Thinking about doing some co-ax practice on the sim today

[geckgo]

I've been practicing hovering on the sim and doing lots of slow piros in both directions, but I'm still having some orientation trouble, which I guess is to be expected. My diagonals are improving as I have the right stick on my DX6i as loose as it will go and the springs will still return it to center, found that this gets rid of the annoying "bump" while moving the stick diagonally.

I keep wanting to "play" with the CPs on the sim and I have to stop myself. Never saw a reason to try coax other than messing around, but after reading a thread on starting coax, I've got some little lessons that I want to try with the little guy. Basic FF exercises in all 8 upright orientations (including diagonals) and little pyro circuits with it. I may end up buying a coax for fun in the future but that will be a while, as at this point taking a step back from cp would annoy me more than anything.

Soo glad that phoenix includes some coaxes and FP helis I can practice with.

[geckgo]

wow, what a difference!

Buzzed around with the little CX2 on the sim, doing tail-in and nose-in figure eights, circles around myself at very high speed and close range (CX took up the whole screen), some super fast figure 8's, tight and loose with banked turns etc. Immediately discovered a left/right glitch that I have in my control and continued until I pretty much stopped making the mistake (about an hour).

Changed back to B4503D on the sim, pulled it up into a hover for a few seconds to make sure that I was back to little inputs, then did about 2-3 ugly tail-in figure 8's followed by one that was quite nice looking. Until now I've been having trouble doing any kind of slow flight with a cp and now I'm doing pretty Heading-Hold fig 8's with ease. Only took an hour on a coax.

Here's my theory, little glitches while hovering a cp are noticable but my thumbs could adjust to the heli angle after a mistake, change orientation and back and the mistake comes back. Flying a coax at high speed in repedative patterns forces you into different orientations and teaches you how to "react" to the orientation without any thinking.

Just somethin I noticed, too new to know if this is all common knowledge to everyone but me, but it was amazing how much of an impact the little CX2 had on my CP skill. My orientation hovering instantly improved after doing this.

[rojack]

Rule #1: Keep it fun.

After all, that's the whole point of the hobby, isn't it?

In my experience, you can learn a lot from trying different things. I don't know if it helps your initial learning process to restrict yourself to only one kind of heli. Seriously, try flying the Trex 700. It's a big, slow, stable heli, and it's fun. It also improved my orientation skills by flying some of the planes.

At this point, your brain and fingers need to learn the basic moves and reactions. You're not yet at the point where you are fine-tuning your timing, such as for 3D stunts.

What do you have for a real heli? ...or what are you thinking of buying?

Simming is one thing, but you'll learn fastest by flying the real heli. Sim is good for saving money on repairs, before you try something new on the real heli, if you are in danger of crashing it.

[geckgo]

On real helis I only have a blade 450 and got about 15 battery packs through it. It's waiting on my to get home so I can fix it again. 3 decent crashes on it so far. Unfortunately my job keeps me from flying the real deals, so all I have out here is the sim till I get home. I'm considering an mcpx for a little more crash resistance, I tend to fly pretty safe on the real one and only push it on the sim.

[rojack]

Me as well. I currently fly my V400D02 when I can get to a big enough field, and fly it conservatively at that. I've only been brave enough to flip/loop it so far. I can putter around the backyard with it, but too tight there to try anything tricky.

I also have a Walkera Genius CP, which is similar to the mCPx. That one I can practice inverted in the backyard over the grass. It usually won't break when it crashes... and if I am inverted, it *always* crashes.

I would highly recommend not restricting yourself in the sim though, at least not all the time. Sure it is critical to master the orientations, but you can always reward yourself with a little fun each session and try some tic-tocs, rainbows, loops, inverted or whatever. Play balloon pop, or laser tag. It all helps develop your 'stick sense'. Mix it up to keep it fun. ...and like you found out with the CX, you never know what skills you'll pick up when flying a different kind of heli.

[geckgo]

Thanks for the reply rojack.

Yea, It's kinda hard to do a half-hour session on the sim and not start messing around at the end. I try to keep it where I'm learning something though instead of completely goofing off when I do. The coax was getting easy, but I still like it on there, the mSR feels like a step up, trying to get it's flying as good as the coax during my "goof-off" segments, and I mix up the cp's too so that I can get the basic skills down regardless of heli (as my 450 will almost always fly differently than the sim). Hoping I can get home in the next 3-4 days and get to the park.

It's fun trying tick-tocks on the cps, but man they look ugly right now, lol. Haven't ordered the mcpx yet, gotta make sure I'm there when it arrives.

How do you think the walkera compares to the mcpx? I'm assuming it's cheaper b/c of the brand. Does it have a seperate rx that can be changed out or is it an all-in-one?

[rojack]

All the micro helis have all-in-1 receivers that I am aware of. This includes the Walkera Genius series and the Blade mCPx. Unfortunately this means that you must use the corresponding brand transmitter, and won't be able to change the receiver to work with a different company's Tx.

I haven't flown the mCPx, so I can't speak for it directly, but I've read a lot about it in the forums and watched the videos, and from what I can tell, it is pretty similar to the Walkera offerings. No clear winner between the two, but if you've already got Spektrum, you might as well stick with Blade. Also parts for the Blade are fairly easy to get at the local hobby shop. With Walkera you will be ordering parts online.

[geckgo]

My LHS doesn't stock a lot of heli stuff blade or otherwise atm. I've had him order some 450 parts for me, he said that he would be stocking whatever he has to order, so the more I use him, the better he will get .

I was going to order an mcpx but decided to do a little more looking around and I see that I can get a nine eagles 180 3D w/ tx for about the same price point as the mcpx. It would give me a chance to try another brand and from what I'm reading it's right up there in the way of performance, just need to learn a new tx. The walkeras are a little spendy if I include the tx.

Think I might go solo pro now, plus I like the fact that almost every part on it is made from ABS plastic. Seems like a good choice for durability at that size. Then if I do get a coax for fun later, the 9Es are very inexpensive and I can use that TX.

to be honest, I don't really care much for blade the more I get to know them. If I can get my flying better by next year I'm going to switch to a futaba radio for my 500+ size build, so I've no problem exploring outside of Blade.

[squeky]

Originally Posted by geckgo

It would give me a chance to try another brand and from what I'm reading it's right up there in the way of performance, just need to learn a new tx.

You're learning, the performance aspect should be secondary or less. I don't have experience with the heli you're looking at, but if you compare it to the mCP X, compare it on durability. If you can't put it full speed into the grass and pick it back up to fly again, it's no comparison for a beginner. The value of the mCP X is that you're not crashing and waiting for parts while you're learning. Sure the tail blows out easily, but if you're a beginner and blowing the tail out, you're flying too hard (IMO, of course).

[geckgo]

It's a good point. I'm hearing both sides. TT trouble in grass and other people saying they've crashed it 800 times without changing any parts. I also wonder if flying it "rougher" has anything to do with it, as the less experienced pilots seem to love them and the more experienced guys buy one and it just seems to fall apart on them. Got me wondering how much of a factor flying style is.