Or... How I learned to fly :.

Well after 25-30 years of being out of the hobby, except for a sailplane or two and a few cars,  I recently got back into RC Helis. Things are much better now than they were back then,  I remember many an hour spent on setup and tuning not knowing if I was doing things correctly or not because there was no one else within several hundred miles that was into helicopters. Some of my family members were involved in RC planes, but showed little interest in those funny looking RC things that didn't even have a respectable pair of wings.   I quickly learned that I was on my own with this part of the Radio Control hobby.

The first Heli that I really had any success with, The Century Hawk Pro.
It probably has about 1½-2 gallons through it at this point. With only 2 tanks flown by me.

The radios then had no mixing capabilities, so there was a single servo per axis, and no gyros:.

at least not that I had ever read about or heard of,  so it was all up to pilot skill, something I did not have, but was willing to try to obtain.

After many hours of just trying to hover I got comfortable enough with my 30 sized American Revolution that I decided that what I really needed was to be out of ground effect. That way I could try some clean air instead of trying to balance the heli on what I was sure was a giant super slippery bubble that somehow mysteriously reacted with a force exactly the oppisite direction and strength that I was anticipating it to be. No matter how many times I thought I had it finally figured out, that helicopter would head off in a seemingly random direction with what seemed like a mind of its own.  I was sure that all I needed to do was to get away from that bubble and all would be well.  One summer weekend, after fighting to keep the Revolution on top of that bubble for yet another tank or two, I decided it was time to move on with the training, after all, how much worse could it be? 

Here's a photo of the fixed pitch Revolution 30
This one is not mine, but it is identical to the first helicopter I ever owned