Hello all...

So this is basically what happened...

- people at work have been buying the Air Hogs helis to harass other coworkers

- i decided to try to find a micro plane to "take them out"

- internet research lead me to many fun articles of passion about rc planes - including an article about "UnModding" the ITC StarScream micro flyer.

- during a particular boring lunch one day, i drop into the local RS and found a StarScream microflyer as a managers special for $25.

- take it to my local park (probably one of the most populated parks in the US - Prosepect Park, Brooklyn NY), proceed to have 1.5 hours of unexpected joy playing with this thing.

- realize that although there is much randomness to this toy, I am quite week in response to many situations and proceed to research RC flight sims


So obviously as far as RC planes go, I am kinda a beginner, though I would argue that my learning curve would be relatively fast, as I have quite a bit of experience in a glider (real flying experience - don't have my license but have solo'd over 10 times - basically, I understand basic flight principles - including the ever so scary spin recovery) and I seem to pick up video games fairly quickly - and when you think about it the two disciplines share many of the same hand-eye coordination skills.

Now, here is where I am at. After much research and reading articles online, I am leaning towards FS One. For two reasons. 1) Apparently, they get the physics right and 2) The passion shown by the developers on many RC forums is inspiring (being an engineer/sw developer myself, I respect this). I am also considering Realflight G4. The only real reason why I am considering G4 is because of the detailed revelation given on their product page about the "training" options. I think it would be really beneficial to watch the stick movements of certain arial maneuvers when trying to learn them.

So to make a long question short (sorry for those you have followed this far)... how are the training features of FS One compared to G4?

Of course the sw engineer in me wants to know things like the Poly count difference (in planes) between FS One and G4, and whether either of these programs are using Shader 2.0 features, can I increase texture detail based on GPU performance, etc..... but for now, I will be happy in knowing which one is best suited for teaching me how do all those f'n cool aerobatic tricks...

thanks,

-j