Anthony1968

Thank you all for the help. I'll research all of your suggestions.

When I originally started flying in FSX my primary interest was the default Boeing 737. I later decided to actually learn to fly and subsequently spent a lot of time flying the Realair Lancair Legacy and A2A's C172. I'm now interested in getting into the virtual B738 cockpit once again. The default aircraft no longer interests me after the realism of the Legacy and the C172 but the PMDG offering is VERY intimidating. I've done a few searches for some basic "introductory" type offerings but really don't know what to opt for. I would appreciate some input from those in the know. My knowledge of FSX is quite good and have good IFR skills. What I don't want right now is a something that emulates every switch and nuance of the 737 as I fear the learning curve would put me off. Any tips????

I can't speak for the i5 but my Dell system with the i7-860@2.8 with Turbo Boost works fine combined with a GTX 550Ti. Nothing is overclocked. It's not stellar performance but I trade aircraft complexity ( I fly mostly GA) for scenery and weather ( OrbX etc ). ........and of course Track IR and EZCA. BTW,my system is now over 4 years old and still has a lot of Umph!!! when compared to current systems. The i7-860 is a great CPU imo. Click "My Simulator" for full details.

Having watched many excellent YouTube videos on the subject of final approach and landing in a commercial jet it's incredibly obvious that hand flying a plane to the ground (auto pilot off) is a finely tuned skill. I agree that us simmers MAY save the day using auto land but anything else is the stuff that only dreams are made of. But hey! I dream too. In fact I have every intention of having a go at a real B738 sim just to see if I could, somehow pull it off.

Well it took me about 20 attempts to flare correctly in the C172 after years of flying it in the Sim and that was on a 7,000 foot runway. I got there in the end though and was a thoroughly proud moment. Slow Learner :rolleyes:

At the end of the day Flight Sim is a thoroughly enjoyable complex game. Whenever anybody asks me if I could land a jet after all the years (and money) I have spent on FSX I reply with a definite "No". I fly in GA planes in the real world as a trainee and a passenger and (to me at least) doing it for real adds a sense of mortality to the situation which is very sobering. Now if I had to save my life I'm sure I'd do my level best but I'm still not certain it would be enough.

Nice article. It's surprising how popular Flight Simming is despite the "lack of future potential" for MS.

This is great news. It's comforting to know that this website and forum is looking to the long-term.

Excellent Summary. Thank you.

Many Internet news websites are motivated by the need for advertising revenue and can be as sensationalist as MSM. I particularly refer to the websites that allow comments from the public. I get so bored and annoyed with vindictive , denigrating, uninformed comments that I don't stay around for very long. If anyone can point me to a decent "Informative" site for realistic coverage I would be most grateful.

When I heard the Captain had a flight simulator I thought " OH NO! Here we go, the media will love this!" Look at this for example; http://goo.gl/X47Vy5 Like many people I am watching developments in this story with a very keen eye. I have been monitoring aviation stories ( good and bad) for almost 30 yrs now. To me the least relevant aspect of this sorry tale is the fact that the captain has a flight simulator at home. I would be very surprised if a highly experienced pilot would need a simulator to execute any sort of "suspicious activity" with an aircraft. Having said that I believe the final outcome will detail a logical explanation (albeit tragic) for what happened to this flight and the souls on-board. Incidentally this is the first comment I have left on any forum with regards to MH370. But I feel sufficiently motivated to state that the flight sim story is irrelevant in my very limited, non-professional opinion.

So Aer Lingus are training pilots to fly Boeing again. It's been a while.

UPDATE; I deleted all axes associations within FSX as well as "global disable" function ( which was disabled all along). Deleted FSUIPC.ini again. Restarted PC and FSX and reassigned all axes and buttons. I didn't assign anything to a profile as I find that complicates matters. So far so good, I'm flying again. I still don't understand what causes this random corruption but at least I'm sorted for now. Thanks to all for your input.

45 and simming constantly since 1996........FS95,FS98,FS2000,FS2004,FSX.

Yes, that's exactly the way my set-up has been since I purchased FSUIPC. Obviously some corruption is creeping in somewhere. For instance, my Saitek Trim wheel axis cannot be seen at all and one of the axes on my yoke is only recognized as a switch. I'll pay a visit to Pete's support pages at Simflight............. a dreaded re-install ( including O.S) maybe indeed be called for. It's been years and the W7 registry is probably a cesspit at this stage. The trouble is I cannot even remember how I installed my Reality XP GPS and many other similar tweaks, some of them were nightmarish to get going properly.