First of all thanks to Alex at Realitycraft.com for supplying me with a copy of RC Flight Master Extreme64 to review.
What’s it say on the box:
Fly a massive selection of over 50 radio control helis, planes & gliders with unbelievable realism on your PC.
And it does just that, from a complete RC novice flyers point of view (me) this is a great way to get used to flying RC aircraft without the expense of crashing them and getting disheartened every time you do, not only can you use your keyboard or joypad/stick but to get even more realism you also have the option to buy either a parallel or USB interface that will enable you to use any standard TX controller that has a trainer socket like the Skysport series 4 & 6.
The sim starts with several options, these include co-ordination trainer
The co-ordination trainer gives you the chance to practice your aircraft control by presenting you with several tests, I must say as a novice I found this feature very useful, but I’m sure that even the most advanced people would get a benefit from it as well.
As well as the usual options on any menu, about, exit ect. Are your different flight modes, 1 user, 2 users and white knight & space ship one, you can also change your graphics options like reflections, object detail, shadows and more, I had all these set on full running at 1280x1024, and my P4 2Ghz, 1GB ram with a 256MB Gforce 6200 and didn’t have a problem with it, in fact I also briefly tried it on a P3 with only a 64MB card using the default settings and it still ran very well, so you don’t need an all singing all dancing machine to use it.
You have a 2 users option, this gives 2 people the chance to fly at the same time using a split screen mode, personally this is something that I would never use as I hate games that use this mode, but like I said that’s just me personally I think my problem is I spend too much time watching the other person, but it’s still a great feature to have.
White Knight and Space Ship One Mode
Taken from the help file it says “Very similar to Single Pilot flight, this mode enables you to launch and control the SpaceShipOne aircraft from its mothership - WhiteKnight. This differs from normal Single Pilot flight in that the aircraft automatically take-off and fly by themselves. When you are ready - press the 'Fire Weapon' key to launch and take control of SpaceShipOne. Then use the 'Start Engine' key to power the rocket motor of SpaceShipOne.”
When you choose single pilot mode you are taken straight to using one of the trainer planes, which isn’t a bad place to start, by simple pressing esc you are taken to more options, and this is where this sim comes in to it’s own
from here you can choose to fly another aircraft, fly from a different location, change the weather conditions even simulate different failure conditions.
Having equipment fail is part of any RC model but with RC Flight Master you are able to simulate engine, structural, servo, gear and transmitter failures, together with the weather condition settings that gives you an unlimited number of possible flying situations
You can choose anyone of over 50 different aircraft, spitfire, Boeing 747, Hurricane, F117A, Bell 427 and Comanche are just a few of what’s available, what’s more each aircraft behaves different, flying a Lancaster Bomber is completely different to flying a Mig-17 which would be he same in real life, and if your not happy with the default settings and you want to see how an aircraft would handle if you moved the centre of gravity, give it more engine power or even changed it’s aerodynamics then the physics menu will let you do that, giving you even more options to enhance your flight realism.
The are several locations you can fly from, it comes with 3 3d landscapes, desert, farm and medieval and 3 realistic photo sceneries, and what's more you have the ability to import your own scenes using the free download available called Photo Tool, I am going to have more of a play with this and will post about that later, but it's really good that you can go and take pictures of your local park or place where you like to fly and add it to the sim to practise with
And finally tech support, I had the need to use it unfortunately, they responded in good time and with the suggestions I needed to do to get it working, after a couple of days of this and still not being able to get it to work, I formatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows and it still didn't work
I must say they were very good with the help I sent several emails and it turns out it was nothing to do with the sim, my graphics card had fried got a new one worked fine and I'm glad it did because I would have missed out on well wrote software.
So is this the best RC flight simulator available? I don’t know I haven’t tried them all, but from what I’ve seen if I was to try others I would always be comparing them to this, I’ve been thinking of buying a plane for a while the only thing that puts me off is the expense of crashing and having repairs, at lease this way I can get used to flying in different conditions and crash as much as I like, it might not stop me crashing when flying a RC plane but it will give me an advantage that I would never have had, and the first time I landed without crashing gave me such a sense of achievement I had a smile from ear to ear
In conclusion this gives the beginner a distinct advantage and confidence to go it alone and it gives the more advanced people a chance to experiment with things that you just couldn’t do under normal circumstances, all in all a great piece of software and something you would come back to time and time again.
[box]
Aircraft available
A-10, Aero-Slick, Aggressor, AquaShy, B-52, Beaver, Bell427, BellX1, Boeing-747, Breeze, Canard,
Comanche, Corsair, DragonFly, Easy-3, EasyGlide, EasyHang, Edge, Eurofighter, F117A, Falcon XR,
Fling, Gambit, Glider, HeliDog, Heli-Trainer, Hurricane, Lancaster, LandSkater3D, MagicButt erfly, Me109, Mig-17, Nexus, NexusWater, P38-Lightning, P51-Mustang, Phantom, PiperJ3Cub, Pondskater, RedStik, Rock -Wing, Rose, SeaBeaver, SpaceShipOne, Spirit, Spitfire, Trainer-3-Channel, Trainer-4-Channel, V-1, V-Soar, WelshFun,WhiteKnight, YankeeBiplane
[/box]
[tech]
Minimum Requirements
Windows 98/Me/2000/XP, Pentium 1.0 GHz or equivalent, 128 MB RAM, 32 MB 3D Video Card (DirectX 8 compatible), DirectX 8.0 or higher (included on CD), 400 MB hard disk space, 2x Speed CDROM drive, Keyboard & Mouse
[/tech]
[price]
RC Flight Master Extreme 64 PC Simulator £59.99
RC Flight Master Extreme 64 Simulator w/USB Mode 1 4-channel Transmitter £99.99
RC Flight Master Extreme 64 Simulator w/USB Mode 2 4-channel Transmitter £99.99
USB Interface Cable fits JR, HiTec and Futaba (round 6pin) £29.99
RC Flight Master Extreme 64 Simulator w/USB Cable £86.99
Distributed by CML you can look at the their website for more info and where to buy
[/price]
What’s it say on the box:
Fly a massive selection of over 50 radio control helis, planes & gliders with unbelievable realism on your PC.
And it does just that, from a complete RC novice flyers point of view (me) this is a great way to get used to flying RC aircraft without the expense of crashing them and getting disheartened every time you do, not only can you use your keyboard or joypad/stick but to get even more realism you also have the option to buy either a parallel or USB interface that will enable you to use any standard TX controller that has a trainer socket like the Skysport series 4 & 6.
The sim starts with several options, these include co-ordination trainer
The co-ordination trainer gives you the chance to practice your aircraft control by presenting you with several tests, I must say as a novice I found this feature very useful, but I’m sure that even the most advanced people would get a benefit from it as well.
As well as the usual options on any menu, about, exit ect. Are your different flight modes, 1 user, 2 users and white knight & space ship one, you can also change your graphics options like reflections, object detail, shadows and more, I had all these set on full running at 1280x1024, and my P4 2Ghz, 1GB ram with a 256MB Gforce 6200 and didn’t have a problem with it, in fact I also briefly tried it on a P3 with only a 64MB card using the default settings and it still ran very well, so you don’t need an all singing all dancing machine to use it.
You have a 2 users option, this gives 2 people the chance to fly at the same time using a split screen mode, personally this is something that I would never use as I hate games that use this mode, but like I said that’s just me personally I think my problem is I spend too much time watching the other person, but it’s still a great feature to have.
White Knight and Space Ship One Mode
Taken from the help file it says “Very similar to Single Pilot flight, this mode enables you to launch and control the SpaceShipOne aircraft from its mothership - WhiteKnight. This differs from normal Single Pilot flight in that the aircraft automatically take-off and fly by themselves. When you are ready - press the 'Fire Weapon' key to launch and take control of SpaceShipOne. Then use the 'Start Engine' key to power the rocket motor of SpaceShipOne.”
When you choose single pilot mode you are taken straight to using one of the trainer planes, which isn’t a bad place to start, by simple pressing esc you are taken to more options, and this is where this sim comes in to it’s own
from here you can choose to fly another aircraft, fly from a different location, change the weather conditions even simulate different failure conditions.
Having equipment fail is part of any RC model but with RC Flight Master you are able to simulate engine, structural, servo, gear and transmitter failures, together with the weather condition settings that gives you an unlimited number of possible flying situations
You can choose anyone of over 50 different aircraft, spitfire, Boeing 747, Hurricane, F117A, Bell 427 and Comanche are just a few of what’s available, what’s more each aircraft behaves different, flying a Lancaster Bomber is completely different to flying a Mig-17 which would be he same in real life, and if your not happy with the default settings and you want to see how an aircraft would handle if you moved the centre of gravity, give it more engine power or even changed it’s aerodynamics then the physics menu will let you do that, giving you even more options to enhance your flight realism.
The are several locations you can fly from, it comes with 3 3d landscapes, desert, farm and medieval and 3 realistic photo sceneries, and what's more you have the ability to import your own scenes using the free download available called Photo Tool, I am going to have more of a play with this and will post about that later, but it's really good that you can go and take pictures of your local park or place where you like to fly and add it to the sim to practise with
And finally tech support, I had the need to use it unfortunately, they responded in good time and with the suggestions I needed to do to get it working, after a couple of days of this and still not being able to get it to work, I formatted my hard drive and reinstalled Windows and it still didn't work
I must say they were very good with the help I sent several emails and it turns out it was nothing to do with the sim, my graphics card had fried got a new one worked fine and I'm glad it did because I would have missed out on well wrote software.So is this the best RC flight simulator available? I don’t know I haven’t tried them all, but from what I’ve seen if I was to try others I would always be comparing them to this, I’ve been thinking of buying a plane for a while the only thing that puts me off is the expense of crashing and having repairs, at lease this way I can get used to flying in different conditions and crash as much as I like, it might not stop me crashing when flying a RC plane but it will give me an advantage that I would never have had, and the first time I landed without crashing gave me such a sense of achievement I had a smile from ear to ear
In conclusion this gives the beginner a distinct advantage and confidence to go it alone and it gives the more advanced people a chance to experiment with things that you just couldn’t do under normal circumstances, all in all a great piece of software and something you would come back to time and time again.
[box]
Aircraft available
A-10, Aero-Slick, Aggressor, AquaShy, B-52, Beaver, Bell427, BellX1, Boeing-747, Breeze, Canard,
Comanche, Corsair, DragonFly, Easy-3, EasyGlide, EasyHang, Edge, Eurofighter, F117A, Falcon XR,
Fling, Gambit, Glider, HeliDog, Heli-Trainer, Hurricane, Lancaster, LandSkater3D, MagicButt erfly, Me109, Mig-17, Nexus, NexusWater, P38-Lightning, P51-Mustang, Phantom, PiperJ3Cub, Pondskater, RedStik, Rock -Wing, Rose, SeaBeaver, SpaceShipOne, Spirit, Spitfire, Trainer-3-Channel, Trainer-4-Channel, V-1, V-Soar, WelshFun,WhiteKnight, YankeeBiplane
[/box]
[tech]
Minimum Requirements
Windows 98/Me/2000/XP, Pentium 1.0 GHz or equivalent, 128 MB RAM, 32 MB 3D Video Card (DirectX 8 compatible), DirectX 8.0 or higher (included on CD), 400 MB hard disk space, 2x Speed CDROM drive, Keyboard & Mouse
[/tech]
[price]
RC Flight Master Extreme 64 PC Simulator £59.99
RC Flight Master Extreme 64 Simulator w/USB Mode 1 4-channel Transmitter £99.99
RC Flight Master Extreme 64 Simulator w/USB Mode 2 4-channel Transmitter £99.99
USB Interface Cable fits JR, HiTec and Futaba (round 6pin) £29.99
RC Flight Master Extreme 64 Simulator w/USB Cable £86.99
Distributed by CML you can look at the their website for more info and where to buy
[/price]
