flight simulators

[Wicked_Jester]

Im looking into flying heli's along side my crawling addiction! What would be the best flight simulator to learn how to fly heli's with< ive researched on some of the well known ones such as fs-one and real flight but cant figure out which would be the best for learning heli's

 

[JasonInAugusta]

Either of the two will do you well.

I have Aerofly Pro, FSOne, and G3.5

When it comes to sims the thing to remember is that their main purpose is to educate your thumbs. While they won't replicate real-world conditions 100% they will teach you how to give correct control inputs as the aircraft changes attitude.


Aerofly is too easy to me. Too "gameish". FSOne and G3.5 are more realistic (FSOne has killer graphics) and most of my friends have Realflight...so that's the one I spend the most time on. There are also plenty of expansion packs (more planes, more helis, more flying sites) for the RealFlight sim.

FSOne can be used with the Spektrum DX6, DX7, and such with a wireless setup. That's nice. The menus are tiresome in FSOne compared to RealFlight. With RealFlight you can change aircraft from the flight screen. With FSOne you have to exit the flight mode and go back into the menu, select the plane, then "Go Fly". It's more time-intensive, but you also have options to either hand launch or ground launch with FSOne.

Ikarus has Reflex XTR which is a nice sim. As an added bonus you can get it with their iVol interface that can later be fitted with their 2.4GHz module and used as a TX. Reflex XTR will provide a more overall realistic flight experience. When you go to a field there are "no fly zones" just like there are at virtually any club field. This teaches you to not only fly, but to stay on top of where your plane/heli is in relation to the surroundings. It's a sim that's on par with FSOne and RealFlight, but you don't hear much about it 'cause it's not a product of Horizon or Great Planes...the two major hobby distributors.

FSOne, RealFlight, and Reflex XTR are all going to teach you to fly; when it comes down to it, it's just a matter of what features you want.

If you plan on getting something like a Blade 400...it's a Horizon product...so FSOne would be the sim to have that model available to download.

 

[Wicked_Jester]

my dad has flew heli's for along time but got out in the early 90's and him and I want to get back into it and it will be a little easier for him because he just need to touch up his skills were as I need to completely learn, I want to get into a 30 or 50 size nitro heli eventually (he has a brand new century hawk pro 30 size on the work table right now) but im going to start with something small and a little less expensive!!

 

[JasonInAugusta]

Starting cheap is good, but be sure to get something with a gyro and a belt driven tail rotor.

If you get a heli with a tail motor you'll find that you'll need to chase the tail as the battery voltage changes.

If you've learned anything from your dad you know that the larger, heavier helis are less "twitchy" than the smaller ones.

More mass...more stable (Newton's First Law of Motion)

The Blade 400 just hit the LHS shelves. It's good sized, belt driven, has a nice transmitter, etc. Not bad for a RTF 400 size heli.

I have a TREX 450 SE V2 but I'm still considering the Blade 400.

 

[CrawlerRon]

If you are going to get a flight sim, go with the RealFlight G4. I have one and i love it. It comes with the futaba radio. Plus you can buy expansion packs if you want to add on more planes/helis. The blade 400 is a sweet heli for the price. If you end up breaking the heli and dont like it anymore, you can always use the dx6i radio for crawling.