For a new helicopter pilot, flight simulators might possibly join the category of developments such as the "rate gyro". Contributions to the industry that truly make learning to fly an R/C helicopter easier.
If you are new to model helicopters, I strongly suggest that you look into purchasing a simulator from the standpoint that it will pay for itself in a short period of time. In just a few prevented crashes, you can easily accumulate the cost of the simulator. After you learn basic hovering, (without crashing) the flight simulator continues to be a valuable tool for learning "nose-in" and "forward flight".
While you can get your feet wet with aerobatics, you will find that all flight simulators begin to reach their limitations when it comes to practicing FAI pattern and aerobatics. While there are exceptions to every case, most pilots find that the two dimensional flat screen and the limited perspective area, combined with the lack of "real life" occurrences that happen at the field, all contribute to making FAI pattern and aerobatics something that you have to physically accomplish with the real thing.
Aerochopper is no new company to the R/C Industry, as a matter of fact their first simulator was released in 1988. Even though I'm not an avid simulator flyer, my association with "Aerochopper" goes back a few years. My fascination with simulators, is from an electronic stand point. The very fact that a personal computer could simulate something so complex as a model helicopter is incredible in itself. I have had the privilege of working with Mr. David Stern of Aerochopper all the way back when his system worked on only Atari ST, Apple SE/+/Classic and Commodore Amiga computers. (I owned an Amiga). On each new revision, Dave would forward a "Beta" version for review and a few suggestions.
While the Aerochopper was state-of-the-art back then, not until the release of the IBM / PC compatible version, did the Industry have an opportunity to really try the Aerochopper. Finally, anyone with an IBM/PC compatible could take advantage of the work that went into the Ambrosia system.
From a cosmetic standpoint combined with the feel of the real thing, Aerochopper rates right at the top since their transmitter is manufactured and packaged by the Futaba Corporation. The system comes with a Conquest transmitter, complete with the same stick gimbals and even a Futaba insignia. The Aerochopper transmitter includes an internal 8-bit analog to digital converter with a serial interface for smooth stick response. Another plus is the Aerochopper offers "plug-in" capability, there's no game board required. Just plug the supplied interface cable into the serial port, install the software, and the system is up and running.
After initialization, the first main menu page is displayed. To begin flying your helicopter, push the left mouse button once and you're in control of your model. You can return to the main menu anytime by pressing the "M" key. It is here in the main menu that you may select helicopters, airplanes or a demonstration mode. Additionally, the main menu is where you may look over the existing default parameters. This menu allows you to modify the parameters to get your "electronic heli" to fly somewhat similar to your real model. Essentially, you have the ability to build your ultimate "dream machine" with an unlimited amount of control parameters. Parameters which we'll go over later in this article. In my opinion, if there's one feature that truly shows the sophistication of the Aerochopper, it is the fact that you even have the capability to program an occasional "radio glitch". Yes, it's in the menu also.
As you enter the flight mode, your helicopter will appear in front of you pointed in a north direction. The view is as if you were looking through a camera at eye level, that is approximately 5 feet off the ground. If your helicopter moves too close to the edge of the screen, the "camera" will follow the aircraft so that you can not fly off the screen. The view is from the R/C pilots point-of-view in the center of a circular flying field. If you fly around yourself, you will see the background go by as the camera follows the aircraft. If you fly towards the screen, you will see the aircraft approaching until it passes, the camera will then move 180 degrees to follow the aircraft.
Initial Control Setup
The Aerochopper controls default to Mode 2. For those readers who are new to helicopters, the left stick controls power and tail rotor. By moving the left stick to the left and right controls the tail rotor pitch and therefore causes the helicopter to yaw left and right. Moving the left stick forward increases the engine power and the collective pitch, therefore increasing the lift. The right joystick controls the cyclic pitch. Moving the right stick causes the helicopter to tilt in the direction the stick is moved. To hover, just like the real model, you control altitude with the throttle control and the direction the nose is pointing, with the tail rotor control. The position of the helicopter in the screen in front of you, is controlled by the cyclic control. Controlled hovering requires the coordinated movement of both sticks and will require practice just like the real model. To successfully land the helicopter, you'll find that the horizontal speed must be less than 4 mph, and the the rate of descent must be less than 4 mph. The main difference, other than the fact the model is flown on a screen, is when you contact the ground there are no parts to buy. As you hit the ground, your forward and vertical speed is displayed as a reference to just how good you can crash.
To transition from a hover to forward flight, push forward on the right stick. The helicopter will tilt forward and take off. Because part of the lift is now directed forward, two things will happen. The first is that the helicopter will start to lose altitude so you should increase the throttle slightly. The second is that the helicopter will start to move forward. As the horizontal speed increases, the helicopter will then experience an increase in lift due to the increased airflow through the rotor. The throttle should then be adjusted to maintain the desired altitude.
Once you are in the air, the screen model feels realistic. To initiate a turn you simply add right or left roll (aileron) and a small amount of tail rotor. Elevator back pressure will be required to maintain altitude during a banked turn. To transition from forward flight back to a hover, pull back on the elevator to slow down and reduce the throttle to keep from climbing. As expected, the Aerochopper helicopter is capable of performing aerobatic maneuvers, to include the Mas Technique of switchless inverted flight.
Helicopter Idle Up
When Aerochopper is in the idle-up mode, the rotor rpm remains constant at all throttle settings and the throttle control changes the collective pitch. The collective pitch range is adjustable for aerobatics and switchless inverted flying. Since rotor rpm remains constant, you retain cyclic control at low throttle settings. Aerochopper does offer a "switched inverted flight" feature should you desire.
If you like, you may select a "scenario" model and modify it to your liking. These parameters can be displayed and modified using the menus. After you have created a custom parameter, set by changing some or all of the current menu parameters, you may save them on disk. This is accomplished with the "Store Parameters on Disk" command located on the main menu page. The "Write Parameters to Disk" screen will appear. You can change the disk file suffix from 000 to any three digit number to create a unique file name. To recall a block of parameters from disk and replace the current in-use parameters with them, you execute the "Read Parameters From Disk" command on the main menu page.
Aerochopper also provides a "Flight Parameter Display". This feature provides the display of flight parameters at the bottom of the screen while in the flight mode. By pushing "F7" on the keyboard - ground speed, airspeed, climb speed, altitude, and distance are displayed.

Camera Position
The video display is as if the scene were being viewed through a camera and displayed on a television. The camera height is set to eye level, about 5 feet. The camera height is adjustable either by changing the value of the camera height parameter in the miscellaneous menu or by pushing the up and down "arrow" keys on the keyboard. The camera height range may be varied from 0 to over 700 feet.
Camera Control Modes
Aerochopper uses four methods of controlling camera movement; two automatic modes and two manual modes.
Standard Automatic Mode - The system always starts in an automatic mode that will not move the camera unless the aircraft gets near the edge of the screen. In that case, the camera will move just enough to keep the aircraft on the screen. While in this mode you can not fly off the screen because no matter where you fly, the camera will always follow the aircraft. As the camera moves, you can see the background objects move past you.
Centered Automatic Mode -The second automatic camera control mode is entered by pushing "F10". In this mode the camera moves to keep the aircraft perfectly centered on the screen. Therefore as the aircraft flies past, only the background moves. The aircraft changes size as the distance changes but always stays in the center of the screen. It is as if a perfect "cameraman" were operating the camera.
Fixed Mode - The third camera control mode is entered by pushing "F10" again. Now the camera is pointed in a fixed direction. This direction is determined by the camera height and the initial position of the aircraft specified in the miscellaneous menu. In this mode you can fly out of the field-of-view of the screen. Good luck getting it back!
Mouse Control Mode - When you are in the fixed camera mode, "F9" turns on the mouse control of the camera. Moving the mouse forward points the camera down and moving the mouse back points the camera up. Moving the mouse to the right starts moving the camera to the right and moving the mouse to the left stops right movement and starts left movement. Push the left mouse button to instantly stop all camera movement. By pushing "F9" a second time, turns off the mouse control of camera.
yutwo transmitter buttons from their bomb drop and missile fire function into pitch trim adjustment controls. The right transmitter button trims pitch up and the left transmitter button trims pitch down. The longer the button is held down the more the trim is changed. In a similar manner the two transmitter buttons can be used to adjust roll trim (push "R"), yaw trim (push "Y"), and power or engine trim (push "E").
Control Centering
Pushing "Z" on the keyboard will zero the controls. The system assumes that the position the controls are in when "Z" is pushed is the center position.
Control Glitches
In the control glitch menu, you can cause randomly occurring glitches in each control. In the control menus there are 4 parameters for each of the four controls that are used to specify the glitch characteristics. For example, the following explanation applies to glitches to the roll control input. A "roll instability frequency" of 0 will result in no roll glitches occurring. Increasing the value of this parameter will increase the glitch occurrence frequency for roll input. The value of "roll instability increment" defines the intensity of a glitch when it occurs. The value of "roll instability max" limits the total amount of change to roll due to control instability. For example, if the roll stick is in a position to cause a roll value of 300, and a glitch of +100 occurs, the roll value changes to 400. If the next glitch is +100 the roll value goes to 500 with the total addition due to instability now +200. If the "roll instability max" is 225 and another +100 glitch occurs, the roll would go to 525 which is the joystick value of 300 plus the maximum allowable instability of 225. Glitches have a 50% chance of being positive or negative. The "roll instability duration" defines the number of frames each glitch lasts.
Wind
When you enter the flight mode, the wind feature is off. To turn on the wind push "W". A second push of "W" turns the wind off. The wind is also turned off when you return to the menu by pushing "M". The wind conditions that are turned on are defined by wind parameters in the menu. Wind is simulated as the combination of six components - steady wind, wind speed variability, wind direction variability, turbulence, gusts, and thermal.
These components may be individually defined by changing wind menu parameters. These wind components can be enabled individually or in any combination.
Steady Wind
The first two wind parameters are set to describe a steady wind. For example, by setting the "Wind Base Speed" to 25 and the "Wind Base Direction" to 90, results in a constant speed wind of 25 mph blowing from a constant direction of 90 degrees.
Wind Speed Variability
The steady wind, can be changed into a variable speed wind by setting the five other parameters in the wind menus. As an example, by setting the following parameters; Wind Base Speed 25, Wind Base Direction 90, Wind Speed Change Freq 500, Wind Speed Range 30, Wind Rate of Change 5, Wind Duration Max 12, Wind Duration Min 2, will result in the following;
Initially a 25 mph wind will blow out of the east. The wind speed change frequency of 500 will cause a change in speed to be started relatively frequently although at random times. A wind speed range of 30 mph means that when a wind speed change occurs, the total change to the wind speed will be a randomly selected value between -15 and +15 mph. A wind rate of change of 5 mph/sec specifies that during a wind speed change the speed will change at a rate of approximately 5 mph per second (a value between .5 to 2 times the menu value is chosen). The wind duration max. and min. set a range for how long the wind will stay at its changed speed before returning to its steady value.
Wind Direction Variability
The following is an example of direction variability. Assume that the "Wind Base Direction" is 225 and the direction variability parameters are as follows; Direction Change Frequency 325, Direction Change Range 50, Direction Ch Duration Max 20, Direction Ch Duration Min 4. These settings will result in a wind that is blowing from the southwest at 225 degrees. After a few seconds, a direction change starts. The wind direction shifts from 225 degrees to 205 degrees and then back to 225 degrees in 11 seconds. The maximum amount of change is -20 degrees which is within the menu defined range of 50 degrees (+25 to -25). The length of time the change takes (11 seconds) is within the allowable range, between 4 and 20 seconds. A few seconds later the direction changes from 225 degrees to 247 degrees and then back to 225 degrees over 5 seconds, etc.
Turbulence
Turbulence is short bursts of wind from any random direction that increase from 0 to a peak speed and then back to 0 anywhere in a time frame of .2 to 1.5 seconds. For example, the following values of; Turbulence Frequency 1550, Turbulence Peak Vel Max 20, Turbulence Peak Vel Min 10, will result in the following - a frequency of 1550 will cause more than one burst per second. Each burst of turbulence will start at 0 mph, increase to a peak speed of between 10 and 20 mph, and decrease back to 0 mph. Each burst will blow from a random direction.
Gusts
A gust is a burst of wind that starts at 0 mph, increases to a peak speed, and then decreases back to 0 mph. Each gusts direction, duration, and peak speed are randomly chosen from within the limits specified by the gust menu parameters. For example, consider the following values for gust parameters - Gust Frequency 300, Gust Peak Velocity Max 30, Gust Peak Velocity Min 10, Gust Direction Max 300, Gust Direction Min 90, Gust Duration Max 20, Gust Duration Min 2.
A Gust Frequency of 300 will cause a gust to start every few seconds. Each gust will attain a peak speed of between 10 and 30 mph. Its direction will be between 90 degrees and 300 degrees, and will remain constant throughout one gust. Each gust will last from between 2 and 20 seconds. It is possible to have a second gust start while one gust is still in progress if turbulence is turned off. The probability of this is increased with increased gust frequency.

CONCLUSION
If there was one thing I could change, it would only be accessing the parameter menus. If you don't use a mouse, (most do not since they have a transmitter in their hand) it requires 8 down arrows to reach the heli menu and then 8 more to reach the paging menu in the parameter menu. If you're in the heli mode, the cursor should default to the heli menu and then to the "Next Page", to speed things up.
As you can easily see Aerochopper is possibly one of the most sophisticated simulators on the market. Ambrosia just released software version 2.0, which I have covered in some of the parameter menus. The new version includes a Jet Ranger and Concept 30 SR, as well as new scenarios, sceneries and some improvements in the appearance of the rotor disk. There is also support for a Soundblaster board. The sound is great, and there is a variety to select from, even a "no muffler" option in case you dislike your neighbors. We found the hobby shop and street price of Aerochopper at around $199.00. If you're a newcomer to R/C helicopters, Aerochopper could be one of your best investments. MIKE MAS