VRFW 008: VR Flight Sim in a helicopter – Interview with Sérgio Costa

John Melley: Welcome to the VR Flight World Podcast! The place where flight training and your home office collide. Get tips, tricks, and in depth interviews about flight training, virtual reality, and flight simulation, with your host Dan Caston.Dan Caston: Hey everyone and welcome to the VR Flight world podcast, this is episode number eight. Today we’re going to be interviewing Sergio Costa, who is the owner of Helisimmer.com. He is very knowledgeable when it comes to flight sim specifically when it comes to flying a helicopter. I’m sure you guys are gonna get some great information from him, so stay tuned, we’re gonna be talking about VR, we’re gonna be talking about helicopters, and just flight sim in general, so here we go!
So hey Sergio! Welcome to the VR Flight World Podcast! Glad to have you here.Sérgio Costa: Thank you, and thank you for having me here.Dan Caston: Yeah no worries, we are really excited to have you here. I know you have a ton of experience with helicopters and flight sim in general. So do you mind just giving the audience a quick overview on what got you into flight sim and helicopters?Sérgio Costa: Yeah, yeah, sure thing. Well, I think there’s this thing that all of us who are in flight simulation have which is a huge passion for aviation. Right, so, I don’t know anyone that’s about flight simulation that doesn’t have a huge passion for real [inaudible 00:01:23] aviation. And that’s something that obviously I share with the rest of the community. I started having contact with aviation as soon as my brother was in the Air Force.
I was kind of thinking about joining the Air Force as well, but then I got interested with other things, and I kind of side tracked and started working with computers, but back in, I don’t know, ’94 perhaps, I started looking at flight simulation as something that could be very exciting for me. And so I started playing with Microsoft Flight Simulation. And from there, my passion for the hobby just grew and grew.
And back in, I don’t know, perhaps 2000, 2002, something like that, I started looking at helicopters. So, everybody likes to fly airliners, everybody likes to fly the jet fighters, everybody likes that kind of stuff, but I was in flight simulation for so long, that I was looking for a new challenge. I was already flying airliners for quite some time. I was already flying general aviation for quite some time. Not exactly, I wasn’t exactly giving the best use to my flight sim, I was just flying around like crazy and doing, you know, funny stuff, and low flights, low passes, and what not. And back in 2000 or 2002 or something like that, I started looking at helicopters as another challenge.
And that was actually what kind of kicked in something in me that, you know, brought me to actually want to learn more about flight simulation, want to learn more about how actual flying works. How pilots use procedures to get from point A to point B. I started learning about navigation, about patterns, about everything that usually pilots start to learn, I started learning much later down my flight simulation experience. I found a website called OverControl.com, which still exists but it’s very, I wouldn’t say it’s bad but it’s pretty much stopped right now, and so I learned a lot with the community, and with everybody that was around OverControl and the helicopter flight simulation.
And back in 2006, 2007, I launched a PDF magazine called Rotorwash Magazine, which was an awful amount of work. Having to lay out everything, all the information, trying to get the articles and the reviews and a plethora of things from the guys that were helping me, and eventually the project ended up dying. But my passion for helicopters kept on going. And two years ago, I decided to start and launch HeliSimmer.com, which is my website, and basically give back to the community everything that the community has been giving me for the last twenty plus years.
So that’s pretty much my road down the flight sim.

Dan Caston: Yeah, wow, that’s quite impressive. You started in ’94? Is that where you got your aviation passion? That’s cool.

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, well, in ’94 I was eighteen years old. But my passion for aviation has began much much earlier, with my brother.

Dan Caston: Oh okay, what was your first sim you were using?

Sérgio Costa: My first one? I think it was FS, Flight Simulator 4? Or something? And it was actually at my friend’s house, they didn’t have a computer back then. But I managed to get to purchase a copy of Flight Simulator, of FS4, from a guy that was abandoning flight simulation. He didn’t like it, it was just, you know, back then too much of a hassle for him. He wanted something simpler, and we look back, FS4 wasn’t actually that much complex, but he wanted something more simple and just shoot down stuff and so he was selling a copy of FS4.
I bought it, and brought it to a friend of mine, and told him that I had this amazingly cool game, and the guy fell asleep while I was trying a flight sim so, yeah. I don’t think he liked it that much, but I loved it. I was completely hooked. I was completely hooked.

Dan Caston: Yeah, for sure. So, what kind of system are you now running?

Sérgio Costa: I have an Intel i7 7700, not the K, the regular one that’s not overclocked, and NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX1060 which is the very bare minimum for you to be able to use VR, so I advise you guys to get a 1070 at least, but the 1060 allows you to get VR. Sixteen gigabytes of RAM, then I have 256 gigabyte SSD, and it’s terabyte hard drive. Oh, and the HTC Vive of course.

Dan Caston: Right. And what, is that the six gigabyte 1060, or the three, I think they made two.

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, they made two, they made the three and the six, it’s the six one, yeah.

Dan Caston: Right. That’s actually the same one I have now too, so, and I always recommend probably a 1070. Because I could run VR right now, but, if things… Because every few weeks, things are improving, and it’s always getting harder on the system, so I’m always saying, you probably wanna go with 1070 or, if you can afford it 1080.

Sérgio Costa: Definitely. Definitely. Yeah the 1060 was, for me, was a compromise. I used to have an old laptop, so I had to buy an older system. And you know, things are not actually cheap, right, so I had to compromise and to get a good CPU, to get a good motherboard, to get you know, the SSD and what not, I had to compromise with the graphics card.
And, I’m not sorry that I bought it. It’s like this investment that you know that, eventually you are going to have to re-do in the future. But it’s keeping me, it’s allowing me to use VR and to use my sim so far so, I’m happy right now.

Dan Caston: Yeah, same here. So, with your equipment, you said you have the Vive. What else do you have for equipment, like, what kind of flight controls and that kind of thing?

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, I’m sorry, I forgot the flight controls! I use dedicated helicopter flight simulation controls. I use the Pro Flight Trainer Puma, which is a kit that replicates helicopter controls. So it has a collective with throttle, it has the pedals, that do not center, they are like inverted L’s, like in the Bell 206, and everything is positioned the same way that is in a real helicopter.

Dan Caston: Okay, nice. And those are, you said, Pro Flight from Puma?

Sérgio Costa: The model is Puma and the manufacturer, actually, the manufacturer is a Canadian company. I know you’re Canadian, so, those guys are from your neck of the woods. The company is called Pro Flight Trainer.

Dan Caston: I’m kind of jumping ahead here, but is there other flight controls that are available for helicopters? Or is it pretty limited?

Sérgio Costa: Well, there are other manufacturers. There’s Komodo Systems in the UK, there’s Max Flight Stick from, this is a guy from Hong Kong, and then you have more professional line of controls from a guy from Australia called Chris Ryan, and his company’s called Ryan Aerospace.
Now there’s a problem that these manufacturers have, and people complain and people are right. These controls are really, really expensive. The Pro Flight Trainer Puma, the kit that I use, is one of the cheaper out there. I’m not coming with another one, I actually don’t remember the name to be honest, but it’s one made of plastic, old plastic, and the one I have is made out of metal, but the Pro Flight Trainer Puma is one of the cheapest kits that you have.
And we’re talking about $1200. Okay, so.

Dan Caston: Oh wow.

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, it’s not cheap.

Dan Caston: It’s not cheap, but.

Sérgio Costa: But it’s not because. Yeah, no, it’s not. But it’s not because the guys want to rip off simmers or anything like that. For one they are using good materials, this is metal, this is actually aluminum, very sturdy, very solid. But the thing is, just like in real life, you have a very low amount of helicopter pilots when compared with fixed wing pilots. You have like tens of thousands of fixed wing pilots guys that fly Cessnas or airliners or what not, and then you have a handful of guys in the whole world flying helicopters. Not a handful, but when compared to the amount of guys flying fixed wing, that’s the reality.
And the same happens with the helicopter flight simulation community. We are a very small niche inside the community. You can see, for example, there are groups inside the flight simulation community with tens of thousands of users, and the group that we have on Facebook has less than 4000 guys. And most of them are not active. I would say that probably 80% or more are not dedicated helicopter flight simulator simmers, so, these are guys who like helicopters, but their main simming is made out of fixed wing aircraft.
What happens is that manufacturers have to produce a lower amount of their kits, so they’re not manufacturing these in huge factories in which, the more you build the less expensive they become. So they are building a low amount of units, of their products, so the price is obviously much higher than a bulk environment. So that’s the thing, yeah, so it’s not cheap. It’s well worth it, it’s well worth it. It’s a whole new dimension for those who fly helicopters. But it’s really not cheap, and it’s not easy to get one of these kits.

Dan Caston: Right, and the ones I’ve looked up look like high quality. Like you were saying, they’re made of steel. When you get the stuff for the fixed wing, a lot of it’s plastic and a little cheaper feeling, but I guess they have the bigger manufacturers, they can-

Sérgio Costa: Yeah that’s the thing, even the ones you find in metal, for example, the Thrust Master, the Warthog, which is absolutely incredible, you can buy it for like $400 or something right now. And it’s still less than half the price of a helicopter system.

Dan Caston: For sure. That makes sense. So, going over to kind of training here, it seems like you taught yourself from our conversation before, you don’t have any official training in an actual helicopter. Did you teach yourself or did you have… Where did you find all your training on helicopters and that kind of thing?

Sérgio Costa: Yeah well, like I told you, I found out about OverControl.com that website I was telling you before, and they have the forums, where you know you could talk to other guys on there and ask them for stuff, or just watch the conversations flow and learn from what people were telling each other. And they also have, they still have it online, like this program that you would follow, that would teach you how to hover, how to perform certain maneuvers. They had this scenery that you would download for FSX, and they had these little circles painted on the floor, that you would use for reference and for flying over and doing a lot of maneuvers.
So basically I have learned with other guys that were already in the flight simulation community in the helicopter flight simulation community. And by following this kind of program that OverControl have, it really allowed me to become a better pilot and to learn a lot.
And you know, just like in anything in life, and just like with real flying, you always keep on learning. Not just because, you know, sims evolve, and with the evolution of sims, they start to have new stuff. Like, for example, back in 2000, didn’t have things like vortex ring state, or asymmetric lift, or anything like that, which is very specific to helicopters. Very specific aerodynamical conditions for helicopters. And they start to have them on X Plane and DCS and a bit on P3D if you use an external module.
So you keep on learning with other people, and with real pilots, and by reading books of actual, you know, real world instructed pilots that have released books on the subject. So, yeah, but basically I’m kind of a self taught guy, but always with the help of other guys, other people around me.

Dan Caston: For sure. Is this OverControl.com, you said there was a program you used. Is that program still available, or is it-

Sérgio Costa: No it’s still there, it’s still there. The program is not a piece of software, it’s a program you follow, it’s like you know, you have chapters or parts, yeah you have chapters or parts and you just follow it, and you get to learn a lot. And I’ve actually, I haven’t gone so deep as they went on some of the maneuvers, but I’ve tried to translate a lot of what they had, what they still have on the website, to my own website so you can actually at helisimmer.com, my website, you have the huge banner on top and you can access a section of the website that teaches you to fly helicopters well.
So, you’ll be okay if you go to OverControl, or if you go to my website, if you actually go to both websites you’ll probably get information, you can get complementary information from both websites.
Although, at helisimmer.com, my website, I have more advanced stuff like I told you. Sims got to get better, and they evolved, and they added new aerodynamical features, and we cover some of those aerodynamical features on our own program, if you can call it that, on our own articles. So you learn how to, what vortex ring is and how to prevent it, and other things as well.

Dan Caston: Right, yeah, I did actually, I was looking at your website there and I did see there’s a learn to fly section on there. So if anyone’s looking to get into helicopters, I recommend going to his website there. Helisimmer.com, right?

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, that’s right.

Dan Caston: So going on to… Like when you’re flying, at least, with the plane, I would assume with the helicopter as well, you have a checklist and all that. What are the things… it’s actually kind of a problem with VR that I’ve been trying to get around, is how do you manage to implement checklists into your VR flight? Is that something you do? Or do you just memorize what you have to do?

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, that’s kind of the million dollar question, right? We love VR, VR is awesome, we’re inside the cockpit, but yeah, you cannot see anything that you have on your hands, or, in front of you.
Well, I usually do one of two things. Let me put it this way. I have a very low amount of time for simming, and I don’t have the time to go through code and arc and do all the start up procedures.
You know, my simming is very limited, it’s something that you probably have found out as well. But I have found out that with helisimmer.com, which is, you have a passion for a hobby, you have a passion for something, you start to develop something for the community and all of the sudden you spend more time working for the community than you spend actually simming.
So my time in the flight simulator is very short. And usually, when I get some simming time, I’m either reviewing a helicopter, or a scenery, or just, you know, trying something that someone has sent me, so I have a very reduced amount of time for the hobby. Not for helisimmer, but for just flying for pleasure.
So what I usually do, if I want to do a code and arc, I usually start without VR. I use mainly X Plane. So I probably start without VR and going through the checklist, and you know, just looking around using the mouse and using the views that the X Plane allows you to use with the num pad keys, and then when everything is set up I just put on my Vive, I turn VR on, and I’ll do my flight.
Of course, if there’s an emergency, it’s going to be very hard for me to see the emergency procedures checklist. But there’s this mall application, mall plugin for VR, for X Plane, sorry, I forgot the name to be honest. It’s A View or something. It allows you to have windows inside X Plane so you can have a pdf or an image or something. You can pull them out and see them inside the sim.

Dan Caston: I think with the Oculus you can actually get a window through the menus there. I have a video tutorial on how to do it, but it does eat up CPU and it eats up your computer power when you’re operating it, so you have to watch if you’re kind of maxing out your computer already, and then you add that on, you may start to get some stutters and that kind of thing.

Sérgio Costa: Yeah that’s what happens when you start turning on things, turning on other pieces of software, but actually, this plugin, I can send you the link after the interview, this plugin allows you to have windows inside X Plane, and it’s not an external application that you run, it’s something that runs natively inside X Plane, which allows you to see checklists.
But yeah, I would like to see something. And I know, probably a couple of helicopter developers are working on this, with their own plugin so you can have the checklist and other things, like maps for example, or you know, charts, airport charts, inside the flight simulator. So you can see everything inside windows and manipulate them and zoom them and whatnot.
But yeah, I would like to see a good option for us to use checklists and other documents inside the sim, using VR.

Dan Caston: Yeah, for sure. I’m sure they’re working like mad to get that accomplished. A lot of my audience would probably love to have that, because a lot of my audience is people who are looking to go on to actually flying planes or helicopters or that kind of thing so, checklists would be an important one to implement.

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, very important. Right.

Dan Caston: But emergency ones should be, I guess, done by memory anyway, I would assume, for the most part, so.

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, true, that’s right, yeah. That’s right. At least the first items, and then you just have to try to pull them out somehow.

Dan Caston: Yeah, exactly. So what would be the first thing you would wanna learn if you were starting to fly a helicopter?

Sérgio Costa: You’ll want to learn to have a lot of patience, and to be… I’m not kidding! And you need to learn to be patient, and then you need to learn to be resilient. Helicopters are just not easy pieces of aircraft to fly. They are very hard to fly, they are very hard to learn, they are very hard to master, so you need to be very patient.
You need to have a good system that allows you to run at least thirty frames per second if you’re not using VR. If you’re using VR, of course, you need to have at least forty five frames per second on each eye. So you need to be running at ninety. But if you’re not using VR you need at least thirty frames per second, so that the helicopter and the flight sim engine performs all the correct calculations, and for the physics, and for the aerodynamics of the helicopter.
Then you have to practice. You have to practice a lot. If you ask me what the very first practical thing you need to learn when flying a helicopter, that’s probably, the first challenge is for you to hover. It’s for you to control the helicopter steady above the ground in order that it doesn’t fly around or go backwards or sideways or gain altitude or lose altitude. Just try to be steady, and pointing to the same direction.
Now this sounds easy, right? Because the notion that people have is that helicopters are kind of like an elevator, and you push a button and it goes up, and you push another button and it goes down. But the thing is that helicopters are very wild beasts. They are very unstable. And there are so many forces acting against you when you are flying a helicopter that you need to be on top of the game the whole time.
So when you are pulling the collective up, and the collective is the control that changes the pitch of the rotor blades, and when you pull up the collective you are adding pitch to the rotor blades, so you are, the rotors are biting more air and you are actually gaining lift. But as you do it, there’s this Newton’s Law, that screws it up for you. So the rotor is spinning on one direction, and as you are adding pitch, and you are adding drag to the rotors, the fuselage you want to rotate on the opposite direction. So if the rotor is turning to the left, as soon as you start raising the collective, the fuselage wants to roll to the right, so you need to give left pedal.
And there’s a whole bunch of other things that are going to happen next. You are going to give more left pedal, the left pedal will control your tail rotor, so the tail rotor will increase its power. It’s going to push you to the side, and you’ll have to use the side click to correct itself, so, it’s like a ballet. It’s like dancing.
It’s like trying to… One guy said that controlling a helicopter, I think it was an instructor pilot, controlling a helicopter is like you being sitting on the hood of a car, at high speed, and trying to control a bicycle that is in front of you, but you are holding the bicycle by the front wheel. So, you know, you’re trying to balance that and try not to get killed in the process.
So yeah, that’s why I told you, the first thing you need to learn is to have patience. It’s not easy, to fly helicopters. It’s very hard. And then, if you are a patient guy, you are a resilient guy, and you have the time to practice, the first thing would be to hover, and from then it starts. Take off. Land, and do all the other maneuvers.

Dan Caston: Right, that makes sense. So if things go wrong, have you done much for emergency landings and that kind of thing? In your sim?

Sérgio Costa: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan Caston: How well does it simulate that in X Plane? Because it’s a different beast to simulate an emergency landing in a helicopter where your engine stops versus in a plane where you just glide and glide.

Sérgio Costa: Yes, it’s very different, and it depends on the sim that you are using. FSX and PREPAR3D for example are very bad at it.
Well, generally speaking, Flight Simulator and P3D so the ESP Engine from Microsoft is really bad at simulating helicopters. I’m not saying it’s a bad sim, and I know a lot of guys who use it and love it, so no, I usually say to each his own. I have nothing against people that use it, but I’m don’t like it. I don’t like to use those sims for helicopter flight simulation.
Now X Plane and DCS are much better when providing simulation for helicopters. And what happens when the engine stops, and most of the guys think that, you know, the engine stops in the helicopter and you are dead, you’re going to fall. What happens is that the gear box will decouple the rotor from the engine, so the rotor will start spinning on its own.
And instead of… When the engine is coupled to the rotor, and the rotor is spinning, you are actually using your rotor to, like I said before, bite the air, to actually provide you lift. When the engine is decoupled from the rotor, and you start to place the helicopter into position, the air flow, as you are moving forward, because you’ll still be moving forward, you’re not just gonna fall vertically… As you’re moving forward, the air passing through the blades will keep the blades spinning, and the rotor disc as a whole will provide you with lift.
So in essence, you will be gliding, just like in an aircraft. The thing is that you need to be, instead of just having to worry about your speed, as in a fixed wing aircraft, you also need to worry about RPM, so the speed of the rotor. Because if you lose RPM, if your RPM drops from a certain speed down, and that depends on the helicopter, you will eventually lose your wing. So you will eventually lose your lift, and you’ll actually die from the fall.
But if you keep the rotor spinning at a certain speed, and you keep everything within parameters, you can actually select the place you want to land at, and with a bit of training you can land on a very short very small area, which actually makes it safer than a fixed wing aircraft. Right? You have a lot of frontal of the horizontal speed to keep the aircraft flying, and as you are flying, as you are landing, if you are flying a Cessna you’d probably be approaching at like 80 to 100 knots? Something like that? On a helicopter, you usually, again, it depends on the helicopter, but on a helicopter an auto rotation, that’s what the maneuver is called, an auto rotation if usually performed at 60 knots.
And you can almost hover just before you touch down, so, the speed of… Your horizontal speed as you touch down, as you put the skids on the ground, is going to be very, very low. There’s a huge chance that you are going to surVive the auto rotation.
That’s pretty much it. So you were asking me how well does X Plane or DCS simulate these? Well, they do a pretty good job. They’re not perfect, but they do a pretty good job. DCS’s a bit better than X Plane, but you can perform these maneuvers on both sims very, very well and use them as training.

Dan Caston: Okay. And speaking of the sims there, what is your simulator of choice nowadays?

Sérgio Costa: I used mostly X Plane. Not just because the sim overall is a good sim, but also because DCS is a great sim, and it probably has the best helicopters out there, but the thing is that it’s very limited in terms of scenery. So, X Plane gives me this balance between having the whole world, so to say, so to speak, and having a good collection of helicopters and great flight dynamics. So yeah, I think that’s my sim of choice.

Dan Caston: Perfect, and in these sims, what helicopter do you normally fly, or what’s your favorite chopper to be in, or do you have a different one for each sim?

Sérgio Costa: Well, that’s a hard choice. On DCS, my favorite is the Huey. I just love that helicopter, it’s very stable, it’s very forgiving, the sound is amazing, right, so everybody loves the sound of the Huey, so that’s the one I use when I use DCS, when I’m flying DCS.
Although the Gazelle is also an amazing helicopter, since I use DCS, which, ironically, is a combat simulator, but I mostly use it as a civilian simulator, so I fly around the areas and do cargo loading and what not.
For X Plane, I would say it’s the DreamFoil, the AS350, so the A-Star, the AeroStar. It’s a great, nimble helicopter, very hard to fly, but it’s very, very fun!

Dan Caston: Okay. What about the… is there any free helicopters to kind of get someone started or get their feet wet in this? Or do you have to mainly go with payware to get a good experience.

Sérgio Costa: No, no, no, no, not really. Well, in DCS, all the modules are paid, so if you want to try DCS and fly helicopters in DCS, you have no other choice than actually purchase the products, purchase the Huey or the Gazelle or the Mi-8, or DKA50.
And in X Plane, you do have a default helicopter that I don’t usually… I wouldn’t recommend to start flying helicopters with it. The flight dynamics is very poor. The helicopter is fine for something default, it’s not brilliant, but you do have some freewares out there. And the one that I would probably recommend for you to start with would be the Bell429. It’s a very good platform, it’s very recent platform, it’s a very modern helicopter. It has a stability system, which allows you to… Everything that I told you before about helicopters being very hard to fly, and all these forces, when you pull up the collective… everything will be dampened by the SAS, the stabilization augmentation system of the 429.
Which, the helicopter sensors get what’s happening, and they will correct a lot of things for you. So the helicopter will be very stable, very easy to fly, very peaceful. It’s a very good helicopter for someone to start flying helicopters without spending a lot of money. Just, you know, purchase X Plane and get the 429er for free.

Dan Caston: Right, makes sense. You talk about the forces and all that. In VR, do you find that you actually feel those? Like, when I’m flying the plane, and I do something crazy, something I wouldn’t do in an actual plane, but, I do almost like a loop in a Cessna, or something like that, it actually makes your gut kind of drop a bit.
Do you find that helps you in the helicopter to kind of stabilize yourself, when you’re running VR?

Sérgio Costa: Well, it helps when it doesn’t make you sick.

Dan Caston: Yeah, fair enough.

Sérgio Costa: But yeah, it helps. It helps a lot. VR is a game changer in fight simulation. It’s something that, you know, it’s like night and day. It’s completely different, you have a lot more depth perception, you have a lot more of perfect vision.
The fact that you can just nudge your head a bit and get a better glance of the instruments, or look down to the bubble chin, and you know, see the ground, or put your head outside of the helicopters and see what’s coming, what’s coming beneath you. It’s a game changer, and it also gives you that physical sensation that you were saying.
When you are going a bit over the edge and just overdoing it, your body, your stomach kind of, yeah, you get a feeling of something that’s happening physically. And that’s a big red alert, that’s a red flag, so you have to be careful of when doing these maneuvers.
But yeah, it helps a lot. Actually, one of the guys who got me into VR, and I know this was going to be one of the questions that you were going to make, but I’m just getting down and I’m going to say it. One of the guys that got me into VR was your last guest Bel Geode, Drew Bolton, right, and you know, him and another guy that works with me for helisimmer.com called Joe Hudson, a real Apache instructor pilot. And you know, these guys were talking about VR all the time, and you know, “You gotta try VR, you gotta try VR.”
And I was not skeptical about VR, but I was kind of skeptical about VR in flight simulation. It’s like, I’m a technical guy, my work is with computers, so it’s not like I’m running away from technology. But the thing is, I thought that, I didn’t really think that it would make such a difference. Even if I have tried VR, regular VR, a demo, a few years ago with Aviator STK.
It was like, yeah okay, this is novelty, this is just something new. Yeah, maybe I was seeing it as kind of a glamorous track IR, you know, the device that allows you to- yeah. I was seeing VR as a glamorous track IR. And you know these guys were constantly, especially Drew, was constantly telling me that I need to get into VR. I needed to give it a try. And you know, VR being a game changer is almost like a trademark. And this trademark comes from Drew. You all say VR is a game changer and I kind of piggy back on this sentence of his, but that is the truth. And for those guys that are out there right now listening to the podcast, just because they are curious and never tried VR. Guys, seriously, this is absolutely insane, it is a game changer. Drew is right. It is a game changer. It’s something that if you guys are serious about flight simulation, if you guys really love flight simulation, if you really love how to fly, you’ve got to try it on VR. It’s that much of a different, it’s that good.
So yeah, I would say that yeah, for me, it’s been a big difference. I cannot imagine, you know, flying without VR anymore. I do it now and then, you know, to take some screenshots, or to look at some specifics or, sometimes even to record a video because I can get more area of the screen, but I don’t like to fly without VR anymore. That’s how much of a difference it made. Yeah.

Dan Caston: Yeah, same here. Yup. Yeah, it’s pretty amazing. Just going back to the nausea, have you had the nausea from flying the helicopter at all?

Sérgio Costa: I’ve had, yeah, I’ve had it. In the beginning it was far worse, but I think that we need to keep at it, and we need to… It’s not good for you if you are going to use your kit for the first time and, you know, spend an hour or two getting sick and throwing up and not feeling well, you are not going to have a good experience.
So I would say that, I don’t know of anyone that hasn’t had at least a bit of nausea, or a bit of a headache, for the first few times, so I would say that you probably need to do sessions of ten to fifteen minutes and go from there. But I still feel nausea now and then, for some reason, for example, if it’s too hot, and I’m just doing some crazy maneuvers, like you said. I feel a bit sick now and then. Not as much as I used to in the beginning, but that happens. And when that happens, the best thing you can do is just wait. Just stop it.

Dan Caston: Right. Yeah. And I found it a little bit more with the helicopter versus the the fixed wing. Maybe it’s because you’re constantly just kind of floating around. But maybe that’s because I have to keep my frame rate a little higher when I’m flying a helicopter vs flying a fixed wing. Have you noticed frame rate affects you, at all?

Sérgio Costa: It does, it does if it goes down, yeah. It’s a known issue with the low frame rates. If I notice that for some reason in a series that I use the frame rate goes below, let’s say, forty to forty five frames per second, I just quit. I don’t even try.
Because I know I’m going to get sick. And if you guys out there notice the same, just quit it, because you know, feeling sick out of motion sickness it’s one of the worst kinds of sick you can get. It’s awful. It’s really bad.

Dan Caston: So just to clarify, when you say to quit, just to give it up for that few minutes and let yourself kind of rest and then come back and try again another time?

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, yeah.

Dan Caston: Don’t give up on VR altogether.

Sérgio Costa: No, no, no, don’t give up. You can even get back at it the day after. Sometimes it just feel… the fact that you are feeling better after a few minutes doesn’t mean that the second you are going to get the kit on your head again and fly for thirty seconds, it doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen again.
And it has happened to me, that the second time was even worse than the first time. And I was feeling sick for hours after that. I’m not kidding, it was really bad. So if you are starting to feel sick, and if you are not 100% sure that it’s going to be okay in a few minutes, just drop it for the day, go do anything else. If you want to fly, fly without VR, but don’t overdo it or you’ll never want to use VR again. And that’s not worth risking not using VR again just because you are being stubborn.

Dan Caston: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Actually, I had one person say that they had some nausea issues and they were trying to learn to fly a helicopter. They said the frame rate was good but they had glasses on. They were wondering if that had any effect on the nausea?

Sérgio Costa: They had what, I’m sorry I didn’t… glasses?

Dan Caston: They were wearing glasses, like prescription lasses.

Sérgio Costa: Yeah. I use them as well. I think that might be an effect of some light that kind of spreads on the lens, and sometimes gives you a false sensation of what’s happening inside the sim. I’ve not… It never gave me nausea, that particular effect, but I have noticed that sometimes I get, my brain gets a little tricked by the… I wouldn’t say it’s a game of lights or dance of lights, but it’s different lights coming far from actually… I’m sorry, actually arriving to the eye from a different angle than it’s supposed to. So you are actually seeing the same thing twice, and that might actually trick your brain into getting to this motion sickness.

Dan Caston: Right. So, how do you deal with glasses? Because I see you wear glasses, so, there’s a couple of things coming to my mind is one, just getting the glasses underneath. But with the Oculus, it kind of presses on them. And there’s the contacts, or… even those, there are some kits you can put in your headset?
So what do you do to kind of, solve that? Or do you have any issues?

Sérgio Costa: No I have no issues, the only issue that I have is the one that I told you about which is sometimes the reflection of light, of the different light sources, coming to my eye. Physically, the physical part of glasses, the lenses and the frame and, I have zero problems with it.
I have tried the Oculus Rift, and I didn’t, I can’t say I had any issues with it. I have a very low, if you see my photo of me, I have a very low profile frame that my lenses have no frame around it, so it’s just the lenses, and some very small titanium things, but… The HTC almost seems to have been developed for people with glasses. Because on the sides where the frame goes to your ear, there’s actually, the sponge is a little cut out, so my glasses just go through it. And I have no pressure, no anything from the kit, onto my glasses.
So it feels pretty comfortable. The only thing that I really notice is like I told you before already, it’s the light thing. But other than that, no physical issues.

Dan Caston: Right, okay. Well that’s good to know. Because some people I guess have issues with the pressure on there, but maybe they need to look at getting low profile glasses.

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, that’s probably it, or just try to get something for… I’ve seen a guy, with a Rift, actually getting a thicker sponge, so that the distance between the kit and his face was a bit higher. We’re talking about two or three millimeters.

Dan Caston: What was this, sorry? It’s a-

Sérgio Costa: A thicker sponge, around the, you know the sponge you place on your face? The guy got a thicker sponge like one or three millimeters more, and he said that for him it was enough for his glasses not to… to actually the frame of the Rift. And that might be a solution.

Dan Caston: Okay I could see that. Okay sounds good. And I see they sell those online lots, so, for pretty cheap.

Sérgio Costa: Yeah but usually people want to get, you know, the thinner ones, because they want to have less space between the face and the kit. This guy was actually found out thicker ones with more space.

Dan Caston: Okay so that’s something to watch out for if you’re looking to get a thicker sponge for around the eyes there.

Sérgio Costa: Yup.

Dan Caston: Okay, so just going back to, if you were first starting out in flight sim or VR flight sim, what would be kind of the first set up you would get? Like what would you want for controls, what would you want for headset, just kind of… even if you’re a little bit limited in money, you wanna just start getting started in this, you’re brand new. What would you kind of suggest?

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, well, you’re going to have to compromise, and right off the bat between the Vive and the Rift, get the Rift, it’s cheaper. I have the Vive, I have tried the Vive and the Rift, you know, there are a lot of guys out there preaching for both. The Rift rules and the Vive rules, and honestly, yeah you probably notice some differences on the image, you are going to notice some differences on the image, but I have tried both kits and it’s not that much of a difference. And the Rift, it’s cheaper than the Vive. So for the kit itself, right off the bat, get the Rift.
Then try to get the best computer you can get. At least an i5, sixteen gigabytes of RAM, if you can afford it, and at least the SIM card that we have, the GTX 1060 or the equivalent from AMD, and try to get a flight sim a holder system, from Thrustmaster, from Logitech, something that allows you to have control over your engines, using the throttle, and of course the joystick and if possible, some way for you even if you need a joystick with a twist stick or something to control your rotor pedals or your anti-torque pedals, considering using helicopters.
But yeah that would be probably the bare minimum for you to start and enjoy your simming. Having an SSD’s great, but guys, really, if you are on a tight budget, try to get a better card instead of the SSD. If you can choose between a 1060 and an SSD or you know the 1070 and no SSD right now, I would probably go with the 1070. I would probably go with the better card. You’re going to have better results, and it’s an investment that’s going to allow you to take much more out of VR with better frame rates that reduce risk of nausea and really enhance your experience for sure.
Other than that, you’ll eventually start to get better gear in the future. That’s the bare minimum for me.

Dan Caston: Okay. And now, going to the opposite here. If you had to get your dream setup, what would you get for sort of the dream setup, for a helicopter I guess, in this case?

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, well, I would get a 1080 TI, right? It’s the mother lode of all graphics cards, or the next generation, the 1180s, or the other ones that NVIDIA are getting. Thirty two gigabytes of RAM, probably a i8 or an i9, you know, those Intel CPUs they have released recently with lots of cores, not that we are going to get a lot of those cores right now until Vulcan comes out. But yeah, I’d probably get an i8 or an i9.
An HTC Vive, just because, you know, since we are talking about something that can be more expensive, the Vive not only has a better space for my glasses, right, we have talked about it before, but also because it can use better with other games, because of their room scales. So you have, you can play games standing on your room or running around or something. So that’s a big plus if you are into VR and not just flight simulation.
About the controls? I haven’t tried any of the other controls that I have mentioned before from Max Flight Stick, or Ryan Aerospace or something, you know, being a professional system, but we’re talking about tens of thousands of euros, or dollars here. I would probably get a Ryan Aerospace system, for helicopter flight simulation. Those guys sell those systems for flight schools and what not. But, you know, speaking on gaming, or not on gaming but on more reasonable amount of money, I would definitely get Pro Flight Training Puma, the kit that I have right now and I mentioned in the beginning.
I just love that kit. It’s a small kit, a single unit so you don’t have to assemble it or anything, or attach it to the floor, it’s a full set. I just love it! If that kit for some reason breaks, I’m gonna cry. I’m gonna be so sad I’m gonna cry and I probably will never touch a flight simulator again.
I’m joking of course, but yeah. I’m gonna be very depressed if that thing breaks.

Dan Caston: Yeah, exactly. You’ll probably have the next one on order as soon as it breaks.

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, or even before, I start to be looking to break… well. They do have, you know, parts for you to repair so it’s not something that haunts me, but yeah, if it stops working for some reason imagine that, for example, the electronics go, you know, they just burn out or something, yeah. I’m gonna be depressed for some time before I get it sorted out.

Dan Caston: For sure. And I recently saw that you have this controller essentially, it’s like a glove? Is this something we can talk about on here? If not, I can cut it out.

Sérgio Costa: Oh yeah, no no it’s okay!

Dan Caston: I think it’s Sensor… Sensory X?

Sérgio Costa: Sensory X, yeah.

Dan Caston: Yeah.

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, I don’t have it. I don’t have it. I have the, I don’t know, I don’t have it, yet.

Dan Caston: Have you tried anything like that? Or, I guess you.

Sérgio Costa: Ah, no. No, I haven’t tried it.

Dan Caston: I saw that video of it working, but, I was wondering how well it works.

Sérgio Costa: Well I’ve been in touch with Sensory X, and I’ve been very interested in this because it’s, I’m not going to say it’s a game changer, it’s not a game changer. But it’s something that I can see as very, no pun intended here, it’s going to be very handy for those that want to control… and I’m not talking about actually controlling the cyclic or the stick or the yoke or anything. I see it more as something you can use besides the physical control, you know.
Imagine that you are flying a helicopter, you have the cyclic and the collective. You have, for example, Pro Flight Trainer Puma or any other control or just you know, plane joystick, plane [inaudible 00:54:14] and the fact that you can reach out to the panel and push buttons, and rotate knobs, and stuff like that, it’s something that, you know, I’m very, very eager to be able to do sometime.
And I’m hoping, and I have a lot of faith in these guys, that they will eventually achieve it. Because from what I’ve seen from their videos, and from what I’ve learned from a few emails that I have exchanged with them, they are working very hard to make it very precise and very controllable.
Now, one of the things that I have… I have not seen this in action, live, right now, but one of the cool things that I have seen in Switzerland a few months ago… I was brought to Switzerland by this company called Ibex, and I’m not sure if you are aware of a flight simulator called Aerofly FS2?

Dan Caston: Mm-hmm (affirmative), yup.

Sérgio Costa: It’s, yeah? You know Aerofly? So Ibex develops Aerofly, and Ibex invited me to go to Switzerland to try the helicopter. So it’s going to be their first helicopter [inaudible 00:55:29], which they started developing after I nagged them to death.

Dan Caston: Yeah, yeah.

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, yeah, they hate me now, because I got them into helicopters. Just kidding, I’m actually going to do a review on the R22 in a few days.
So they invited me to Switzerland to check out the helicopter, and they wanted me to check out the helicopter with this motion platform. And one of the things they had next to the motion platform, they had actually three motion platforms. Instead of one, they had like three, and you entered the room and go, “Okay, I want to live here.”
And one of the motion platforms had this 3D printed panel of Cessna 172. Okay? But we’re talking about just plastic with no actual instruments, nothing, just you know, the bevel of the instruments, in every position of an instrument that was available. The instrument was there but it wasn’t, it was just something so that you would be able to touch.
And they had some [inaudible 00:56:35] or some buttons so that you can actually feel them.

Dan Caston: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Sérgio Costa: But there were no electronics, nothing attached. So the thing is, they were working with IBEX, the guys that developed Aerofly FS2, are working with VR motion, which are the guys that developed this platform, this motion platform. And they are working together, these two companies are working together with Sensory X.
So the idea behind the concept that they were showing me was to have someone sitting on the platform using, of course, VR, and using a Sensory X glove. And actually flying using a yoke, they have a yoke, you know, the yoke and the pedals and the throttle were the things that were actually connected to the computer, so you could actually, of course, control the aircraft. And the landing gear lever I think was there as well.
So those controls were working, right? But, you know, the altitude indicator, all the other controls, all the other gadgets were not there. You could actually feel them, because they were printed in 3D, in the sheet of plastic, they were there, but the idea for them was for you to be sitting there on that platform.
You would be looking at, you know, for example, you would be looking at the altimeter, right? And then you would stretch your hand, using the Sensory X glove, and you would actually feel the potentiometer and the gadget because it was printed in 3D, on the same position that you were looking for. But you were using the glove for actually performing the action, for example, setting the altimeter.
So if you start to grasp the concept, this concept, you start to imagine, okay. Now imagine you are at home, okay, you buy a Pro Flight Trainer Puma, you get some schematics for let’s say a Bell 206 or a Bell 407, you don’t need the control, you just need a little bit of plastic that you put together with the bevels, with all the positions, and you get the Sensory X glove. And you are sitting on the chair, using VR, so you are basically inside the cockpit, and when you stretch your hand, you actually feel the controls that you are looking at.

Dan Caston: Wow, that’s incredible.

Sérgio Costa: Yeah. That’s the kind of thing, that’s the next step in my opinion for VR and for VR training. It’s not just… one of the things that people complain about VR, and they are right, is that you don’t have any physical sensation. Right? You don’t have, even with Sensory X, with these gloves, we are seeing guys interacting with a virtual cockpit and they are just interacting with at 3D model. You need to actually feel the buttons.
The thing is that the buttons don’t have to do anything, because the glove will tell the sim what is it that you are doing. So we have something that can be much cheaper than a real panel, with no lag, with no indication, with no gadgets, with no buttons with electronics behind. You just have the button that you push but it doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t even have any wires on it?
And you can just, you know, take that one and put another one just like it was a sheet of paper. And you have a whole new helicopter, a whole new aircraft.
That’s… how incredible this thing can be.

Dan Caston: That’s impressive, yeah. That’ll be pretty neat. ‘Cause, even when you get those full flight sims that sit around you and… Outside VR, where you actually have the knobs and you actually turn the knobs and all that, you still don’t get that sense of 3D beyond that though.
Whereas, if you have, now, the headset on and this, where you can touch it, you’ll still get that 3D sense beyond, like when you’re coming into land or you’re looking around at the trees, you’ll still get that 3D sense.
That’s pretty cool, pretty neat.

Sérgio Costa: Exactly. Yeah, it is.

Dan Caston: I was gonna ask you where the flight sim, where do you think flight sims will go in the future, but I think this has probably answered the question, I think that’s, at least, I think that’s where it’s gonna go, by the looks of it.

Sérgio Costa: Yeah, I think it’s the next step, you know. The example that I gave you, people know I have access to 3D printers, or you know, even if you don’t have a 3D printer, someone else will have, or you probably just purchase, just buy online the little piece of plastic panel, with no gadgets, that will obviously be much cheaper than buying a full set of gadgets and controls. And in my opinion, that’s where things are going, that’s where we are heading.
And with companies like Sensory X, and other doing these gloves, and you know, guys like IBEX and Laminar Research, and hopefully Eagle Dynamics, and hopefully Lockheed Martin as well, ’cause these guys need to get on the bandwagon and start doing other things. And they have already implemented native VR for Prepar3d, which I was very surprised actually, to be honest with you. I wasn’t expecting Lockheed Martin to jump on the VR bandwagon so soon. I’m glad they did. I’m glad they did.
So these guys need to start looking at- and I’m sure they are looking at these solutions. And I’m sure that, you know, we’re talking about this, very excited about this, this thing with, you know, 3D models of panels so that you can touch it and I’m sure that, you know, these guys on these companies with a huge amount of money and almost unlimited budges are already ten or twenty years ahead of us, and far, far… For them, this is something they have done already, and we eventually get it in the market.
And they are already developing holo vacs, and haptic suits, and that kind of thing.

Dan Caston: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that’s pretty neat. Alright, so, I think we’re running out of time here, so, I will…
So where can people find you? Like where can, I know you have the website, we mentioned that, but do you wanna just go over all the places that people can find you and find out what you’re doing?

Sérgio Costa: Yeah well it’s mostly the website, and the helicopter flight simulation group, which you can reach by visiting the website, there’s a link there for the Facebook group. Which is where I usually spent more time at, talking with the folks from the community.
You can find us at youtube.com/helisimmer and you can find us also on twitter, twitter.com/helisimmer. But yeah, basically you can find me mostly, or easier, at the helicopter flight simulation group. Or you can just shoot me an email, it’s sergio@helisimmer.com and just say hello, send me some hate mail, ask me stuff about helicopters and VR, and flight simulation and I’ll be more than happy to help you or whoever wants to get up and start flying helicopters.

Dan Caston: Perfect, and his website again is helisimmer.com, that’s helisimmer.com. Alright, perfect. Well, thanks for coming on our podcast.

Sérgio Costa: My pleasure, it was really fun being able to talk a bit more about what is it that I do.

Dan Caston: Yeah, it’s great to have someone that has so much knowledge about helicopters. Alright, thanks again, we’ll talk to you later.

Sérgio Costa: Okay, thank you very much, bye-bye, see you guys and don’t forget to visit helisimmer.com guys!

Dan Caston: Alright, so there you have it. A great interview with Sergio. Thanks again, Sergio, for coming on our podcast. I have a few different places you can go, so helisimmer.com as he mentioned there, that’s hotel echo lima India sierra India mike mike echo romeo, dot com. And there’s youtube dot com slash helisimmer, twitter dot com, slash helisimmer.
Or, he even gave his email there for anyone that wants to contact him by his email, which is sergio at helisimmer dot com.
So make sure you guys subscribe to the podcast, that way you get notified when the new episode comes out. I’m also gonna leave a link to any of the items mentioned in the podcast, this would be the equipment that he uses, the equipment that I use, or any other items that are mentioned, or websites that are mentioned, I’ll try to go through and note them all down.
That way it’ll be quick and easy for you, just go down the show notes or you can go to my episode show notes which would be at Vrflightworld.com/8, that VR flight world dot com slash eight.
And you can get the show notes there, links there.
Also, if you’re interested in being on the Flight World Podcast, make sure you go to our page VRFlightWorld.com/interview, that’s VR Flight World dot com forward slash interview, to fill out the form there. We’ll see if you’re a great fit for the podcast and we’ll try to get you on here.
Thanks again guys for being on our podcast! I hope you guys have an awesome day and I will see you in the next one!

John Melley: Thanks for listening to the VR Flight World Podcast! Online at VRFlightWorld.com