I purchased RFG2 long before I purchased my first R/C "toy". I knew I wanted to get into the hobby, my first thought was to fly planes since everyone said helis were so hard to fly. I'm glad I didn't listen!

At first the sim seemed impossible, couldn't make any of the helis stay in a hover. In almost no time, however, I was hovering tail-in, then nose-in, started forward flight ... been like heaven since then. I got to a point where moving the heli was mostly instinctive, not much thought given about what to do from moment to moment. That's when I decided to go after the real thing!

My first (real) flight was SCARY: pucker-factor x 1,000,000. The engine noise, smoke, wind, wife & kids spectating. I then tried to remember what I had learned from G2 and suddenly everything "felt" better. I went through two "close calls" that I managed to recover from (thank God), and (NOW) I know that had it not been for the sim, I would have lost it!

RFG2 is well worth the $200 price tag ... the flight sim is accurate enough to learn flying well. It includes it's own radio, so you don't have to go shell out another $300-500 dollars on a radio just to use the sim (BIG PLUS) and it has a lot of parameters that you can tweak to change the aircraft and it's environent. Another huge feature is MULTIPLAYER! A lot of folks consider this a "toy" feature, but I can tell you it is a great way to learn from other folks. I learned a couple of neat tricks from a friend that lives in another state using multiplayer and the radio gadget (which shows stick movement from yourself or other pilots). I had been trying to learn this one trick, but all the "textual" descriptions on this and other forums on how to perform it didn't help me learn it. My friend used the sim and showed me the exact stick movements to make it happen!! I have not seen this feature on any other sim on the market.

There are other sims that claim to have better flying physics, better support, more models, etc., etc., but most require that you own your own radio, which should be considered in the final cost of the sim. You will probably learn to fly with any sim that at a minimum lets you interface with a radio (or has similar controls, just not keyboard based). Overall, though, I think RFG2 is the best one for the price/feature. It's not perfect, but neither are the rest in the lot. If you end up getting RFG2, you will NOT be disappointed!

--Hammer