Simulator Needed

Dear All

My 15 year old Reflex XTR has finally crashed and died. It’s now so old nothing will talk to it.

Has anyone got a sim not being used that will work with Futaba Tx and Windows 10?

Anyhow, as it’s been a while since I bought a sim, do they still cut it? Have they all disappeared from the market?

Ebay is your friend.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/202867583507

No association with seller, there are many offering them. Got one a while ago and it's very good. Can take a bit of setting up though.

This works fine with an eBay lead. https://www.rc-thoughts.com/phoenix-sim/ Free download.

Hi

Take a look at Pica sim.

its free or pay for extras, works well and is particularly good for gliders.

You will need a USB adaptor from eBay with the Futaba buddy box plug.

Shaun

I’ll look into those. Many thanks.

I now purchased the simulator leads from Flying Tech in Malvern and will download the program from RCThoughts.

Would anyone like a full review and write up? I hope it works, at £24 including postagefor the leads and a free program download it’s worth a go

Second that wholeheartedly.

I've got Picasim on my Android phone and my iPad. Both too small really, but the adaptor enables the TX to plug into the phone which then screen-casts onto the widescreen telly.

Sorry to be dim but I am struggling to understand how these work. I had assumed that you connect the tx via the buddy socket with a cable to go into the usb port on the laptop. Looking at the images on Ebay the cables do not seem to include a usb male plug or does the dongle go in the laptop and a cable go from the tx to the dongle. I did see what looked like a jackplug in one of the dongles in a laptop. If someone has a photo of the set up I would appreciate seeing it please.

Have a look at the link I set up. The dongle plugs into the usb, from there the jack plug then the Tx cord are daisy chained. The programme is downloaded off the internet. The dongle then decodes the stick movement into something the flight sim can recognize. 

The ebay link test pilot posted shows this...Hope this helps. If you can hang on I’ll do a full review when it arrives 

Edited By cymaz on 11/04/2020 16:05:43

Edited By cymaz on 11/04/2020 16:07:59

Thanks That all looks much clearer. Since I seem to have a few free days at home coming up I will certainly wait for your review.

I have been using Phoenix for several years but some of the updates made towards the end of support made it worse! Some of the flight dynamics are unrealistic and slope soaring is now silly with lift everywhere, even behind the slope.

On the other hand Picasim has excellent flight dynamics and the slope soaring is very realistic. As already stated it seems to focus mainly on gliders but there are a few power models as well. I use it on a PC with a USB adapter plugged into a Tx that came with a ready to fly heli many years ago. Although it is free I made a Paypal donation in recognition of the work has been put into the project by (I assume) one guy.

I tried to get my Phoenix simulator up and running over the weekend, but haven;t been able to find the USB cable to TX cable since my house move. Looking online I've now ordered one of those knock-off USB cable set ups that aims to emulate the various means of linking your TX to the computer. Will see how that works.

The slightly annoying thing was that the full set of expensive pukka Real Flight CDs, adds ons, transmitter and lots of models from when I last used the simulator years ago don't work and won;t even install with the modern versions of Windows. The system wouldn't even recognise the Real Flight TX, even with the 9 pin serial port put through a USB adaptor. I use to take this set up to the club, running ot on the big screen via a projector, but none of it will work with my current PC. - which itself is at least seven years old.

As well as power models, and even a multi-rotor, Picasim also offers control line flying

Seems odd at first flying a control line model with my transmitter, but strangely enough it works quite well!

Dick

Downloaded Phoenix 5.5 from RCThoughts today. Just waiting for the cables to arrive.

Out of interest I used the update on the RCThoughts website to take my Phoenix sim from 5.5l to 6.0i - can't see any difference - anyone know what has changed?

Package arrived from Flying Tech today.

I didn’t expect a disc as well. So that’s a nice surprise....either that or I just didn’t read the web page properly. New and old Futaba plugs supplied, leads, dongle and the disc.

The dongle has a four position switch for the different programs on the disc. As I downloaded my Phoenix from the internet I left it on the lower position.

Set up was easy. Though it does say if you have a Tx with heli and plane, leave it on heli. My old Tx is a Futaba T6EXA ( fixed wing only). The set up menu is easy to navigate and in a couple of minutes I’d set up the Tx, reversed some controls and stored the Tx in the memory. Having never tried this system before, I liked it. Remember though, that the last sim I had was 15 years ago.

Changing models, weather and screen info is intuitive. The menus are clear and easily to see. At the moment I’ve only used on flying site so cannot comment on what else is there in the program.

The only thing that I find trouble with is the plane graphics get blocky when coming into land. Wether that’s the set up that needs adjusting or tweaking of the sim graphics ....I’m not sure yet but early days yet. And I can’t get the undercarriage switch to work on the set up, although flaps were easy to get installed.

I went to set up my simulator last night but forgot my laptop don't take discs and my old one that does needs repairing and obviously cant get it repaired at the mo.

After downloading off the web, I never used the disc that came in the post. Just used Phoenix only

The disc has

1. Phoenix 5
2. XTR5
3. R7
4. Freerider

Are these all out of copyright or am I being naive.

A.