RC FLIGHT SIMULATORS
By Jay Smith, Executive Editor | jays@modelaircraft.org
IF YOU HAVE EVER heard the expression “it’s a small world,” I had that feeling during my recent conversation with Dave Brown. If you don’t know who Dave is, he is a former AMA president and started Dave Brown Products.
Dave has retired to my hometown and lives approximately 5 minutes away from the house I lived in before I moved to Muncie, Indiana, to work for AMA. He has also frequented the hobby shop that my father started. It’s truly a small world!
I was interested in the story of the Dave Brown Products RC Flight Simulator. John Kallend had created the software and it worked with only two axes because it used a joystick. Dave was able to create a four-axis controller and John updated the software to support it. The flight simulator debuted at the Westchester Radio AeroModelers (WRAM) Show and was a huge success.
Dave believes that John’s RC flight simulator was the first of its kind. RealFlight came out a little later, and in this issue, you can read the story about its beginnings. We also have a review of the newest version of RealFlight in this issue.
If you have any information about early RC flight simulators, please reach out to me.
I was interested in the story of the Dave Brown Products RC Flight Simulator. John Kallend had created the software and it worked with only two axes because it used a joystick. Dave was able to create a four-axis controller and John updated the software to support it. The flight simulator debuted at the WRAM Show and was a huge success.
