Helicopters on simulator

[Wasp09]

I am new and crach a lot on simulator.

One thing I am not used to is that the helicopter does not return to level after a cyclic change.

For example, from hovering I make the helicopter go forward and then return the control stick to centre, the helicopter would keep tilting forward on the simulator.

It kind of remembers the last command forever, even across a restart.

At first I thought it was a keyboard control special but it remained the same using my transmitter as joystick.

The real model would have levelled itself shortly after the stick returns to centre. Am I correct? Or do I really need to over-correct it?

I am still waiting for spare parts before I would experiment with the real thing. You know, I have to be careful after so many crashes :confused: on the simulator.

Is that something wrong with the simulator or its setting?

[Malc C]

No you are not correct in thinking that the heli will self level from forward flight. When you fly a helicopter you need to be constantly on the sticks, making small inputs to compensate for the inertia the model has. In your example you would pull the stick back to bring the model out of forward flight and then push it forward at the point the model's ground speed has stopped to place it into the hover, and then be constantly on the cyclic, rudder and collective to maintain that hover, making small corrections to compensate for the built in instability of the model and any outside forces such as wind.

If you are using FMS then this IMO doesn't provide the best flight physics and will give you false idea of how a model really performs. Try downloading Clearview and see how that performs.

[Wasp09]

Thank you for your response.

I am not referring to the forward movement which should have some inertia, but the tilting of the helicopter. On the simulator, it just keeps tilted even after restarting the flight.

I understand that if we want to stop the movement quickly, we have to over compensate a bit, like applying an air break.

What I don't expect is that return to normal does not seem to have any effect and suddenly it kicks in when I try bigger compensations. It looks like some issues with the control.

I have a palm size co-axis heli too. The real co-axis does return to level when the stick return to centre, but it has a flybar on top of the rotor solely for stabilizing. On the 6CH CCPM Wasp V3, the flybar is mainly for cyclic control. The behaviour may be different.

I have tried Clearview demo but it expired after the my very first run. It was more good looking than FMS but I did not get a good feel of how the control worked. I did not have the transmitter to joystick emulation working at that time.

Do you think the Clearview demo would allow us to run again after reinstallation?

The Realflight demo is keyboard only and the Preflight demo is 2 joystick channels only. The Clearview demo expires right away.

They do not really serve well to demonstate the quality of flight control. I want something to teach me how to fly my Wasp V3 not just good looking.

Just like the other member said, they want us to pay in full before opening the plastic wrap of the box (not even the CD/DVD) regardless how the thing actually works.

Regards.

[grnbrg]

This is how CP helicopters behave. From a flat hover, pushing the right stick forward will rotate the heli forward - beginning forward flight - and the forward tilt will increase until the stick is returned to neutral. At this point the rotation of the helicopter will stop, with whatever forward tilt had been added. Forward speed will continue to increase until back stick is given to rotate the heli back to level at which point it will continue forward at constant speed. To return to stable hover, more back stick is needed to counter the forward momentum, then forward stick to level the helicopter as movement goes to zero. Not the easiest thing to do... :)

A co-axial helicopter is inherently stable -- with cyclic stick neutral, it will slow to a stable hover. A CP helicopter is inherently unstable -- with a neutral cyclic stick it will accelerate in whatever direction it's tilted.

And +1 about FMS -- it will teach you the wrong stick movements. HeliSim RC (http://www.marksfiles.net/HeliSim) is also free and has much better physics.


grnbrg.

[archiebald]

This is how CP helicopters behave. From a flat hover, pushing the right stick forward will rotate the heli forward - beginning forward flight - and the forward tilt will increase until the stick is returned to neutral. At this point the rotation of the helicopter will stop, with whatever forward tilt had been added. Forward speed will continue to increase until back stick is given to rotate the heli back to level at which point it will continue forward at constant speed. To return to stable hover, more back stick is needed to counter the forward momentum, then forward stick to level the helicopter as movement goes to zero. Not the easiest thing to do... :)

A co-axial helicopter is inherently stable -- with cyclic stick neutral, it will slow to a stable hover. A CP helicopter is inherently unstable -- with a neutral cyclic stick it will accelerate in whatever direction it's tilted.

And +1 about FMS -- it will teach you the wrong stick movements. HeliSim RC (http://www.marksfiles.net/HeliSim) is also free and has much better physics.


grnbrg.

One of the best descriptions I ever heard is that learning to fly a "normal" helicopter. i.e. cp type is akin to trying to keep a ball bearing in the middle of a flat piece of glass. Any angle input from you will start the ball rolling and it has to be cancelled out by an opposite input.

Some people even go as far as saying it is like doing it with a convex mirror.

[Malc C]

Excellent description of how transitional flight of a CP heli works

[Wasp09]

I tried trimming my real Wasp V3 to level, spinning it up but holding onto it. (Being of the 250 class, it is small enough to "fly" in my hand.)

I tilted it a bit without moving the sticks , there was some initial counter-reaction, but after the flybar adapted to the tilting, I did not feel much force to return to level on its own.

Hence the description of keeping a rolling ball on a piece of rather flat glass may be correct.

It is scary if the glass is small. :mad:

The FP variant of Wasp V3 was reviewed as stable to fly.

Hopefully the CP variant, basically a rotor head change, is still flyable after some training.

The tester in Skyartec test-flew mine mostly with only one hand in the factory in May. I kept a copy but that particular flash has been replaced with new ones:

http://www.skyartec.net/video/06/Helicopter0611.flv

(Those with SN# WH30xxxx with DIP switch 8 up and 9 down, are CP Wasp V3's.)

It looked so easy so there is still hope.

Anyway I'll go back to HeliSim for training.

If I need more varieties, I probably would order Clearview.

Thanks

[whopper]

Your best bet is to actually put your hand in your pocket and get a decent sim. I recommend Pheonix (<$200), excellent realism and will run well on most computers.
A good sim will seem dear to start with but the savings in crash repairs will pay for the sim 100 times over.
Please stay away from the 'Free" sims. They will only "mis-teach" you bad habits that will take longer to unlearn than to learn the "right" techniques in the first place. Trust me on this. A bad sim is SOOOOOO much worse to try to learn to fly on than no sim at all and just hitting the field as often as possible.

[grnbrg]

Please stay away from the 'Free" sims. They will only "mis-teach" you bad habits that will take longer to unlearn than to learn the "right" techniques in the first place. Trust me on this.Yawn. Sounds like someone who has spend $200 on a sim, and doesn't want to admit there are cheaper alternatives.

HeliSim will teach you the basics. You can learn to fly with it. Is it as good as RF or Phoenix? No. But the physics are 85% there.

The other thing the free sims lack is features and eye candy. But, while nice, online multi-play, and realistic smoke and water aren't needed for hover practice.


grnbrg.

I agree with your comments as applied to FMS, though. :)

[whopper]

Yawn. Sounds like someone who has spend $200 on a sim, and doesn't want to admit there are cheaper alternatives.


No, I think I sound more like someone who has 25+ years in this hobby and who has taught many people to fly. :)

If all you ever want to do is hover in perfectly calm conditions then fine, however if you want to learn to FLY a helicopter then I stand by my statement you will be far better off getting a good sim to practice on.
Being a tightarse and helicopters don't go together I'm afraid. :rolleyes:

[archiebald]

No, I think I sound more like someone who has 25+ years in this hobby and who has taught many people to fly. :)

If all you ever want to do is hover in perfectly calm conditions then fine, however if you want to learn to FLY a helicopter then I stand by my statement you will be far better off getting a good sim to practice on.
Being a tightarse and helicopters don't go together I'm afraid. :rolleyes:

I'm with whopper on this one. A few of the things that a simple sim will probably not be able to do for you,

Translational lift
Ground effect
Ring Vrtex (settling with power)
Turbulence
Upwind / downwind autorotations

As for eye candy, getting the lighting and shading just right is possibly as important as the flying physics once you start losing orientation.

All of which will possibly turn your nice flying day sour if you are not ready for them.

[Malc C]

Being a tightarse and helicopters don't go together I'm afraid. :rolleyes:

Totally agree, well to a point

A few years back the "entry" electric heli such as the Eco 8 would still cost you around £350 plus transmitter. The small micro heli's of the day like the Piccolo, Hornet and Hummingbird would set you back around £200 - £300 plus a transmitter. If you wanted to go with nitro power then you needed anything from £700 upwards to gets started. - So investing £120 - £200 in a decent sim was nothing compared to the total outlay.

Nowadays £100 gets you up and running with one of the multitude of cheap and (IMO) often tacky far-eastern imports. So those people are hardly going to spend as much again, if not more that the what they've just spent on the model in order to learn how to fly.

The problem with FMS which is often supplied with the kit is that whilst it teaches you that collective stick moves you up and down, rudder stick moves the tail, etc it lacks the real feel that the real flight physics that all the other sims have built in. Now whilst there are other free alternatives to FMS, these are not readily available to the newcomer (unless pointed in that direction from places like this forum), so FMS is their first and often only experience of using a sim.

Often people will comment on the fact that the commercial sims are just eye candy and that all the shading, smoke and other effects like down wash on water are all gimmicky. I don't think so. The goal of any true sim is to be as life like as possible, not only in the physics of the model and environment but also in the imagery. If the model looks so real against the photo realistic background then its so easier to translate that to the real thing when flying a model for real. If you want this level of realism then you should expect to pay the price.

[grnbrg]

Nowadays £100 gets you up and running with one of the multitude of cheap and (IMO) often tacky far-eastern imports. So those people are hardly going to spend as much again, if not more that the what they've just spent on the model in order to learn how to fly.

The problem with FMS which is often supplied with the kit is that whilst it teaches you that collective stick moves you up and down, rudder stick moves the tail, etc it lacks the real feel that the real flight physics that all the other sims have built in. Now whilst there are other free alternatives to FMS, these are not readily available to the newcomer (unless pointed in that direction from places like this forum), so FMS is their first and often only experience of using a sim.

Often people will comment on the fact that the commercial sims are just eye candy and that all the shading, smoke and other effects like down wash on water are all gimmicky. I don't think so. The goal of any true sim is to be as life like as possible, not only in the physics of the model and environment but also in the imagery. If the model looks so real against the photo realistic background then its so easier to translate that to the real thing when flying a model for real. If you want this level of realism then you should expect to pay the price.Agree, 100%.

And yes, visual realism does help somewhat, but probably is a nuance lost on the "I just spent $200 on a HBK2, and it keeps sliding to the left!" crowd. What that sort of person needs is an inexpensive tool that will teach them how to get off the ground, hover in front of them, and transition to slow forward flight. HeliSim will do that, and do it well.

For more advanced pilots, who are looking to learn some acrobatics, yeah, HeliSim isn't going to cut it. But by this time, you'll be experienced enough to know that there is something missing, and can research other sims. Clearview might be enough at that point. If you want to practice your competition-level 3D you'll be using Phoenix or RealFlight. But for the n00b who doesn't yet even know that a sim is essential, $200+ is overkill.


grnbrg.

(Who learned to crash with FMS, learned to hover his HBK2 with HeliSim and has progressed to figure eights and flipping his Blade 400 with Clearview.)

[Wasp09]

Thanks for all the good advices.

I am taking little steps on HeliSim now. For the easiest setting. I can handle it as long as the heli does not go too far and get out of slight.

HeliSem intentionally does not allow zooming to make it more like flying RC models for real. while other simulators offer many zoom in views and even in-heli view. I suppose we really can't a RC helicopter through telescope.

There is enough for me to learn and experiment on for now.

No simulators really have modelled Wasp V3 CP anyway, I would like to make up one when I know enough. HeliSim seems to have some tweaks that we can use.

I could be looking for a simulator which really emulates CCPM helicopters not just stripping down CCPM to FP, but again I don't know enough to tell if it makes a difference big enough for a true CCPM emulation to exist.

For now I don't see an immediate need to get Real Flight. At least its demo was not convincing. The keyboard controls on the RF demo had rather poor resolution. Every step on the cyclic was causing the heli to jump about 20 to 30 degrees. I guess it is the limitation of keyboard control, but the demo wouldn't allow anything else.

Clearview is affordable enough that I may buy it as a game and/or to get more varieties even though its demo expired before I can really see how it works. I probably should try to install the demo on another computer some other time to see if I like it.

So far I've spent about $250 USD, for a RTF Wasp V3 6CH CP, a plam size 3CH co-axial, some spare parts and an USB PPM cable. I just hate to put in thousands of dollars to get the best up front, and a couple of months later figure out that is not what I enjoy doing. When I really can tell what I am looking for, I would invest more.

Cheers.

[grnbrg]

I could be looking for a simulator which really emulates CCPM helicopters not just stripping down CCPM to FP, but again I don't know enough to tell if it makes a difference big enough for a true CCPM emulation to exist.

(...)

Clearview is affordable enough that I may buy it as a game and/or to get more varieties even though its demo expired before I can really see how it works. I probably should try to install the demo on another computer some other time to see if I like it.HeliSim emulates a CCPM T-Rex 450. You need to use a 4 channel transmitter with it (and Clearview) as most 6 channel CP helicopter transmitters use electronic mixing in the transmitter to control the three swash servos to provide pitch and cyclic. It's much easier from the simulator point of view to have the aileron, elevator and pitch channels separated out.

Regarding Clearview's demo -- check out this trick (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8822965#post8822965). It only works once, but it will give you another 10 or 15 minutes of demo time.


grnbrg.