I've been flying RC for over 30 years. I learned the hard way. When it was time to learn to fly my first heli (TRex 500) I got both Real Flight and Phoenix.

I've been flying RC for over 30 years. I learned the hard way. When it was time to learn to fly my first heli (TRex 500) I got both Real Flight and Phoenix. I probably logged over 100 hours on both. I like Phoenix better for heli. Once I got past the basics it felt like Real Flight had just enough control latency to make it more difficult. The context for this is comparing actually flying the real heli against training on the sim. Because of the approach I took I had exactly zero crashes with the TRex 500. Which is good 'cause I have somewhere between $1,500 to $2,000 into it with all the upgrades. Today, when I teach someone to fly, I follow a progression on a sim from a pure glider to various powered planes. It works like a charm.