should i get phoenix

[Sgt_BF_Gunner]

Tower Hobbies Ad number 011L5 will get you a $30 Promotional Discount on orders over $149.95 (Phoenix-Sim, G3, etc.) through tomorrow. They do not sell Reflex though.

From what I've heard and read, I'd go for Phoenix. Waiting for mine now.

Like others, I will be putting my XTR up for auction soon if Phoenix is that good.

-Gary

[theLane]

Thanks. Maybe I'll wait till you get yours and the decide :) Let us know what you think of the two.

[Sgt_BF_Gunner]

Reflex's web site states:

"We will present our new product on Nuremberg Toyshow from February 1st to 6th, 2007. Details about the innovation will be available on my homepage at the same time. In the meantime some products in the shop are disabled until the updated information is available."

New product??? How about get rid of the imfamous red wall of death...

[theLane]

I think I'll wait :)

[dukesy]

I think i'll go and have a little play on phoenix :mrgreen:

[Sgt_BF_Gunner]

Looking forward to it, any day now! :glasses2:

[Sgt_BF_Gunner]

Received Phoenix today.

No printed manual included. There is a manual in .pdf.

Phoenix comes with a dongle cable with a JR plug. They also incluse a square Futaba adapter that plugs firmly on the JR plug. Nice feature because you can use either brand radio.

Install was very smooth.

Configuration of my 7CH was smooth and intuitive.

Interface is very nicely done. Clean, crisp and thorough.

Update to ver. 1.03c.

OK, fire up the Raptor look-a-like... Sweet!

The scenery is very clear and detailed, photo realistic. Shadows, great lighting, etc.

OK, here's the thing... I will play with it some more. After several quick flights I found that it was very easy to keep the heli off the ground. When I gave it throttle it went up, even when gravity should be tugging on it a bit during manuevers.

I was able to pull off some crazy stuff where Reflex XTR would have splatted me all over the ground. Things were a little too smooth so I bumped up the simulation speed to 150%. I found that to look a little strange, like on fast forward. I settled on 125% for now and things seem to be appropriately squirrley.

There is no red wall or limits in this sim (other than when the heli comes way too close to you). Nice!

Overall, a very well done, refreshing flight simulator. I will be spending more tim on this sim and post more observations as they arise.

My quick opinion is that Reflex still has the edge on physics, but that dang red wall... :bomb:

If I was fresh looking for a great sim, I would go with either on you could get the best deal on. Phoenix is cheaper but you can also get a great deal on Reflex used.

With Tower Hobbies always having a discount on orders, it's hard to beat this purchase.

-Gary :glasses2:

[dukesy]

the trex 450 se i downloaded seems to drop very easlily when im practicing ticks tocks and knife edge manoeuvres where as the trex 600 is much easlier
and seems to hang in the air more. I suppose its just down to practice

[Ade_Law]

Sgt_BF_Gunner

its a very common problem for people to compare sim with sim. the problem is that we get tuned into a sim/heli and forget how the other flies.

go down the field do a few flights then come home and run phoenix and xtr. you will soon realise that phoenix is far better.

i have done this with a few people. Suddenly they switched from being lovers of AFPD (plane flier) and XTR.. to absolutely ripping into them.

Ade

[peterob]

Mine is on the way from ReadyHeli :mrgreen:

[wulfgang]

Got mine from the LHS (advancehobby.com) for $142. It's not on their website, but they are <5 minutes from both the Hobbico and the GreatPlanes warehouses, so they went and got it for me.

Great guys. :D

[dukesy]

Has anyone managed to auto the 450se yet. thought i'd get some practice in after my one way bearing died the other day. I can auto the trex 600 no probs but the 450 just falls out of the sky :oops: :dontknow

[Mike Spence]

Ha, thought it was just me :(

[Sgt_BF_Gunner]

How do we go about getting a Phoenix-Sim Forum of its own?

It's competing with Reflex and G3... Many would argue that it is the better of the three.

Phoenixers should not have to wade through the "Other Sims" Forum to find Phoenix stuff... :glasses2:

[dukesy]

Yeah good call Sgt_BF_Gunner :thumbup:
Anyone else like mike and i not able to auto the 450se :dontknow
I cant even practice now cos my tx battery has gone flat :bomb:

[dukesy]

Damned Phoenix makes me want a 600 even more :?

[Sgt_BF_Gunner]

Me too! And my Raptor hasn't even left tht ground yet (Gotta have one nitro, right??). I'm lovin' the Align product and that big 600's gotta be S-W-E-E-T! :WOW

[Sgt_BF_Gunner]

New scenery at the Phoenix website... "Freedom Park (winter)".

Very nice!

[Pinecone]

I auto the 450 in Phoenix. Sometimes I crash, sometimes I don't. Hmm, that makes it VERY realistic.

[peterob]

Mine finally made it through customs and our local postal service, and I installed it last night. It looked great but jerked every few seconds, like it was loading textures (irrespective of the quality settings). Was about to post a thread here when I found the problem. My stupid Netgear USB WiFi thingie was scanning for an access point every 3 seconds, even though it wasn't in the machine at the time. Uninstalled that software and everything was as smooth as silk, even with everything maxed out. The only way I could get G3.5 to run close to this smoothly was by making it look like FMS. Haven't even installed the Rexies and Raptors yet, spent most of the night flying that tilt-rotor plane (great fun). Love this sim to bits so far.

[kgfly]

peterob - how did you diagnose the jerky problem down to identifying the device ? I get annoying jerks too and I just upgraded my laptop to 2.1GHz Core Duo with NVidia Quadro NVS 110M/256MB graphics so it should be smoooooooth.

[peterob]

I watched my processes tab in taskmanager sorted by CPU usage. "services.exe" was spiking to 24% every few seconds, with "n-something.exe" using 3% or so at the same time. Killed that process and services.exe went back to normal. Figured it had to be the Netgear, so I uninstalled its software and rebooted. Everything was fine after that.

I have a Celeron 2.6 with 512MB RAM and a Geforce 7600 btw. Not top of the line by any means, I agree yours should run perfectly.

[JesusFreak]

Can the Phoenix sim be used with the DX7?

How is the "ground orientation" issue in Phoenix? I have problems with Realflight G2 and AFPD because of losing sight of the ground. Realflight G3.5 seems to do a good job of this. I would like a good sim of the TREX450 and 600. Would appreciate comments.

Thanks,
Lee Snover

[kgfly]

Phoenix can be used with the DX7, it comes as standard with a JR-style plug which fits the Spektrum Tx.

I cannot compare to G2 or AFPD but all sims have limited field of view so the ground orientation issue is always there to some degree. IIRC there are some things you can tweak to make it more or less aggressive in the camera angle which gives you some control over keeping the ground in view.

The T450 in Phoenix is pretty good. It is setup as a 3000rpm 3D heli which is not what I fly. Phoenix has the best model editor I have seen so adjusting the parameters is quite easy and now I have my own T450 variant which flies very similarly to my real bird. Others have reported that the T600 is pretty accurate too.

[JesusFreak]

Kenneth:

Thanks. Would be curious to hear a comparison with Realflight G 3.5. I tried it in the hobby shop and it seems much improved. I think I like it a bit better then AFPD, but I really want a good TREX Simulation and good ground orientation.

Thanks,
Lee