Gentleman need help selecting a simulator. been flying for a while can do basic aerobatics but not the 3D stuff. Tried it last summer not very successful, plane too heavy and or under powered. Bought two ARFs that are capable and building a Viper. Would like to teach myself 3D flying. Would like to practice on a simulator. Please note not really interested in graphics and all that fancy scenery. Just need a good simulator that represents what we fly. Thanks for your help.
You mentioned buying two ARF's that are capable, do you mind sharing which ones? I see a lot of planes advertised as 3d planes, but you will find many of them still have really bad flying characteristics that will handicap you in trying to learn.
I would strongly recommend a 60" electric plane from either 3dhobbyshop or extremeflight. The 60" size is small enough to be able to toss around and learn 3d stuff with. Larger gas planes are much harder to learn on I think. When they fall out of a move you need lots more airspace under you before you can recover, so you wind up flying them 50-100 feet high or more. With the smaller electrics you can get down to 30 feet or so pretty quickly and not have much risk of crashing the plane since they recover so much quicker and are more agile. I would highly recommend the 60" EF Edge. It's one of the best planes I've found to learn 3d with, harriers are really really stable wth it, and that helps a lot.
Proper setup is also key, have a good 3d pilot at your field look over everything. Don't try to learn on 30 degrees of throw, you need enough to control the plane once it's fully stalled. 45-50 degrees of elevator at least. I like as much rudder as I can get, and ailerons at about 35-40 degrees personally. Get used to flying with the controls on those rates.
Work on learning harriers first. Then progress into hovers. Once you master those two things the rest is much much easier. I personally hate flying on a sim and rarely do it. I probably would have learned quicker if I used one though. Hovering and harriering need to get to the point where it's basically muscle memory. Very little brainpower required to perform them. I can easily carry on a conversation while doing either because my fingers "just do it". It's like autopilot... and that just takes stick time. Lots and lots of stick time to program in the responses for what to do when the plane does this or that.
One last tip - throttle control is key. When the plane is stalled out like in a harrier or hover, the only control surface authority that you have comes from the prop wash over the control surfaces. When you need the plane to respond so you can straighten out a hover or something, blip the throttle to make more air go back over the surfaces, and then make your correction. Then back off the throttle. Pay attention to throttle sounds next time you see a good 3d pilot messing around down on the deck. You will be amazed how much the left stick is working. Throttle and rudder both. When I first started 3d flying 10 years ago there was nobody to tell me that, and i had a notion that if I could just get the plane to be in a perfect hover position that it would do it with almost no input from me. Couldn't be more wrong. If you watch the sticks of someone while they are hovering you will find that they are dancing all over even though the plane is relatively still.
