>You think 2-D panels are going to be around for a while? Keep>dreaming. Yes, they're going to be around a long time...guys like me will keep making them as long as we're still simming.>More and more people are asking if a Payware plane>has a VC to determine if they should buy it or not. Especially>with the development of the new Gauges OR excellent>programming of old school VC gauges like the LevelD, you will>find that the focus will turn to VC.They still look like crappy cartoons to me, virtually every one of them. If I wanted to fly in a Lara Croft fantasy world, then I suppose I'd feel right at home on a LooneyTunes-like VC flight deck. But I don't. I have yet to see a 3D VC flightdeck view that comes close to the very realistic look of a good photo-based hi-res 2D panel. The perspectives are all wrong. The panning is unnatural. The lighting is almost always too dark. The displays are, with a very few exceptions, fuzzy. And I often find myself extremely limited in a VC if I want to add or swap to a 3rd party instrument.> I don't give a crap if a 2-D is included or not, but I say if>you do not have a VC cockpit, a good funtional one, then>you're leaving out a growing piece of the simming market.Whether that piece is growing even as fast as the sim market in general is another question.With over 1,000 hours as both an instructor and trainee in r/w Level C&D sims, I can tell you that I've never seen a real sim or other FAA-approved training device with a VC or anything like it. A VC is just a PC gamer's way of trying to use a computer screen as a moveable porthole into the flight deck. A much better solution is multiple monitors with the relevant panels or views. Unless the purpose of simming is sight-seeing, which makes FS just another video game anyway...in that case, proceed direct to the CaptainSim site, get yourself a good-looking flight deck with serious functional flaws, and enjoy the view.RegardsBob ScottATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VSantiago de Chile

The PMDG 744 really has High Quality graphic and very smooth gauges in VC...

Please consider this a warning in regards to those who are making personal attacks in this thread.

>PMDG 737 series and 747-400>Digital Aviation Piper Cheyenne>Feelthere Legacy>Lago MD80>Aeroworx Super King air>Cloud9 MB339>Cloud9 Phantom>Digital Aviation DO-27>Digital Aviation Katana>Eagle soft Cirrus SR22>Eaglesoft Citation X>FSaeF117>Justflight TigerMoth>Iris F-14>Real Air SF260 and Spitfire and Decathalon package>Plane Design Spitfire>Shockwave Productions warbirds>>These are the only planes I fly. ALl the others lack good>VC's.>What I am talking about is a combination of high quality panel graphics and smooth gauges (not gauge graphics). And as far as I know, noone of the listed VC

You might be interested in the news that the long awaited new version of the MD-80 is scheduled for release on 15 March:http://www.flythemaddog.com/

Brian, I have escalated this to a banning. Manbird ain't no more. He clearly has no regard for our rules of use. He's now gone and this thread is locked.