Well, finally fulfilled a little dream of mine

Isn't it weird though. Thorough knowledge of a quality desktop simulator can go a long way. I have a fair amount of real aviation experience, which has surely helped, but still it never ceases to amaze me how very manageable the 757 simulator has felt like since the very first time I flew on one. After having flown PIC767 and its predecessors for years first on PC.I would hazard a guess that there are still at least two kinds of sim pilots out there. One type is the one that has absolutely no hand-flying skills whatsoever, and the method of flying by hand is completely wrong. Those guys would in my opinion not succeed in bringing the real thing down in a good fashion. I've seen enough of that in the real simulators... Button pushing goes OK, but hand-flying goes to ####.Tero

I have to agree that the PMDG software made my several hours in the real NG simulator a delight. The only draw-back was when I went to transition from using the A/P the first time to manually flying for 4 hours in another session.There is quite a hugh difference as Tero points out from these two types of flying and the latter (hand-flying) is one that you develop over a period of time. It's a lot more fulfilling once you have done a few takeoffs & landings manually. As my check pilot who was with me said, manual flying generates a confidence that you are in charge of the aircraft and not the other way around.The biggest drawback to desktop sim-flying is the lack of good hardware that is somewhat affordable. I only hope that 'Engravity' along with the PMDG development team can somehow come up with a halfway decent yoke & throttle that would compliment an equally good and affordable set of Rudder pedals. The software is untouchable.I can only say that you don't move the real yoke with your little fingers when the real hydraulics are actuated..For those of you who would like to see some of the manual video in the real NG 737-700 sim, I was able to bring my camcorder on my second session and record the events of manually flying the NG for 4 hours last November. Lets hope that the hardware end of this business will catch up to the software end.The site is: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=calico+jackRegards,jack

Hi,Here is my two cents.In our country (South Africa) Microsoft

Nice videos, Jack! Question for you: In the Part II takeoff the instructor at the end mentions 'forget something?' What was he talking about?

Loiosh,I think he was being sarcastic as he was kept pretty busy with getting my flaps up and changing the MCP to LNAV & VNAV, he jokingly said: 'Anything else'....in other words, what more can I do for you today, your master..Then again, I only monitored the Part II takeoff and not the other video's for that particular phase: 'forget something' that you mentioned...Anyways, glad you enjoyed them.Regards,jack