Helisim: New free simulator

[electroman77]

im wondering if i can just use my radio that came with my helipro black hawk 3d? what would i need to get for it to work.

[helikev2]

been using helisim for a week. has a similiar feel of realflight. though the heli is a bit unstable (even with Zero cyclic instability) , but I find this very helpful for beginner like me, to improve my reflexes in hovering & inverted. maybe Mark needs to stablise the heli in simulation and then let the user tweak the instability factor. This would allow user to perfect the manoevres without unwanted "glitching".

Good job mark! Love it.

[fullthrottle]

Hi MarkB
Thanks for making such a nice Rc sim :thumbup:. just one thing i can't get my E Sky 0905A usb controller to work. I can't calibrate it. Can you please help me?

Thanks Fullthrottle

[fishboy77]

Fullthrottle, the Esky controller works fine with mine, but I had to use the "Mapping" option under the "Joystick" tab to switch the pitch and throttle controls.

[wnor]

Works beautifully "right out of the box" with Fedora 8 Linux, Wine 1.0, a www.milehighwings.com USB adapter, and my trusty old JR X388-S transmitter. Inverted flight, 3D stuff all work great with no fussing at all. Beautiful graphics, very, very realistic feel to the controls. This is a truly beautiful piece of work. I'm going to make a contribution right now.

[JaggedEdge]

Just an FYI. I bought this $10 adapter and works great with the DX7 and Helisim.
http://www.helidirect.com/product_info.php?cPath=134&products_id=3171

no drivers needed. Just plug it in, calibrate in windows/game controllers and then calibrate/setup in helisim.

Control wise I've found that Helisim is MUCH more realistic than FMS.

[JoulesWinfield]

markb - Just wanted to drop in and say thanks for a great FREE sim.

Compared to FMS this is the real thing. Installed it on my vista machine and used the esky sim controller that I bought with my new Belt CP everything works great.

Thanks again.

[ridefst]

Great sim! No more FMS for me :grin:

Figured out how to hook my JR transmitter through the sound card too, so I've got a very nice zero dollar setup now.

[riva]

ANOCHE LO INSTALE. FUNCIONA PERFECTAMENTE.
MUCHAS GRACIAS.:thumbup:

[minskie]

This sim is great!:thumbup:

To think I wasted $40.00 on Clearview.

This beats FMS & Clearview hands down.

Probably give some of the high end sims a run for their money too.

Good stuff, keep up the great work

Minskie :)

[mstram]

To think I wasted $40.00 on Clearview.

This beats FMS & Clearview hands down.



First the "wasted $40.00", seems to imply that Clearview doesn't "work", or maybe you were just saying, that for your purposes HS works as well as CV. If it's the latter, fine. Otherwise it sounds like an unfair "slam" against a very good product.

I have FMS, HS and Clearview .

All of the sims have have pros and cons.

For a rank beginner HS, and Clearview's best feature are the "slowdown" time option. FMS doesn't have that directly, you need to edit the individual heli parameter file, which gets messy.

I love the training modes in HS, where you can freeze the XYZ, it's great to "drill" orientation / manouvering. Clearview doesn't have that, but does have "timescale" slowdown, which can give a somewhat similar effect.

On my "low end" system / video card (geforce mx420), Clearview's graphics are much better than HS, primarily the photorealistic backgrounds, which add to the "immersion" factor. No matter what setting I use in HS, I still get a "grainy" / flicker, ... no big deal, I'm more concerned with the flight dynamics, which seem to be great (don't know for sure, haven't flown a real heli yet).

One of the best features of FMS, that neither CV or HS have is the moveable camera. Sure that isn't "realistic", but neither is a sim in the first place ! I particularly like the ability to move the camera up vertically, so you don't have to be "looking up".

I also love the extremely fast reload/reset times in both HS and FMS, FMS being the fastest where "uncrashable" is a great option. Clearview's reload tmes vary considerably depending on the model (the Raptors seem to reload the fastest).

Mike

[mojopt]

Just loaded HS. This is a pleasant surprise. Everything runs great, I am using my G3.5 interlink controller and it is working extremely well.

Mark, thanks for the effort. You did very well.

Best regards...

[minskie]

First the "wasted $40.00", seems to imply that Clearview doesn't "work", or maybe you were just saying, that for your purposes HS works as well as CV. If it's the latter, fine. Otherwise it sounds like an unfair "slam" against a very good product.

Plain and simple, I bought Clearview before I knew of Helisim.

Having downloaded and used Helisim, I find it to be a more realistic flight model than Clearview and I was also pleasantly surprised to find that it has an automatic flight logging/logbook feature. To know at a glance my logged flight time is great and gives me a good guide to my experience level.

I'm not at all interested in fancy graphics or picturesque scenery. Just interested in learning to fly.

Another bonus of this is that Helisim is way smaller in file size and loads in seconds.

In a nutshell, I think it is better than Clearview and it is free to use.

Minskie :)

[Dusty1000]

I've had HeliSim for a while now & think it's great. Much more realistic than FMS. With FMS you can get the heli into a hover, go make a cup of tea, and the heli will still be sitting there hovering when you get back.

Also the other week on the Heliguy forum someone complained that FMS would not work on their old computer which didn't have the graphic capability. I suggested he try HeliSim and he reported back saying that it works just fine.

Thanks very much for a great sim Mark, and keep up the good work!

Dusty

[ginnz]

guys, im using helisim rc for a while, i use my dx6i with it, with a usb cable i got on ebay, and its working great (thanks mark), my question is, how do i use Idle Up? i really need to start flying idle up.....:confused:

jeez, ive tried everything with my dx6i to get idle up working...... it will goto idle up, but i cannot get - pitch for the life of me! its prolly something simple, but i just cant figure it out. ive tried using the radios curves, and the sims curves....

can someone post their curves used in the sim? ive changed mine so many times, i dunno whats right anymore. and what do i use in the dx6i for curves. if i 0 out the TC and PC in the radio, i get no spool up, even though im checking the use sim curves box..... so i built another linear curve in the radio for throttle, now itll work, but no - pitch.

[PilotSmith]

I read here that people have had success using the GWS USB cable with the DX7 radio on HS. I just received the cable today and it doesn't work. Windows detects the cable and it shows up as a 6 axis, 12 button joystick with hat switch. But when I plug it into my DX7 neither HS or Clearview have any response when I move the sticks on the radio. Is there some trick to get the DX7 to work with the GWS GWFSM002 cable? The cable has 3 conductors at the end that looks like a standard stereo plug.

[trevheli]

Hi I'm a beginner just mastering a tail in hover. It's a Belt CP with the Esky transmitter. Looks as if your Helisim will be just the thing to help me progress. However I seem to have a problem completing the transmitter calibration.......I can assign all functions except left/right cyclic. Calibration does not recognise the left/right stick movement (mode 2). Any ideas?:dontknow

[jolo]

I'm a noob to helis and can't even hover yet (too busy fixing the beltcp :)). Anyway I've been using HeliSim for a few weeks via PPJoy and SmartPropoPlus first with the Esky 406A and now with a DX6i. It works pretty good for me, and now it's even better:

Now like a few of you I was having trouble hovering. It just seemed too touchy and was too hard keeping it a level height. A few comments here say to use the built-in curves as it's easier. But yesterday I disabled that and put the pitch on a separate channel so I could use the Tx curves, and all I can say is it's soooo much better, especially for hovering. I don't know why using the built-in curves make it harder but it did with my setup. Also, idle up mode works great.

So here's a couple of tips if you want to try:

- When trying to map a channel to pitch (might be hard since throttle will also move), flick throttle hold on the Tx then only the pitch channel will move :)

- After mapping the channels, re-calibrate the Tx. But, first make sure the throttle and pitch curves have a 0-100 range. If you calibrate with the pitch going from, say, 45-100 the sim will think that is the full range. Easiest way for me is temporarily adjust one of the points in the pitch curve to zero while calibrating.
[Edit: actually I think you may need linear curves to calibrate properly. I just copied the "sim" model setup in the Tx to a new one called "calib" and set linear curves.]

Hope this helps.
BTW, I don't see why this wouldn't work with a proper 6 channel usb adapter.

[bgagnon]

Hi Jolo,

Good work and in fact I does work with a USB adapter. That's exactly how I did my setup with a Dx6i and fms usb adapter. It work like a champ.

[The Steve-O]

I have been using the Heli Sim with a modified X-Box (original) controller and it works great. It only took 5 min of changing settings to get all the axis to work. The only thing is that the controller uses triggers for throttle hold and idle up, and my DX6 doesn't :). Keep up the good work on the sim

[RCSavager]

Every time somebody asks the question nobody gets an answer. Can this, or ANY sim, be used with a 2.4GHz FASST radio (I have the 7C)?

Every sim I've tried requires PPM setting on the radio and that doesn't exist in a DSM-only radio like my 7C. I have the FSM cable but I'd like somebody to address this question for those of us past the FM stage of the hobby. Please. :noteworthy