I've been using this sim for a few weeks, very impressed with it! My real world RC experience is limited to aircraft, I've never flown a real RC helicopter (except on a practice stand but I don't think that counts
). First, just wondering how accurate the helicopter model is overall. The models certainly look real in flight, judging from what I've seen of real helicopters. Also I am wondering about transitional effects...I've seen people mention it (here and in other forums) not sure what all that means, how well is it modeled in FMS? It's difficult for me to tell what the helicopter is doing when transitioning to forward flight, I'm using a joystick and subtle pitch effects aren't very noticeable (especially with these touchy helicopters).
Also, I've done some inverted helicopter flying (usually ends with the helicopter contacting the ground at a high rate of speed) it would seem that the rotor blade pitch needs to reverse at some point. How is this handled in real helicopters, and in FMS? I assume there's a switch on the tx for this on real helicopters, but does FMS just change it at a certain angle (like vertical)?
One more thing about the helicopters...a lot of helicopters seem to have too much yaw control...like I said, I've never flown a real helicopter, but it doesn't seem possible for the helicopter to yaw as quickly as some of the FMS models do. Is this accurate?
And stalls in fixed-wing aircraft...I noticed today on one plane (an add-on aerobatic plane) the stall feels rather strange...the plane was kinda falling, moving forward some but falling very rapidly. It seemed as though the plane should either dive a little and keep flying, or snap. But it just kinda fell, and aileron control was very limited. But if I applied some power to recover, the plane at one point would seem to change flight model. For instance, if I was holding some aileron deflection, it would barely roll the plane, then suddenly it would go back to the normal roll rate. It seems like the stall is kinda on/off, hard to explain. Are there problems with the stall model? How does FMS handle stalls, does it just change wing lift past a certain AoA?
-Matt Bailey