How close is the Sim to the real thing?

[Barnaby]

Hello,

I’m still relatively new to the RC world, it was the little helicopters that got me hooked and I still love to fly them, and have progressed and really enjoy the challenges of collective pitch helicopters and my Blade 180CFX. I’m not a 3D flyer, but like bombing around doing figures of eight and practicing hovering in all orientations.

My interests have expanded a bit due, in the most part, from seeing a Flite Test video, and finding it so refreshing, the helicopter world can be quite intense with a huge focus on hard 3D rather than sports flying!

Anyway to get to my point, I’ve only recently started using a Sim for helicopter training, and I wanted to know if flying planes would interest me too, so I decided I’d risk getting a second Sim for planes, Arerofly RC (I’m a Mac user so there is a limited choice). I’m enjoying flying planes in it although the other (helicopter only) sim seems more accurate for helicopters. All I’m doing when flying planes is taking off and landing, figuring like hovering with a helicopter it’s perhaps the most important skill to learn.

My confusion is that I can fly the Sbach and the Adrenaline, both acrobatic planes, far easier than I can either of the trainers, and when it comes to landing both the acrobatic planes seem so much easier and I rarely crash, the trainer on the other hand I usually crash or bounce a dozen times down the runway.

On the one hand I wonder if my helicopter flying has helped me with the acrobatic planes as in they have similar tendencies they go where you point until you tell them otherwise. But on the other hand I find it difficult to believe that the acrobatic planes are in reality easier to land than a trainer.

Based on the trainer experience I almost feel inclined to buy an acrobatic plane over a trainer as a first real plane, but I suspect the reality would be a little different. ;-)

Maybe I’m trying to land the trainer wrongly? Maybe the sim isn’t all that accurate? I don’t know… is there an idiots guide for landings and take offs for different plane types? For example if flying an acrobatic plane try to land at a shallow angle, if flying a high dihedral wing with tricycle landing gear, flare it more before touching the rear wheels down… I’m making it up, I don’t know what I should be doing ;-) my landing style so far has evolved from, oh I crashed, oh I crashed, oh I didn’t! I’ll keep doing that then.

All the best,

Barnaby

 

[Epitaph]

Being from helis, there are things that you should already know are not realistic as they are not possible to do on a sim. For sticks and such, they are generally pretty realistic, but when it comes to "other senses", reality is actually easier than sims. For example, you can feel where the wind is coming from, if it changes direction or strength, you don't lose orientation so easily as in a sim as you know what direction you're facing and where the landing strip is just by logic, rather than looking straight up, doing a couple of loops and then not know where you are facing when the camera goes back down, you can hear things better as in knowing where everything is by sound, distance is easier to judge because it's trye 3D and not a 3D representation on a 2D screen...

At least, that's how I see things usually... I like sims just for stick practice or for trying out different planes with different profiles, dihedrals and things like that before thinking about making them in balsa.

 

[Barnaby]

Hi Epitaph,

Your right about the limitations of the sim, I can quickly loose my height perception as soon as I cannot see the ground and the wind is as you say another mystery as you cannot feel the gusts. So like you I use it to gain stick time and on a helicopter it's much cheaper to learn inverted on a sim than on a helicopter.

But all those things are equal when I'm flying a trainer or a Sback in the sim at the same airfield with the same conditions, and yet the supposedly more awkward plane is far easier to land than the trainer. Actually the Sbach is perhaps not a fair comparison as it's somewhat larger in scale, but the Adrenaline is reasonably close in size.

I was hoping that the sim would give me an impression of the character of different types of airplane, the war birds for example seem to need much larger throws on the sticks and a lot of throttle, the Adrenaline can turn incredibly tightly and do stuff at almost no speed so that looks like it should fall out of the sky, yet somehow with careful throttle control and cyclic I can almost float it! But the trainer is eluding me on the landings nearly every time.

I bet making your planes in balsa is really satisfying, once I've learned to fly a bit on a real plane, not just the sim, I'd like to try that.

All the best,

Barnaby

 

[Mid7night]

Warbirds needing throttle: Yes. They generally are not planes that you can fly on power alone; you have to fly the wing.

As for throws, however; that is more due to the individual setup. I could set you up with a warbird that was as twitchy as a tailless plank-sloper, but you wouldn't want to fly it. Smart setup is required.


Mostly the difference between Sim-Flying and IRL-Flying is it's a LOT cheaper to crash in the sim!

 

[Bricks]

Mostly the difference between Sim-Flying and IRL-Flying is it's a LOT cheaper to crash in the sim!

AIN`T THAT THE TRUTH.......................