Which simulators?

I have decided that a simulator will save me a ton of money learning those new tricks instead of smaking my piccolo in to a wall. I dont have any experience with them though. I was thinking of getting an interface cable for my transmitter and downloading the FMS free simulator. Is the realism going to be significantly less with that, or is it pretty close to say picofly, or easyfly? Anyone with any experience lend a word and that would be great. Thanks guys and happy flying, Jayme.

There's a good run-down on the realism afforded by the various simulator options available in a "Getting Started in R/C Helis" document on RCGroups.com.

Text format

PDF format

The main thrust of the section on simulators is that RealFlight G2 models overall flight characteristics of non-micro helis the best. Piccofly best models the "squirreliness" of the micros, buts is somewhat lacking in forward flight accuracy. EasyFly and FMS got knocked as being pretty unrealistic (i.e. forward flight, lack of ground effect, etc.), and basically only good for the most rudimentary of orientation training.

The CMS simulator was not mentioned in the FAQ but has been given high marks by many whom I've seen mention it.

For what you pay for it (nothing), I like FMS. You can download a Piccolo model from HeliHobby that may not be realistic, but is certainly quite squirrely compared to any other heli I've seen available for that sim.

Hope that helps!

[pgoelz]

The only real problem with FMS seems to be that it has no aerodynamic simulation and therefore is very easy to fly compared to the real thing.

RealFlight has good aaerodynamic simulation but make very sure that your computer and video card are up to it. Depending on where you buy it, it may not be returnable.

Take a look at the new Ikarus simulator. For some strange reason, it does not have the Piccolo in it but it does have helis and all sorts of other aircraft and at least visually is VERY realistic. I can't speak to its aerodynamic simulation though. I never got a chance to fly it at the Toledo show (see my Toledo post for a link to pictures). From watching others fly it, it looked a little too easy but then Mr. Gruentjens was flying it most of the time and he looked like he could make ANYTHING look easy. Heck, he flies mode 1 and the SIM was mode 2, so he flew it the entire time with his hands crossed over (right hand on the left stick, etc) and it didn't seem to slow him down at all.

[ QUOTE ]
Take a look at the new Ikarus simulator.

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I saw your photographs from the Toledo show, thank you very much. Do you know if there is any information about the new simulator available? I looked around on the product pages on this site and on Ipacs as well, but didn't seem to turn anything "new" up.

I've got RFG2. I've learned a lot from it.
At the recent Phoenix Fun Fly, I saw some amazing 3D flying by Todd Bennett's students. Their mothers told me that they spend several hours a day on G2.
But I'm not satisfied with G2 (it bugs me visually -- hard to see even with zoom on).
Based on what I've read on other forums and the demo I downloaded, I'm getting the Reflex sim (www.reflex-sim.de).
The physics of Reflex get rave reviews.
The price is worse than G2, though.

That Reflex sim looks quite nice, thanks for mentioning it. I had not heard of it previously.

As for RFG2, is there a decent Piccolo model for it, that flies somewhat close to the real thing? All that I've read indicates that it's a good sim for larger helis, but is somewhat lacking for the microhelis. Any thoughts?

[aymenpicc]

hi there, all i got to say is FMS is good simulator as it is free and not that bad, as it will give you an idea of flying helicopters.
thanks

I just found a Piccolo for Realflight on Sean's Helihobby site (www.helihobby.com) but I haven't tried it (I'm flying slimers on RFG2).
There is another free simulator out there that gets mentioned on rcuniverse.com -- the Preflight sim:
www.preflightsim.com
I don't know anything about Preflight, but it's relatively new and the website is informative.

[aymenpicc]

thanks very much for the link.
thanks

Well I’ve just ordered the Reflex Flight Simulator complete with USB interface from Midland Helicopters, (should pay for its self the way I’m flying recently [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]) I’ll let you know what i think of it ....