foosball_movie

Hi. I recently visited a hobby shop and test drove the Real Flight G3.5 software and promptly crashed my plane a dozen times in a row. I thought this would be a great way to practice before I try flying the real thing for the first time.

It has quite a few planes to choose from in the software, but my trainer ( Hobbico's Hobbistar 60 MKIII with a OS .65 LA engine ) isn't included. I'd like to practice with a plane that is as close as possible to my trainer.

Which plane is the closest to the Hobbistar 60 MKIII is terms of speed and flying characteristics? These are all included in the software and appear to be similar to my trainer:

Great Planes PT-40â„¢

Hobbico NexSTARâ„¢

Hobbico® ElectriStar™

Thanks for the help.

coolbean

I would say the PT 40 would be as close as you could get.

CGRetired

My Feedback: (1)

The NexSTAR is larger than the others and may be the one to practice with.. as long as you can remove the wing-tip gizmos and the brakes under the wings.

DS.

JLIN26

foosball

The ElectriStar is a brushless electric trainer, so if you're trying to compare the Hobbistar on your Realflight G3.5, I'd go with the NexStar. If you eventually decide to get into electrics, the ElectriStar would be a great choice to start training with.

Jlin

JPGale

I had a Hangar 9 Alpha, and I tried the PT-40 and nexstar on G3.5, my view was that they were trainers so what difference does it make, I hated the nexstar with a passion, it was so much hard to work with than the PT-40 yes I could fly it but I did not like it.

James

Kevin1963

anyone have a good substitute for a four star 60? Looking to buy that for my 2nd plane ... I'm tired of flying around that nextar!

raideron

My Feedback: (1)

My guess would be the Super Sportster, Not sure if you need any add-ons and I
D/L'd it from Knife edge swap pages....

But as someone said above what really is the differents.... There is a lot of different
sims, and some is different than others better or worse.. Loads of different planes
and they do help you... But IMO it's all about stick time with no "after cost" while
getting the time in.......

If you do get the 4*, they are great easy flyers, and powered good allow you to learn
a bit more.. I started with the Avistar, but I wanted to start off with the 4*60 but
my instructor wouldn't go for it.. So I got the 4*60/Mag 91 4c two weeks later... both
are still here 3 yrs later....

Soda Ant

The manufacturers (Great Planes, Sig, Hanger-9, etc.) would do themselves (and us) a great favor by creating sim models for all of their planes for the popular flight sims (RF, FSOne, etc.) I don't understand why they don't

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Great Planes does create models for the Real Flight. The problem is that the only way to get them is to buy their Add-ons. Trust me, GP has the "earn a buck" game down very nicely. In fact, their greediness is the reason why I will never EVER buy Real Flight again. I have Real Flight G2 and I really enjoy using it. I was looking forward to buying G3/G3.5 but they did not make an upgrade available. The G2 cost $199 and came with the controller (which is their software piracy prevention tool. You have to have the controller for Real Flight to run). They should have made a upgrade version of G3/G3.5 available for the G2 owners to buy, one that was the software only and no controller as we would use our existing controller. But instead they choose to not do that and charge full price ($199) for this version as well. Therefore I refuse to buy GP's software again. And before anybody comments about GP making a buck and everything, I've worked in the IT field for over 20 years now and I fully understand how companies make money by making software upgrade versions available. In fact, an upgrade version only would probably have made GP more money than selling it with a controller included as they only thing they would need to include would be a CD and a manual.

IMHO, Great Planes totally dropped the ball on this one. They totally ignored the needs of their customers here.

Ok, rant over. I'll get off my soapbox!!

Ken

ABELL

As for an answer to the orginal question the Nexstar. I have both th G3.5 and the Hobbistar 60 with a tt Pro .61 and IMO the nexstar is closest thing on there - not exact but close

JLIN26

RC Ken,
I think you are mistaken about Realflight. They are offering a free upgrade to G3.5 for everyone who has their G3 registered. I know it sucks not having that free upgrade from G2 to G3 available at the time it was released, but they know that people were upset about that. That's why they offered this free upgrade for G3.5 Just to sum it up, you are completely wrong about GP ignoring the needs of their customers.

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

No, I am not completely wrong about Great Planes, nor am I mistaken about RealFlight. Don't misquote what I have said. I did not want a FREE upgrade from G2 to G3. What I wanted was the ability to buy an upgrade version that is cheaper than the full price of G3. It would have been very easy for them to sell an upgrade package that did not include the controller for a lower price that what the full version of G3 costs. I'm not trying to get anything for free here at all, I just don't want to have to pay another $200 get a controller that I already have. Not providing a package like this just shows that a company is totally oblivious to the needs of their customers. They just expect all of the owners of G2 to blindly run out and lay out another $200 for the G3 version. If they cared about their customers they would have tried to help us out by offering a lower priced upgrade package. I'm sorry, if Great Planes cared about it's customers I would buy the upgrade to G3 but I'm not going to spend $200 that could very well be spent on other things. Besides, I have flown the G3 that my friends have. Trust me here when I say, there isn't enough "improvements" over G2 to justify my spending $200 on. The G2's flight dynamics are still very well suited for what I want to use the simulator for.

Ken