Absolutely! Kind of embarrassing at times because at times there are many planes passing within a few minutes of each other, and when I'm with my friends, they always have to point out the fact that I keep looking up everytime. Also my idea of a good time is to go out with my r/c planes rather then the bar and they don't let me slide too easily on that point either.(mind you I'm 21)My goal in life is to get my PPL and my own plane, but a few months ago I went up for the very first time in a friends Warrior and got very airsick quite fast in pretty smooth air...I hope I can over come that or atleast deal with it.

What I want to know is what is our world going to be like when these people of no conscience (I assume most are kids) grow up and are running things. We had one in the hanger chat a few weeks ago who said because he wasn't old enough to have a credit card he was entitled to pirated software. This type of logic will be very scary when the decision making is about more important things.

first off. Dont worry about being airsick. ALOT of people get this when first starting out. I got it when i first started. I never threw up but boy did i want too. Its all n your head ao sont let that get in the way of flying EVER. Besides it goes away withinthe first 2-5 flights. You inner ear and vision sesory organs have to get used to the diagreement between them. To answer to the OP's qeustion, I was eight yrs old when my dad and I went to CompUSA. I alwasy looked at the computer games while he went to do grown up things. I saw this box titled 747 Jumbo....or something like that i think it was just called 747. I looked at all the pictures on the back, and saw how some lufthansa 747 pilot endorsed it. My dad bought it for me and when we got home, he said...'wait a minute, it says you need a program called flight simulater 98. You do not have that. This is just an add-on." I said, 'What's that mean?" He said, "It means that you need to have the flight simulator 98 to fly these planes. This software only adds these planes to flight simulator." I responded with a quick, "well can we get flight simulator?" Without hesitation he said, "we will get it tomorrow after i come home from work." All i said was "ok." Boy was i in for a urprise, Ever since that day, when i first tried to take off a 737 from KSFO, I knew i wanted to fly for the airlines. It amazes me hoe far the game itself has come since 1997. Its insane to think that im getting my PPL now and have plans f hopefully flying for a major carrier one day. Thats a big dream considering the economy the way it is and this new legislation being talked about about instatin universal mins. to get hired by any airline.All in all, flight simulator has made a dream for me to follow and im not goone give it up.there may be some run-on sentences.....im to lazy to proof read right now :(

I don't recall all the PC specs so I will just give a reference of Simulator title and time frame. 1988-1992 - I was in Air Force ROTC in college and everyone was trying to become fighter pilots. We had a simple flight simulator with basic instruments and I used to say "how stupid" During this same time frame we would occasionally get time in the full motion simulators at Castle AFB. The KC-135 pilots had one system for instrument training that had no visual display and a few other cadets had PPL and various hours in general aviation flying and we shared the allocated time slots in these sims. 1994 - I pick up a free desktop from a buddy who lives a couple doors down from me. To my surprise he is had interest in flying and on this free computer I get a program called HXS which was a single attack helicopter sim.1994 - I for some reason buy this Mac with 30Mhz processor, 80 Mb hard drive and not compatible with any of the hot games at the time but along comes FS 5.0 and boy was this thing the hottest flight sim around. I also acquire Chuck Yeager Air Combat. Initially, I flew both of these sims with fingers on the arrow keys on my keyboard. 1995-96 - I spent a lot of time with A320 Airbus. The sole aircraft was an Airbus A320 with Lufthansa livery. Again keyboard flying, but this one simulated the auto-ILS system.Fleet Defender was a combat sim in which you flew F-14 Tomcats. Harrier Assault and Mac version Flying Nightmares, Falcon 4.0 Jane's Longbow, Gunship, MS Combat Simulator 2, Apache/Havoc Comanche/Hokum X-Plane 4.0-9.3Fly! Fly! II Falcon Allied Forces, Search And Rescue 2 and 3, Lock On Modern Air Combat, MSFS 98, 2000, 2002, 2004 and now FSX.

Hello,Fairly old member, but I'm starting to get back into the FS scene after a four-year hiatus.My days with Flight Simulator started when I used Flight Simulator on a Windows 95 platform, playing with the Cessna trying to land at Sea-Tac.Seeing as we didn't have a computer at the time, I had to wait until that happened, but then I lost interest.After several years, I found a copy of Flight Simulator 98 on a shelf at Walmart in the $9.99 games section and bought it. This was mere weeks before the relase of Flight Simulator 2004 (versions 2002 and 2000 were nowhere to be seen and I, to date - have never flown either version). After tinkering with it and discovering it had a Bell 206BIII JetRanger (I'm a helicopter nut, particularly a huge fan of the Bell JetRanger, hence my username), I was hooked. Then FS2004 came out, and I remember immediately buying a copy of it. After flying a pretty "naked" version of it, I started searching for ways to improve it. Discovered AVSIM, and the art of making freeware. After discovering how to make scenery for it, I returned the favor by releasing some of my works here (and elsewhere).After development stalled on Project Washington Overhaul, I left the Flight Simulator scene not expecting to be back (I did however purchase FSX, and stayed for a little bit, albeit silently). However, I've been pulled back in by the lure of the Dodosim 206.A little background on why I left. Project Washington Overhaul was a seven-airport overhaul for Flight Simulator 2004, that also included more than 450 miles of readjusted coastline, realigned highways, etc. Airports in the coverage area were.1.) Sanderson Field (KSHN) in Shelton, which was also the flagship of the project with every building completely photorealistic and correctly proportioned. Also featured a correctly placed and accurately modeled PAPI/VASI approach lighting system, plus a realignment of Highway 101 in Mason County, the street grid of Shelton, and every lake and pond in Mason County.Part of the reason I left the FS community. Issues with Sanderson were numerous. While the buildings themselves were of a low poly count, the whole project caused FS2004 and FSX framerates to drop to slideshow levels within 15 nautical miles. Also, the perimeter of Sanderson Field is surrounded by a chainlink fence, and there was no accurate way to depict the fence.2.) Tacoma Narrows Airport. (KTIW) This was a rework of Bob Bernstein's FS2002 package ported for FS2004 with improvements. Also replaced the default Tacoma Narrows Bridge scenery object with a photoreal and strucutrally accurate replacement of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that was modeled after the actual blueprints (it was modeled right down to the exact number of truss members, streetlight posts, etc). Part of the reason I left the FS community: There was an issue with the completed package. FS would stall, then everything would go blank texture-wise for five seconds when approaching the north end of the project range, and from a distance the complexity of the TNB model would cause FPS rates to go to a slideshow. (to add to that, the suspension cables would display as black "untextured" objects in FSX).3.) SFS Airpark in Port Hadlock (80WA). Default location of SFS Airpark in Flight Simulator 2004 puts the airport deep in a hole immediately south of Lake Crescent. Its actual location is some 60 miles east in the town of Port Hadlock. Project was to include a photorealistic depiction of the airport buildings, and correct its location. Terrain issues and conflicting scenery BGLs led me to abandon it.4.) The only completed airport in the package, Port Orchard (4WA9), was abandoned due to AFCAD not displaying a correctly proportioned runway correctly.5.) Olympia Regional Airport (KOLM). Work never started due to Port of Olympia disallowing me access to get proper photographic reference.6.) Forks Regional (S18). Photos taken of the airport failed to turn out, due to a failing digital camera CCD that, unbeknownst to me, failed when I was taking them. Discovered that they failed, when I returned home (seeing as how I live more than 140 miles, gas prices at the time made it financially not feasable to return)7.)An abandoned airstrip in Lilliwaup, WA. Attempts to take photos of it for any reference/possible building shots were thwarted by the only road allowing access to it being a closed private road.In addition, the package included a 1,150 square mile photoreal satellite ground image package of the Mount St. Helens area, with accurate night lighting, seasonal textures, and autogen. Was also going to include upgraded/revised visitor center buildings, and several landmarks (including the Buried A-Frame, an KOMO TV news car that got caught in the blast, among others). Left this project because of the autogen limitations, specifically the one limitation in application. Editing some 7,400 scenery tiles individually was an arduous task I wasn't willing to undertake. There has to be a better way to add autogen rather than adding it individually one tile at a time.Work had amassed more than 9 months, and I felt that I couldn't improve the project any further without taking away details which I felt would've been detrimental to the feel of flying anywhere near these spots. As a result, I left.Not long ago, I had rediscovered the love for flying within FS (FSX, mainly), but I'm still dissapointed at how the Bell JetRanger wasn't updated on the interior. That has all changed with the Dodosim 206. :)Next week, I'm purchasing it, and I'll be back in the game.As for scenery? I think it's safe to say that I'm not "done"... Perhaps I'm just in need of a few refresher courses. I would happily resume work on Project Washington Overhaul, provided

I didn't have a pc until 1998 - and then it was my dad's old pc from 1994. One of the first things I did with it was load FS95. I had no idea what I was doing and I can't remember many successful landings but it was still fantastic. After searching the web, I found FS.com and AVSIM. After I realized how much was out there for free add ons, I saved for a Gateway, bought FS2000 and I was hooked. I downloaded/bought everything I could find. FS2002 ushered in AI traffic which fed the addiction even more. I remember the day when the ttools forum opened up here and I remember when someone finally figured out how to add custom traffic - it was revolutionary. When fs2004 came, I could wait for FedEx to redeliver the package after I missed them. I drove to their office in Downtown Detroit to pick up the copy. I always loved airplanes since I was a kid (I'm 38 now). We only took a couple vacations a year but it was great growing up in the '70's when you could get on a DC-10 or L-1011 for a 3hr flight. For me, the thrill of FS has always been the escape - the feeling of going somewhere cool, the atmosphere in the cockpit and the amazing visual detail of the aircraft. I have never been really in to complex systems modeling - just too much to study and the pre-flight doesn't suit my schedule. Although being a pilot would be cool in theory, I have never really wanted to be one. I'm too impatient and scatter brained at times. I'm better suited for a first class seat and a cocktail. I did, however, do a 1.5 hour session in a full motion 717 sim at Alteon in Long Beach which was really a lot of fun - I'd do it again in a second. Now I'm on my 4th computer and stewing over building a new one for FSX. Over the past few years I have diverted to a couple first person shooters or SimCity for a short time but FS is really the only "game" I "play". Oh, BTW, I'm much better at landings now but I still don't like complex systems. The default GPS is just fine for navigation for me along with hand flying below FL100.

I bought an original IBM PC when they first came out. It cost about $3500 and I could only afford the "monochrome display adaptor" which was a character-only graphics and printer card (80 character x 25 lines). Back then when you bought the computer IBM gave you a manual with the schematics for all the circuit cards, and a full source listing of the BIOS. Eventually hardware companies starting making "PC-compatible" cards, and I was able to afford a replacement graphics card which CGA-quality graphics (320 or 640x200) in a 16 gray-scale output so I could still use my green-and-white monitor.MS had published "Flight Simulator" (it didn't carry any version number, but IIRC it is ver 2.1 based on Artwick's original Flight Sim). I think it was the only real graphics application for the IBM PC, and went on to become the gold-standard for PC compatibility. I learned to fly the Cessna using the keyboard. I'm not sure if back then there were joysticks or how they interfaced (COM1 maybe?). I did after a while get a two-axis two-button stick.This was about 25 years ago.scott s..

I started simming back in 1986 when Radio Shack still sold computers and my purchase from them for FS was the Tandy 1000SX with Deskmate as the pre functioning Windows (this was before Windows 1). I remember when DOS and command line was the OS of the day and one had to be familiar with files like 'autoexec.exe' and 'config.sys' to get various games to run right. On my first computer which was Tandy's Color computer you always had to load up DOS before you could use the computer, there were no hard drives back then. It's so easy today versus what we had back then. Oddly enough I must have gotten a bargon copy of FS 1.5 as I remember taking the software back to the store complaining my display card was malfunctioning. I told the guy the game doesn't look like the pictures on the box. All I was getting at home was square displays for the gauges and the world in the sim was nothing more than black and white lines with a buzzing sound for engines. He told me that was how the sim was supposed to look because computers didn't have to power to produce a more realistic world. That's how most games were in those days. The boxes pictures were so much more than the actual game. Today people would scream if they got a game home and it didn't look like the shot on the box. Man how far we've come. Every version of FS required me to upgrade hardware since then. There was always a point we couldn't quite get to with performance because there was always a new version coming before the sim hit it's stride. I've never seen any version of FS perform like what I'm seeing with FS9 today. It's been an interesting ride over the last 20 years and looking back it's hard to believe what we thought was so cool back then looks so arcadish today.

I would almost be scared out of my mind if I were just starting with flight simulation and trying to figure out what's good and what's not. And the depth of information available on all the various forums would be somewhat overwhelming.

I started simming back in 1986 when Radio Shack still sold computers and my purchase from them for FS was the Tandy 1000SX with Deskmate as the pre functioning Windows (this was before Windows 1). I remember when DOS and command line was the OS of the day and one had to be familiar with files like 'autoexec.exe' and 'config.sys' to get various games to run right. On my first computer which was Tandy's Color computer you always had to load up DOS before you could use the computer, there were no hard drives back then. It's so easy today versus what we had back then. Oddly enough I must have gotten a bargon copy of FS 1.5 from Radio Shack as I remember taking the software back to the store complaining my display card was malfunctioning. I told the guy the game doesn't look like the pictures on the box. All I was getting at home was crude square displays for the gauges and the world in the sim was nothing more than black and white lines with a buzzing sound for engines. He told me that was how the sim was supposed to look because computers didn't have the horse power to produce a more realistic world. That's how most games were in those days. The pictures on the box were so much more than the actual game. Today people would scream if they got a game home and it didn't look like the shot on the box. Man how far we've come. Every version of FS required me to upgrade hardware since then. There was always a point we couldn't quite get to with performance because there was always a new version coming before the sim hit it's stride. I've never seen any version of FS perform like what I'm seeing today with FS9. It's been an interesting ride over the last 20 years and looking back it's hard to believe what we thought was so cool back then looks so arcadish today.

Correction, 'autoexec.bat' not 'autoexec.exe'... :(

My first experience with flight sim was on an Apple IIGS. I used to play for hours with it while I was in the first grade. As time went on my dad kept upgrading and I kept playing. Around FS5 he stopped simming and I took over. Since then I have been buying new systems and tweaking all the way up to FSX.Back when FS98 came out there was a coupon in the back for a cheap discovery flight. I remember I took that flight at Boeing Field and I started my flight training a year after that. 9/11 happened on the senior year of high school for me right when I was going to go on my first big cross country. Of course that didn't happen because they closed all the airspace down around Seattle for quite awhile to only IFR traffic. I later went on to college finished my commercial multi, and flight instructor and flight instructor instrument certificates and the college asked me to come back and teach for them. I did that for a year and then have been eeking out an existance as a flight instructor and taking as many part 91 legs as possible in the company's Cessna 340. Now I am back in college for a degree this time and when I finally finish I should have a degree and close to 2000 hours so I might be competitive for some job out there :(

I've been interested in flying since I was 5 years old. My grandfather used to take me up to the airport in Johnstown (KJST) to watch the commuter, a Twin Otter flown by Pennsylvania Airlines for Allegheny (now US Airways). I started flight sims with Commodore 64 and Sublogic's Flight Simulator II.I went on to start my Private Certificate training when I turned 15 in a Cessna 152 at KJST. I then had my first solo shortly after my 16th birthday, and had my Private when I turned 17.Went off to college and earned my instrument rating in a Piper Warrior, my Commercial in a Piper Lance, Multi-engine in a Piper Seminole, and My CFI and CFII in a Mooney 20J.Just out of College, I bought my own computer and had FS98 on it and played it all the time while flying part time in a King Air B100 and King Air B200 for the FBO in KJST.I then flew another King Air B100 for a different company out of Williamsport (KIPT) for about a year while flying FS2000 on my Pentium 3 450Mhz Rig.I went back to Johnstown and got my first full time flying job for an engineering firm flying their 1956 AC560 twin Commander, an AC500 Shrike Commander, a Piper Navajo Chieftian, and a little in the Citation I SP before I was layed off. I spent my six months layed off flying on FS2002 and applying to airlines.I got a job with a commuter airline flying DeHavilland Dash 8's (102 and 311 models). I've been doing that ever since and now have over 8000 hours IRL, most of it in the Dash 8. All along I've been flying flight simulator. I now am running FS9 until I can upgrade my computer to something that can handle FSX (I now have a Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz, 1MB PC3200 RAM, and a GeForce 5950 Ultra Card. Good for FS9 but not enough for FSX). It was said above that flying for a living takes a toll on you life and I can attest to that. I've moved many many times, live out of a suitcase, and been divorced already and I'm only in my mid 30's. You have to really love flying to make it a career. I think I like flight simming better than flying for a living; in FS, I fly what I want, when I want, and where I want. Much more fun than being told what to do.

There wasn't much software available for the Apple ][ and I had a job maintaining aircraft for the military.The first simulator I tried was little more than line graphics representing an attitude indicator, turn indicator and airspeed indicator (memory is a little vague - it WAS 30 years ago). I was pretty hopeless controlling it with the knobs on the paddle controllers that came with the computer.By the time the version with an outline of a mountain ridge adjacent to a rectangular ground area came out I had a tiny joystick on a metal enclosure that was much more effective as a flight control. The three buttons on the joystick base were so small they would make a dent in my thumb if I pressed them very much. The "ground" was a grid of white lines on a black background. Other than the grid and mountain ridge the whole environment was black (sky, ground and the area surrounding the "scenery"). There was a white line "river" diagonally across the "world" with white outline freindly and enemy airfields on each side. Since there were no diagonal or side views there was a rectangular "radar" screen showing the enemy fighter's location.Sub-Logic added color fills to a representation of northern Illinois. Hardware limitations of the Apple ][ placed severe limitations on the color pallete though. The blocky 16 color low resolution mode was far too coarse for the simulator to use, so it had to use the six color "high resolution" that had some odd restrictions on where the colors could be displayed together.

It was said above that flying for a living takes a toll on you life and I can attest to that. I've moved many many times, live out of a suitcase, and been divorced already and I'm only in my mid 30's. You have to really love flying to make it a career. I think I like flight simming better than flying for a living; in FS, I fly what I want, when I want, and where I want. Much more fun than being told what to do.

You are correct with that. I have lived in six different cities in the last two years jumping from flying job to flying job. I have finally found one that works well and lets me continue my studies. Once I finish I hope to be able to have a normal job and freelance or help the charter department much like I am doing now.

Well my brother was waching a gameing shoe called "x-play" and they were reviewing the newly realeased FSX. All i could think about was getting that game. I ask my mom for it for my B-day. She got FS9. I was kinda dissapointed so i bout FSX with my own money. After 2 minets of playing FSX I took it back and have been playing FS9 ever since. sorry for the spelling my keybord is broke.