How Do You Practice With Phoenix?

[lextek]

As a noob I was wondering how people are practicing with Phoenix? Are you using the hover practice section or just trying to fly? With the real heli I'm able to hover pretty, good tail in and left/right side. Working on the nose in. On Phoenix I've been using the hover training. So what's a good training routine?

[r40734]

I just go straight for the flying field instead of the training section. I force myself to practice all orientations of hovering for at least a couple of minutes in each position (tail in, nose in, left, right, etc... both upright and inverted) then I start practicing whatever actual flight on feel like playing with at the time.

I finish by practicing autos from different heights and flying attitudes. I usually set the Phoenix to randomly kill the motor and then just start flying however I want and then auto it down when the motor cuts out.

I found the fixed axis in hover training to be annoying and counterproductive.

edit: I also change the weather pattern to make the wind blow randomly so that I don't get "locked" in to a specific hover position and just sit there without any input from me.

[DrJustice]

You can also try to reduce the "Hovering Stability" parameter. I usually set this between 80% and 90%. In combination with a little wind, as r40734 suggests, you will work harder for your hovering, as constant corrections are needed.

DJ
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[DrJustice]

Just to add that I found the hovering practise very useful for some initial nose in training, as it reduces the stress factor. It really helped to be able to get familiar with one axis at a time. As soon as I had a handle on both cyclic axes simultaneously I left the training mode behind. I.e. I only used it for a total of maybe an hour - but that did the trick. Without the training mode it would have taken a lot more time to learn nose in hovering.

DJ
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[HFG]

Practice things on the sim that are HARD. Its too easy to make the sim a game and only do things you can do blindfolded with both hands tied behind your back. Force yoursel;f to work on things that are hard. If you arnt crashing the sim every 30sec your not trying hard enough. And get ONLINE !!!!!!!! Nothing pushes your flying skill then having others around the same skill level learning beside you.

[LJS]

Hi All,

I’ve been enjoying my time on Phoenix this long, cold winter. I think that, because of Phoenix, I will have my best RC season ever. It is so realistic! I can’t believe how much the Swift and 600N feel like the real thing.

Here’s what I have been doing. I’ve set wind to 8 mph and gusts to 6 mph. And I’ve set Randomness to 50% for each of them. I also set turbulence to 50%. To me, these settings seem very realistic as compared to a moderately windy day at the field.

But last year I got caught at a fun fly with a nasty crosswind. So I’ve decided to practice crosswinds. With the above settings, I turn 90 degrees every two flights (I have two routines that I do). I have to tell you that the crosswinds present the big challenge. The corrections necessary to fly in a crosswind have made me a much better pilot.

With all that going on, I try to see how many flight I can do without a crash. At first I crashed nearly every flight. But now I've had stretches of 24 and 28 flights without a crash. And I think I can go farther...

Hope you have a great season.

Keep ‘em flying.:YeaBaby:
LJS