Starting up? Here are a few tips!

General discussion
1

So, you’re just starting flying helicopters (or simming in general)? Here are a few tips and resources to help you out.

Do you have some tips of your own? Add them below and we’ll make this post as complete as possible for all the newcomers.

This topic will be updated regularly.

Last update: January 04th, 2020

Hardware

As with any other title, the more powerful your computer is, the better.

Having this in mind, you can always get the best graphics card, the best CPU, the biggest drives and you will obviously benefit from that. But there a lot of us (or perhaps most of us) are on a budget.

Here is the minimum recommended hardware that will get you a nice experience overall (on any current sim):

CPU

At least an Intel i7 8700 or similar. I personally have an i7 7700 with good results. More than the amount of cores, you should look into CPU speed. The higher the Ghz, the better. Get, at least a quad core CPU (all the i7 have, at least 4 cores with multi-threading, which simulates 8 cores).

GPU

An nVidia GTX1070 or GTX2070 or similar. If possible, get a GTX1080 or GTX2080. If you really have the budget for it, get yourself a GTX1080Ti or a GTX2080Ti.

I am using a GTX 1660 with good results, even in VR.

RAM

16 GB minimum. I recommend you use 32 GB.

Drives

SSD is the way to go. These drives are much faster than regular HDDs.

You can install a single SSD (1TB minimum) or multiple SSDs or even mix between SSDs and HDDs.

Obviously, the more space you have, the better. You can then install more scenery and other addons.

VR

If you never tried simming with VR, you don’t know what you’re missing!

There are several great VR headsets out there. The HP Reverb has been receiving great critics but the price is a bit steep.
The Oculus Rift S offers the better price/quality ratio right now.

Tips

  1. Practice, practice, practice. This is the #1 rule!
  2. Helicopters are hard. Period. There are no cheats, no shortcuts. Refer to #1
  3. Get some decent hardware and set it properly. It makes a huge difference (ask on the forums for some help)
  4. Ask questions. Tell us what your doubts are. The community is here for you. We’ll do our best to do so!
  5. Be consistent and coherent with your practice. Same airport, same weather conditions, same weight, same helicopter. Once you start dominating the sim, start adding variables
  6. Do practice, practice, practice but don’t focus just on that. Give yourself a break. Don’t burnout. Having fun is a big part of simming. HAVE FUN. But keep practicing!

Recommended links

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5

What you don’t say Sergio, is that heli flying is super addictive. The more you practice, the better you get, the more you want to fly!

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That is true. It happened to me and I get that from a lot of helicopter fans as well.

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If anyone has recently got into (or come back to) flying helicopters and would like to join a multiplayer session for some chilled out tuition/pointers from a fellow simmer (not real pilot!) I would be quite willing to set something up in multiplayer (preferably) DCS or perhaps XP11.
While I’m no expert I have been flying helicopters in flightsim on and off for about 10 years so am at least able to offer a few tips to perhaps help you progress a little quicker.
If there are any takers please reply here, perhaps giving a brief outline of your current level of proficiency and we can take it from there. :+1:

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I remember gettings these links from the old hovercontol website. They might help also to learn about helicopters:

https://man.fas.org/dod-101/sys/ac/docs/poh/

http://www.copters.com/helicopter.html

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