For those looking to make more realistic flights, I have two tips I recently learned-While passing through Harrisburg, I grabbed a 2002 flight guide. Much to my suprise I found that it contains schedules for flights to every airport less than three links away. That means that I have flight times, flight numbers and equipment (prop or jet) to and from about 150 major airports in the US and about 50 international (all over the world). Now when I fly (I mostly fly DF's 737-400) I pick a real simultaneous flight from my current airport and try to keep to the actual flight schedule! I'll provide the address to anyone who wants to send away for this (free) book.Also, a pilot friend of mine suggested I join AOPA (http://www.aopa.org). In addition to supporting general aviation you get access to their online airport directory that includes airport maps, terminal procedures (SIDs and STARs) and all sorts of other airport information you can use to plan your FS flight. You can also access real-time aviation weather data that you can use to plan your flights if you use FSMeteo or another real-world weather package.Does anyone else have any tips for creative ways they've used real-world resources to make their sim flights more realistic? I'd love to hear!-Simon Binder

Simon:I like to listen to real-world ATC at my destination airport and plan my approach to the real active runways in use at the time. Usually, this agrees nicely with weather in FS METEO, though because there are delays built into both sites, there is occassionally a mismatch. The list of available airports is limited but there is nothing better for learning the lingo for communicating with ATC. Here's the link:http://www.atlascomm.net/faaflyer/live.htmlAlex ChristoffN562ZMinneapolis, [email protected]

Simon,Highly suggest this site,http://www.thevirtualpilotplanner.com/Happy New Year,Dave Vega