Asking real pilots that fly this sim the big question,,,how does it fly? Does it fly as good as FX or IL2,,does it feel right and can you slip correctly?

As for feel of flight, it has Il-2 beat, beat and beat. It would be interesting to compare it with the early versions of Il-2, but it's not worth the hassle to me. RoF is way better than the default FSX aircraft, and definitely better, albeit not by such huge a margin, than good addon light aircraft for FSX.

The soaring simulators Silent Wings and Condor are up there in the same league as RoF. F4 probably is as well, even if it is hard to compare a fast jet sim with a light prop aircraft sim - especially when never having had the opportunity to fly fast jets.

The RoF aircraft in my opinion act very predictably and as I would expect. This with a solid theoretical background and spam can/glider experience.

I completely concur with the above. I've flown light prop to fast jet to heavy jet, and this has the best feel and believability of any PC sim flight experience IMO.

I couldn't agree more with the last two guys.

I said this in another post. Okay, so we don't know if RoF planes behave exactly like their real life counterparts, but they do behave like REAL AIRCRAFT. Each one is different and has it's own tricks, even when getting the engine started.

I don't know what they did to give the sensation of flight through the visuals, but they did a great job. It looks much more like actually flying than any other sim. It's easy to guess your altitude just from looking outside. Also the sounds are great, the sound of the wind rushing past is dead on. It's so great for judging your airspeed.
If it sounds like you are going too fast, you probably are!

I have time in a variety of light planes. The oldest being a 1946 Taylorcraft and a 1946 Luscombe. I also own my own Cessna 150M.

Same as above.

Only prop time for me--C-150, 152, 172, 182, PA-28, DA20-A1, BE-76, mostly. Prop sims I own (although not necessarily installed anymore) include RB3d, CFS1, CFS2, CFS3, IL2/FB/PF/1946, OFF Phases 1,2,3, Flying Corps Gold, Fighter Squadron Screaming Demons Over Europe, Janes WW2, B-17II, BoBII, FS95/98/2K/2K2/2K4/X. IMO the ROF planes fly better than the stock planes in any of those sims and more closely match what I've experienced in real airplanes.

Of course, no Cessnas in IL2, etc. Still, spins, stalls, and slips are much better in ROF. Especially slips; that was the first thing to knock me out. I never thought any other sim slipped worth a damn; ROF nails it, at least much, much closer to the real thing than any sim I've experienced. The only thing missing from the ROF slip is the choppy sound the prop makes. Oh, and I have not checked the ASI to see if they've modeled airspeed errors in slips; I'm usually in the D.Va (although it may not even be prevalent with the SE5a, as I am not familiar with its pitot-static system). Even little things like the sound during the takeoff and landing rolls; I've done a lot of grass field landings and ROF sounds more like the real thing than any other. (Again, within limits to what I've experienced personally. I have never landed a Bf-109G on grass, for instance.)

I still love a lot of sims, despite some of the awful FMs. I love to fly approaches in FSX, even though the 172 feels like a piece of paper blowing behind a bus. I'm nuts--I like flying. Combat is incidental. I'll often fire up ROF to just practice landings, or stalls, or slow flight, or take it up to altitude and kill the engine to practice glides and dead-stick landings at precise locations, or how low I can recover a spin, or a million other things. Toward that end, ROF always delivers for me. This doesn't mean I've a blind eye to improvements I hope are made over time (campaign development, skins, seasons, controllable fuel valves, controllable tank pressure, controllable magnetos, icing, damageable props, flat tires, magnetic compass errors), but the flying is so good that I'm more than happy to wait for them as I fly around.

I have flown Full size WW-1 planes, still way to pitch sensitive for me in comparison. All in all, the best on the market hands down!

IMO, a PC based sim will never be like flying the real thing. In that you cannot feel what the plane is doing, most important.

RoF is awesome in its own right.

Cheers.

Hey womenfly2, do you mean the RoF is way to pitch sensitive or the real thing?

She probably means RoF is too pitch sensitive, and I'd agree. To be fair, most sims I've flown are.

I started out in a J3 cub and am about halfway through my tailwheel endorsement, and aside from any plane to plane issues I may have with RoF, I think the FM is great! The ground-looping, stalling, slipping, adverse yaw/rudder balance and just about everything I can mention in regards to the physics model is better than anything I've seen on a computer. Just for puttering around, I prefer RoF to FSX: they nailed the FM in terms of 'feel' and 'look'. Or at least as well as can be expected...I echo womenfly's statement about how much you lose when you have no 'seat of your pants' or Situational Awareness (although TiR certainly helps in the latter regard).

I've also gotten to see many of these planes fly at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in NY and from what I've seen, the performance in RoF is generally accurate.

IMO, a PC based sim will never be like flying the real thing.

+1.

I admit I've never flown a WWI airplane but have flown planes with light wingloading. The planes in ROF react as I expect but since these planes have their COG further back than most modern planes, they are not as forgiving and react a bit differently in stalls than one might expect. As for pitch sensitivity, it has to do with the fact that PC joysticks are too short therfore moving it a little translates to moving it a lot more on a real (longer) WWI control stick. Verdict, it's more accurate than any other flight simulator I've flown. Additionally, there are "flight simulators" out there that do not deserve that title due to it's simplified/arcade-like fiight models.

RoF is, as BW stated and so did the developers. This do to them simulating the movement of a full size control stick and not taking into account the length of a PC joy stick or scaling it down.

I do hope they fix this soon. Otherwise its a lot more realistic then that other sim called ... ON?

The WW-1 planes I flew are really stable and follow your hand movements like one had wings.

Cheers.

I'm glad you said that, as I felt the same thing and I hate to program my stick to reduce pitch because it'll mess up my other sims.

.... I forgot to mention that I taped a dowel to my joystick to the correct length of a full size one. Much better, .... looks silly, .... but much better.

Try it!

Cheers.

I've flown multiple Cessna models and a Citabria in RL.

JFM and womenly2 are right: no PC can ever emulate the seat-of-the-pants feel of a real aircraft. There's just so many sensations going on beyond sight and sound, from the orientation shifting in your inner ear... to the vibrations of the engine... to the subtle woosh of air outside... to the heat and/or cold... to the pressure pops in your ears... to the heaviness and lightness of pulling positive and negative G's.

That said, it's been a long time since a flight sim put an "I feel like I'm flying" stupid grin on my face. RoF did it in a huge way, so much that my face hurts. Seriously, when I think about the environmental effects and the flight modeling, this sim is just a blast to fly.

Let me put it like this: I'm actively seeking out flying lessons in a light sport aircraft (like a Quad City Challenger), because I want to feel what it's really like to have the wind in your face and the clouds at your fingertips.

WP .... find an airport that has flight lessons in taildraggers, like a Cub or Citabria.

Once you learn to fly them the rest are " a piece of strudel"

To be up there on a clear evening with wisps of clouds suspended over the horizon as the sun sets, seeing the purple-red sky, the air as smooth as silk, the peacefulness and serenity, is, well, what Beethoven, Vivaldi, Bach wrote about in their music. ... I hate to come down.

Do it!

The guy I just contacted has an Aeronca Champ, a Citabria, a Challenger, and a Cherokee.

I've posted before on this subject, but to answer:

I flew from 1975 up to 2006 when multiple sclerosis forced me to retire and disabled me. I've flown lots of light singles, including most every current variant in the Cessna and Piper series (except the Traumahawk) from C-120 150/2, 172,175,177,182 and so on, to PA-28s.

Light twins from Piper Senecas and Seminoles to the larger Navajo/Chieftains, Beech singles and twins including a couple years' freight dogging in Barons, short and long (55/58).

Most of my time, however, was in the Mitsubishi MU-2 medium turboprops that I got into in 1989 and stayed with through 2006 when I quit. I flew most variants, both short and long bodied, fom MU2B-35 'G' model through the 'N' and the Solitaire and Marquise. Lovely airframe, BTW, very honest, with a rather bad fatal accident history due mainly to insufficient unterstanding of the plane's idiosynchracies.

I hold a Private Glider certificate as well, obtained through the Schweizer factory school ages ago. SGS 2-32, -33, and 1-26 for the most part, not a lot of time but sufficient to have a feel for soaring.

Also a few hours picked up along the way in the J-3 (yes, it was yellow, had a Continental 65 that needed hand propping, and taught me a lot about what even a 5 knot crosswind can do with a taildragger), PA-18 Super Cub, C-120/140, Bellanca Citabria, Decathlon, etc. with some limited aerobatic time in the latter.

A few odds and ends, about an hour in the Westwind 1124 and another in a USAF full motion B-52 simulator at Barksdale AFB (don't ask...I'm a civilian puke, wasn't supposed to be anywhere NEAR the EW stuff...lol)

Also an hour or so flying with a gent in his Brunner-Winkle Bird biplane powered by a Kinner K-5 radial, my sole stick time in an open cockpit machine.

I've been to Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome more than a few times, seen these machines in action, and have gotten to meet and talk with Cole Palen while he was still alive, not to mention piles of airshows where I was fortunate enough to meet and spend a bit of time with the likes of Bob Hoover, Duane Cole, Leo Loudenslager and other superb pilots...they all had one thing in common with me, a lifelong love of aviation and the pursuit of excellence while practicing it.

Just wanted to make it clear I've been around a bit.

ROF is, I'd say, as right on for feel as it's likely to get in a PC sim. It makes me feel like a pilot again, so given the circumstances, please excuse my enthusiasm.



It's earned me the 'fanboy' label before, which is funny in its own way considering how much I've complained about things like the recent TrackIR screwup after the last update or the obstacles that will remain in our way until neoqb releases some discrete dedicated server software that will let server owners set up on rented server space or second machines without having to install a whole new copy of the full sim...which isn't even a viable option with rented servers several states away.

I'm not in the rush some folks seem to be to see additional content added, since I'm busy putting in hours in each type of the available planes to become proficient in them. I'm sure I'll take advantage of a more dynamic campaign or more involved SP missions later, assuming they're added to and improved, but for now I'm still very much in training mode.

I'm the first to concur that much of the SP scene is lacking. Not so much like a barren wasteland though, that implies there was something there that was ruined and decayed...to me, it's more like a new and mostly blank canvas, awaiting the painter's brush to give it life.

I've talked and flown a bit with some on MP too, and I'm still seeing people who have trouble just starting an engine, or who can barely get off the ground without the physics helpers, engine help and so on when they find themselves in a server with these options turned off, and are still frying engines because they haven't learned to manage the mixture, radiator or RPMs.

I have to say I find it a bit ironic that folks are getting so wound up about the (so far) lack of content in ROF when so many have yet to master basic airman skills even the poorly trained pilots of the era represented had to have. It seems to me that this is often very much a case of putting the cart before the horse.

In my case, I've got somewhere over 14000 hours' flying in the real world, yet it's still a struggle to consistently land the little Nieuport 17 without damaging one of the lower wings! And I'm supposed to be all hot to be another Boelcke, or Ball, or Fonck in a dynamic campaign?

I'm just not ready...yet.

Sorry for the long post, but it makes me a bit sad to see people already proclaiming the death of ROF when it's only been out in the West for a month and change. This sim has given me something priceless in that short time: the feeling of really flying again.

To those of you reading this who are already feeling their fingers twitching with the urge to smite me with laughing 'fanboy' comments, I ask you to put yourself in my position for just a moment:

A lifelong lover of aviation, I'll likely never be able to fly a real plane again, thanks to this stupid affliction I have.

I've been a model airplane nut most of my life, but with my dominant left hand mostly shot, it'll be nothing short of miraculous if I can build another model.

Even if I can, I'll need help to fly it, since I can barely walk, and some days I have trouble just standing...for that matter, I'll almost certainly never walk on a path or enjoy being on a beach ever again. As in NEVER.

Four years ago, I was Mister Active Guy...fly all night, drive home in my sports car, take my little inflatable boat out to the lake and spend the day on the water, landing on little islands to lie on the sand, or head out to the field to fly my latest R/C plane.

Today, all of that is gone...but thanks to ROF I can still fire the PC up, get in the cockpit and fly again, forgetting all of the dismal crap for a while.

MS has robbed me of being able to do most of the things in my life I love...but ROF has given me back the feeling of being a pilot. If it wasn't that good, I wouldn't say it.

If you're still ready to laugh and point, hurl epithets, or the like, go for it. I hope it doesn't happen, but one day this could happen to you too. If so, I can only hope you too have something that can give you back a piece of your old life in the way ROF has for me.

Thanks, neoqb. Keep up the good work.

[MF] Gunloon

...you should see the extent some folks go to get their sticks as real as possible. Check this (you do have to sit through a commercial).

Link to Franken Stick

Gunloon, what a wonder life account you have written. You made me get all teary eyed.

It is great when it gives you that feeling deep in your soul, that only a true pilot knows.

Cheers.

....... ????? We are talking about airplane controls here, right!?!?

LOL!