I need practice advice

[The Dentman]

I've had the sim for almost two weeks. I've only been flying mcpx for a few weeks and I wanna make sure I practice on the sim. I've got hovering nose in out and side to side, I'm now trying to fly around the square that you can put on sim. How long should I stay here and or should I be doing other stuff. Can somone please give me a few things or steps I should take to learn. I don't wanna skip stuff I'll put the time in because my goal is to fly my new 500 efl pro and become and avg or above avg 3d pilot, Thanks for the help.

[LN400]

Just a couple of exercises you could do:

The Kambah field has these painted lines and curves. Move the heli along the lines and curves at a constant speed. Do it both very very slowly and a bit faster. See if you can stay on the lines without straying more than say, the width of the heli. You decide what's good enough but the stricter you are, the less slop you accept from yourself, the better.

Later on, you can do this excercise while introducing more challenging bits, like pirouetting along the lines or anything else you think of as a challenge.

Come in full speed and bring the heli to a hover at a predetermined spot. Don't let the heli decide the spot, let it hover where you want it.

Learn piro hover. I started learning that after many many hours on the sim and with the models and I wish now I had started much sooner.

Flips and rolls: Go beyond the strict "elevator flip" and "aileron roll". Flip in any plane. You will not have the cyclic detents to guide you so you will have to be very accurate on the cyclic to have the heli roll in the wanted plane.

I think the keyword in all these exercises is "precision".

[The Dentman]

thanks I'll try the hover down the lines.. I'm trying to make my practice effective and not waste time or skip learning steps.

[72mhz]

I was in the same situation as you were and believe me... all the practice in the sim really pays off. The key that has been pointed out is precision control. YOU decide where the heli will go...you don't want to be chasing the heli around will all kinds of inputs like I use to do...that isn't control. I've learned that it is MORE difficult to do something slowly than at a faster pace...and this will build control. Example... hover your heli and throw the rudder stick to one side and do a 360 while staying in the same spot...pretty simple to some degree... but now do a very slow piro and keep it in the same spot..this requires a lot more adjustments which leads to a lot more incorrect adjustments if it isn't second nature to you. Again.. you may have some good days and some really bad ones but after 30 minutes or so... do something else and don't get burned out on one thing. The brain can only handle so much at one time.
I even had the sim put a landing spot on a field with the green, yellow and red circles and tried to stay within the outer ring while doing say a tail in circle...then do it the opposite direction, then nose in and from a side view. You will find that one day it just clicks. Another exercise I did on the sim was to keep the heli locked in one direction and do a circle around myelf....on the sim... this uses mostly the elev. and alieron controls... and before you know if, after only one slow and steady circle, you have transitioned from tail in, to side view, to nose in, to side view and back to tail in.

You are on the right path but think precision control. If the heli does its own thing, hit reset and start over...... YOU be the one in control!

LN400....
Thanks for mentioning: "Come in full speed and bring the heli to a hover at a predetermined spot. Don't let the heli decide the spot, let it hover where you want it."
For some reason this has been difficult for me....the transition from FF back to hover where I want it... But I'm hard at work getting the feel for it.

[The Dentman]

Thanks 72mhz this is great stuff.. Hearing your struggles I can relate to them. So far I'm not getting to upset about the learning curve. Not only am I tryig to learn to fly I"m also trying to learn about building and most important the setup of heli's. I figure if I can learn to fly then i can learn about setup because I'll know what the heli is suppose to do. I like the idea of trying to master these moves at low speed and when you guys said make the heli do what you want not what it wants. Well that is spot on. These are the things that are helping me progress. I'm not even thinking about inverted till I can do almost every in not every move in regular flight. Thanks again guys.

[The Dentman]

Lol....just doing search to practice my piro funnels and saw my post from last year.. Wow what a difference year makes.. I was green back then.. Well guess I still am compared to a lot of guys. But forum and practice has opened up so much.. Can't wait to read posts from feb 2013 next year and see what I've learned.. Hopefully my piro flips will be stationary and faster then they are now. And switching my inverted funnels clean.. See you in 2014

[HeliSmith]

That is awesome thanks for sharing that insight and I am sure by next year your piro flips will be real nice.

[ArchmageAU]

Originally Posted by The Dentman

I've had the sim for almost two weeks. I've only been flying mcpx for a few weeks and I wanna make sure I practice on the sim. I've got hovering nose in out and side to side, I'm now trying to fly around the square that you can put on sim. How long should I stay here and or should I be doing other stuff. Can somone please give me a few things or steps I should take to learn. I don't wanna skip stuff I'll put the time in because my goal is to fly my new 500 efl pro and become and avg or above avg 3d pilot, Thanks for the help.

... Original post removed due to irrelevance (sincerely, thank you HeliSmith) ...

Dentman, awesome progress. I can only work hard and dream of getting where you are in a year.