Flying your shiny new radio controlled helicopter is not as simple as you might think and you will need some RC helicopter training if you have just purchased your first model for some serious flying. Just follow some of these tips and you'll avoid a great deal of unwanted and expensive crashes! Here you will see listed the essential beginning steps to flying using a simulator.

Number one rule, even if you are using a simulator, do try not to let the helicopter 'hit' you! It hurts and in reality it can be expensive. Try not to let the image on your screen get too far away as if you mirror this in real life, you may never see it again and it's not easy to keep it close to you so do be conscious of this fact and practice.

Make sure you rehearse landing the helicopter exactly where you want it to be. Just landing it is not enough, see if you can get it to face the way you want. Try flying with all the trims slightly off centre and then try randomly adjusting the trims to get used to doing it, then do it again. May sound silly, but move all the sticks like you've lost the plot until your radio controlled helicopter looks precarious and then level it out as quickly as possible.

Round two, turn the wind up to 10mph and do it all again. Round three, turn up the turbulence by 10mph and do it all again!

I do hope you're not bored yet and can contain yourself from running outside to try this for real. It really is quite important to master the RC Helicopter Training simulator first. OK, so now practice flying from left to right back and forth, then practice flying in and out without hitting or flying over your virtual self.

The auto rotations in the RC helicopter training simulator are way too easy. Don't rely on this practice to help you in a real event. To help you get close to the difficulty of a real auto-rotation, go into whichever configuration screen has "blade drag ratio" and double it. I think it's at .22 by default, set it higher to at least .44.

If you haven't already, then now is the time to experiment with a few loops and rolls.

During RC helicopter training there are a few unexpected events that may occur other than those listed here, so be prepared. OK, you can now go outside, find a nice big field and try flying your radio controlled helicopter for real. Finally, go enjoy yourself!