Well I just got my AFP in the mail yesterday so like countless others i would like to give my impressions. Right out of the box it simply makes G2 look like crap. Installation was quick and easy, and I didn't even need to enter in any 48 digit codes to register my software. The interface attached simply and worked very well . . . recognized my transmitter right away. I did not even wait to patch it before giving it a spin.

I do wish you could check your control functions before heading to the field, I had to reverse a couple servos to get everything working correctly. There were plenty of models to chose from only thing I think it could use is more scenery (althouh I quite honestly have not even looked online for scenery yet). The interface was pretty well laid out, very easy to navigate features. I dialed in a slight breeze and took a plane up for a spin. The handling on the ground was sub-par, but everything else handled really really well. The stall speeds were pretty much dead on, and most pleasently the aircraft would actually slow down when i chopped the throttle. I always had a hard time when practicing with G2 because aircraft either tended to slow down too much or never slow down at all. I had a small problem with the pattern ship doing stall turns correctly, just needed a little more rudder deflection and prop wash. Oddly enough it was so easy to adjust the perameters it was silly. With G2 i spent 2 hours trying to get an aircraft to perform correctly with AFP took less than a minute.

I have to admitt it was seriously hard to put the sim down. I am not an avid 3d'er but dang was that fun working on 3d with this sim. I could speed up or slow down the sim to work on parts of a manuever that was giving my problems, I worked on torque rolls at 80% speed then poped it up to 100% and did markedly better. Honestly you can call AFP king of 3d not only because it is accurate but because it can really help train you to fly 3d too. Later on i downloaded one of the OMP planes . . . man was that a kick. If you are even casually interested in 3d this sim has got your name written all over it. Good planes, good handling, and oddly enough the profile planes do have the most accurate ground handling of all the planes i tried (i have not come anywhere close to using all the planes).

I don;t fly helo's so really hard for me to give any opinion on them. I crash them just as fast on this sim as any other, though i am thinking i might try it with the sim slowed down and see how i like it.

Only complaint I had was crashing was not always realistic. Planes did not break or crash even when i landed mostly on the wing rather than the landing gear. In order to crash you really had to crash. It could be i am used to G2 where it crashes pretty easy. For example I am landing the plane and i hit the right wing tip at the same time as the right wheel. On G2 crash . . .on AFP it may or may not be a crash depending on the model. In reallife If i landed like that I would probably not break the wing, but scrap the crap out of the monokote, worse if you have a rough landing strip. Could be i just need to change the roughness of the scenery, or it just isn;t a crash happy sim. All in all not a major issue, but worth noting that the collision detection could use a little work.

I don't have reflex so i can;t really compare the two. I will say that altogether I paid 142.50 for AFP, free expansion and an adaptor for my futaba radio. G2 will run you $60 more without many aircraft, and with worse performance. The cost of reflex is right in between AFP and G2 as far as reflex's performance i have no idea. I can say AFP fly's like a sim and not a cheap video game . . . reflex may be more life like, but I'll have to wait till I can get my hands on it to really say it is better. Is AFP the second coming . . . hardly but dang it's fun and I know I walked away with more skills than i had before I tried it, and with the cash I saved I can get the servo's i need for a new plane ;-)

Nice review. I use AFP to practice for 3D and IMAC. It has brought me up to a level that I could not acheive without it. I learned blenders on AFP and went right out to the field and pulled it off. Talk about exciting. Then last night I thought that it's time to make my blenders look smoother and cooler. After about 10 or 15 of them on AFP, I was very happy with how they looked. I starting off at idle pointing straight down from about 400-500 feet. Then I would start a left aileron roll 4-5 rotations with no elevator, slowly feed in full right rudder. Then feed in down full down. Finally I'd work the ailerons to get a nice flat inverted spin. It was a blast to keep working on the transition until it looked nice.

My point is that after I was done practicing on the sim, it looked exactly the way I wanted it too. And I could go to field, and do the same exact thing. How cool is that?

I also had problems doing stall turns BTW. It takes a blip in the throttle to kick it around. Or maybe I should just keep practicing

Joe

Trick with stall turns is to leave just enough throttle on that you have enough air moving over the tail to flip you around, (also rudder deflection), but not so much that you are trying to hover.

I bought it for work with IMAC, Pattern and a little horsing around with 3d and I couldn;t be happier thus far.