No disrespect intended to anyone but it amazes me, some Americans that are so inward looking with where they want to fly in FSX!Surely part of the appeal of this hobby is to go beyond your home shores and experience other parts of this weird and wonderful world, no ?"I don't fly in Australia because I don't know it well?" ....... I just find that so odd. How many other US States even other than your own would you know well ?Won't PNW be "somewhere I don't know too well" to someone from NYC or Dallas ??As someone else said, I will fly Aus most of the time now because of what FTX have done to the sim there, it's 500% better than most of the rest of FSX. But I'll also fly Papua New Guinea, Alaska, Antarctica, Switzerland, anywhere that offers a good fun flying challenge and something interesting.In my country, 75% of holiday makers (vacationers) go abroad each year and 98% of adults will travel abroad in their lifetime. I read recently that only 3% of US citizens travel abroad each year for their main annual vacation, and only 52% of Americans will travel abroad in their lifetime.Get out more guys, it'll do you good and broaden your horizons, there's a whole world out there beyond the US !!I hope the spirit of my post is taken as intended, I'm not intending any personal offencem, just a genuine interesting observation.

For me, I like to know what I'm looking down at. Not visiting a country makes it difficult for me to appreciate low and slow flying. I don't have much time to fly so when I do low and slow it is in areas I can recognize. I think your "typical American attitude" doesn't work with this topic. But keep reaching... because I have no idea what traveling has to do with looking at familiar scenery in a flight sim

No disrespect intended to anyone but it amazes me, some Americans that are so inward looking with where they want to fly in FSX!Surely part of the appeal of this hobby is to go beyond your home shores and experience other parts of this weird and wonderful world, no ?"I don't fly in Australia because I don't know it well?" ....... I just find that so odd. How many other US States even other than your own would you know well ?Won't PNW be "somewhere I don't know too well" to someone from NYC or Dallas ??As someone else said, I will fly Aus most of the time now because of what FTX have done to the sim there, it's 500% better than most of the rest of FSX. But I'll also fly Papua New Guinea, Alaska, Antarctica, Switzerland, anywhere that offers a good fun flying challenge and something interesting.In my country, 75% of holiday makers (vacationers) go abroad each year and 98% of adults will travel abroad in their lifetime. I read recently that only 3% of US citizens travel abroad each year for their main annual vacation, and only 52% of Americans will travel abroad in their lifetime.Get out more guys, it'll do you good and broaden your horizons, there's a whole world out there beyond the US !!I hope the spirit of my post is taken as intended, I'm not intending any personal offencem, just a genuine interesting observation.

Well David.....Let me just say this about what you say. You are 100% correct. I have never really thought of it that way but I think I will have a look into it tonight! I have traveled the world but seem to always have to start my flights from KPNS even though Florida scenery sucks! Thanks!!Sam

For me, I like to know what I'm looking down at. Not visiting a country makes it difficult for me to appreciate low and slow flying. I don't have much time to fly so when I do low and slow it is in areas I can recognize. I think your "typical American attitude" doesn't work with this topic. But keep reaching... because I have no idea what traveling has to do with looking at familiar scenery in a flight sim

I agree and I dont think this has anything to with being American. Since I started simming I have flown pretty much all over the world in the sim just to see what different places look like, granted you cant compare the sim to real life. I wouldn't say that Americans don't travel abroad much due to to the fact that they dont want to, but probably due more to the cost. As an example, my golf partner who is an older guy in his 60's has a lot of disposable income and money saved. He and his wife travel a lot to Europe, but going to England for example with the exchange rate the way it usually is makes it very expensive to visit. I think generally it is more cost effective for Europeans to travel abroad than it is for Americans, that probably explains why when I was in Brasil over the Christmas holiday, I saw more French, German, and European vacationers than I saw American travelers. Most of my friends would love to travel all over the world but either cant afford to do so, or cant get enough vacation time from work to do it.Back on the subject of ORBX, I am one of those who hasn't bought any of their products since I never fly in Austrailia. Its great looking scenery but I just know that I wouldnt use it enough to get my moneys worth. Had they started off in the US or Central/South America doing these projects I would probably own each one. Maybe if I make a trip to Australia in real life I will be tempted to buy a package for the region I visited, but until then I will save my money and wait for packages or sceneries in the US.I have spent a fair amount of money on European FSX packages, UT Europe, GEX Europe, 2 FSDT airports, a few Aerosoft airports, etc. I have barely even use these sceneries and wish that I hadn't spent the money on them. I just cant get that excited about flying in Europe. Maybe since I have never been there? Could be. I have never been to St. Maarten or San Juan Puerto Riceo either but I fly there all the time in the sim because I can make those flights in a reasonable time from the US.Funny that I seem to start all my airliner flights from where I live (KDFW), or from Ft.Lauderdale (FFLL) or Miami (KMIA), another place where I visit often and wish to live.

I reside in Canada and I do a lot of flying to Europe and the states mainly because of the availability of airport scenery. I just cannot fly into FSX default airports. I know I am spoiled. That means I don't fly into a lot of areas in the world where I might normally fly to. The PNW is an unbelievable area to fly into. It is very picturesque an this ought to be a wonderful approach. I lament the lack of US destinations especially on the west coast. I know FSdreamteam is doing a great job int the states. I just wish that they would create some more western destinations. No KLAX which is nice to fly into. No KSEA until ORBX does it. If i was more into GA I would mostly fly in mountainous areas just for the scenery. I think this new addition will be spectacular and I may spend more time GA flying just to enjoy the scenery that ORBX has to offer. The pacific rim volcanoes are breathtaking. One could conceivably just fly in this in credible region and never have to leave it.

I have spent thousands on add-on scenery. Guess what, most have been useless.I can assure you one thing. You will get your money's worth if you do buy the Orbx DVD and add on airports.As I've stated, I've spend more on sceneries and add-on airports that I care to share. I am now in a position to say that I'm finally getting it. The hardware is just right and the sceneries that I am buying are being carefully selected. I don't want shimmering textures when there's a fix for the problem. Developers have to incorporate and fix the issues.If I look at all the money I've squandered and put it to the cost of my Orbx package, I still come out on top. It's really that good.

It's all relative to the individual. I live in the US, have had my PPL since I was 18, and travelled all over the world for 25 years compliments of the US Air Force. When I first started using Flight Simulator way back when, I was more interested in flying the "heavies". Why? Because it was something I couldn't do in real life. I thoroughly enjoyed loading up the 747's and going "world cruising" from continent to continent. Learning how to use all the systems in them was fun. I don't regret it. But after a while, doing 8-hour sessions watching the world go by 98% of the time from FL360 got to be a bit boring.In the past several years, the release of some of the newer scenery addons has made "lower and slower" flying a lot more enjoyable. Along with the better computer hardware that has come out, these sceneries are outstanding. I find myself doing about 90% of my flying now in "local geographic areas", or maybe doing more 1 and 2 hour flights within certain areas in GA aircraft like the Duke and the Flight1 Cessna Mustang. With some of the newer sceneries like ORBX and GEX, the ol' C172 even gets out of the hanger a lot more. FSX can not only be a great flight sim experience, but a great "geography" experience. Even though I've been all over the world and "know" where most places "are", I can still be surprised about what I DON'T know. Many, many times I've been flying along in a low and slow flight somewhere in the world, and "discover" where something is. By that I mean "in relation to" the local area I am flying in at the time. For instance, I've never been to Cairo in real life, but I always "knew" the Pyramids were around there. But until I loaded up a C172 one day and just decided to start at the Cairo airport and go "search" for them in FSX, I never knew where they were in relationship to Cairo itself. Yeah...I could have found that out using GOOGLE Earth, but there is something very pleasing about doing it in FSX. If you know "where" things are in the world (or if you don't), use FSX to get a broader perspective on them. You may "know" in general "Venice" is in "Italy" in real life. But without looking at a map of Italy, could you say WHERE in Italy? Northern Italy? Good for you! Now, where is it in relationship to the major airport you would fly in to get there? North? South? East? West? How far away? You can do this with locations all over the world now using FSX with OUTSTANDING scenery displays for the areas. Go on "discovery flights" like these in slower GA aircraft if you only have an hour or two to fly and can't (or don't want to) do an 8-hour FL360 marathon flight.Sceneries like ORBX and UTX and GEX and Switzerland Pro and tons of others have made almost the entire world available to you to fly in. Heck, the freeware Greenland site run by the guys up there has outstanding freeware scenery, landclass, terrain mesh, and updated airports that look outstanding. Go for it. Take a half-hour FSX "trip" to someplace you've NEVER been before, even if you "know" what is there (the Eiffel Tower is in Paris...Victoria Falls is in Africa...Sydney is in Australia...), and get to know the location of the things there like a "local" would. That's what has been fun for me over the past year now with FSX. Rick

getting a little OT, but the primary reason I stay in the USA is because the charts available. SkyVector and NACO terminal charts are so nice to have, especially while on vatsim etc. Plus I'm familiar with ATC procedures here... Now, exploring Australia might be fun if I had some charts so I can tell where I'm going.

getting a little OT, but the primary reason I stay in the USA is because the charts available. SkyVector and NACO terminal charts are so nice to have, especially while on vatsim etc. Plus I'm familiar with ATC procedures here... Now, exploring Australia might be fun if I had some charts so I can tell where I'm going.

Yeah, thats one reason I do most of my airliner flying in the US. It's super easy to find the airport charts and routes the airliners fly. I think Flightaware.com has become one of my favorite sites because I can find the real world airline flights, their flight plans, current WX for the airport and all the charts. Maybe if Flightaware was available for Europe and Australia and made it easy to get the flight plans and charts in one site I would probably fly those areas more.

I think once the PMDG NGv2 comes out I will buy the FTX package and see Australia.

Funny OT this has become. :( While some of you only want to fly in places they now, I only want to fly in places I do NOT know...! Some of you like to recognize what they fly above, but I don't. Why? Well, FTX (and PNW) are absolutely stunning and it's the best scenery available imho. So that's one reason for me to fly above it (and the main reason too). But the fact that I do NOT know the places I fly above is a plus for me, because... I can imagine things would REALLY look like that down there...! Now if Orbx would make a scenery for my own country, with new, awesome but still generic textures, I would sort of recognize things (the roads and waters probably) but I would also immediately notice it is NOT how it is in real life...! FTX etc. is not a photorealistic scenery, so you won't find your own house down there. You might find your city but if will look like a different city altogether, because the textures are generic and the autogen is autogen...So I rather fly above places I don't know, because then I can imagine what I am looking at is real: if I'd know the place, I'd know it doesn't look like the real thing and I would be annoyed most of the time, because that idea would spoli the feeling of being there. When I fly above FTX Australia, I sometimes really get the feeling I am there, because I don't know the place at all!Things change of course when you are so lucky to have your city and nearby airport recreated in glorious 3D, like the Orbx-addon airports... :( But even then the changes of finding your own house isn't too big (unless your house is big... :( ).BTW This is not just an idea I have: I have bought UTX Europe and I've flown above my own city. While it was fun being able to follow the roads I know, I was completely put off by the textures etc. that looked NOTHING like I know it... even when I flew to places I've been too but that I didn't really know. I was glad when I discoverd FTX after that and I even haven't installed UTX ever since. I won't be flying in my own country again until some real good photorealistic scenery is released or until Orbx decides to model my city. B)

For me, I usually fly commercial aircraft and almost every flight starts at an airport with add on scenery that has AES support. After that, I choose the origin and destination based on weather. Before every flight, I have to decideHow much time do I have?What aircraft/airline do I want to flyWhat two airports have the funkiest weather that I have add on scenery for and can fly between given my time restraints?Can that flight be accomplished with an aircraft/airline in my hangar?Overall, I find that some of the worst weather is in the US. The US also has a fair amount of airports with add on scenery and AES support. I guess the point is, I don't fly in the US because I only want to fly over familiar territory. I fly there because it gives me the most options with scenery/aircraft/weather/time. In fact, most of my flights are between the US and the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America. I like flying in Canada as well but add on scenery can be an issue.One thing that really excites me about PNW is we will probably end up with a high quality KSEA, KPDX and CYVR at some point. All closely located airports in an area with fantastic scenery and typically crappy weather. It will make a great start/end point for flights to/from Hawaii, Asia, Mexico, Caribbean and the rest of the US.

Utterly OT, but I would like to point out that many in Europe are indeed able to travel abroad... but of note, many countries in Europe are no bigger than some states in the U.S.

Utterly OT, but I would like to point out that many in Europe are indeed able to travel abroad... but of note, many countries in Europe are no bigger than some states in the U.S.

Still OT, good point though.Some Americans (like my father) spend years traveling around the world and realize late in life that they never really saw much of the US or even their home state. You could spend 10 days in many European countries and cover the basics but 10 days in the US wouldn't even scratch the surface.I have only been to 18 of 50 states and many of my trips outside of Michigan were very short trips. I have been to Mexico 10 times, Israel 3 times and Jamaica once. It looks like I should be spending more time traveling around the US.As soon as they come up with all inclusive resorts with swim-up bars in Florida, I'll be there.

There is no way to win a debate like this, for there is no real wrong, even if you never leave your own hometown. But what a shame not to live in the greatest time period in the history of the world and not enjoy travel, real and simulated. I have traveled in the real world in 55 states and provinces in Canada and the USA, and lived in 8 of them. Except for Mexico and a few Caribbean islands I have not set foot off of North American soil. But in the simulation world, I still call Australia home. I visit most of the rest of the world too, but I always end up back there in FSX. I expect I will be spending quality time in the PNW sometime soon, but as good as it is likely will be, it can't be a whole lot better than the FTX world down under. :( Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matildawho