Phoenix R/C Pro Simulator V4 w/DX5e

I'm no expert when it comes to R/C helicopters. As a matter of fact, you can count me in as one of the many reviewers with a similar story. About 12 years ago, I naively bought a nice CP heli kit at an auction site, spent many hours meticulously building it out, and went to a friend's house so he could share in the glory of its maiden launch. Having only ever run one or two nitro road cars and an electric dirt car, I was still confident that I'd be able to adapt pretty quickly.It was hardly 6 inches in the air when it came crashing down into a number of pieces. But then, you already knew how that story was going to end.I was initially skeptical about the promises of the simulations (Phoenix, RealFlight) but the huge number of reviews claiming that it's the perfect training tool eventually won me over. A couple of days and one repair after I bought my second ever heli (a  Blade mSR X  that had been proving to be quite the challenge itself, although much more resilient and inexpensive to repair than the doomed machine of years ago) the Phoenix simulator arrived. I immediately sat down to try it out.It's running on a tower that I put together several months ago, with a better-than-average NVidia card, 3.5GHz quad core i7, and 16GB RAM. All of the graphics settings are maxed out and at the max resolution (1900x1200) on my 24" monitor the sim runs full speed with plenty of power to spare. Once you're flying around, the movements do seem very realistic to me, although as I've said, I'm new to helis so what do I know. Initially, I was very impressed.Then I kept using it, and I started to get frustrated. There are only four of the "InfinityScape" environments available, and only three terrain types (one is reused for the fourth environment). It's all mapped terrain and very generated looking. They get boring quick. You may be able to fly forever as they say, but you'll be asleep in two minutes. Then you've got all of the rest of the environments, which are glorified 2D panoramas wallpapered along the edges of your play area. They've introduced some 3D aspects to it, like if there's a lamp post in the panorama they try to estimate its position and make it an actual object you can hit, but it's just not very good. It's almost impossible to judge depth in this environment unless your model is right in front of you, because it looks like what it is - a 3D model pasted on a 2D photo. The problem is exacerbated when you enable zoom for small models, like the micro helis that I use the most often. While the 3D rendered model scales beautifully, the background scales like a photo. It gets soft and blocky.To an extent, this looks to be a limitation on all of the current R/C sims I've seen -- but it's far more prevalent in Phoenix 4 than it seems to be in RealFlight 6.5 (at least in the downloadable demo with all of the graphic options turned up) and I'll say this, I'd rather have an immersive but lower fidelity environment built off of a 3D engine that properly showed depth than a photo wrapped around the edges of a virtual arena. And modern computers being what they are, we shouldn't even NEED to settle for lower fidelity! Look what's out there!Anyway, so here you are with your micro heli (although my mSR X isn't available yet, I make do with the mSR) and you have to keep it close to the camera so you can accurately gauge depth. You can hover it around, maybe do some small maneuvers, but then what? You've got the Training modes, like balloon pop. These are nearly impossible unless you're using a chase view or a cockpit view. But wait! Not only are they the most unrealistic viewpoints to fly from, but you can't USE either of them in any of the 2D environments! So you're stuck with either an automated ground view that attempts to estimate the viewpoint of a standing operator (only very poorly because you have no sense of your environment and no periphery to help you steer towards your targets that are never on screen where your model is), or probably the most ridiculous viewpoint of all -- free look. That's right, if you were born with an extra, fully and independently operating arm and hand, you can use the mouse to scroll your viewpoint around manually while your other two hands are operating the transmitter. I have found nothing that makes any of the training games even the slightest bit fun or useful, only frustrating.Then there are the smaller things, like in the list of failure notifications is a fuel failure. "Cool!" I thought, maybe I can turn on fuel consumption so that eventually my model will run dry and I need to take flight times into consideration. Maybe the same goes for electric models running out of battery power. Well, if someone can tell me how to enable that I'd appreciate it because I can't figure it out, and the user manual only mentions the existence of the fuel failure button but says nothing about how it might work, if it does. Or how about the training modes, which are supposed to help you learn certain maneuvers? Meh. For example, the Hover Training mode for helis puts your heli in the air and you try to make it hover. If it wanders off, it resets the helicopter. That's it. No points or goals or anything, just a constantly resetting scenario where you try to make your heli not move. They're all like this. Why can't there be a training mode that awards points or achievements for attaining goals? There are also training videos, which are sorted alphabetically rather than in the order you should view them in. So the second video might be the fourth in the list. They'll make references to each other, like "In the last video you learned how to Xxxxxx" (invariably in a bored, monotonous voice) but you HAVEN'T learned how to Xxxxxx yet because that video comes later in the list. Minor, I know. It's just an example.All of these things -- ALL of them -- can be justified when you're plunking down $30 on an R/C simulator. But at this price point, it's unthinkable. Many people will tell me that as long as the simulation is accurate, it's still an important, or possibly even vital step in learning how to handle an expensive piece of machinery without spending hundreds of dollars in repair costs. I'll concede that you MAY be right, but I have an alternative option.Do what I did, even as a completely inexperienced flyer, buy something like the  Blade mSR X  which is difficult enough to keep you learning for a good long time (but you won't get bored with it in an hour like you probably would with a  Scout CX ), go outside (or stay inside!) and just fly it. A lot. It's far less expensive than the simulator and there's only one or two parts on the whole thing that cost more than $10. I've flown mine into walls, gotten it stuck in trees, dumped the throttle from 25 feet in the air onto the concrete because it was about to head over the roof, and after all that I've only broken one part on it so far. I can see improvement in my abilities every single day. Plus, it's a WHOLE lot more fun to be flying for real. Then, somewhere way down the road when you're flying it like an ace, upgrade to the  Blade mCP X v2  or similar. Parts are still cheap and by the time you master that, you'll be able to start looking at bigger helis without worrying about your flying ability.One last note on the InfinityScape environments -- I haven't looked closely at the others, but at least one of them has a start point that includes a very simple building with a picket fence around it. Now THIS is the kind of sim I'm looking for! It may be very simple, but I took a little electric heli and flew it around. Since the building and fence are 3D generated rather than just photos, they have depth! In fact, I got too close to the fence and my blades just lightly skimmed the wood. My heli didn't crash but I could hear the zzzzzZZZZZZZZzzzzzz as they grazed the fence ever so slightly. THAT'S WHAT I WANT!! Add more buildings, things to fly around, stuff to play with! Realistic collision like that! Give me a nice big place to explore, random objects to practice landing on, maybe even something I can hook onto my skids if I'm not careful. No more ugly 2D environments with no depth that have truly awful collision detection. Concentrate on these 3D environments!All in all, it's not an awful piece of software. The model accuracy is excellent. If the sim was more usable, I'd be a lot happier with my investment. But at this point, I just can't recommend it. Maybe subsequent versions will improve, but until then I feel like I've spent this money unwisely.

Year 1990 I last flew a Radio Control airplane. The Phoenix simulator is amazing ralistic practise getting me ready to fly my 22 lb, twin engine, 9 ft wing span model airplane again. I purchased the Phoenix simulator software in a box with transmitter and USB cable connecting the transmitter to the computer. I have 5 favorite models that I practise on ranging from Cesna 185 trainer, F-16 ducted fan, a bi-plane, and a fully aerobatic advanced stunt aircraft. I believe my re-training is nearly as good on the simular as at the flying site. I am thrilled with the realism and the practise.The Pheonix Simulator runs on Windows 7. However, my host computer is a MacBook Pro 17" notebook running Microsoft Windows 7 under Parallels Virtual machine. The 2012 MacBook Pro has graphics acceleration, 8 GBytes main memory, Intel i7 quad core CPU clocked at 2.4 GHz, and a larger 22" high resolution expansion screen attached where the airfield and aircraft are viewed. The CPU performance monitor shows that all four i7 CPU cores are as much as 50% loaded where more than half of the CPU loading is system overhead that includes the Parallels virtual machine processing required to make Windows 7 run on the MacBook. Running Pheonix on a Windows 7 computer or on a Mac using Bootcamp should reduce the overhead.Good Graphics acceleration is surely required. I experience no pauses or interruptions to the audio or visual simulation. The installation was faultless which is one reason I bought the transmitter and adapter cable with the software all in one package. Pheonix has done an excellent job making the product easy to install and to begin RC flying.I am a 100 hour pilot of real air planes and estimate 400 hours (long ago) RC flyer. The feel of each model seems true to life, where power (thrust), weight, wing loading, aerodynamics, sound, visual affects, graphics design, physics are all accounted for. Good unrealistic features are the engines and motors run perfectely, never run out of fuel or battery power, and crashes don't break your heart. However, good landings are just as beautiful (and difficult) as the real thing.I'm still a new Phoenix user and have not explored all that the simulator can do (like multiple fliers, pilot view, etc). I've used it for 6 hours and feel confident I can get my big aircraft up and back down in one piece. I've learned to control the power better than I used to. Recommend choosing the viewing option to keep the ground in the field of view. I love the product. It has worked flawlessly.

I have to say this is a pretty good flight simulator. I thought it was bad when I first installed it. After ajusting the settings in the software regarding pitch and throttle, it made it much better. Everything is good regarding the graphics and helicopters/aircrafts running on a gaming rig. It really helps you with getting use to the flight orientations and the controls. It took about five hours flying my helicopters and I got it down. The only complaints I have was it did not have Walkera helicopters which is what I fly. I really hope they include some Walkera heli like the NEW V120D02S, Mini CP, Genius CP, Master CP, etc. It doesn't support the Devention (DEVO 7, 7E, 8, 8S, 10, and 12 transmitters) which is what I have. The Gyro or 3 axis is not behaving like the real rc helicopters, maybe I am just not setting up the transmitter correctly, but so far I haven't figure it out. The model helicopters in the sim are just too stable compared to the real rc helicopters (I can let go of the controller and it would fly itself with no issue for a long time). The wind in the sim is not realistic. The helicopters seems to break too easily on just a hard landing! The depth perception is not too realistic and make it hard to tell if you are going to run into a wall when like flying in the Sport Hall. The turtorial section is lacking. Finally, a bit expensive. Despite all this, it is still a pretty good sim for getting your fingers and mind trained cause this will save you a lot of repair cost.