Whats your favorite simulator to learn on?

[TMASTER]

If you would like to explain your reasons too :)

[nemo_uk]

Hi,

this might be of interest to you ... rc universe Poll (http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_2971904/tm.htm)

regards,

Tony.

[xenracer]

hi I'm a newbie to rc planes and stumbled across sims on accident. I downloaded cockpit master and then FMS. I preferred cockpit master at first as I didn't have a gamepad controller and was using my keyboard. I recently got a gamepad and totally prefer FMS. I totally dig flying the pitts special and doing flat spins with it. cockpit master has nicer landscapes but couldn't find many models for it. I've have found a ton of models for FMS

[Daniel G]

FMS is free.
Need I say more? :cool:

[Catkicker]

i dont know which is best, but i have g3(until i sell it next thursday i hope) and its worthless for training.

[CustomPC]

I have used:
FMS
Ikarus EasyFly
RealFlight G2
Reflex XTR
Aerofly Pro Deluxe

Out of all these, i still have and use Reflex XTR on a daily basis. I mainly fly Heli's and XTR is an excellent heli Sim. I've also found it's fixed wing to be excellent.
Aerofly Pro Deluxe is pretty good for fixed wing but is pathetic for heli's. I feels more like a toy whilst XTR feels like a Sim.

I would love to try G3 and test their claims that it is the "most realistic" sim.
Catkicker, why do you say G3 is worthless?

[TMASTER]

I bought G3 a few days ago. It was the only one my local hobby shop had, I was thinking of getting XTR.
The good thing about the G3 is you get a controler to use, and you can hook yours into it to use also. The G3 you can play online with friends, I also just found it has trainer sections which you can watch and it shows you examples of all the tricks, how they are done; by a video of people accually flying in the sim doing them. The G3 came with 14 heli models i think, and many many planes. Many views you can fly from and zooming too. Theres so much to do in this simulator!
I fly helicopters, and I would say the models in the G3 are about 85-95% accurate of real life. The only thing is to find specific models to download is hard. I have only found the T-Rex heli so far. In real life you have a larger view of everything and I would think its easyer in some ways. Its a little hard with jsut looking at a screen.

Catkicker: i dont know which is best, but i have g3(until i sell it next thursday i hope) and its worthless for training.
Athough I have never flown a RC plane in real life before. I flew them on the G3 like i was riding a bike. Airplanes are so easy its not even funny. After Flying helicopters on the G3 sim, Its pretty much exactly how I fly in real life. I still have a lot of training to do! (skills in the sim are about the same as real life)
I hope to get a chance to try out the XTR simulator, I see that it uses a real life graphical background which would be very nice.

Overall the point of the simulators are to help us further our skills in real life. What really maters is the feel of the Airplane or helicopter, and how it fly's. I think G3 and XTR are pretty close in that matter from what I have read. FMS is not like real life at all. I unistalled it after 2 days.

Everyones different on their skills, but If I was just flying airplanes there would be no need for a simulator for me. ;) Heli's are hard! took me two weeks to hover in real life. I've read about a lot of people that get discuraged and give a poor opinion of something. I think they just need more practice.

[Eric Brouwer]

Taking into account the cost of the simulators, the computing power required, availability of software/hardware, ease of use, and benefit to the "general" R/C flyer, I have no doubts that there is only one simulator that comes out TOPS. It might not be the best, but I am sure that FMS helped more newcomers than all the other simulators combined (taking my club as benchmark)

FMS (For airplanes only)
==================
Best choice for beginners wanting to start flying airplanes. Not suitable for training helicopters. It is very cheap compared to other simulators. I know the software is freeware, but one still need to purchace an interface. System requirements are as follow:
- Pentium II, 300MHz
- 64MB RAM
- Windows 95 and upwards
- 32MB DirectX compatable graphics card
- FMS Serial PIC Interface

Cost - When compared to the price of a new .40 size trainer with motor, radio gear, field equipment, about 8%. Or about the same price as two standard 3kg servos.

As it does not require a top-of-the-range, super zoom-zoom, special-deluxe PC, the software will work on a PC that is actually cheaper than buying all equipment required for flying airplanes.

FMS will benefit all newcomers, and when used in conjunction with training at the club, will decrease the training time by weeks. If we were to start counting the number of FMS users worldwide, I think they will exceed the number of active R/C flyers.

There is no need to purchace extra software disks to get a model that represent your model. With the on-line FMS Forum, there are a couple of guys that will actually create your model free of charge. The model might not fly as in real life, but the same can be said about commercial sims as well. You must change the paramaters to suit your specific model.

When the sim becomes so horrible and pathetic that you can no longer stand it, you are sick and tired of complaining but nobody listens, the on-line updates does not work, you can not replace faulty CD's/interfaces, nobody wants to buy it as it is too expensive, FMS comes out TOPS again. You will actually get some joy out of distroying the interface and CD and not feel guilty about it's cost.

Although I no longer use FMS, I still believe that FMS has made a tremendous contribution to the R/C flyers around the world.

[Rickenbacker]

XTR, but I've only tried that and FMS (which is nothing like real flying, but works for learning orientation and stick skills). The helis in XTR feel pretty close to real to me.

[Looooeeee!]

Taking into account the cost of the simulators, the computing power required, availability of software/hardware, ease of use, and benefit to the "general" R/C flyer, I have no doubts that there is only one simulator that comes out TOPS. It might not be the best, but I am sure that FMS helped more newcomers than all the other simulators combined (taking my club as benchmark)

FMS (For airplanes only)
==================
Best choice for beginners wanting to start flying airplanes. Not suitable for training helicopters. It is very cheap compared to other simulators. I know the software is freeware, but one still need to purchace an interface. System requirements are as follow:
- Pentium II, 300MHz
- 64MB RAM
- Windows 95 and upwards
- 32MB DirectX compatable graphics card
- FMS Serial PIC Interface

Cost - When compared to the price of a new .40 size trainer with motor, radio gear, field equipment, about 8%. Or about the same price as two standard 3kg servos.

As it does not require a top-of-the-range, super zoom-zoom, special-deluxe PC, the software will work on a PC that is actually cheaper than buying all equipment required for flying airplanes.

FMS will benefit all newcomers, and when used in conjunction with training at the club, will decrease the training time by weeks. If we were to start counting the number of FMS users worldwide, I think they will exceed the number of active R/C flyers.

There is no need to purchace extra software disks to get a model that represent your model. With the on-line FMS Forum, there are a couple of guys that will actually create your model free of charge. The model might not fly as in real life, but the same can be said about commercial sims as well. You must change the paramaters to suit your specific model.

When the sim becomes so horrible and pathetic that you can no longer stand it, you are sick and tired of complaining but nobody listens, the on-line updates does not work, you can not replace faulty CD's/interfaces, nobody wants to buy it as it is too expensive, FMS comes out TOPS again. You will actually get some joy out of distroying the interface and CD and not feel guilty about it's cost.

Although I no longer use FMS, I still believe that FMS has made a tremendous contribution to the R/C flyers around the world.

What Eric said, and some!

As a maker of virtual models for FMS I can say that the main reason that FMS doesn't seem to simulate as well as other sims could largely be blamed on the PAR modeling of some models. These are all user created, the BMPs for the skins, the .MQO and .X files for the 3D shapes and the PAR for the actual flight model. Some PAR files depend on a lot of trail and error. So it behooves us to try to experiment with the PAR files a little to get the models to behave correctly.

Just my US $0.02 opinion.

That and the fact that it's freeware, that runs under most Windows OS's and on most video cards is a big factor. I have an old AMD 350 mHz K6-2 with a PCI VooDoo 2000 that it runs on without problems, this is a 1999 vintage machine. and I get at least 22 FPS at the worst.

[Catkicker]

why do i think g3 is useless? simple in it i can fly anything with ease. in rl i can barely fly. also, they have a few people telling about acrobatic flying, but it doesnt teach you how to do it. and the basics are compleatly left out. i bought it after being told it would help me learn to fly, it doesnt. and that it had lots of park flyers, it doesnt. and thats why i'll never shop at rc country again, or buy from great planes.

[TMASTER]

Ive been using the G3 for the last 4 days and yes I could see how it would be limited at helping you learn or improve flying planes. But I think it will really help me learn to fly helicopters better. I've been spending about a hour a day on it and after a few weeks I think I'll be able to fly (nose in) well, when I couldn't before. A lot of hours on the sim should help. You can't just play on it. You have to really think, do things over and over, and have a plan.

[jswjimmy]

i fly in g2, but you say learn. for just learning stick movements fms is good, and it free.

[Looooeeee!]

With spelling like this it's no wonder your planes fly like crap!
OK Chippy it's behove, what's yer beef, have you even tried any of my virtual models? hmm?

[Daniel G]

OK Chippy it's behove, what's yer beef, have you even tried any of my virtual models? hmm?
IMHO, Loooeeee's planes are some of the best flying models out there for FMS.
I still can't figure out how he does it. My best model still doesn't quite fly like his do. :confused:
Maybe he'd be kind enough to put together a tutorial for the creation of FMS models.

PS
I wouldn't know how to spell behove either. :rolleyes:

[Looooeeee!]

Oh boy, D Zipper's got me. I guess I'm gonna have to come clean about how to do this.

Actually the 2 programs that GGunners and T. Sekai created for checking out your PAR file, called ParEdit and ParConverter are a big help, but they're not all that self instructive, and frankly I really dislike ParConverter's habit of deleting all the text and replacing it with lots of ??????? as the text, when you do a conversion. Epecially when you need the nglish text translation additions from German that Gary Gunners did, are a big help with the process of making a new PAR from scratch.

If you open some of my model's .PAR files in ParEdit, you'll notice that I try to approximate the actual surface areas, chords, and control suface sizes as closely as I can. This doesn't mean I really know what I'm doing, but I try to get the shapes and sizes precisely as can be made. You have to realize that the PAR file is really just a crude virtual "chuck" glider replica of the actual ".X" file, the DirectX retained file that makes the visual part of the model appear on your screen. ParEdit scales and compares the these two files, the actual polygon shaped .X file, and the simple flat plate rectangles and polygons of the .PAR file appear superimposed upon one another.

This could get really long winded... are you sure you wanna read about it when I could just do a semi-visual tutorial? I've got the inclination to try this but it'll take a while.

Looee

[Daniel G]

I've got the inclination to try this but it'll take a while.

Looee
Go to it!! :cool:
I can wait a bit. :)