output, if i remember correctly it was almost 20% increase

Congratulations on a magnificent achievement so far. Only one who has been through this process of design, build and fly a home made chopper can understand how well you have done. May I suggest you have some misconception about wind affecting these early flight tests. Ten knots of breeze will give you directional stability and some translational lift and Lift is the thing you need at the moment. Some wind might well remove the disturbing turbulence you are experiencing due to the recirculation I observe your degree of control is sensitive and relaxed. The comment mentioned by others about resting the forearm on the thigh does make for more sensitive control. I am impressed by the apparent effectiveness of the 'cyclic'. The control forces look to be relatively light and the control movements well balanced considering the mass of the total rotor system, Not an easy problem to design for and you have achieved an impressive solution. One last comment and I would hesitate of offer censure but I think I see your 'collective' (i.e. throttle) control to be arranged as in a fixed wing machine. Push/pull, when all helos use pull up and down of the left hand lever, The arrangement you appear to use is counter intuitive and unnatural in use. No doubt you have become used to this oddity but, if I am right I feel it might suit better to have a more conventional arrangement. Your piloting skills are sound now and the reduction in weight you need for better performance will be helped by the removal of those anti-roll tubes. There is also some negative lift there via the downwash. I an truly thrilled by your project and wish you safe flying as you continue to explore your creation,

so fucking cool

I know you don't like wind, but hovering nose into wind will give translational lift. Rather like forward flight, it will reduce ground effect turbulence and actually give you a bit more lift. I'm surprised the engine is flat out just to hover. In a situation you are relying on rotor speed acceleration as this thing has no collective pitch, not a good situation I'm afraid ..🤔😳😳🇬🇧

How not to do it: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Zs6PltSFqLqZl2Q.html

I think your heli is much stable now you may remover trainer supports