Sloping Off - March 2006
They're Not Like The Real Thing You Know...
by Martin Burr
What aren't? Flight Simulators. Eh... well of course they aren't. They are very expensive though aren't they...? Well maybe not; I have a download of a Sim, (CD's are avaliable) which I think is very good, I should stress at this point that I have not flown any other yet!
Interested? Then read on McDuff... I wanted to improve my flying skills as fast as possible so I could land the thing without a change of underpants each time. I had flying away from myself reasonably sussed, but when it was coming towards me, things were a bit more of a lottery! You don't get much chance to sort it out when it's close to the ground! Something had to be done.
So I put "Flight Simulators" into Google and after a bit of sifting came up with the Reality Craft Website .They are doing a FREE, YES FREE, trial download which lasts 7 Days. After checking the system requirements, I thought I may as well give it a go, it's not the real thing but it may help a bit, you never know till you try eh? WOW that was the best money I never spent! For the next 7 days the grass didn't get cut, the washing up didn't get done, I didn't shave (no change there). My first flights were short !.... Then as I practised, I got better and better. The feeling of disorientation was just the same as it had been when doing it for real.(oo err missis). I sussed propping up the dropping wing when flying towards myself, then landings weren't a crash every time. When rolling putting a dab of up elevator in, to keep it straight and,... The Big One... Flying Upside Down...I could fly the plane inverted, no problem, but doing it standing on my head, that was the real challenge! Seriously though, I probably learnt weeks worth of actual flying basics in 7 days for FREE. And the disorientation? well, I'm on tablets.
The basic plane they let you use is a High Wing trainer which is pretty slow and dull even if you turn up the speed control to 125% and you can only fly for 5 mins, but you can fly as many times as you like. The environment in which you fly is quite well detailed with trees and other things to hit. You can change your view quite a lot, with chase ones if you wish. Most importantly for us, you can zoom in and out from your standing view. This means, you can start off close to the plane so as it doesn't go out of sight so easily and, as you improve, you can "pull back" to see the ground and the surroundings a lot better. By the way, I'm not on the payroll of the company!
When I got back to "The Real Thing" I would be a liar if I said I could suddenly fly like a bird... but my plane flew a lot better! Honestly, I think this helped me a lot, if it helps one of you too, great! I liked it, and I missed it when my free time expired so I got the full version which is much better with more planes which are a lot faster. This is £19.99 yes £19.99! This gives different landscapes and editable physics etc and lots of other stuff, even a split screen dogfight mode. I was using an ordinary joystick, (fill in your own jokes here...) to control the Sim, but I wanted rudder control, to try knife edge, stall turns etc., so I ordered the interface cable so I can use my Tx. This was £16.95, yes I know, I went mad, but hey! it's nearly Xmas! This works a treat too, and allows better, more "real" control. So where do you get this panacea you were asking? Go to www.realitycraft.com there is lots of info there with system requirements etc and a new posh version, no free trial as yet, but I'll keep looking.....
... but is this the answer to poor flying skills? - Ed
