Customer Reviews

E-Sky 4CH USB Flight Simulator Training Kit For RC Airplanes and R/C Helicopters

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

I've been flying RC since 1980. Been Teaching it since about 1984...Back then I used a card board mock up air plane and a broom stick to teach students how to push the aileron stick under the low wing when the plane is coming toward them and to push it on top of the high wing when it's going away..

It was hard work and most students had about 30 hours on the buddy box before their first solo with ME standing there holding the main controller button down and talking them to the ground...

NOW my job is easy due to this cheap simulator..I've had one for years and it's still going strong..It's started a lot of kids on the path to flying RC.

I teach students the major flight controls using this box and when they get the real plane they know what stick does what to the airplane..

They learn how to take off without stalling,, How to dead stick land, How to land with some power to smooth it out and how to stop run way bounce by quick throttle bursting.

I read all the bad comments about this basic unit and just shake my head in disbelief.

People who came into RC with the newer fancy stuff available can't appreciate the basic training tools as much as those of us who had none. The price for this is unbelievably cheap compared to the old buddy box systems I paid extra for back in the day.

If someone will put at least 30 hours serious training into this unit. They can learn to power up in low wing situations. Learn to land under power and or dead stick. Learn to take off and NOT stall and learn to use all 4 channels effectively.

They will be able to fly a simple high wing trainer with little to no help at all.

NEVER start off with a 3 channel trainer. Bad advice that keeps getting worse..

Three channel trainers are sold by people who like selling RC planes. You buy one of them, then you need another plane shortly thereafter... That is a waste of money IMHO.. There are things a 4 channel can do that a 3 channel can only dream of..

Just buy a good 4 channel trainer to begin with and use this system to learn about it's controls BEFORE you go out to fly it...Practice slipping on this unit and when you need to land in a short runway you may stand a chance..Cross the rudder and aileron sticks and see how the plane responds..just play with the box.. It's a great teacher.

NEVER rush into flying. When you are comfortable flying all the fixed wing planes on this system you will be more confident with the real thing when the time comes.

Sure it's gonna be different but when your actions become automatic without having to stop and think which way do I push the stick, you will save a lot of money on repairs and be ready to take on the 4 channel trainer type of plane....

My grandson learned with this unit and my instructions. He has NEVER crashed his plane and he's been flying for over a year...

I only wish this had been available and sold THIS CHEAP back in the early 80's...

You don't need anything better to learn how to get a fixed wing plane up in the air and back down intact..

I would venture to guess that hundred's, if not thousands, of people have learned to fly using this cheap little training system.

When you can get the plane in the air and down safely the AIRPLANE becomes all THE TRAINING SYSTEM you need..

A real RC airplane is better to learn your fancy flying on than the most expensive simulator because it's the real deal..All planes fly differently anyhow..

I had rather spend my extra money on my Airplanes than expensive simulators..

Go get one of these and learn to fly.. Don't let the nay sayers discourage you..It works and works well.

I still use mine and make a flight or two almost most every night before bed time.

Every plane I've bought in the past 4 years is still flying.

Using this eliminates a lot of pilot error which equals less crashes which equals more saved money to spend on more air planes or LiPo batteries.

The time comes when a piece of equipment fails and yes,,if we fly we can expect to eventually crash .

BUT for the well trained pilot.. more than likely it's gonna be equipment failure not dumb thumbing...So practice on this and your planes will live longer..

I use this daily and my reflexes are automatically trained to correct in the right direction...I just respond like a piano player never giving it a thought.

If you need a Better simulator then you may be expecting to learn from a simulator, most of the same things you can learn from your airplane.

A basic simulator gets you in the air. Your airplane teaches you how to do the stunts etc...

If you actually want to fly RC planes then this is all the simulator you should need to get you flying a fixed wing craft..

A more expensive simulator is good for fun flying if you want to spend the money and practice your stunts and fancy stuff at home.

Just remember this cheap system is simply for teaching you the basics of flight and it's job is to get you flying where you use your own plane to practice your fancy stuff at the field..

It's not fancy, but it does the job and even teaches you the basics of slips, stall turns, spins, inverted flight, landings, stalls and recovery and much more....

Can you tell I like it? It's been good to me and mine..

If you are interested in learning to fly a radio-controlled (R/C) airplane or helicopter, this is the most complete yet inexpensive way to try it out. The item contains a controller (the gadget you use to tell the plane where to fly) and the simulator software. The controller just plugs into your PC USB port. Load the software from the CD and off you go! Be sure to go to the Controller menu and calibrate the controller before you try to fly. You will have to reverse several of the controls and re-assign the throttle control to the proper control stick.

The software is FMS, public-domain software that has not been upgraded in several years. There are hundreds of plane "models" for this software posted around the web.

Considering that this competes with several commercial packages that list at $200-$300, it does an OK job. The big problem is that the simulator makes flying too easy. If you go to the field having only flown this software you will find the "real world" flight much more challenging. Also, the "world" in this simulator is very small. You will fly "out of the world" very quickly. The R/C airplane you fly in "the real world" can cost several hundred dollards, so if this saves you one crash it has paid for itself.

The controller is great and feels exactly like my LP5DSM. But I was unable to load the software on Vista, even after installing the missing DLL. I bought the Clearview software available on line and enjoy it.
Remember, this is not a video game: it's a plain-jane tool to help you fly RC helicopters, so don't expect an awesome graphics experience.

Buy it for the controller, which is worth $20.

If you are thinking about flying r/c helicopters buy this controller first! You will save hundreds of dollars in replacement parts if you practice on this controller.

I use it to practice 6-channel controls (even though I only own a 4-channel helicopter). It does help improve your skills.

I wouldn't recommend the included simulator, although it is fun if you've never flown before.

I use clearview simulator, which costs about $40 dollars. Get it here: http://rcflightsim.com/

This looks like a cool product but what the website doesn't tell you but the box does is that it doesn't work on vista, for all the new computers, like the 2 in our home, which run on vista, it doesn't like vista, it doesn't like vista so much that it is hard to uninstall, so if you have xp or past programs, I am sure it will be awesome but we will not know...now more stuff to just clutter our home.

This transmitter is really just a USB dual joystick. Similar to a Playstation controller. It comes with a CD that has the free FMS, you can get FMS for free on the internet. I was expecting a real simulator. If I had know that it was only FMS then I would have saved myself the money and gotten a USB to trainer/buddy cable instead. I ended up buying [...] and using this controller. If you don't have a transmitter at all, then this is fine to learn on. I do, so I should have just gotten the aformentioned USB to buddy cable, and would have had the same setup as this. The only upside to this controller, is that you don't have to power it seperately, like you do with a real transmitter. This controller used the USB supplied power, so no batteries to charge.

The FMS software that comes with it is a waste of time. It is noisy buggy and just waste your precious time. I would suggest you buy a real flight simulator.
The only way you can use it is by downloading another software named Clearview that will cost you $30 after the trial expires.
Flaws:
In Win7 you need to disable the texture to avoid the flickering.
You need to recalibrate the controller all the time, and this operation is very difficult.
If you are somewhat serious regerding RC flying, consider Realflight or Phoenix.
I do not understand why amazon sells such a crappy product.

Update - I just got a machine that runs windows 7 with an NVIDIA card. The software doesn't run at all unless I download a DLL for it. And then it still won't run without flashing uncontrollably unless I turn off the Textures. So if you downlowad the DLL, it will run without the textures in Vista / Windows 7, but it doesn't look very good. This may not be a problem with a different graphics card. My review below was based on running it in Windows XP - where it performed perfectly.

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The controller is made in China and is really good. The other reviews said the Chinese software was bad. The software is actually free shareware from Germany. The version included on the CD is older and not so good. The alpha version (Version 2.0 Alpha 8.5 as of this writing) that can be downloaded off the website (just google "Flight Model Simulator" and go to Downloads) is a vast improvement over the version that comes with the CD and the flight dynamics in the alpha 8.5 are on par with really expensive software (and FMS is free). You can download it for free right now without the controller if you want to try it out. Or you can use the controller with Clearview (40 dollars) or G5 (200 dollars) if you want to spend the money. But the alpha version of FMS is really good (in XP compared to using older versions of FMS in XP) so you should try it out. Here are some tips:

In the menu go to Controls -> Analog Control

Choose Joystick Interface and then click Mapping / Calibration

Set the mapping as follows (check the Inv button for all 8 rows)
Rudder - 4
Elevator - 2
Aileron - 1
Throttle - 3
Tail - 4
Nick - 2
Roll - 1
Pitch - 3

Then click the Calibrate button to calibrate and move the controls all around and click next. Center the control and click Finish.

I also recommend choosing Simulation Options
Make sure that "Simulation after crash" is checked and "Model uncrashable" is unchecked.

My son and I are really enjoying the e-sky simulator we are loging many hours of flying, and practice which can not be replaced by an actual plane or heli. Due to the unforgiving crashes and loss of vehicles. This way we can aford to crash and loose some out into space. Overall the E-sky training kit is well worth the money and i recomend it to anyone who is serious about learning to fly any type of RC. It will be invaluable I use to spend a lot of time just repairing my plane after most flights cause i couldn't land them so i crashed them. This was the only way to get it back on the ground so it seems. Since getting the simulator I have not flown the real plane yet but I look forward to it someday.

The E-Sky is not a toy, rather it is a training tool for anyone interested in flying R/C airplanes. The graphics are good, the controller is a good tool for training and teaching. E-Sky lets you learn how to fly using controls similar to RC controllers. It is a lot less expensive that the Cadillac of fight simulator controllers ($200) and thus is not as fancy or sensitive as the higher priced trainers. I am still working with E-Sky and doing much better. Especially since I have NOT smashed a RC airplane into the ground.

Good for adults and kids alike. I will spend more money on a RC airplane when I feel confident that I will not destroy my RC plane.