The SnelFlight HoverFly is a fantastic remote control indoor helicopter. The HoverFly is controlled and powered via an umbilical cord, which allows almost un-limited flying!

I bought my HoverFly as a training aid that I progressed to after having spent many hours practicing with the Tru-Flite simulator (also highly recommended).

Below are a selection of photographs showing the HoverFly in action. Please note that the rotor has been frozen by the camera. The rotor only spins at 250 RPM, or 4 times per second! This may seem slow in comparison to a more conventional out-door RC helicopter, but the Hoverfly still develops plenty of gyroscopic stability from its rotor. This is achieved as a consequence of the heavy motors placed at the end of each of the three radial arms. The end result feels very much like a 30 size out-door machine, but not as stable as a 50/60/90 sized machine.

If you are serious about flying radio controlled helicopters, I highly recommend the HoverFly. It's characteristics are very similar to those of a bigger out-door model, and is a lot less stressful to fly. Do practice on a simulator first, your HoverFly will survive for longer! Having said that, the HoverFly is amazingly robust and very cheap to repair. I have yet to seriously damage mine!

The tail-in Hover

This type of hover is the first manoeuvre you develop when learning to fly.

This hover position becomes your safe base, i.e. the position you return to whenever you get into difficulty. A frequent situation when learning to hover!

45 Degree Hover

Once you have mastered the tail-in hover, you would typically progress to the 45 degree hover.

When competent you can try 90 degrees, then on to 135 degrees and so on.

Eventually you should be able to hover in any orientation!

The nose-in Hover

Left and right, backwards and forwards have all swapped!

Whilst learning, I personally found it harder to hover side on, especially with the nose pointing to the right.

Check out the expression, pure concentration!