Real Flight 7.5...

[stangflyer]

Yup....Laptop here too. Purhased RF7 two days before the release of 7.5. Upgraded for free. You can too. 3D? Just get on here and "Bang Them Sticks".... Now as Terry said, you really have no excuse. DO IT.....!!!!! Hee hee

 

[Jetpainter]

All I use is a laptop, had to upgrade to 7.5, and my flying skills are questionable at best! I can usually hold a 5 second hover for a group pic, but that's about it.

It's not about your ability, it's about flying with your buddies from all over the country and world from the comfort of your own living room! We have a lot of chat sessions on there between flights and you'll get lots of ideas for new maneuvers to try by watching others!

I just wish my real life 3D in any slight way resembled my 3D flying in RealFlight. I look like I know what I'm doing on RealFlight, but I suck in real life. I don't know what my malfunction is, but I can't seem to make it happen. Maybe this year.....Yeah that's the ticket!

 

[Terryscustom]

The trick for me to wake up my real life flying was to get a nice capable plane that I bought knowing I would fly hard. You can bounce Extreme Flight 91 and 88" planes off the ground pretty hard multiple times and they keep on ticking. Also going larger helped me a lot, I got better in my first few months flying a 40% plane than anything else.

 

[bigblueswope]

Part of the hang up may be that there's a red button that makes crashing free so you aren't skeered on the sim. But IRL your brain is spending cycles focused on the cost of dumb thumbs and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

 

[3Dchief]

I will say that my first trip to the field after lots of hours of RF could have ended badly. I had a beautiful climbing and sinking flat spin going with my PRIMO profile for about 5 minutes. Got bored with it and went to fly out of it from about 5 feet! Maybe I should have gained a little altitude first! Luckily, it just plopped down in the snow with no damage, didn't even kill the engine.

The biggest improvement to my flying came when I started flying profiles. It taught me to build from a kit and those things are pretty much indestructible. They don't care about hard landings, worst case you will break a prop. I've nosed them in from 30 feet, no damage at all. Cartwheeled one a couple of weeks ago when I misjudged my altitude in a full throttle knife edge. Total damage was a 2" tear in the covering on the aileron. A little bit of packing tape and it was right back in the air. They are pretty twitchy and will teach you to be very precise with your inputs and not just bang the sticks. The nice part is they are cheap to build and equip, have an insane power to weight ratio, can do any maneuver you can dream up, and are easy to transport.

 

[combat chicken]

My problem is I see $$$$$$$-trailing behind my birds!
In all seriousness flying my "core man" yak in my back yard has helped my confidence. Like @3Dchief profiles, the foamies have great power and are very twitchy which requires the precision of inputs. Plus if I ding one a little CA or foam tack repair and you are back in the air. I'll post a video of my son and I "Hucking" together once we get past the current ice,sleet,snow, and single digit temps here in N.C.

 

[Jetpainter]

Part of the hang up may be that there's a red button that makes crashing free so you aren't skeered on the sim. But IRL your brain is spending cycles focused on the cost of dumb thumbs and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

I agree, it's all in my head, but I just haven't made that breakthrough where you just do it because you know you can. At the field I can fly around in a harrier pretty low, and steer it around the field with the rudder without any problem, but when I pull it into a hover I seem to loose my mind.

Last year I taught myself how to fly a Heli on RealFlight. I practiced on the sim for a couple for months then I skipped over all the small heli's and bought a Trex 550. My progress was way faster than I expected and only slowed down by my own self imposed rule to take it slow. I do remember the first time I tried to hover nose in. I was concentrating so hard on making the right corrections that I nearly crashed every time I turned the nose in. I got so mad at myself. I could hover nose in on the sim like it was second nature and couldn't do it when I tried with the 550. After that flight I was sitting at a picnic table getting madder and madder at myself. I finally popped in another battery and thought "Quit thinking and just do it" I took off, spun the nose around and hovered there just as pretty as you please. Once I had stopped thinking about how to do it and just let the sub conscience and muscle memory take over and do it, it was easy.

Some times your mind just gets in the way and the more you think the worse it gets. I think that's where I'm at flying 3D with an airplane. If I can get my head out of the way it will come.

 

[HRRC Flyer]

Thanks for all the help fellas, I really appreciate it. I'll have to get the upgrade and join you guys soon.

Hey Combat Chicken, I feel your pain. I'm not too far up the road from you in SE VA and it's supposed to be as cold as a well digger's arse here for the next three days too with high's in the teens and lows in the single digits. I HATE WINTER ...............) I apologize Fella's, I try not to complain because at least I wake up on this side of the ground every morning.....

 

[combat chicken]

Thanks for all the help fellas, I really appreciate it. I'll have to get the upgrade and join you guys soon.

Hey Combat Chicken, I feel your pain. I'm not too far up the road from you in SE VA and it's supposed to be as cold as a well digger's arse here for the next three days too with high's in the teens and lows in the single digits. I HATE WINTER ...............) I apologize Fella's, I try not to complain because at least I wake up on this side of the ground every morning.....

Spent most of my child hood growing in in central Va and remember a few winters in the late 70's that we had snow/ice cover from late Dec to mid March. No school for several months because of combo of power outages and zero temps's. Burrrrrrr!

 

[HRRC Flyer]

I remember those winters well. I was raised on the Chesapeake bay and it got cold enough to freeze the salt water in the bay behind my house. I don't want to go through that again.........