RealFlight Add-Ons, Volume Five

Model Airplane News, Jun 2004 by Bell, Rick

GREAT PLANES

Expand your virtual hangar

Great Planes RealFlight G2 is a great flight-simulator program, and it continues to lead the field in virtual flight simulation with its latest addition: Add-Ons Volume Five. If you already own RealFlight and wish to expand your hangar, this is the addition to get. It includes 11 new airplanes, two helicopters and three new flying fields, and the realism is greater than ever. A refinement that Volume Five benefits from is that each shape is created with more polygons-the computer drafting tool used to "sculpt" graphic features and textures. The intricate details are rendered faithfully and accurately and include incredible rivets, panel lines and even gauges in the cockpit.

Volume Five has something for everyone with many cool models from Great Planes' ever-growing stable of aircraft. From warbirds to turbine-powered jets and classic prop-driven aircraft, this add-on has it all. Want to do some Reno-style heavy-iron racing with your buddies? Then the Sea Fury will fulfill your need for speed. You jet guys haven't been left out, either; for excitement, try the new BVM KingCat-a smoothly flying turbine-powered jet. For more excitement, pump up your pulse rate with the BTE Double Whammy-a jet powered by twin pulse jets. The kicker for this model, though, is that it has no throttle control; you must fly it until it runs out of fuel- just like the real version! A favorite of mine is the stunning Gee Bee racer; unlike its full-scale counterpart, the virtual model is a pussycat to fly. The most unusual model in this volume of add-ons is the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor. As on its big brother, you can control the tilt of the twin rotors, and this gives you the ability to maneuver in tight quarters. I had a blast flying the Osprey into and out of the ballpark.

For the chopper crowd, it's nice to see two scale birds added to the lineup: a Coast Guard Jayhawk and the MD500E. As it is with the airplanes, the attention to detail-and to the physics of helicopter flight-is incredible. One thing a flight simulator allows you to do is to try things you'd never attempt with a model. The new blimp hangar is absolutely huge, so I spent a lot of time maneuvering the MD500E around the blimps-inverted!

This latest addition to the RealFlight simulator is, in my opinion, the best to date. There's so much to it that you'll spend a lot of time trying new things in unusual places. From indoors to wide-open mountain flying, you'll truly enjoy the endless possibilities. I know that I did! Add-Ons Volume Five costs $29.99 and is compatible only with RealFlight G2 and G2 Lite software. -Rick Bell

Great Planes Model Distributors Co. (217) 398-6300; (800) 682-8948; greatplanes.com.