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RealFlight G3 Expansion Pack 2 Review
By Michael Heer
Oct 10, 2006, 09:00 PM
Introduction
I suggested to my editor that it would be a great review if I was able to review all the existing model planes and helicopters that are available in real life to better compare them to those on the simulator. My editor thought that was a great idea and suggested that I buy them all and do just that... So much for that idea. I will however compare the real RC Fun Force Zero and P-51 with those on the simulator and provide a video so that you can compare the Zeros as well. Some other comparisons will be made during this review based on planes I have seen in person. While authenticity will be explored so will the fun factor provided by this Expansion kit. To do that we will need to try all the planes, helicopters and flying fields provided with the program. Absent the review it would probably be several months before I flew all of the models in the Expansion Pack 2 as I tend to focus on one or two that capture my attention and master them (Mastering doesn't apply to the helicopters.) before I move on to another plane. There will be none of that mastering stuff in this review.
Included Planes and Helicopters
There are 14/15 new planes on the Expansion Pack 2, and 4/5 new helis (no new gliders.) (Although there was both an electric and glow KEtana as well as a regular and 3D Aurora there will only be one video of each of these models.) Let's take a look at them!
New Flying Fields
Expansion pack 2 included three new flying fields as well.
A short hop in all fourteen planes
Well now that we have seen the still shots of the planes, the copters and the fields it is time to see the aircraft in action over the fields. I have two videos featuring a brief flight of each of the planes. I flew seven planes for the first video and gave them about 30-45 seconds of video time per plane to keep the videos below 5 minutes. The first video featured the Aqueduct and the second video featured the 3D Course to provide a detailed look at these 2 sites. I could have made every flight sequence in the video look perfect, at least with the planes. But what fun would that be? Part of the fun of the 3D simulator and this expansion packet was what happened when a plane crashed. So for demonstration purposes I have some intentional crashes included to show that aspect of the simulator as well. Not all planes crash equally so for the most part I crashed the planes that crash the best. Additionally, some of these model planes have recently been reviewed and you can see the review and video of the actual models in flight as part of those reviews. From the first video the Aerocat was reviewed by Jim Young and his review was posted in The E-Zone on June 6th. Mike Llewellyn just reviewed the Great Planes Electrifly F6F Hellcat and his review was posted on July 18. I was reviewing the Electrifly Fun Force fighters at the same time I was doing this review so I included a special video of the real Fun Force Zero with video of the simulated Zero. You can compare them later in this review in a separate video.
In the second video below you can compare the simulated Pogo with the real RC Pogo in Mike & AnnMarie Cross's review of the Pogo XFY 1 posted in the archives as a review dated December 5th, 05. Nick Maxwell just reviewed the Ultrafly Radix ARF on July 13, 2006. I suggest you compare Nick's video to the simulated clip in the video below.
Videos by a simulator helicopter pilot.
Editor's Note: I have it on good authority it took over $250,000 dollars worth of simulated helicopters that were accidentally crashed by the author to make this next video! No pixels died in the making of this video. It shows how with editing anyone can "appear" to be a helicopter pilot.
I planned on videotaping the new helicopters flying around the Photofield E-Fest Indoor Arena but found I couldn't see the rotors with the dark roof and with the normal setting on the fixed camera the copter got small even indoors. Simple solution was to go to another flying field and put the camera on the chase setting and hit the + to make it come in a little closer so the copters remained readily visible. The versatility of the camera settings and flying fields allowed me to do what I wanted to do. For the helicopter video I shot three of the helicopters in an "outdoor' setting and used the chase camera position. The fourth and final helicopter clip shows what I meant about the indoor setting being dark for a helicopter. You can view back a recording from any of the three camera positions no matter what position was used when you did the actual recording. I demonstrate that with the landings of the Stratus 90: first live from chase position , then video played back and recorded from fixed position. I hope everyone can enjoy the view of the copters and the backgrounds. I couldn't resist including one of my more spectacular crashes and how the copter slid down the hill.
Comparing the handling of the real Fun Force Zero and P-51 model planes with the simulated Fun Force Zero and P-51 from the Expansion pack.
I purchased the Electrifly Fun Force P-51 for myself about the same time I got this review. A number of pilots in my club purchased Fun Force planes to try them out for combat with the thought of adding Fun Force Combat as an event to our club's Fun Fly on October 22. Charles Eaton purchased the Zero with an inch longer wing and half an ounce lighter wing loading than my P-51. For this review he flew the real RC Fun Force Zero while I videotaped it. Next I flew the flight simulator Expansion Pack 2 Zero and videotaped my own flight. I used a flying field from one of the original G3 choice of fields. Watch the videotape and form your own opinion as to how they compare.
The simulated Zero had far more throw for its controls as it was on 3D mode while Charles had his Zero set for Sport Flying controls or less than half the throw I had on the simulated Zero. I found both the simulated Zero and the Mustang flew much faster than the real RC planes at the full throttle setting. The solution to that was to fly at about 3/4s throttle and then the speed was accurate. If I upgraded my plane to a brushless motor the speed I would have then would likely be a closer match to that on the simulator. Aside from the speed I found the handling for the 3D version to be similar to my Mustang when it is on full throw settings. I also found I could really lose speed with those settings as ailerons acted like flaps in slowing down forward progress. For combat I prefer the Sportsman setting. Less movement on the controls kept the speed up and I was better on the sticks in combat at that setting in both real life and on the simulator. I found the simulation to be very accurate if I used the throttle correctly.
Random thoughts after the first four flying sessions.
Session 1
I don't believe that the Real Fun Force P-51 can be that fast...we will see this weekend. The obstacle course is like skiing, you have to be lined up for the next ring as you go through a ring. I had the same trouble setting up for the gates in skiing when I was younger and skied on occasion. I got an adrenaline rush when I tried to fly through the building under construction the first time and made it. Ground movement is still way too much, crashed the Aerocat in the obstacle course and slid forever down a hill. I found the Aqueduct flying field is easy from the pilot's camera view but much harder from a fixed position on the ground. However, I flew far out and got lost using the pilot's position camera with the Raptor. It seems if you hand toss a plane at too steep of an angle the motor dies and it crashes. How the heck do you control the Wolf Spyder's engines directions? OOOH the dial! Neat (see the video!)
Session 2
The WolfSpyder is a lot easier to land than the Pogo. I got close to landing the Pogo...once. The helicopters all break dramatically when I crash them. I lost the top right half of the wing on the PT 17 in the obstacle course and was able to land and take off despite that loss. I wish the warbirds had machine guns and bombs! I doubled how far I got through the obstacle course this session. I seem to do much better flying next to the rings than I do through them.
Session 3
It seemed to me that all the planes I am familiar with in Expansion Pack 2 fly faster on the simulator than the real RC planes fly in real life at full throttle. At less than full throttle I can get them to fly pretty much as I remember them in real life. Thus even if you upgrade the power system on one of these planes in real life the simulator can represent that by just using the right amount of throttle. Proved to myself with the Fun Force planes and the Ultrafly Radix why I don't fly 3D very often. I over-reacted and made the obstacle course even harder than it already was.
Session 4
Almost completed the obstacle course with the P6E Hawk at half throttle a couple of times. Key word being almost. What a great challenge! Of course with the camera on I came no where near repeating what I was doing with the camera off -- nerves? I was much better with the Radix when I had the camera off than while trying to make this video! I over controlled it in both cases but more so it seems with the video camera on. Funny how that is the same in real life and simulation.
Oddities and Cool Stuff
I was surprised that I was able to fly the WolfSpyder as well as I did fairly quickly. The Pogo was another matter. Although I had reviewed the Atmopod a couple of years ago and it controlled on the same system as the Pogo, I had less trouble landing the Atmopod in real life than landing the simulated Pogo by far. I have never flown the real RC Pogo but I hope that it may be easier to land on its tail than the simulator was, at least for me. Normal flight with the Pogo was easy. OK, I have to be honest. This is when I found my one pet peeve. It has nothing to do with how well the models fly, and does nothing to affect the tool's ability to teach me to fly. But, I wish my sled had slid down snow covered hills as well as crashed planes slide down the grass on the hill at the obstacle course. I have gotten use to planes rolling forever when landing but not crashed models, like you'll see in the video. I found that, with the video recording mode you can fly and crash using one airport and if you replay when at another airport you see the current airport while your recorded plane flies its recorded flight in the different setting. The water tower I hit originally isn't there on playback so it appears my plane crashed into nothing on the replay but it was destroyed none the less. Makes for some interesting fly throughs and landings. I suggest you give it a try.
Help, On Line Assistance and Flight Instruction
While reviewing this Expansion pack I typed in the name Charles as the pilot for recording the Zero and then I couldn't find out how to change it. So I sent Real Flight an e-mail asking them three questions.
1) How to change the name of the pilot for recording purposes? I sent the e-mail at 10:00 Pacific time on a Wednesday morning to Real Flight, and immediately received an auto response with some helpful info and letting me know they would help me as soon as they could. While I waited for the response, I spent some time viewing the instruction flights available on the Real Flight G3. I had not done this before and, while not a part of this review, I found they were very impressive! I even tried a couple tips I watched about 3D flying and this old dog learned a couple new tricks that worked. If you haven't explored the instruction section on your Real Flight G3 simulator, give it your own review and see if you don't learn something new also. Well after 48 hours I had no response to my e-mail. To be fair, they did recommend calling for questions and so I did. The phone was promptly answered and I learned I had to hit "Restore Default Settings" to remove Charlie's name. I also learned there was no way to view a recording and not have the name appear in the video. I had an incoming call so I never got to my third question. But two hours later it was answered in a response to my e-mail. So if you have a question, and can't wait for the answer, I recommend you call for assistance, the service was excellent! If you can wait, it only took about 50 hours for my e-mail to be answered. (GP indicates they normally try to provide even quicker e-mail service, but 2 business days really isn't bad.) If you have done some adjustments to programs, hitting the restore defaults might undue your adjustments. I recommend you pick a name or item to use for your recordings and live with it. I deleted Charles and installed "-" as my name; the one mark worked and could initially be seen in the helicopter videos. However, when I turned the program off and turned it back on later, the "-" had changed to "player" even though the saved name in the recorded titles was "-."
Conclusions
I found the Expansion Pack to be a lot of fun with enough challenges to keep me and most pilots busy for months. The graphics are excellent and the new models and flying sites were good choices and were very interesting to me. I really enjoyed the Aqueduct and the 3D obstacle course. The latter is a continuing challenge to me as I kept switching planes for this review. I had good success with the P6E Hawk and the Venus II at about half speed. I came within the last two rings of completing the course with the Venus II. You have to fly about two to three rings ahead of where you are in the course and that can be harder than you think. I found two of my helicopters needed a little trim tab adjustment to fly level. Since I have only learned to fly helicopters at the basic level thus far I could not further evaluate the helicopters as to how they compared to the real RC versions. I can say the more you play with them the better you become. Far less expensive in money and emotion to crash the simulator helicopters vs. the real thing. I hit that red reset button all the time when I tried to learn a new trick with the helicopters. I found the planes I have seen in person were well presented in the simulator. Just faster at full throttle as mentioned before and that is not an issue with me. I hope they come up with a formula for ground friction so landings are more realistic, with less roll out with throttle off and especially downhills. A picky point and not much of a negative but it bugs me. I don't yet have add-on packs 4 & 5 but as mentioned I do have 1-3 and Expansion Pack 1 and I found Expansion Pack 2 to have a lot of new good stuff to entertain me. The new flying fields and planes justified the expense. I hope they some day add machine guns and bomb drops for the warbirds, some ground targets and let us practice being military aviators. While I like what they have and I don't want weapons on my real RC planes... just for the fun of it... Expansion Pack 3 could add weapons. So, Expansion Pack 2 gave me some nice new challenges for my Real Flight G3 simulator. Now with this review over I hope to master the obstacle course with the Venus II at just a bump or two over half throttle.
Editor's note: Jim Bourke, owner of RCGroups.com, and EZone, is an employee of Knife Edge, the makers of RealFlight. Jim did not have any input into this review, and did not edit it in any manner. This relationship in no way effected the review. Last edited by AMCross; Sep 26, 2006 at 03:53 PM.. |
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Oct 11, 2006, 01:15 AM
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#2 |
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Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2002
Posts: 65
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I am sorry, maybe I missed what the specs of the video card and PC you were using???
Just trying to judge how G3 runs on my PC vs the review PC Thanks -CaKe |
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Oct 11, 2006, 10:19 AM
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#3 |
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Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Stockton, Ca. USA
Posts: 6,628
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I used my laptop for the review as I could video tape off the LCD monitor. It is at my office and I will check what I have in it and report back.
I can tell you the requirements involve more than just your video card. Minimum recommendations: Windows XP, 2000, ME, 98 Intel Pentium 1.0 GHz or equivalent DirectX 9 or above feature compatible voice and sound card 3D accelerated video card with 32MB or more RAM (NVidia GeForce 5200, ATI Radeon 9600) 256 MB Ram 1.3 GB hard drive space Optimum Windows XP Intel Pentium 3.0 GHz or equivalent 3D accelerated video card with 128MB or more RAM (NVidia GeForce 6800, ATI Radeon 9800) 1 GB RAM My Laptop has the following: Windows XP Intel Pentium 1.60 Legacy Video 480 MB of RAM The program runs pretty well on my Laptop but has a few stutters. My next computer at home will not have that problem and will have a 20" HD LCD monitor and a near top of the line video card. Mike Last edited by Michael Heer; Oct 13, 2006 at 11:56 AM. |
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Oct 13, 2006, 12:51 AM
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#4 |
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Registered User
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Omaha, NE
Posts: 108
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I have an Athlon 64 3000+ PC with 1Gb of Dual Channel DDR 3200 RAM and a Radeon X800XL 256Mb PCI Express video card. I run G3 in windowed mode at 1600 x 1200 smoothly with maximum detail on in every setting.
The simulator will "sputter" slightly when it's first started, or when I break a piece off the plane or helicopter I'm flying. If I'm in full screen mode instead of window mode, or if I'm at 1280x1024 windowed mode, it won't sputter at all. |
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