Virtual Surgery

I finally got a chance to sit down and get some simulator time for myself now that flying season has mostly migrated to indoors. I had decided that I had a taste of flying R/C planes and just got to a point where I really wanted to get more time behind a heli. I don’t own a heli, but they have always been a point of interest since they seem to be a little more difficult to pilot than planes. Granted, it isn’t like the R/C planes weren’t giving me enough of a challenge. However, I had planned to have a double counter rotating prop heli come in the mail soon and so I thought I would give it a go.
At first, I had no idea which direction I was going in. There were times it seemed that no matter which direction I gave the radio control the heli seemed to continue going in the same direction until it crashed. Soon, though, I managed to get the helicopter to just hover a few virtual feet off the ground. This was the perfect way to do gradual adjustments and see how they effected the orientation of the helicopter. Once I could tell my back from my front, I seemed to manage baby steps in directed movement.
At this point, I decided to challenge myself and see if I could land on one of the virtual tables in the simulator next to the other model helicopter that sat there. It took me maybe 20 minutes, but I finally managed to figure out the depth perception enough to land on the table. I was ecstatic! This was the coolest thing ever. Flying an R/C plane was fun, but this was precision. It was like surgery… except my scalpel was a whirling set of blades that were all trying to fly away from each other as fast as possible. After the table, I landed on the hood of the virtual truck in the parking lot. I’d never get a chance to do that to a real car, so I figured this was the perfect time to do it. I must say, after making that precise of a landing I think I might be more hooked on heli’s at this point than I am R/C planes.

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