Flight Sims

There is an excellent range of RC flight simulator software available.  They can all help tremedously in gaining coordination and getting a feel for how to fly a remote control aircraft. Some sims are very sophisicated and are truly excellent such as “Real Flight” and “Pheonix”. These may cost upwards of three hundred dollars.

If you are beginner there is a free RC flight sim which is very popular. It may not be perfect but its very popular, its free, and it does a very good job of it. This is a really good way to make a start. You can get a “transmitter” that plugs into your computer but if you are just starting you can just use the keyboard. Be warned its a lot harder than it looks so be sure to practice regularly!

 

Download Free Flight Simulator (FMS) here  

It will work fine with windowsXP as is.  

Unfortunately Vista doesn't have one of the files FMS needs to run. It is called "d3drm.dll, its only 342KB. You may download it here or get it from Microsoft.

Now put it in your C:\Windows\System32 folder on your computer. FMS won’t work at all on Windows Vista until you do this.

(these files are freely availiable from the FMS site at

http://n.ethz.ch/~mmoeller/fms/index_e.html  and Microsoft.com respectively. We take no responsiblity for these files. They are suppied for your convenience and come without waranty of any kind)

 

 

If want a your FMS field landscape to look somewhat like BMAC I made this scene just for you!  Download the BMAC landscape files here and put them in your FMS landscape folder. Its usually here in “C:\Program Files\FMS\Landscape” on your computer ”. Feel free to make a better one if you can and I’ll put it here!

 

 

How to calibrate your transmitter for FMS

Plug in your transmitter  to a USB port

Open FMS click on controls on the top menu.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A box will appear click on "Joystick interface" so it is hilighted blue.
Then click the button mapping and calibration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When this box below appears put ticks in the "Inv" for the channels you wish to reverse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While you are here calibrate the “throws”. Click the “Calibrate” button and follow the instructions. This will help your controls be more accurate. When your done click OK on each box untill you are back to the sim. Happy flying!!