Heli 3D: Pirouette basic

Controlled Pirouette

This should be the first piro move to start with before attempting more challenging piro stunts. It is gonna be like learning to hover all over again, but with the rudder stick held down. It is very important not to skip this 'fundamental' skill if you don't wanna crash your heli into someone. This skill will also come into handly someday when the rudder malfunctioned in the air, ive safely landed my heli few times while pirouetting (tail rod poped out).

This section will cover some basics in controlling fast piro (high piro rate) and slow piro (low piro rate).


Fast piro requires holding down the rudder at extreme end, a good starting point would be 1 full piro (or slightly more) per second, set it up on the radio/heli to achieve that.

Give only elevator input in fast piro. More inputs from other sticks would just complicate things, unless you harness the force and nothing is too fast for you. If not, you want to be able to keep the heli as flat to the gound as possible with only one input.

The heli would be drifting around, compensate the movement with abit of elevator input at the correct timing to set the heli moving back to the initial spot. I like to give only forward elevator while the heli is upright pirouetting, so i'd give elevator input only when the nose of the heli is pointing towards the direction i want it to move to.

Likewise in inverted pirouetting, i prefer to give only back elevator, thus i'd give the input only when the nose of the heli is pointing towards the direction i want it to move to.

I've uploaded a video here which shows the input to keep the heli flat upright, inverted, and abit of moving around (mode 1).

Fast piro is suitable for use in piroflip/piro tictoc and such moves that requires the heli to stay in confined spot, as the gyroscopic effect gained from the piro rate would keep the heli more stable.


Slow piro requires both elevator & aileron inputs. Pretty much the same concept in moving it around, just give abit of elevator input when the nose of the heli is pointing towards the direction you want it to move to. The aileron input here is really to flatten the heli before it completes a full piroutte.

Slow piro is suitable for piro circle and any such move that requires larger 'air-space'.