RC flight sim

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Radio control flying requires a degree of flexibility about orientation, as there is the possibility of flying the aircraft directly towards the pilot, which reverses apparent controls. Any situation where the plane or rotorcraft is moving around close to the pilot will require frequent directional adjustments. Unlike manned flight, discerning direction from a ground view of the aircraft can be difficult, and the result tends to be money wasted on crashes. The RC community has responded by making a number of environments in which third person flying can be tested without risking an airframe.

This is for training a human being to fly a plane. For training an autopilot, see Autopilot simulation

Contents

[edit] RC Sims

Purpose-built RC flight sims have somewhat different flight models than full-size simulators are geared to, particularly things like 3D flying that are just not practical at full scale, and multirotors. They also have flying fields with strong ground turbulence models to resemble real life, and a most importantly a third person view of the field.

[edit] Commercial

The commercial scene appears to be that a plurality appreciate the expensive Realflight, with very strong competition from Phoenix, while FS One and Aerofly are moderately less popular, but widely acknowledged to be quite good options as well. Clearview is mentioned as a cheaper path than these four sims, with some free planes.

If trying to choose one: People appear to be pretty evenly split on whether Realflight is better than Phoenix for fixed wing and Phoenix is better than Realflight for helicopter, or the other way around.

[edit] Realflight (by Great Planes)

  • Almost always mentioned in sim discussions
  • $100 for the basic software & controller with representative models
  • $200 for a helicopter or airplane 'megapack' on top of the software & controller

Ships with a USB transmitter-shaped controller, a set of RC flying fields (including interesting wind conditions for sloping and turbulence adjustment), and a set of planes, helicopters, and quads.





[edit] Phoenix




[edit] AeroFly & AeroFly Pro Deluxe (by Ikarus)

A spinoff is available, Aerofly FS ("full scale").




[edit] FS One

  • Sometimes mentioned in sim discussions
  • $130 with choice of transmitter attachment cable

One comment about a poor heli model.

  • Available online


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[edit] Clearview

  • Sometimes mentioned in sim discussions
  • $40 for the sim
  • $100 for the sim and AC3D CAD software to build models

Appears to be a budget option, with some comments about a lack of features, although a considerable number of models & fields of present. Does have some apparently very passionate fans, but may have a professionalism problem since the owner is one of them, and there are complaints about forum-spamming and customer service problems.



[edit] Reflex XTR

Mentioned rarely.

[edit] Aerosim

Mentioned rarely.

[edit] CSM

Mentioned rarely. A dominant 1990's sim, with extremely primitive graphics but a well-received flight model. Allowed user control of flight parameters.

[edit] Dave Brown RCFX 2001

Mentioned rarely. Appears to have been somewhat popular through the 90's, but obsolete now.

[edit] Free

Not often considered to be competitive with the pay options.

[edit] FMS

Mentioned rarely.



[edit] RCDeskPilot

Mentioned rarely.





[edit] RCFSim

Mentioned rarely.


[edit] General Flight Sims

[edit] X-Plane

X-plane is a closed-source software that nevertheless has a very large community building content and plugins for it. Updates every few years with new scenery. While not comparable to an aerodynamic engineering suite, it does have a significant primitive capacity to determine airframe characteristics from the polygonal shape of the plane and propellers, rather than working from empirically derived parameters.

[edit] Flightgear

Flightgear is the dominant open source non-combat flight simulator.

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