Specifications

correctly, and the heli will gently bob up and down as the wind gusts. They also seems to mod-
el the "rotor wash" effect where the main rotor blades become less efficient when they enter
their own rotor wash.
Therefore, if you learn to hover completely in FMS, Easyfly, or Piccofly, you will not learn how
to properly use the collective to compensate for the effect of wind making your heli bob up and
down. This can be learned later on a real heli, but it will require some adjustment time.
Most simulators have wind turned off by default, which makes hovering unrealistically easy. In
order to accurately simulate being outside, you should turn on a little bit of gusty wind (maybe
3 mph or so).
When learning to hover, don't worry too much about finding a simulator which has (say) the
Corona. Just learn to hover on the helicopter trainer model supplied with your flight simulator.
Imagine that you don't know how to drive a car and you plan to buy a Honda eventually. Do
you really need to practice on a Honda so you can drive the Honda when you buy it? The basic
driving skill is pretty much the same for all cars, with the exception of small driving differences
and control placement.
Helicopters are pretty much the same way. Some helicopters are smaller and therefore more
twitchy and difficult to fly, but the basic skill in flying a helicopter is the same across all models.
One nice feature of Realflight G2 & G3 is the network play, which allows you to fly and chat
with other people using Realflight on the Internet. This helps to alleviate the tedium of hovering
practice.(ClearView has recently added this feature too.)
Reflex seems to be more processor-intensive than RFG2. There is at least one report that
RFG2 runs faster on a P3/500 than Reflex. If you have a machine under 1 Ghz then RFG2
may run better on your machine.
Both RFG2 and Reflex require fairly good video cards to run well. I would recommend at least
a GeForce 3, although people have run RFG2 on as low as a Riva TNT (probably with most ef-
fects disabled).
The Simulators Forum on RC Groups is a great source of information, and will give you the
latest information on new versions.
A huge number of additional aircraft, scenery and utilities for most of the main simulators can
be found at www.rc-sim.de .
8.14. Simulator practice
You should practice on the simulator as though it were a real R/C helicopter. You should prac-
tice each hovering orientation in the simulator before trying it outside on a real R/C helicopter.
This will greatly minimize your heli repair costs.
Many beginners do not consider the simulator to be a serious tool. They will play the simulator
as though it were a videogame and try the latest aerobatic moves. These people often have
very high heli repair costs because they do not understand the importance of a simulator as a
serious training tool.
Simulators
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