Weird observation after playing the sim for a while...

[poor_red_neck]

So I've been practicing on the sim for oh 4 days now atleast 3 hours a day.

One thing I've noticed.... quite strange I guess.

It's easier for me to hover/fly nose in that tail in. I mean as far as orientation and thinking about the heli and what it is doing.

I said... well... this can't be... so... I tried reversing things to see if they made more sense tail first. Nope, threw everything off.

Now I'm just using "MarkB"'s simulator which is very nice compared to FMS, while my hovers do bounce around a little bit... I'm alot more confident then when I first started.

I can hover inverted, fly in reverse, did a few figure 8s... but I just found it strange I was almost more "comfortable" flying nose in than tail in.

Is this normal at all?

-Jonathan

[sleddog7]

That is 100% normal and not strange at all, you're starting out like most of us have done.

You'll find that upright tail-in hovers and upright forward flight are the MOST difficult maneuvers to master.

:D

[sleddog7]

:alcohol lemmme tell ya another one <hic>

[Pinecone]

Are you sure you have the controls working the right way? Tail in, using the right stick, moving the stick left, heli moves left. Moving stick right, heli moves right, moving stick forward, heli moves forward, moving stick back heli moves back?

For the rudder, you can fly the tail or the nose. I think most people fly the nose. I do, but I came form full scale, so that is the only thing that makes sense to me. :)

[istandalone]

man, that seems really weird. tail in seems the most natural. nose in took me forever and a day to get so it's natural.

[JasonJ]

If nose in is what you started learning on, then it will seem the most natural. For me, I can nose in fine, but it isn't quite 100%. Sides-in and tail in are 100% natural, forward flight is %100 natural, inverted hover is about 80% natural, inverted direction flight is about 20%, flips are 99%, rolls are 99%, tic-tocs are 90%, piro-flips are 0%... :)

I did do a funnel for two seconds, but have not been able to reproduce it since...

[poor_red_neck]

Yeah, to me the rudder is flying the nose.
Makes sense both ways. I almost instinctively think while tail in that I'm moving the nose, and while nose in i'm moving the tail... seems weird but it works.

Yes, tail in everything is normal... Left is left, right is right, forward is forward, back is back.

I don't know... I guess it's just coming along naturally. I still loose my orientation sometimes in the sim, but I think that is mainly to do with the crappy resolution I have to run because my video card sucks. Hard to orientate 4 little pixels in the screen! :)

[JasonJ]

Hard to orientate 4 little pixels in the screen! :)

Yeah, that's fun. I do everything I can to avoid that. If I let it happen on the sim, it'll happen in real life.

[cbdane]

Here's what I've found. When I'm working on something new, it is important (at least for me) to go back to the rest of my normal flying frequently. For example, I spent a couple of "sim" sessions working on inverted forward flight; so diligently that I didn't even fly upright. When I took out my heli last week, several times I found myself pushing the stick forward after exiting a banked turn to level the disk. :shock:

Conclusion: keep a good mix of hovering, forward flight, etc. in all orientations on every sim session. Just my experience.

[Skiddz]

In a turn, you need to add power and aft elevator to maintain altitude. As you roll out of the turn, to maintain that same altitude, you need to remove the added power and add some forward elevator. Same thing happens in planks.

You've got to keep mixing it up or you lose the other skills. About a year ago, I worked on nothing but nose-in hovering for like 2 weeks. When I got back to tail-in, I kept messing up the control inputs... Now I go about 30-60 seconds in a particular orientation then move to another one.

One thing that helped me with nose in was making slow approaches to landing nose-in. Now I rarely land tail in. It's usually side in with the nose into the wind and sometimes I toss in a nose-in landing just for giggles.

[cbdane]

In a turn, you need to add power and aft elevator to maintain altitude. As you roll out of the turn, to maintain that same altitude, you need to remove the added power and add some forward elevator. Same thing happens in planks.

Uhh, no. Not when flying through a turn inverted. :wink:

[Pinecone]

Even then, but it is aft in relation to the attitude, not the Tx. :)

[poor_red_neck]

I've been practicing in 5-10 minute sessions trying to mix it up like you guys have said....

This may be a bit embarrassing, but so far the hardest thing is to do a banked turn with a little forward speed...
I pulled off a few really nice ones but don't remember what I did... I think I started with aileron then added rudder plus a little elevator. I don't know... Hovering I pretty good. The sim is a LITTLE too sensitive as far as the throttle is concerned so it jumps around a little bit. My radio has little "divits" for the throttle... not smooth and one notch it goes up too high one notch it drops out of the sky. These "divits" are very very close apart and it really a VERY tiny minute distance of travel on the throttle stick. I'm hoping with the real heli I can mess around with my PIT and PLT knobs to adjust pitch.

I may be feeling over confident a tad. I'm NOT feeling cocky, as that's what landed me a damaged heli after only a minute or so of flying. I think once my flybar gets here I'm going to give hovering another shot on the real thing. I have quite the stock pile of extra parts now, and just found out I have a hobby shot 25 minutes away that carries parts for the Falcon! Sweet!!

[cbdane]

Even then, but it is aft in relation to the attitude, not the Tx. :)

You got me! Now, just convince my brain. :P

[sleddog7]

Red Neck,
The best thing you can do to your TX is to get rid of the ratchet on the throttle. Just un-screw the back of the TX to get to it.

Typically you can just flip the tab over on the throttle and maybe even bend it a little to get the desired resistance on the stick. Constant height hovers are nearly impossible with ratcheted collectives.

You'll want to do this to your sim's TX too

[poor_red_neck]

Awesome. I'll try that! I'm using my radio for my sim Tx... It has a mic cable and I'm using smart propo plus and ppjoy.

By the way.... the "HeliSimRC" that somebody on this forum made is very nice. ALOT better than FMS.

I've just now started to add in some wind. 3mph wind with 8mph gusts :) Makes things a little more interesting.

The sim SEEMS to be pretty realistic... compared to FMS. I'm just worried that I'm progressing very quickly with the sim and then I get to the real thing and I won't even be able to hover.

Orientation for me is not a problem it seems. I don't loose orientation or "forget" which way to move the stick nose in side ways or what have you. For me so far, the biggest issue is forgetting to add enough rudder in a banked turn. Other than that.. I have not crashed in the past 3 days I've been playing.

I guess the sim is pretty good though, as the first time I picked it up I made the EXACT same mistake I did with the real thing. Almost like it was a digital re-creation of the real heli. I've kept the stick speed far down as I was over correcting like a mad man.

[outhouse]

marks sim is sweet, i try and use it daily. im doing nose in hovers FFF my 8,s are getting cleaner flips rolls ect. speaking of figure 8,s that would really help you since your doing nose in and out together.

this sim set up in sport or the sloppy settings i have flys a little harder then my 450. the sim is very close to reality.