timalbritton

I am a Newbie and am going to try to fly 424 next season. I have never flown the course before. Would it help me to practice over the winter on a simulator? I have heard if you learn on a simulator you will never be able to fly the real thing.

splatt

I'd worry about bad habits more than anything. What I see when using G2 is that you want to fly low enough to see it in the screen. But that puts you under the pylons. Remember to fly above the poles.

That's probably why I flew right through pylon 3 in the first heat of the first race last this last spring, right Diggs ? You can see evidence on the homepage of ncplracing.org

Otherwise it makes good practice. When you get hot and feel your in the groove just hit the letter R on the keyboard and continue flying for a few minutes and hit R again to stop the recording and save it . Do this a couple times and when you play it back, your racing against yourself.

Don't bother with the pylon race on the program. Go find a airport that's all set up on the pylon course.

diggs_74

Splatt,

Your bad habbit of flying under the poles cured my bad habbit of standing so close to the #3 pole

DHG

My Feedback: (7)

Welcome, Tim. Are you by chance related to J.E. Albritton from Prince Georges R/C Club or thereabouts?

Duane Gall
RCPRO

p.s. I do recommend simulator flying. For some reason it doesn't make me fly too low in real life. I also find I'm using the rudder constantly on the simulator, but not in real life. Strange how that works. But if nothing else, it'll get you used to flying around yourself, which is something you rarely if ever get the chance to do at the local flying field.

DHG

My Feedback: (7)

Another p.s. ... I guess since I have "RCPRO" in my signature block, I should make a point of mentioning that RCPRO has a thread devoted to simulator setups and such. Check out http://www.rcpro.org/net/Forums.aspx?forumid=2300 ... I like the Miss Ashley II QM40 racer that Don Stegall posted for downloading, although it may be a little too quick if you're just starting out.

Duane (again)

splatt

I do the same exact thing, I find my self leaning on right rudder more and more, than I think ,oops, bad habits.

does your G2 always go out of trim. It seems like if your always going left the trim kinda goes that way. I was always hoping one of those software updates would fix it . I'm always calibrating the sticks.

PylonWorld

Duane,

That;s why I created the [link=http://www.pylonworld.com/simulator_racing/rc_simulators/realflight_racing/realflight_racing.htm]PylonWorld QM-40 Sport and Short Course[/link] version of the plane. It feels a lot like a 424 plane, plus the short course makes the timing more like the real thing.

In terms of bad habits, I don't think that is a problem, other than getting used to flying low (and crashing a lot ).

I'm proud to be able to say that MANY of the hot young pilots use RealFlight G2 with my fields and planes. Tanner Pacini who is now the National Junior Quickie 500 and Quarter 40 record holder logged a lot of hours with the add-ons before transitioning to the real thing. Gino Del Ponte, Jon Baker, Steve Vaclav and others have spent a considerable amount of time practicing with the PylonWorld add-ons. Even a number of long time pilots log time on the sim. Drew Telford and Jerry Small fly or have flown it a lot. Even Ed Smith may admit to flying on the simulator a bit. If you want to fly in traffic, install Drew Telford's Practice Setup after you get to the QM-40 Miss Ashley.

If you want a real challenge, try out the [link=http://www.rcpro.org/html/downloads/downloads.htm]RCPRO F5D Plane and FAI Course[/link].

StregaFlyer

Simulators help alot.. I originally started practicing pylon on the simulator with the original Real Flight with the Simple Flier and a swooped up engine.. It helped alot, but causes ya to fly low.. My dad sat down one day on the simulator and created a Spirit of St. Louis QM40, cause we were thinking of trying to produce one.. It flew great and helped my flying out termendously.. I haven't got on the new simulators and actually fly the course yet...

timalbritton

Thanks for the response. Yea Duane John Albritton is my brother. I flew conrtol line for quite a few years and have watched and worked the course for a lot of races at PCRG. I have never acutally flown much radio conrol, but have decided to try 424 instead of watching it or working the course!!