Sims

[Doozer]

I know this has been covered in a few posts/threads before, but man... I don't see how some people can afford to fly without them. As some of you know I've started flying planks. Before Tuesday, I've never flown one for real and only had sim practice. I have quite a few hours flying Helis and this helped, but without Real Flight I don't think I would have managed to keep the plane in the air.

After I purchased the Stinson, I went to Real Flights download page downloaded the Stinson RFX file. It was exactly the same color scheme as my model, and I think that's important... at least for me. I was able to transition from the sim to real flight easier because the planes looked exactly the same in the sky. I knew when my plane was rolling or inverted because I had seen it hundreds of times before in the sim. And yes, I literally did hundreds of landings and touch and goes in the sim.

I think flying a plank is less stressful than flying a heli, but take offs and landings with a plank, without damage, is not a simple task (see my video). While real flight makes the take off seem easier than it actually is, I think it closely simulates landings. There are some things it can't do landing wise. The visual perspective is limited, but not so much that you feel completely disconnected to a landing on the real flight line. I found the stall speed is quite accurate. The bounce on landing from a mistimed stall is quite accurate as well. The roll rate was dead on and so were almost all of the flight characteristic except for yaw... and that wasn't too far off.

I know having heli experience helped me a great deal, but it also hurt somewhat when I'd get inverted. When I first started flying planks in the sim I found myself dropping the "collective" to "negative pitch." Which in reality did nothing but kill the power. Not such a big deal because planes glide, but could be bad in certain situations. This is where working things out in the sim first came in handy.

I would suggest that no matter what your experience is with other r/c platforms, that you take advantage of the sim before you fly a plank. I had a great time flying my first time out, and I have the sim to thank for that.

[19000rpm]

Good advice. I learned to fly the old fashioned way. Very painful.

The old sims were not very good. With the new sims, Real Flight and Phoenix, there is little excuse for not having one before you fly that first plane. The new sims are accurate to a great degree with flight characteristics and may even have the exact plane that you intend to fly. There are dozens available. Very cool. And lots of fun when you can't get out to the field and want some stick time, or just want to try out some different aircraft.