Which part of helicopter to look at????!!!

[whittm]

Ok, stupid question as title. Here is a break down of me. I have been flying since christmas this year. I have a blade mcpx and have learnt a lot with that and clearview sim. Soon I will have a blade 130x. My skill level is as follows, I can fly nose in hover, side in, Roll, loop, flip forwards, backwards and sideways. I can fly inverted hover, nose in, tail in and side in. I can fly lazy figure of eights right way up and inverted and proper figure of eights both ways. I can piro flip in real life and on the sim in both rotations, but find anti clockise piroflips easiest. I can do funnels inverted nose and tail down in both directions on the sim but very messy. In real life prefer not to do it inverted but can do tail in anti- clockwise just about.
Here is my question. I have always learnt to watch the nose of the heli whether flying forwards or backwards. This works fine on the sim, but I find in real life that when flying inverted tail in especially, I have started looking at the tail. when flying tail down funnels I look at the boom. This is driving me mad! Loads of lessons on the net, but nothing enlightening me on what part of the heli to look at when flying more advanced sport/mild 3d flying? Where do you guys look, is it at the point leading the way in flight, or at the nose of the heli, or are you watching the changing silohette of the heli as a whole. I feel that if I could consolidate this, it would really pave the way to vastly improving my flying!

[tonystevens]

i think your probably looking into this a bit more than you need to, theres no right or wrong part to look at imo. just look at whichever part that your used to looking at to help you through whichever move your doing, it will soon become second nature
i dont think i could tell you exactly which part i look at during certain moves, dont even think i could tell you what im doing with the sticks for some of it lol, you just build up muscle memory and let your fingers do the work
one thing i can tell you from my own experience is that if you concentrate too much on what your trying too do it all goes to shit anyway!

[jimmyhorns]

look at whatever gives you the best orientation and understanding of how it is moving at that given point, thats not going to be the same point on the heli all the time.

It sounds like you are already doing the right thing.

Plus, even if you think you are only looking at the nose/boom, you actually arnt as your brain will make you look at all of it

[whittm]

Jimmyhorns, you say, "not looking at the same point", and this is what seems to happen in real life, I end up looking at the tail when flying backwards. When flying side in, what on earth would you look at?! I've looked at the boom and imagined a line at 90 degrees, and at the nose and at the tail ad the tip of the rotors even. Also looked at the whole heli. I am begining to feel that the answer to this may be the holy grail of flying heli's!