| Has anyone tried FSM yet?
Has anyone tried that free flight sim FSM that I mentioned?
I've spent a few hours on it over the past couple of days now - and I think it's helping to develop the reflexes.
(In a real helicopter, upwards of 10 hours are spent learning how to hover, until one stops "thinking" about it and begins to do it naturally. People ask me, "Is it difficult to learn to fly helicopters?" I answer, "Is it difficult to walk? Yes, very difficult if you think of the fine balancing act we're doing all the time, like a snooker cue on the end of the finger - but we learned to do it as children and now it's automatic. It's the same with flying a helicopter.")
And I say the same thing goes for flying model helis too: it has to become "natural" - you need to be able to do it without thinking about it. If you think, you run the risk of crashing.
The simulator will help to embed the muscle memory.
I personally think the Hughes model in FSM is very unforgiving in landing - I know the Shuttle is a damn site lot easier. And of course with the SIM you don't get a 3D image, just perspective, which adds to the difficulty.
I'm confident (although I wait to see!!) that my flying in the real helicopter will be much better because of the practice I've put into the simulator.  | 
04-12-2003, 11:49 AM
