How many hours on the sim did you have to put in

[bcphill]

Coming to the end of my First Year with Helis
Now that the winter months are upon us I have started to use the sim to practice more as i havent done as much as i would have liked this year either flying or sim work.

I am presentl;y praticing for 15 - 20mins in the morning before going to work and then perhaps every other evening I spend an hour on and an hour off so about 10 - 15 hrs a week. I hope to increase this as the weeks pass. (using Pheonix)

I can hover for real tail in no problem and so i am trying side on and damn it nose in on the sim but these are still in need to many hrs practice yet before I try it for real.

How many hrs did you put in before you could say hover in all 4 orientations ?

Any tips to make it easier or is it a case of just keeping at it.

I am using a dx6i both on the sim and with my Rappy. Would another TX be better for control as i intend to get one soon anyway to fly with my other helis that i Dare not fly yet.


Thanks
Phill

[myxiplx]

My first year I was using the sim a lot, and just like you flying for a few minutes before work, and a little time in the evenings too. It really does work, and if you stick at it all winter you'll notice a huge difference by spring.

You will find there are times you feel like you're not progressing, or that you've reached a point where you're just not moving forward, but trust me if you keep up the practice you'll be surprised at how much you learn. Little and often is the key, 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night is enough to really help the skills click.

If you haven't already seen it, there's a thread on helifreak called "Tail in to funnels in 6 months" that a lot of people have found useful as a way to learn. For me the key thing is orientations, practice your hovering until you have those down and then work on slow pirouettes. Once you have those everything else becomes so much easier to learn, it really is worth putting in the effort early on.

[bcphill]

My first year I was using the sim a lot, and just like you flying for a few minutes before work, and a little time in the evenings too. It really does work, and if you stick at it all winter you'll notice a huge difference by spring.

You will find there are times you feel like you're not progressing, or that you've reached a point where you're just not moving forward, but trust me if you keep up the practice you'll be surprised at how much you learn. Little and often is the key, 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night is enough to really help the skills click.

If you haven't already seen it, there's a thread on helifreak called "Tail in to funnels in 6 months" that a lot of people have found useful as a way to learn. For me the key thing is orientations, practice your hovering until you have those down and then work on slow pirouettes. Once you have those everything else becomes so much easier to learn, it really is worth putting in the effort early on.

Thanks Pal
Yes sometimes I think this is all too much but then go up the club field and see the others flying about and think "i should have practiced more"


so concerted efforts to be made

Cheers

[r4nd0m]

well I didn't like the SIM at all so I just tried it at the field - slower progress but more confident in the end from my perspective - however I have recently found out that SIM isn't too bad so I do a few minutes here and there ... if you are talking "real" progress I think you would need to invest hours per day really I think Connor spent 5+hours on a SIM a day and speaking to Duncan Osbourn who doesn't do "much" SIM no more *cough* he still spends 1.5-2hrs per day ... on the other hand though I think one could progress much better with tuition and buddy box as you actually do it live and have someone besides you to give you tips ...

[gazmk2]

I bring it into work with me on nightshift and practice for a couple of hours a night.

[Grumpy]

I find the sim terribly boring so i hardly ever use them, and I didnt even get a sim until I could do the basics anyway.
What i found very helpful was a multi rotor (a tricopter in my case). The advantage is that it had auto leveling so was much more forgiving of error than a conventional heli, but the basic controls are the same so skills learned do transfer accross. These days of course you could do the same thing with a conventional heli using a FBL controller such as the Spirit that has optional auto leveling.

The other thing that made it all much easier was getting a bigger heli.. like night and day difference.

[gazmk2]

I had stopped using mine for a few months and then figured it was time to pull my finger out and learn inverted circuits. I practiced on the sim for a couple of nights and then went straight out and did an inverted figure eight on the mostro.

[Granpappy]

I don't have a sim. I should get one really. Before the clocks went back, I was out nearly every evening. I use a BD3SX controller on a 500 and 600 size helis. I used to set the auto level at 50% which is an enormous confidence boost because I could hover nose in and know that with the wrong stick movement I just let go and it levels. Over the weeks and months I gradually reduced the auto level to the point where I don't use it now. But the switch is there in case I need it. I have found this a better way to learn to fly a 500 size and now 600 size heli very quickly. Auto level is as hard or as soft as you want it to be, and when controlling the heli becomes second nature, you just turn auto-level off. Simples. It is still there at the flick of a switch if I need it. I also have rescue on spring loaded switch if it goes pear shaped low to the ground. Without the BD3SX, I would have spent more time re-building than flying. Just love it. You can go out of your comfort zone with a big heli having no fear at all.

[bcphill]

Thanks all. Some useful tips and points there. I would add that I find the sim harder than handling the heli in real life. I fly a raptor. 30 mainly but also have a trex 450 and a 600 but never flown them. Good tip about the quad/tri copter thank you will look into that
Phill

[Euclid]

Another one here who just didn't get on with the sim. I came to heli's from quads and already had the nose in hovering cracked. Whether or not the quads self-levelling capability was a help or hindrance in this I don't know. It was the 'balancing a broom on the palm of your hand' trick that soon had me master nose in. My first heli was a 120srx that's (almost) indoor friendly. Playing with that over the winter months brought me to CP ready. It all got a lot harder with a 130x and then progress sort of stalled with not enough hours in the day.

[Peteski]

I started 10 months ago with a sim (NeXt) and a small indoor/garden quad (Blade Nano QX). With these two weapons I had my upright orientations and FFF fully nailed in about a month (daily practice of maybe an hour a day on average). At that point I progressed to micro CP helis and then after a few more months an OXY 3. All the while keeping up the sim practice in the background. I've now logged around 300 flights on my 2 main field helis (180 CFX and OXY 3) and am getting pretty comfortable with inverted flying and some very basic 3D moves. I find the key is to get really comfortable with the basic orientations and then everything else seems to click into place. Slow piros are simply the best drill for this and I still practice these now with my nQX whenever I get a spare moment. It took me at least 4 times longer to get comfortable with inverted orientations as that really messed with my mind for months, but I'm finally there at last. Now learning funnels in the sim, which I'm finding quite tricky to balance. I only take new things to the field once I completely stop crashing them in the sim!

Practice, practice, practice I think is the only way to progress in this hobby. Sim and micros are the best for this as you can literally do hundreds of flights per month without leaving your garden. Considering I'm only getting around 8 flights per week at the field right now, sim practice is paramount for me and it does work. I recently had a two week break from real flying, but piled on the sim time and when I next flew again I found that I was instantly a step better and more confident.

[Thor]

If you haven't already seen it, there's a thread on helifreak called "Tail in to funnels in 6 months" that a lot of people have found useful as a way to learn. For me the key thing is orientations, practice your hovering until you have those down and then work on slow pirouettes.

So many good comments in this thread already. I just want to add my +1 to this program on HeliFreak. To me at least, the key to using the sim is to use it in a structured manner and track my progress. Before beginning on this program about a year ago, I would only occassionally sim, and I always found it frustrating and boring. After working at it on average 20-30 almost every day for a year, I can say that simming is still pretty boring, but the payoff is ENORMOUS. What the sim teaches is orientations and muscle memory, so your fingers already know what they are supposed to do when you try something new IRL. Basically, following this structured approach to simming has allowed me to progress hugely IRL and has made my real flying so much more enjoyable, because I'm no longer constantly worried about crashing and the resulting down-time from flying.

So my advice: use a program like the above, and sim, sim, and sim some more ;-)

...but don't forget to go out and fly for real every chance you get.

[Kevinremi]

I have just got back into helis and bought realflight 7.5 and this time around I spend one hour per day on the sim and this time around I definitely enjoying it. I can now funnel up right in both directions. I don't get much time to fly IRL. Another thing i tried and do is stand up while flying to make it feel like I am at the field. My two pence!

[Peteski]

Another thing i tried and do is stand up while flying to make it feel like I am at the field. My two pence!

+1 on this. It's really important to be in the same position as when you fly at the field. If you sit down to sim, your Tx and arms are in a slightly different position and it really messes up your muscle memory. So I always stand so I'm holding my Tx exactly as I do at the field. I'm also using my actual field Tx, a DX8 in my case.

[Kevinremi]

I bought a 27 inches Samsung and place it in my kitchen so that I could practice more which as taking me much further. I am using realflight control and set it the way I use my dx9. I have seen my friend John noob come along way with his flying and when I get a chance to call him to come to the wormholt scrubs he always impress me. This time around I here to enjoy it and not rush as I did in the pass which lead to frustration and me giving up!