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Question: Are rc helicopters like video games?

(Posted by: ジョジ（George） on 2010-03-10 11:15:18)

Ok how do you control real RC Helicopters? Is it like a video game? I've heard it takes a long time to get used to...

Posted by: civil_av8r on 2010-03-10, 15:28:29

Video games are a decent starting point for learning the basics of helicopters. I love playing with the helicopters in Battlefield games. The video games, however, do make the helicopters a lot easier to control by usually making them a lot more stable, easier to hover, able to maintain altitude without input, and don't take into account torque effects. With a r/ c model the left stick usually controls the throttle/ blade pitch and rudder. The right stick is for aircraft pitch and roll. On 3-D birds you can flip a switch and hold the throttle at a certain position then the throttle stick controls only the pitch of the blades. If the blades are setup for negative pitch then you can do inverted tricks. If you are looking into r/ c helicopters I would recommend starting with a simple electric bird horizonhobby.com/ Products/ Default.aspx?ProdID= EFLH3000 This one costs about $160 and comes with everything you need. Stay away from coaxial birds, the ones without rudders, because they usually fly like crap. This one is good for learning the basics of heli flight. What you would want to do is learn hovering first. Keep the tail pointed at you and fly it no higher than your belt. Just practice maintaining a hover. If it gets out of control, land it and start over. Do this for about a week non stop. After you learn hovering, start learning how to move it forward, backwards, stopping, side to side, and spinning it with the rudder. You may even want to try hovering it with the nose pointed at you. Go slow too. Do this for a week non stop. Next start doing figure 8's well above your head. This will teach you how to turn while banking with the rudder and teach you how to control the birds while it is flying at you too (controls become reversed). Once you've mastered basic flying of a heli you can move up to more complicated 3-D birds. I can't stress this enough, if you're considering flying r/ c helis, to start with a cheap bird. You don't want to go out and buy a $500 3-D electric or spend $1500 on a gas powered bird and crash it beyond repairs on your first flight.

Posted by: Josh on 2010-03-10, 11:17:16

Yes but much more difficult and realistic. In a video game, you cant have very specific details such as what effect that certain speeds of wind is or an unbalanced rc.

Posted by: Steve on 2010-03-10, 11:18:35

I just purchased this one ------- > cgi.ebay.com/ NEW-YIBOO-Mini-COBRA-Helicopter-Ages-8-Infrared_W0QQitemZ370344673532QQcmdZViewItemQQptZRadio_Control_Vehicles?hash= item563a4340fc and REALLY enjoy it. It's also durable and cheap! I'm no sales rep for the company, this is just my personal experience.

Posted by: sween d on 2010-03-10, 11:34:36

In no way are they like video games except the control method. RC heli's are way more complicated, you have to adjust your trims all the time and have to take into account wind. Where in a video game they fly good most of the time and from what I have seen, wind doesn't play that much of a part and if you crash it you just hit reset.