Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Newest EXPs For Realflight G3.5 Through 7.5

Unfortunately the swap pages got new software or something, so all the old links won't work.


Unfortunately the swap pages got new software or something, so all the old links won't work. You can find all of my Realflight planes at Rockin' Doc Austin's Knife Edge Swap Page. The ones on this page are just the newest ones. I'll be making more as we get more new EXP releases.

The rest of the links on this page don't work because I'm too lazy to go back and change them all. Just use the link above and from there you can't pick what you want to download.

While I love my Realflights, one of the things I find frustrating is they are updated so often that if you have a year old (or older) simulator, a lot of the newer planes you can download from the Knife Edge Swap Pages won't work. If you have a 3.5, you can't download and fly planes made for 4.5 or newer simulators, and so on. This was quite maddening until I learned to make my own planes, and I have never had to buy a newer sim.

The good news is that planes made for 3.5 (and newer) will also work with newer Realflights, so if you have a good supply of planes you like to fly, there is no need to buy a new sim over and over and over. The newer planes that come with 7.5 don't fly any better or look any better than 3.5 planes, so I hardly see the point of buying a new sim every year when that money would about cover the cost of a new airframe instead.

As much work as these are, there had better be a lot of people enjoying them or it's simply not worth it. I recently bought a Realflight 6.5 and a 7.5 so I could test my planes on those, and so far they have all worked perfectly.

The New Planes
First, we really needed to have the new Extreme Flight 52" Extra EXP for Realflight, so I drew a color scheme to fit on an Extra I really like, the Extra330S BA_EA. This is the best flying plane I have found so far for Realflight. It's a little too easy, but the ones that are not too easy seem to fly really badly. This plane seems like a decent balance, but don't think the plane you take to the field is going to fly like this one. Install this first and you will have a working plane, then install the Extra EXP__CS files to install the color schemes.

The Extra330S BA_EA works with Realflight 3.5 right up to Realflight 7.5, so as long as you have one of those simulators, this plane will fly beautifully for you. I have tested these schemes on RF3.5, 6.5 and 7.5. I especially love these planes for the way they fly, but also because I think these are the best looking Extras we have ever seen.

 

There was not a good example of Extreme Fight's killer 60" Extra EXP available for Realflight G3.5, so I converted zillacapt's excellent 4.5 rendition of Jeff Boerboom's Extra 330. Conversion was the easy part, but I redrew every single pixel on the plane to get it that way I wanted it. This plane is also based on the Extra330S BA_EA.
We also needed a really good Laser EXP for 3.5, so again I trend to the Extra330S BA_EA . I scanned the decal sheet of my kit and then used the photoshop clone tool to essentially copy/paste the graphics on to the plane's artwork file, but I just made that sound a lot easier than it really was. The Laser has always been a really special plane for me, so I went out of my way to make this one as nice as I could. 
Same thing with the MXS EXP series. There was no good MXS for 3.5, but we still had the Extra330S BA_EA to build on. For the red MXS I cloned the artwork from the one that comes with Real Flight 7.5. That saved me some work, but it still drove me crazy getting everything to line up. Still, another important plane for me, so I had to take my time and get it right. On the white MXS, I had to start from scratch and hand draw every single pixel, another project that drove me crazy, but if people enjoy them it will be worth it.
 With the new Extreme Flight 52" Slick 580 coming out last April, 3.5 users were left out. The Slick has long been a solid favorite of many, if not even the most popular plane of recent times. As such, we really needed one for 3.5. I drew these up (again based on the (Extra330S BA_EA) so everyone with a Realflight could enjoy them.
 All of my Yaks are based off the one that comes with every version of Realflight, so all you have to do is install them and not worry about needing a base plane. The yellow was taken from several of the older yellow/black Extreme Flight Yaks made for Realflight, but I only used those as a pattern. I had to redraw every single pixel on the plane.
Sadly I cannot take any credit for the newest Russian Thunder Yak. This was drawn entirely by Roberto Padilla and I merely converted it to 3.5 and had the honor of uploading it. It's simply beautiful work.
I worked a bit with Herre1114's excellent Extreme Flight splinter Yak and converted it to G3.5, plus changed the black to blue like the production models. Again, I merely used the original artwork as a template, and had to redraw every single pixel. It's still hard, but it would have been impossible with my skills to draw it from scratch.

Of course, we can't forget the Edges These are based on the 50% Edge540 BH_EA. This is the upcoming  75" 3DHS Edge 540-2017_CS. You can't buy one just yet, but you can fly it on Realflight.

And here are the two original 48" Edges, with the red/white/blue (more terrific work from Roberto Padilla) also being available in a host of other sizes.








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