Hi Guy’s

My questions have more them likely been asked 100 times before, but please have patience with me I’m new to the group.

I’m planning of returning to R/C after decades of absents. I would like some impute on
whether simulators are would be worth the investment. Who’s is the best at the lest cost? Now that I’ve r etired I’m on a limited budget.
The plane I’m considering is.
1) Balsa, ARF, 50-70” trainer (not to sure of foamies)
2) Horizontal & vertical rudders, aileron, throttle control
3) Electric powered
4) 5 or 6 CH spectrum radio system (2.4GHZ is really the way to go).

Yes, they are most certainly worth the money. I've learned alot from mine. I use Aerofly Deluxe. It's less expensive than RealFlight.

But, make sure your computer has alot of horsepower! You need alot of video processing speed & memory to make them run properly. My computer is only a few years old and it barely handles Aerofly.....

There are 2 completly free flight sims available , get 1 of those and save your money for a plane . All the sim is going to teach you is orientation and help train up your thumbs . No sim is perfect so use a free one and then spend the 200 you save on a nice little foamy thats easy to fix like say a Champ

hmmmmm.... I would've never learned how to do a rolling harrier without a sim...

100% absolutely, completely, totally YES!

free sim here http://rcdeskpilot.com/

and here http://n.ethz.ch/student/mmoeller/fms/index_e.html

More than good enough for a retired guy on a fixed income looking for a trainer .
Just stay away from trying those Rolling harriers for atleast your first 2 flights when you get your trainer

Yes! I use RealFlight and I am completely satisfied with it.

The 2 best things that this sim taught me was orientation and hovering.

Just about any good crash on your plane is going to cost you time (ordering the parts and the actual repair time) as well as money. So why not spend the money (or download time) upfront and get some free crashes out of the deal. Push the reset button and you are back flying again!

-Stone1295

We made ours from an old transmitter rewired to interface
with the computer with MS flight simulator. Brad reconfigured
the planes to behave like RC planes.

Total cost was about $10.

http://img718.imageshack.us/i/moviepv.mp4/

Thinks for the replys
Sounds as if a sim saves $$$$ in the long run. I’ll try and find a free sin on the net. if I don't like a free one I"ll buy one

free sin

That you will have to pay for!

Will take you farther than you want to go
and cost you more than you want to pay.

Totally worth it. You can do it without one, but you'll be playing it safe probably forever instead of having some real fun with your RC model.
The sim can teach you any maneuver you want to learn. Plus it's fun to try out the different types of planes. You might end up surprised by what you like to fly.

To each their own, I did use FMS for a short time but for me the fun factor was just not there. I know that FMS is a cheap sim and I did buy a used copy of a higher end sim (F-One I think). Just bear in mind that unless you have a high end computer with a good graphics card you'll either will be stuck with FMS or spending money on a better computer or do as I did and just fly the real thing. I'm all self taught and after nearly a year I have slowly gotten pretty good at flying.

Besides it is way more fun flying a real model. You just get nervous, a feeling you'll never get on a sim. I remember way back to my 5th or 6th time out, my knee was shaking like I was at the top of a 100 foot tower.

Simulators can not teach you everything, but they can teach you almost everything, and certainly can teach you enough to keep from crashing your plane. If you practice on the simulator (actually practice, specific things) then you can save a lot of money on crashes of the real thing. You might eventually crash a plane or two, but IMO you should never crash your trainer, if you have gotten proper training. The simulator is an important part of that, but with anything more than a docile park foamy, you're also going to want some in-person training on your plane. It can make a real difference - just trust me on that. If you find someone who is actually a good teacher, you can do fairly well without a simulator, but a really good flight trainer is fairly rare - I've been training people for a couple years now and I wouldn't say I'm very good at it... but my students do learn to fly eventually and many of them learn fairly quickly. When I can't teach them, they supplement that with the simulator and/or another instructor at the club. Every day practice is important when learning a new skill, and access to a simulator can help insure that you get it on bad weather days or when you're just too busy to get out to the club.

There is nothing quite like putting your real plane up there - but the adrenalin and the mistakes associated with that can be reduced by having a good clear head about what you're doing, and the only way to do that without risking your plane is with a simulator - it builds up your rational thought process and confidence, which reduces confusion and mistakes on your first few flights. I know I was shaking a lot less when I was a noob and I had more confidence.

Bought RealFlight. Used it for about 4 weeks and it helped me a lot. Then, I stopped using it for a while. Started going back to it everytime I was thinking about buying an airplane. Downloaded it, tried it, than stopped using it again. Was thinking about selling it (RealFlight seem to hold value on the used market, which is another bonus), but then, I started coming back to it when it was too cold, or rainy for a while, and I needed stick time.

Still use it, and for me toally worth it. I saved more money than it costed me. When my fleet is grounded for too long because of the weather, RealFlight is my "what do I want to fly today" fix!