Flying the CarterCopter using X-Plane Simulator
Because the CarterCopter is still evolving we have not yet produced an official flight manual for the craft. However, anyone wishing to experience what it might be like flying the CarterCopter can obtain the same flight simulator that CarterCopters has adopted for its own pilots.
This simulator is one of the best available and is renowned for its technilogical accuracy. For this reason it is used by many large and small companys that develop aircraft. While programs like Microsoft's flight simulator can be fun, they are by comparison only fun toys and not taken seriously by professionals, X-Plane is a serious product and yet it can be purchased for $US39. In fact the computer and flight controls are more expensive that the software.
As of today (20Aug2001) the fully developed X-Plane simulator for the CarterCopter is still not completed but at Oshkosh 2001 we had 100s of people including test pilots (and a NASA astronaut) all fly the beta version of the X-Plane Cartercopter flight simulator. One of the intriguing results of making this simulator available, was that the best CarterCopter pilots seemed to be children & the real professionals. They proved that the CarterCopter was easier to fly than a typical helicopter.
So anyone wanting to try out X-Plane should obtain a copy of X-Plane version 6.0 when it comes out. For details please go to X-Plane's web site (see below) and follow the directions there for obtaining a copy.
Although the 6.0 ver is not yet released, the 5.66 ver does have an early CarterCopter in it but setting it up and flying it is not as easy as it will be in ver 6.0. This author though does fly the ver 5.66 CarterCopter and enjoys doing so. Also it can be done with an inexpensive gamers joystick. The ones tried by this author include the GRAVIS Elimiator Pro and the SAITEK Cyborg 3D Gold. these cost about $US 40. But for the more serious minded, you can pay $US 1,500 for a full set of FLIGHT-CONTROLS (stick/pedals/collective-throttle) controls that are essentially the same as what is in the actual CarterCopter and are what are used in the CarterCopter simulator config.