Phoenix Flight Sim

[Navman]

Hi,

Recently purchase Phoenix and now starting to learn how to hover using just pitch and roll and those combined. I'm having fun but can someone give me pointers on how to hover a heli. I seem to over correct the cylcic controls and the heli swings like a pendalum. It takes a little while before I have it under control but seeing the Finless and other flying vids the guys are able to stop the heli in mid flight with no wobbling. Sure like to know how they do that. (all practice???)

Another thing, practicing on the trex 600 on the sim, I've noticed that it drifts left on hover. Is this normal and how close is phoenix to flying real rc helis?

[TheBum]

Another thing, practicing on the trex 600 on the sim, I've noticed that it drifts left on hover. Is this normal and how close is phoenix to flying real rc helis?
It's perfectly normal. The lateral thrust from the tail rotor will push the heli to the left, so it takes right cyclic to keep it stationary.

[vetterick]

It takes very little cyclic input hover, you get to a point eventually where you can predict and compensate as needed, watch the models movement not the rotor, its not easy at first, practice, practice, practice......

As far as how close is it to a real one, it feels somewhat the same, the controls act the same, the big difference is the "pucker factor" of reality.

[Steel Butcher]

Generally, when you give an large input you need to the give an automatic, smaller input in the opposite direction. Otherwise you will just wildly seesaw back and forth.

[Navman]

Thanks for the tips.
:lol:

[mkoutnik]

You may also want to dial-in some expotentional (15-25%) on the aileron and elevator channels of the radio. The expo will de-sensitize the cyclic inputs around neutral stick position.

[kpb]

Navman
Try the EZ-FLY trainer, its very stable, and the training gear will help you.
When hovering, right hand rotors need to be slightly tilted to the right, and left hand rotors slightly to the left to remain in one place.
Tell the heli where YOU want it to go, if you wait to see what the heli is gonna do and then try to correct it, you'll always be one step behind it.
Keep practicing, just hover, don't try to fly yet, every flight begins with a hover and ends with a hover, if you can't hover..........
Hope this will help you a little.

[Navman]

That's good advice, just got to put it into practice now.

Thanks

[geoff200]

It's perfectly normal. The lateral thrust from the tail rotor will push the heli to the left, so it takes right cyclic to keep it stationary.

I am new to all this, I heard that you should trim a real heli, so I set the right trim on the transmitter slightly to compensate for the tail rotor, just a smidgen, is it a mistake to do this?

[kpb]

Not really, Ideally you might need a little right trim if the ship drifts left. Some set it mechanically in the swashplate and some just use aileron trim. At the field, (and in the sim), preferably with little or no wind, you can and set your trims so you get as close to a stationary hover (with no stick inputs) as you can. If your new to heli's have someone at the field who can fly trim it out for you or at least have them help you trim it out. You might want slight forward trim just to keep the tail from dropping depending on your experience. In the sim it's a little different since you can't really "feel" the wind. Different heli's will have slightly different settings but probably not that far off.

[Pinecone]

In models you might not want to trim if you will be flying inverted, but all the trim you put in will be teh wrong way, leading to an even more out of trim condition.

[lextek]

I just started using Phoenix too. I had my Trex 450 before I had the sim. I feel that the actual hovering is "easier" than the sim. I've been using the training section and calming down with the overcorrections. The weather has really been bad here in upstate NY, so simtime it is. I'll be curious how my hovering is after some time with Phoenix. And it does runs perfect on a Mac with Bootcamp.:thumbup: