Once you have been flying RC helicopters for a while, you may begin to notice a few irritating tendencies that don’t happen when you use a simulator program.
Maybe your bird refuses to maintain a steady hover even in training mode; perhaps it “pulls” in one direction even when there is no crosswind. Or it may have started vibrating badly. You’ve flown other people’s electric helicopters without any trouble, so you know it isn’t your flying.
Welcome to the world of pitch gauging, blade balancing and rotor tracking.
We will start with pitch gauging, since this is the one specialist tool essential to RC helicopters. Yes, it is possible to do the job without it, but since every helicopter you ever own is liable to need gauging on a regular basis, why skimp? Besides, most of the people who say they don’t need one do – it’s just they always borrow somebody else’s.
The new fly bar-less models aside, all radio control helicopters have fly bars. The pitch gauge ensures that the pitch of your fly bar is in exactly the place where it should be, when measured against your RC transmitter.
It’s important you don’t buy a piece of cheap junk – you want it to be accurate, as well as affordable. I would recommend the EK1 pitch gauge. It is a precision made, robust tool that will last for years without costing the earth. Just don’t go lending it out – you might not get it back!