Stringfellow
Member
The setup process in RF makes it unusable without a ridiculous amount of relearning and work. Unless you are from the PC kids gaming world and understand the arcane terminology there are stumbling blocks at every stage. I suppose if I flew helis with a few of your specific FBLs I would have spent the inordinate amount of time to learn all this crazy AXES, ROTATIONS, etc. That is a very small world. I come from the world of real flying starting with flying off carriers in Viet-Nam and then over 4 decades as an aviation systems/avionics engineer. F14, F18, Tornado, Eurofighter, E2 .. and I never once saw the PC game controller terminology in all those years. And flying models since FF and CL in the 1950 and never saw it there until I got RF. If the toy game controller terminology is so great why isn't it used on RC transmitters and receivers and all RC and real aircraft? The physics in Phoenix is much more like actual full scale that I have flown and RC models that I fly now. And Phoenix is much more malleable with understandable setups and editors to make it work like a real pilot expects.
Take what should be a simple example. The plane you want to fly doesn't have the same expo, rates, etc. that you fly the real transmitter and planes with. So it should be simple to go to the aircraft edit menu and set these up in the software radio using standard flight surface terminology like Aileron, Elevator, Rudder... Not is RF -which inconsistently uses THEIR channels ( and who knows what that means in RF ) mixed in with all the crazy game controller terminology. Unless you want to learn all about the PC game world, and specifically Microsoft, any editing is impossible. I can tell from many of the posts in the forums (and even KE, RF and HH staff) that the many posters have no other experience than games and RF.
When you use your real transmitter and fly real RC models do you use game controller or aviation terminology.
RF was developed from the MS gaming world and its legacy is so hopeless entangled in it that it doesn't know how to extricate the SW and make it all consistent with the real world.
Spent a lot of money on RF and after I tried it and having found it unusable with all the esoteric foibles I tried to return it. OOPs - not returnable if you try it first. This catch 22 makes as much sense as everything else about RF.
Sorry you're having a hard time.
- I find the editor very straightforward. The example of setting expo is one of the simplest things in RF. I go through every regularly flown model and remove all expo. Maybe take a look at the Software Radio while moving the controls to get a feel for the channels?
- In electronic componenets like FBL units or flight controllers. Axes & Rotations generally are expressed in degrees per second at the stick's full throw... and are adjustable under Aileron, Elevator and Rudder.
- For planes, you can easily adjust degrees of deflection for every surface... positive, neg and set neutral to whatever trim you like. Not to mention size and shape of each surface.
- RF's editor is so much more in-depth than Phoenix or any other sim, that it allows you to customize your sim models to actually match your real ones.
For example... I use a feature of the Spartan VX1n flybarless controller that allows me to set cyclic roll rates at 360 deg/sec during normal 3d flying... very nimble! But I fly mostly pirouetting moves... so a little less action on cyclic is desireable... so when the rudder stick is nearing full throw, cyclic rates are reduced to 70%. Kind of like a dual rate change. Cyclic calms down for controllable piro flying.
I was able to CREATE this feature in RF using the conditional inputs. No chance of doing that in other sims. Not to mention changing airfoils, chords, and any number of other details to get an idea of how changes might actually affect flight. RF is more of a CAD program.
I also took the time to match every component of the Furion 450 to my real Trex 450. Every weight & measurement... motor kv... head/tail ratios... all pitches. I fine-tuned it to have EXACTLY the same behavior of my real bird. The Furion is a good visual match and made a great starter. Identical flight charictaristics make for very useful practice.
- As for physics, I had Phoenix (v1 and 4 I think?) and was able to fly it. But I'd never fly Phoenix for an hour and then go to the field. The flight behavior just did not match. I think of Phoenix as a very un-serious sim.
Realflight is not perfect, and I concede the setup process does not faithfully replicate real RC. But then there are so many different real radios and features, I'd have to re-learn everything if I had to change radios. Hope my Dx7se lives another 10 years!
Yesterday's technology tomorrow... that's my motto.
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