I just found a super easy way to learn 3D, I was watching the alan szabo 3D video and concluded I had no idea what he was doing. Damn he's good, so then I slowed the video down to half speed and watched, not so much his stick movements but his timing.
And it turns out that the timing is everything, I have been so preoccupied with stick movements that I completely missed the point of how he makes it look so easy. When you watch 3D video in slow motion you start to see that collective either lags cyclic or leads cyclic, and once you have the timing down it all comes together.
Then I fired up the simulator(aerofly pro) and set the sim speed to 50%, I concentrated on timing the movements first and let the sticks do what they needed to do. Once you have the timing nailed then slowly increase the sim speed until your at 100%.
This works so much easier than trying to do it at normal speed all the time.
I just nailed the 4 point tick tock in about one and a half hours and I had been practicing the simple tick tock for weeks and could never quite get it. I had to start at 25% sim speed for about 30 minutes, but was doing the 4 point at 100%sim speed after only an hour and a half which is totally insane.
Now if only I could do this with my Trex, not anytime soon im afraid, I have a long way to go. But I think im ready for a simple tick-tock, maybe I'll order some spare parts too.

that is good.. make sure you REX has been setup correctly to get it for 3D.. motor may bog down and perform differently... more on throttle management.. and correct timing

Alan szabo had another trick in the video that I had never heard before. You never add collective and cyclic together unless it is absolutely necessary, large cyclic movements lag or lead collective. This keeps the motor from being overloaded, If you watch the szabo video he is using small stick movements and they are usually staggered.
Soneebee
Timing and throttle management were exactly what he mentioned, these being more critical to good 3D flying than anything else. If you think about it he is right, If you can keep your head speed up or constant the heli is easier to control because you are not continually correcting or compensating for changing RPM.
And here I have been manhandling the sticks for so long- my RPM bogging when I slam both sticks, Mr.Szabo's art is about finess and fluid motion something I have yet to learn.
I think Im going back to the drawing board, Reset my pitch curves less aggresive and try to keep my head speed up, lighten things up to increase cyclic response and give the heli time to recover when doing aggresive manouvers.
Soneebee are you in govenor mode?

theDonDon,

what an excellent analysis of szabo's flying and about the sim speed! you da man : )
just ordered a sim and can't wait to try! you just saved alot of us alot of sim time!
i'm sure those sim heli's can only take so many crashes! but their rebuild time is amazing : )
i downloaded a demo sim using the keyboard arrows for control and tried flying in 50mph winds and that is soo much fun!
can't wait until me full sim arrives!

Thanks for getting us newbies up and running....jimo

Hey jimo

I had trouble getting my sim to work with my spektrum DX6 so I bought one of those $20 usb rumble pads with two analog sticks. Then I glued a 1/8" metal nut on top of the stick with CA, I cut a piece of plastic tubing 2" long-placed it over a 1/8"-2" long screw and screwed it into the nut glued onto the rumble pad stick. Wala-- $20 usb sim controller with eight function buttons and it works on any computer.