FMS/RW realism comparison

[fenug]

Hi all,
I've been using FMS 7 (now 8 for a few days), practicing before I get my first plane (not entirely decided yet...). I have 2 saitek joysticks connected (long live saitek!), the one on my left hand for throttle on the Y axis, rudder on X, for the right hand I have elevator on Y and aileron on X. Similar for when I fly a helicopter (of course the names change).
I was wondering, should I expect the real thing to be similar or should I stop before developing bad habits? I find flying the helicopter pretty easy, I thought it would (should) be harder.

thanks for any comments,
csb

[ggunners]

fenug,

The physics of the plane are adjustable. Only people who actually fly the planes can help adjust the parameters to better ape reality. The new engine with wind seems very realistic to me in the upwind and downwind legs. That said, I've not been able to exactly duplicate the physics of my models, but I've gotten *very* close to reality. What more could you ask of any sim.

-- ggunners

[Steve Lewin]

The real thing will be similar but not identical. Fixed wing planes in FMS are more realistic than the helis which are much too easy to fly.

Provided you don't fool yourself into thinking that success in the sim means you can fly the real thing using the sim is mainly helpful. I don't know much about helis but the worst habit that plane fliers develop from too much sim use is flying way too low. In the sim you need to do that so you can see the ground to know where you are....but that's not a problem in the real world .

Steve

[Boone]

I think the actual "realism" isn't so important for learning to fly R/C. You're learning which ways to push the sticks in all the different orientations and getting a feel for how things work together.

Is the real thing gonna be exactly the same? nope. But I liken it to flying two different kinds of airplanes. If you learn on a trainer airplane does that mean you can fly a ducted fan model just as easy? Yes and no.. it's not gonna be the same and it's gonna possibly be a lot tougher, but that doesn't render the experience on the trainer irrelavent! In fact, spending more time on a trainer is just the way to prepare yourself for a different airplane. The same for the sim, don't worry about practicing too much, it'll serve you well.

I learnt to fly heli's using FMS, mostly because it was fun and I had a ball playing. I still fly for hours every week just for fun, many 100's of hours have been wasted flying the heli in FMS using my JR radio connected to the microphone port of my soundcard using a simple mono dubbing cord I had lying around. $0 invested.

It came time when I wanted to try out the real thing, because that's simply cooler than playing the game on FMS. I had zero help getting my first heli in the air, either heli setup or flying, and (I feel) progressed very rapidly.

I've burnt less than 4 gallons of fuel through the heli (Hawk Sport) and already have no problem hovering inverted, forward inverted flight, etc etc. In fact, I had it in a (very shaky and short lived admittedly) inverted hover before the first gallon of fuel was up!

After four gallons of fuel, I've also crashed 4 times, not sure how that compares to the "national average" but I suspect it's rather poor :p 2 of those were mechanical problems with the tail, and 2 were pilot error. Both pilot errors were pushing the tail the wrong way as I was flying directly towards myself in inverted forward flight as I went to turn. When I did that in the sim, I screwed up too, so it was mostly just having "missed" that particular orientation when I was practicing.

So, practice using FMS as much as you can, it'll serve you well. When you go to the real thing, take it easy, don't get too cocky and you should be fine. Get some help setting things up too, the difference between a well setup aircraft and a poorly setup one is huge. You're busy trying to just fly the thing at first, it's tough to also be worried about rotor head speed and the like.