.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Learn to fly RC planes and helicopters with RealFlight G3
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
.SUMMARY If you’ve ever wanted to fly RC planes and helicopters, but were afraid of crashing your very expensive toys, you should check out RealFlight G3. In this in-depth review, we examine whether or not this program can get you in the air.
.FEATURE
My neighbor Roy is as much of a geek as I am. He was looking for a hobby (OK, apparently his wife insisted he go find himself a hobby) and he decided he was going to start exploring radio-controlled airplanes and helicopters. Both Roy and his wife thought this was a great idea, because not only would it give him something to do during his recreational time, but it also would get him out of the house.
Apparently, radio-controlled airplanes and helicopters aren’t particularly easy to fly right out of the box. Both require training and skill development. The guy at the local hobby shop recommended Roy get an RC flight simulator and practice on his computer until he got good.
.CALLOUT When you crash, you don’t destroy an expensive RC flyer.
As Roy told me, "Here I thought I’d found something to get me away from the computer and video games, and the hobby shop guy insists I buy this video game to learn how to fly!"
It turns out the entire world of radio-controlled hobbies is far more high-tech than I ever expected. From flight simulators to servos, to spread-spectrum controllers, to magnet-actuated flight surfaces, more and more of the RC hobby is resembling something out of a NASA lab and more and more of it involves computer technology that’s about as unplugged as it gets.
For our first foray into this brave new world, we brought the Great Planes RealFlight G3 radio-control flight simulator into the Computing Unplugged Labs and decided to put it through its paces.
.H1 USB RC remote control
RealFlight G3 comes with two key components: a CD-ROM containing the flight simulator software and the RC remote control, shown in Figure A.
.FIGPAIR A This is the ultimate plugged-in remote control.
Here at Computing Unplugged, we generally cover technology that was once plugged in, and is now unplugged. This time, we’re doing the exact opposite. Usually, an RC remote control has a wireless link to the RC vehicle it’s controlling.
.TEASER Can this program teach you to fly RC planes and helicopters? Tap here to find out.
This time, however, the RealFlight G3 remote control has a wired connection. Where an antenna would normally come out of a typical remote control unit, the RealFlight G3 remote control has a USB cable. In effect, the RealFlight G3 remote control becomes a very sophisticated joystick for your flight sim.
.BEGIN_KEEP
The RealFlight G3 remote control has all the typical buttons you’d see on a regular remote control including the trim wheels, the switches that would raise and lower landing gear, and more. The one button it has that a typical RC remote does not have is the big red restart button. Click that and your plane or helicopter is back on the runway, ready to start up again.
This becomes important, because you’re going to crash. A lot.
.END_KEEP
.H1 The flight simulator
What makes RealFlight G3 so interesting is that it is a very faithful simulation of flying a real RC plane. It includes a wide variety of plane models and a reasonable set of fields. If you master the controls flying your simulated plane, you’ll have a very good chance of mastering the controls of a real RC plane.
If you don’t master the controls in the simulator, you’re going to crash, like I did in Figure B.
.FIGPAIR B This is just one of many times I crashed.
The real value of the simulator is that when you crash, you don’t destroy an expensive RC flyer. I crashed a lot.
The simulator’s collision detection is among the best I’ve ever seen. The crash emulator is quite accurate. If you land too hard on the landing gear, the simulator has accurate sounds and the gear is no longer functional. If you land too hard by plowing the nose into the ground, the vehicle will bounce, wings will separate, and you’ll know you did something very wrong.
.H1 PhotoFields
RealFlight G3 comes with a wide variety of 3D rendered airfields from which you can practice flying. It also comes with two "PhotoFields", panaramic photographs that have been turned into real flying environments. You can see one such photofield in Figure C.
.FIGPAIR C Here’s a B-17 taking off from a PhotoField.
I really liked the PhotoFields. Graphics performance is smooth, with very little jittering. RealFlight G3 contains a 3D editing environment that lets you create your own PhotoFields. I downloaded a snow field which made for some very pretty flying. The 3D design system is quite sophisticated. When I flew my plane, I was able to fly both behind of and in front of the tower, shown in Figure D.
.FIGPAIR D You can fly both in front of and behind objects in the photo.
Another user-designed PhotoField is shown in Figure E.
.FIGPAIR E If you think it was easy getting this screen capture, you’re very mistaken.
If you think it was easy getting this screen capture, you’re very mistaken. This is a panoramic shot, completely enclosed, with a roof, posts, and a ceiling. There were many crashes before I was able to take the picture you see in the image.
.H1 Rendered fields
While there are a few PhotoFields, the program comes with a much wider selection of pre-rendered fields, such as the gymnasium shown in Figure F.
.FIGPAIR F Just try getting the chopper through the hoop!
Different fields have different flight characteristics. There’s a field on the side of a mountain, and the wind gusts make it almost impossible to fly. But I tended to like the wacky fields, like the launcher off the aircraft carrier shown in Figure G.
.FIGPAIR G I feel the need, the need for speed!
.H1 Aircraft
As you’ve seen already, the program supports a wide variety of aircraft, including helicopters, propellor-driven planes, jets, and even gliders. In addition to the B-17 and F-15 scale models shown in previous images, some of my favorites included the vertical take-off Harrier, shown in Figure H.
.FIGPAIR H This VTOL aircraft is faithfully simulated.
Another plane that was fun to fly was the Wright Flyer, shown in Figure I.
.FIGPAIR I Toss the model with your mouse and then fly, fly away.
.H1 Training features
The program includes training features that will help you get started flying. For the planes, the program includes pre-recorded programs and voice descriptions, helping you learn how to perform basic and more advanced maneuvers. As shown in Figure J, the program will also show you how to hold the sticks on your controller to master flight.
.FIGPAIR J Pilot see, pilot do.
For beginning chopper pilots, you can fly a chopper equipped with training pylons, as shown in Figure K, which makes it far easier to land without tipping the vehicle over on its moving blades.
.FIGPAIR K The training pylons make landing a bit easier.
.H1 Conclusion
The flight physics in RealFlight G3 are astounding. The B-17 flew very differently from the small propellor plane. The chopper with training pylons flew like a chopper with training pylons while the scale Hueys were far more aggressive flyers.
You might not realize there are RC jets, but RC jet flying is a big segment of the RC market and the RC jets in RealFlight G3 flew just like RC jets.
I’ve never flown any form of RC flying vehicle. When I started, I was crashing all the time. After a week or so of flying practice (yep, I get paid to do this!) I was able to take off with every vehicle and I was able to land the slower, easier to handle airplanes.
Helicopters are far harder to fly than I’d ever expected. I’m still finding them hard to control, but I’ve managed to achieve some low-level hovers and have been able to move them around with enough control to at least capture the screenshots you’ve seen in this article.
There’s only one thing we’d like to see added. The USB-based remote control is a very cool peripheral. We’d like to see an API (Application Programming Interface) made available so that other, non-RC games might be able to take advantage of its more realistic controls.
This is an astounding program. It’s designed for one, very specific purpose and it achieves that purpose with a level of success that’s a pleasure to experience. We give RealFlight G3 a very high-flying 5 out of 5.
.RATING 5
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on RealFlight G3, visit http://www.realflight.com.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
