Phoenix Simulator Flight School

[captJac]

If you learning to fly on your own - it's like teaching yourself golf - you whack at it a while and start realizing it harder than you thought. You get to a certain point - can't seem to make any more progress - hit a wall - or in most cases - crash into a wall (over and over again) - and eventually give up. Don't have access to a flying club or an instructor? Don't despair. Help is not only on the way - it is here!!

The Phoenix Simulator Flight School is in it's 2nd year and growing every month! 200 students - probably more - lost track when my computer crashed. How much does it cost? NICHTS - NARDA - ZILCH - its FREE!! No hidden costs. No unhidden costs. I'm just giving back a little what was given to me from some mighty fine people like Finless Bob and having more fun than my red fire truck when I was six!! Here's how it works: Install Phoenix to the latest version - it is 3.0s as of this writing - install Skype for a crystal clear voice connection (it is also free) - we setup a time - plug in our headsets - walk through the settings I use on Phoenix - help you program your transmitter - answer any questions you might have about collective pitch helicopters (we'll be using the Trex-500 Sport for training) - connect to the Phoenix server - and meet out at the flying field! It is 1-on-1 training - the first session is the longest - about 60 minutes. The 2nd session is usually half that time. The 3rd session is up to you as you will be pretty well on your own by that time - other than a quick look over your shoulder and maybe a nudge or two of correction. No - it's not as good as flying the real thing out at a flying club - but it pretty darn good. "Spectator mode" lets me observe every fine detail of your helicopter and your control sticks so I can see what you are doing and provide you feedback so you aren't spending all your time practicing the wrong things and you can be learning the right things really fast. On occasion I'll take the controls - but you will be doing most of the flying and I'll be doing most of the observing. After 1-2 lessons you'll be soloing but I'll be hanging around in the hangar if you want to show me how good you gotten.


My credentials: Credentials?? Being retired and any excuse to fly. I visited 3 flying clubs in Florida to get some hands-on instruction. One of my instructors was Rolando Perez (placed #4 in the IRCHA National Helicopter championships) - way to go Rolando!! Most of the training was spent unlearning what I taught myself. Last year I joined the Ocala Flying club and spent 4 weeks flying my 450's and 500 - life is hard when you retired but somebody has to do it. Teacher wise - I left aerospace engineering and put on a prof hat for 10 years in one of the California State Colleges. Taught computer technology and robotic control (nothing to do with RC helicopters except the electronics) - but if I learned anything about teaching - it was the students usually taught me more than I taught them - and teaching was a lot more fun than learning!! I wrote a beginners heli book on the CX2. Taking Off With RC Helicopters - FAQ's 101. Got a very nice review in Rotorworld magazine - sold a few hundred copies - still selling - to my amazement. More fun writing than reading. Ace pilot I'm not. I'm not even close!! I enjoy scale flying and precision hovering - or at least as precision as I'm able to fly. It's like the old saying goes - those who can't do it - teach it!! So much for my credentials - here's how to get started. The waiting queue is FIFO (first-in-first-out) - 5 steps to spin up.

1st step - send me a PM - or scratch a msg on this post.
2nd step - install Skype and trade Skype names so we can voice connect.
3rd step - walk you through setting up Phoenix for training
4th step - connect on Phoenix.
5th step - training - be prepared to learn a lot and fun a lot - you'll be flying circles around Radd in no time or I'll eat my wings!!

jackclarke
aka captJac

[povern]

What level of flight training can you provide? Things like Piro cicuits, etc?

[Bob O]

Originally Posted by povern

What level of flight training can you provide? Things like Piro cicuits, etc?

These statements:

"Ace pilot I'm not. I'm not even close!! I enjoy scale flying and precision hovering - or at least as precision as I'm able to fly."

"After 1-2 lessons you'll be soloing but I'll be hanging around in the hangar if you want to show me how good you gotten."

make me think a piro circuit would be far beyond what his flight school was intended to provide. I think his intent is to get a person to hover a CP heli and maybe do some FF.

Maybe I'm wrong. Best of luck with it, Jack.

[captJac]

You are exactly right Bob - the flight school provides training in basic control - hovering 360 degrees - 2 feet off the ground - where you can see and feel every single movement - take off - landings - slow flying (SCALE) - patterns - coordinated banked turns - circles and 8's.

[Col789]

May I ask which time zone you in or what times you are avaliable?

Thanks

[captJac]

I am American living in Germany. Time zone is CET (Central European Time). Do most of the trainings M-F evenings - 2030 CET - contingent on upper command (my wife) and list of honey-dews. Honey dew this and honey dew that.

[Col789]

Oh, I am only an hour behind you, I might have to sort out some free time, and skype, I know I could use some assistance with winning this argument I've been having with gravity.

[WillJames]

You guys should fly with Jack if you are learning. He IS the real deal and is there to help you.

[captJac]

Helicopters are unstable and require constant input. When hovering near the ground and doing precision flying you see every small movement. 20 feet in the air it is still rocking and rolling the same amount - you just can't see it. There is a deep divide in opinion as to the right way to fly because there is no right way - it depends on how you want to fly. Lifting off the ground at an inch/sec and keeping your aircraft absolutely stable is a whole lot harder than rocketing into the air and zipping around - maybe not as much fun though. The payoff of training near the ground is developing a feel for the sticks and the control and the response and the timing. Timing is the difference between stable and all over the place. If your input is too late (reactive) - the error you are trying to correct gets worse. If your input to the sticks is too early (predictive) - the error you are trying to correct gets worse. The input has to be dead-nuts - not too soon and not too late. It is an instinctive feel - not cognitive. You have to be 100% concentrated and focused on your helicopter - not on your fingers. The brain is way too slow to process each movement - it must be automatic - and that is what muscle memory training is all about. It requires hours and hours of repetition and practice. No different than learning to play a piano or guitar or any other musical instrument. This is not to discourage - rather it is to encourage - to keep practicing. The more you practice the better you will get. Progress is slow - muscle memory does not learn because you want it to. It will learn at its own rate and its own pace - you can't hurry it. The question that students always ask - how much time does it take? The answer is as much as it needs. Maybe 3 months - maybe 6 months - maybe more. It is a very individual - there is no typical. It took 2 years of continuous practice on Phoenix before my muscle memory finally started learning. Talk about retarded!! Learning is a strange but wonderful beast. You want more than anything to learn - you practice like crazy - you progress then you regress and progress and regress. You give up - you try again - and again and again. Can you learn on your own? Of course. Anyone can. The problem is what are you learning? How do you know when you are making a mistake - other than crashing? You try to correct your mistakes but what are your mistakes? Are you practicing your mistakes? Every one knows when you learn to fly full scale aircraft you have to have an instructor. You buy the farm otherwise. Only difference in RC aircraft is you outside looking in - instead of inside looking out - and outside looking in is a whole lot safer. Not necessarily easier though - in fact RC helicopters are more difficult to fly than full scale. A whole lot cheaper too. Hour instruction in a Robinson R22 is about $400. Before continuing on your own - consider getting some personal instruction. You will be amazed the difference it makes.

captJac

[Ron34238]

capJack:

How late in the evening do you typically train? I'm in the U.S. so I know there's about a 6 hour time zone difference between us.

Thanks,

[captJac]

Hi Ron - typically I start 8:30 pm (CET) - 2:30 in the afternoon for Florida. The first training usually last 90-120 minutes - I seldom do more than one of those a day. On occasion I'll do a weekend training but that is contingent with the base commander (my wife).

[charlie_fd]

Hi captJac,

I would appreciate if you could give me some hints and steer me on the right learning/practicing track.

I've been playing with rc helis for 2 years now (coaxials) and got my first single rotor collective pitch a bit over a year ago (an eflite blade 400). Rebuilt it 3 times already (bought it broken, than after an accident during blade tracking and finally after my first real attempt to hover it).

After taming the controlls on my DX6i I can hover it (in phoenix-sim) tail-in and leftside (45-90 degrees). Other stances are getting me confused fast. Hovering stability setting of 95% for this model (default) is considered on many forums as unrealistically difficult - consensus being that 110% is more like the real bird. I can keep the heli in one piece and mostly in the same 10 sq metters at 95% and i can keep it almost in one spot at 110%.

If feel like I'm stuck at this level and I'm afraid to try it on the real thing yet. If you could spare some of your time please let me know when it's more convenient for you. I'm living in Copenhagen now so we should be in the same time-zone.

Adrian

[captJac]

Hi Adrian - glad to help - check your msg box.

[captJac]

Tail-in hovering. Your hovering is only as good as your lift-off. Practice lifting off without any rolling by using a tad of right aileron BEFORE taking off and neutralize immediately when you are off the ground. This is harder to do on the simulator because of the very narrow window - too little it rolls to the left - too much it rolls to the right. In the real world it is a lot easier - but just as effective. In the demo video keep an eye on the cyclic stick.

Hovering tail-in.wmv (1 min 35 sec)

The more stable your heli the less correction is required but you are still moving those sticks constantly - left - right - forward - backward - even when you are hovering. Hint: The cycle is hardly ever held in any one position and almost always returning to neutral position. Clicking on the full-page arrows on the bottom-right of the video makes it a little easier to see. The fingers are doing the work - not the brain.

[red6hat]

Hi All,

I just had my first lesson with Jack and it was awesome: Thank you very much Jack...boy oh boy do I have a lot to learn :-)....all this time I was just hovering around without truly understanding what I was doing; you made it very clear with some of the basics (important concepts that we take for granted - which normally translates to bad habits). I must say I could not believe that I actually flew for the first time (during the "let's have some fun session" ) this was awesome

Well I have got some work to do now and will keep you in loop on how I progress...Really looking forward to my next lesson....you the man (thank you for all your time and effort and your willingness to help us..may you be rewarded a hundred fold for your kindness :


AND NOW I NEED A BEER

[charlie_fd]

Allow me to join the praise chorus and report on my first lesson with the Captain: Thank you Jack!

After using the sim for about a year (on and off) it was obvious I was missing “something”: a piece of information, a bigger brain or better muscles in my fingers, calcium … I don’t know. What I know is that I had hit a wall with the training and there was no progress for a long time. Info on the internet can be quite confusing with different people preaching different schools of thought when it comes to rc heli: thumb it or pinch it, use the training gear / don’t, start with linear curves / use the expo, everybody can learn/ you need to be born with it , etc …

Experience tells me that usually there is more than one truth and more important than the method is having a method and sticking to it. I checked out several “tutorials” out there and decided that either of those could probably work for me if I kept practicing the same one in unchanging conditions (settings in the transmitter, response from the heli) and I could get some feedback on my mistakes. So, it had to be a good/realistic simulator and I had to find myself a teacher!

My first lesson with captJac was more than I could have hoped for: I was presented with a tried-and-true set of “beginner” settings, walked through implementing them, got concise explanations regarding the effect of these settings and the physics behind them… I was taken methodically through all the steps and had to actually describe in words what I thought I have learned already about flying an RC heli: that’s how I confirmed some and corrected some of the things I thought I knew. For instance my eyes opened wide upon understanding for the first time the actual difference between heading hold and rate modes of the gyro and how it translates in the way the heli performs.

There are so many more ways this hour and a half with Jack on the Phoenix simulator helped me but I’ll stop here before this post becomes unbearably long. I would probably report back after my second lesson though

[captJac]

My goal of teaching is to facilitate the learning process. I very much appreciate the feedback and comments to help me fine-tune this process. It is my privilege and honor to be part of that learning. If I can contribute even a fraction of training in comparison to what Finless Bob has given to all of us I shall be grateful. Simulators are so much more than simulators for developing the skills and reflexes and muscle memory required to fly RC helicopters. Learning on your own is difficult - I learned this after more crashes than I can remember. The Phoenix simulator was a BIG step in realizing how difficult it was but I was still crashing because I didn't know where I was making my mistakes and I was practicing my mistakes. I nearly gave it up - gave me up - as a lost cause. The turning point was getting some hands-on instruction from some mighty fine people. I will always be indebted to Rolando Perez in the Bay City Flying Club and Brian Allen at the Ocala Flying Club - not only the most incredible pilots I have ever seen - but the most patient and giving and kind you could meet.

[charlie_fd]

It's been a few days since my first lesson. I don't have the time to spend hours on the seem each day but I have practiced 15 min to half an hour each day:
- takeoffs as straight and as smooth as possible
- tentative hoovering
- smooth landings
- pinching instead of thumbs

The last one was the hardest: it felt weird and uncomfortable at first, now it's less so. In fact my control on the throttle improved considerably while pinching the cyclic is still strange. My main concern with this issue is that I will not be able to use the remote in the field: I'm using it on the table now and I have tried to pinch while the remote control is on a neck strap and ... I cannot stabilize the remote and pinch in the same time ...

Landings and takeoffs are fine. I correct a bit late or just a tad early at times but still in control.

With hoovering I still have much to train. I can keep the heli in a lot less space than ibefore and for a lot longer though. Sooner or letter the heli will start running from me and I will become reactive and fight it: some times getting back into a more-or-less stable hoovering some times giving up and having to land.

With capt. Jack's settings my feeling is that the cyclic is "numb" at the center, and I have to force myself to use larger movements. Perhaps a little less expo would help? Or is it better to get used to this?

I'll stop chatting about it now and get back to the sim

[spartanleper]

I can hover in pretty much any situation apart from nose in,my problem is transferring to forward flight and circuits.I dont want to learn 3d as I want to fly scale or semi scale.
Do you think you would be able to help Jack??
Thanks
Dave R

[Primeval]

I had my first lesson with Jack several weeks ago,he is friendly,patient,helpful,and knowledgeable.Haven't had as much time to practice since then as I'd like but I will soon. I think it's great the way he helps others learn. Paying it forward if you will. Kudo's to you I can't wait till I can get enough practice in to continue further with lessons from him. Thanks Jack!