Sim vs Real life

[JTAnimal]

I have only been flying for a few months. I started to feel like i was just "flying safe" so i started listening to HF and others and get my basic flight skills down. I practice hover in all orientations and do fine, I'm under control. My question is in the flight sim it seems different flying the heli than real life, loops and rolls are very easy, just get up some speed and pull back, but in real life the heli doesn't seem the same. I fly a Trex 550 and a 500 and on the sim (real flight) i use the same helis. now the one thing that is a big difference is i use the Skookum FBL and it has a self level feature, I have been flying with this feature on but at a low amount (40%) and only at center stick. i have been practicing loops on the sim and i can do it with no problem, then i tried it on the 500 for real and it didn't go so well. I didn't crash but it looked wrong, maybe my timing was off and it freaked me out.

I think the sim gives me a false sense of security, "I can do it on the sim no problem so i can do it for real" I think i should stop worrying about crashing and just fly. but it's not that easy when i have my expensive helis up in the air. Just looking for some opinions, give it to me straight!

[Rªzª]

Sim helis are much more "floaty" than the real ones. there are parameters you can change to help this a bit, but sim is usually a little off the mark when it comes to the true physical expected behavior.

Certainly use the sim as much as you can. Stick to your level of flying and push the boundaries just a little. It is easy to get overconfident using the sim, but that's good. It means you are learning to use the sticks properly. You just have to get over that pucker factor when flying the real thing.

[JTAnimal]

I agree with what you said, I put the loops aside for now and went back to working on banked turns. It's easy on the sim, but i came close to the ground with my 500 today so i dont have it down solid. But i think the best thing for me is to keep pushing it and if i crash, so be it. but i have not crashed yet and i'm going to do my best to keep it that way. I spent alot of time on the sim before i bought my first heli, but i still spend some time on the sim to try new stuff and to come up with a practice for when i fly the real helis. I just wish the sim was more like my 550 and 500.

RaZa do you like Phoenix sim better than Real Flight? I noticed you use it in the flight school, maybe i should try that sim?

[Rªzª]

Yes I prefer Phoenix, but both do a good job of training one to fly. Although imho Realflight is a tab over developed/under optimized. It's a system hog compared to phoenix.

[Silver-techie]

I'm pretty much in the same boat minus the 500.

Since I hover different size heli's up to 450, it seems each heli has it's own character. The sim (I use ClearView) they all seem the same (floaty) though I can speed it up, and they are all perfectly balanced.

I do add a challenge on my Sim by adjusting the weather, making it windy. Seems I can do nose in on Sim as well as flips, rolls and other things I would never attempt on my 450's........yet.

I believe it's just a learning trend we all have to face and just get better at if you keep at it.

[ThaQ]

Well... Im new to the hobby and recently bought a Blade 120 SR, I do have the FS 5.5 with expansion 5 and I practice as much as I can. I can pretty much hover and move around any heli but I dont want to be flying 400's , 500's or 3D because Its not what I own and, of course, I know the machine is better than the skills. What heli would you guys recommend me to use to practice while I get all the basic moves down?

[rojack]

Like Silver said, each heli has a different "feel" and takes a little getting used to. By "feel" I mean the subtle timing and response to your stick inputs. You can learn the basic movements and basic timing of stick movements on the sim that will generally translate to all the helis, but the specific timing is different for each heli due to mass (inertia), motor rpm, lift capability of the blades, speed/strength of the servos, etc. Some helis have a snappy response, others a little laggy response in comparison.

You get better at what you practice at. If you practice the real heli, you'll get better and better at it. The sim definitely gives you the framework for the moves, but not the specific timing that you need to fly a specific heli well.

Kind of like, you know how to drive your own car well, and you could drive someone else's car ok, but it would take you a little while in their car to know how hard to step on the brake, how much to turn the steering wheel, how fast you can take a turn without skidding, etc., to drive their car as well as you drive your own.

I see this when I practice on the sim a bunch and then go out and fly my real heli. At first I have to re-adjust to my real heli to get the feel of it, and then after a pack or so, I can start doing the some of the stuff I had been doing in the sim. My fingers just know what to do, but on that first pack, I'm like a beginner all over again.

Some folks have had some good luck in tuning the heli sim parameters for a specific model and have been able to get that sim heli model to very closely match their real heli. That would help a lot, but of course there are also big visual differences between looking at a computer screen vs. the great outdoors, so the experience will never exactly match (at least with today's PCs.)

[Stevin]

the only heli on there that feels close to the 120sr would probably be the helimax cp, but remember the 120sr is fixed pitch not full collective