I have seen many new updates on RC Flight Sims out there and wondering what one is the most realistic to the real thing with helos and planes?? At a RC Helo show, many raved about Phoenix V3. I have tried Realflight G5.5 and it looked good, but seemed to take alot of PC horsepower to run. I also see Aerofly 5 in magazines all the time.

What is the best in your mind?? Also one that takes less HP from a computer??

It depends on what your goals are. For realistic fixed wing flight physics for advanced aerobatics and 3D, I think the FS One v2 is the choice, and I don't think it requires as much computer power as some. The heli guys like Phoenix. I also have Aerofly 5, which requires a good video card for the advanced graphics, but I still like FS One v2 for the flight physics realism.

Best?

In many cases it's a personal and somewhat subjective opinion.

People who own a particular sim, tend to favor their own choices.


Here's my $.02 worth...

FYI: I own practically ALL of them. Yes I'm a sim "junkie".

For the greatest "Realism" Aerofly5 and Realflight 5.5 have it over all of the rest ( sorry but that includes FS One 2 ).

While Phoenix is touted by the Heli pilots for out of the box performance on the helis, RF5.5 tends to catch up here once you tweak the helis a bit.

IMHO AF5 still lacks a bit in this regard, but it has greatly improved it's Heli Physics compared to AFDP.

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FYI: I've run standard RC Plane trimming tests and patterns on most of the modern sims to test out the fidelity of their flight models and how the simulated model compares to the real world counterpart.

Like FS One, FS One 2's plane deviate from how the same planes perform in real life.

That is not to say you cannot use the sim.
Rather this is only a comment on how the sim compares to the real planes that are modeled since the original question was "realism".


Regarding PC Horsepower

All of the high end sims run will with any desktop computer purchased within the last two to three years w/o problems.

Netbooks frequently lack advanced 3D capabilities in spite of touting 3D.

You can download demos of the software to see how the full programs will run on your computer.


If FSOne runs on your PC, so will AF5 or RF5, though you may want or half to dial back some of the more advanced effects.
Both of the latter two sims will adjust themselves out of the box for best performance.

However both will scale UP very well when you later upgrade your PC, so this can be a better long term investment.

I started of with sims before getting into helis.
Been using them on and off now to learn plane orientation.
Prefer Realflight for serious practicing, ReflexXTR is really good for helis, and Aerofly for just playing around on.

When flying a real model with heat, sweat bugs in your eyes and the potential
to crash the model which doesn't reset itself, then there is that significant difference
between sim and the real model.

So use a sim as an aid to test model parameters and to teach yourself orientation.

I agree. Especially the bugs in the eyes.

And bees that land on your hands while you are doing a touch and go and you shake the bee off and bounce the plane off the runway.

Sims are great like you said for orientation and basic skills. I thought that's all there was to it until I went out there in the real world.

I've only owned RF 3.0-4.x. The thing about RF that I've noticed is REALLY BAD... ENGINE PERFORMANCE. Since when does an OS 46FX run in the 15,000 RPM range with an 11x7 APC? or a GAS Motor run in the 20,000-30,000 RPM range with any prop? No wonder some of the planes are such speed demons. General flight physics of the airplanes seems good compared to the 12 I've owned and flown, except for the engines. I'm thinking of using another sim because of this. I have to do some research to find out about the engine performance on a couple of the other sims since the average person doesn't think about that parameter the sims.