Flight training on a sim

[murankar]

On wednesday I went to a heli club meeting and let me tell ya, it sparked something for me. Right now I am on Day three of dedicated trainning that was suggested to me while there. I have simmed almost 6 hours in the last three days at shorts spurts through out the day. I have been working on my control while in all orientations. Not just hover but also moving, only in 2 directions for now. What I have been doing is I started out nose in while in a hover, the give back elevator to fly away from me. Now my goal was to have a controlled flight while nose in and then stop to a hover. After a few seconds I would then give forward elevator to fly towards me. The key to this exercise is to do it in a straight line with out very much deviation from course. I am not perfect but I am way better right now than I was 3 days ago. I almost have a straight line with decent control at the stops. I still get some drift while in a hove but it is no where near what it used to be.

Once I got comfortable with that I then moved to right side in (nose right). My hover was not really a hove but me chasing the heli back to the starting point. After some time I finally got my hover close to solid and started giving left aileron to fly away from me. My goal once again was to keep a straight line without much deviation from that line. My stopping and new hover point was shaky at best but has improved. I can keep it in an area than once back under control I give right aileron to move the heli back to me. After awahile I would go back to tail in and then back to nose right.

Last night I moved to nose left. This was scary to say the least, it was like I never flew nose left before. So I postponed that and went tail in and nose in for the rest of that session. To night I started off with tail in; same exercise then moved to nose in and then nose right spending about 3 or 4 minutes each. Then I went back to nose left and my hover was much better so I tried to work on the hove for almost 3 minutes. I had to gain my confidence back up. Once under some control I finally gave right aileron to move away from me. Well the line was not really a line but I did manage to get the heli out a distance. I went to a hove and almost lost it but managed to get it back. Then after I settled down I gave left aileron to move the heli back to me. This went on for some time but I still need work on the nose left.

My next exercise was to go nose left and fly a box without rotating the tail, keeping the nose left. Points 1 and 2 were fine, but after giving back elevator to come back across to point 3 I would lose it and struggle to get a hover at point 3 which made getting back to the start even harder. That last for about 5 circuits. I switched from the Garbin 770 competition to the X3. This was a whole new experience with a smaller heli. I started nose right and things still need lots of work.

I will continue these exercises until I have that X3 under some kind of control. Then I will work on getting into circles again. I have for the most part cut out any inverted or crazy flying until I can get this orientation control down. I want to build my confidence so when I get out again I can control the heli the best I can. I hope by spring I can do the same exercises in real life so I can progress into more sport type flying.

[pvolcko]

Sounds great, Uri. Gotta get grouded in the basics. I come back to these "box" exercises now and then, especially when I end up in an uncomfortable orientation during a flight. It's good for building the confidence back up. What I need to do is go back to them but do it all inverted, to try to get my inverted orientations down finally.

[Graham Lawrie]

Hi Matthias, sounds like it was a good decision to go to the club. This sounds very much like what i try to do on the sim, but i am rubbish at it, get bored and then try inverted LOL:)

I have been doing the same thing with the Blade qMX, exactly that, currently at nose in, it is very hard:) It would be good if you could video the exercise:)

[Lee]

Thats great Matthias.
99% of people bipass all that stuff, and move onto inverted and more advanced stuff.
Thats were there learning curve slows to a stop, or at least a crawl.
There are people out there doing piroflips etc, that still cant do what you are trying.

Get the basics, and your flying will improve no end.

[cml001]

That's the way to do.. 2yrs from now... Continue doin it... Makes for confident controlled piloting... Awesome!

[murankar]

Thanks guys it feels great to actually have a sim plan. Oh bthe way this should be in helis not multi rotors. I don't know what I was thinking when I posted it.

Anyhow the goal tonight is to clran up the nose left box.

[Lee]

Moved and title spelling corrected

[murankar]

Thank you.

[murankar]

Got some stick time on the sim today, about 35 to 45 minutes in total. What I got done was work on the X3 to get used to the squirreliness of it. I had to bump the elevator and aileron gains from 70 to 85 and adjusted the dampening on both to 120 from 110. This really settled the heli down a lot. Its feeling locked in and able to be a good trainer on the sim. I still have not add wind yet I still don't feel 100% in the controls. Going from nose in to tail in is still rough but nose left to nose right is doing a lot better. I also got to nose in with left and right movement worked in. My goal for the next few weeks is to rack up about 3 hours of sim time to get this orientation stuff locked in. I would like to get to inverted orientations started by mid February, maybe not polished but definitely started. This means I need to have "box" flying nailed down and not just nose first in both directions but nose in same direction all the way around. With this type training there is still a lot of stuff to factor in when dealing with "box" flying. Things like nose in in both directions, nose left in both directions, nose right in both directions. Tail in is doing good but I will need to keep up with the muscle memory and clean up the control on the stops.

This is going to be rigorous to say the least but in the end I hope to get to increase progression in real life.

[Graham Lawrie]

I am the same:) but i can do each individual movement , but when you try it in the "box" i drift off. Not had any sim time for a while as the blade is letting me practise in doors for real:) Need to get on the sim tomorrow:)

[Tony]

Hey URI, you have inspired me to do the same thing, I'm crap at everything, but like Lee just said I've done things I shouldn't do until I've got the basics sorted.. So I'm going to get on the sim right now... Lol.. Keep up the thread mate..

[murankar]

I will. Its very tough to do, give yourself 5 minutes at the end to fart around. I hope to get some stick time here in about 1 hour.

I wish I could video this. My video drivers are acting all screwy right now. I have attempted twice but to no avail. I will give it a shot again later on.

[Graham Lawrie]

Cool:)

[cml001]

Which sim R u using?

[Graham Lawrie]

I use Phoenix:)

[cml001]

Let get online with it tonight!

[cml001]

Or sooner!

[murankar]

I have real flight 7.5. I think I am the only one active on this sim. I have made some changes to my first flying field. I added some spot landing spaces that are located in a box with a spot in the center. With this addition I am now really bad at the hovers. Trying to keep with in a proximity is really hard.

I got the screen capture to work without crashing my video drivers. One problem, playback is super choppy. If this lappy was newer it would be able to handle this task without issue. The video I was trying to make is about 5 minutes long and you can see where I am struggling. Anyhow I will continue to work on the screen capturing, utill its fixed I can only post up my daily exercises.

[Tony]

Could you not just use an external camera pointed at the screen URI, I've seen a few vids on YT using this idea. WC (wickedclown) has done that several times and it looks good enough to watch..

[murankar]

I could do that, just not a fan of it. I just may have to.