I guess you could navigate by guessing the wind drift, and etas for the various checkpoints.However, that's missing half the fun :-)!. I was taught that good VFR flight is not flying from reference point to reference point visually. It is figuring out where you should be, identifying the target reference point, and adjusting if necessary. The figuring out bit is where a lot of the navigation skills come in (before you get in the cockpit), which are the ones I would consider most non-real world pilots do not have.Now I am not saying taht everybody should go out an equip themselves with the tools of the trade. I reckon that given we have a powerful computer at hand, we have the ideal tool for: - simulating the charts- drawing the route (eg using the mouse to draw a line on the chart)- calculate the wind drift- calculate the magnetic variation

hellome before have my window seat wet wing takeoff to approach Landing from orlando florida to san juan puerto rico.you i forget have flight simulator 2002 no wet wing aircarft jet airlines sorry :-(.please soon next new Flight Simulator 2004 takeoff to approach Landing add new fog,rain or wet air to wet wing aircarft jet airlines.thank you.

It seems to me that a lot of the things we are asking for could be achieved if we had a more powerful scripting language.I know the ABL SDK for FS2002 has just been released, and its a step in the right direction, but we need more power. For example, the game Unreal Tournament has some very powerful scripting and as a result there are many amazing user created "mods", just have a look at http://www.planetunreal.com/ to see what I mean.Please Microsoft give us scripting abilities like this:-A) Have script objects for all objects in FS2004, including all aspects of the players plane and AI aircraft, scenery, runway, airport, weather and effects objects.:( Allow AI aircraft, scenery, weather and effects objects to be created dynamically. Example 1) According to Weather object its a hot day, high humidity and no wind. I'm 60 miles out of Manila (Philippines) and my script dynamically creates a cloud object of thick haze (pollution) over the city, radius of about 20miles and extending up for about 15,000 feet. This is in addition to the other weather objects that real weather has populated around Manila.Example 2) Its a nice hot summer day (according to the weather object) here in Sydney. My script dynamically creates scenery objects to populate the beaches of Sydney with beach towels, umbrellas, people swimming and sunbathing. Of course if its cold and wet my script leaves the beaches empty.C) Allow animation of objects, including waypoints and "key frames".Im flying into Singapore, my script has dynamically created dozens of container and fishing ships in the waters surrounding Singapore. Some of these ships are stationery, but others are moving by following waypoints (longtitude,latitude and speed) specified in my script. And as I was flying into Singapore from Manila I noticed more ships traversing the ocean, all of them following the waypoints in my script. Matthew.

Excellent post Matthew.Tell Microsoft. They take notice of people like [email protected] Sydney Australia

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/041640/L/And one for the road...http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.cgi?1025127937:In

Thanks, hopefully they will read this thread.There must many, many FS addicts out there with the skills to really bring the FS2004 world to life, if only Microsoft would give us the scripting power to do it.Oh, I just noticed the email address. I'll compose something more formal and send it to themMatthew.

Great photos.We need these sort of "weatherscapes" for FS2004.I want to see those storms coming from 60 miles away, and be able to fly around them.The weather can be visually beautiful but deadly, thats the sort of atmosphere I want to fly in in FS2004.Matthew

Have you seen the preview screenshots of the clouds in CFS3? They should be able to create some excitement about what will be possible in FS 2004....

Great post Matthew!Julian