Recently I started volunteering at the Estrella Warbird's Museum at the Paso Robles, California airport periodically running their F-18 flight simulator. see this link: http://www.ewarbirds.org/flightsimulator.htmlIt was acquired awhile back from Lemoor Naval Air Station (near Fresno, CA). My years learning and flying MSFS (since the late 1980's) certainly helped me to understand this sim and "come up to speed" quickly during my mentoring by one of the other operators. One thing that I had to learn while sitting in that real cockpit was how to do carrier approaches. Again I picked it up quickly. I've never really gotten into combat sims during my many years (shoot em down or bombing runs) as I really enjoy flying GA aircraft (by the book, as much as possible) through our FS worlds. However, I've gotten the bug from operating that F-18 and would like to be have the ability to do that sort of flying on my own sim settup. So.....the question is: Are any of you out there using Flight Deck software (by Abacus) in FS2004......I just saw, in Computer Pilot magazine, that their latest release is Flight Deck 6. I'd appreciate your feedback as to whether this software is a good choice for me to use for getting into Carrier ops....or .....would you suggest some other software instead?Mike

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Mike,I've been doing FS9 carrier operations for many years on a freeware nuclear powered carrier named "Waikato", positioned off the coast of North Island in New Zealand. It's quite old but still the best I've seen so far with all it's bells and whistles, so you might do a search for "Waikato" in the library, it seems to have survived the AVSIM hack.However, you will also need some modifications to the panels of any carrier based jets you may want to use. Search for "Barendregt" and his COP (carrier operations) addons. When installed correctly you can experience highly realistic catapult launches and cable trappings with all the related sounds. I gaurantee that you will have teeth marks on your joystick or yolk after your first landing attempts. Good luckHans

Mike,I've been doing FS9 carrier operations for many years on a freeware nuclear powered carrier named "Waikato", positioned off the coast of North Island in New Zealand. It's quite old but still the best I've seen so far with all it's bells and whistles, so you might do a search for "Waikato" in the library, it seems to have survived the AVSIM hack.However, you will also need some modifications to the panels of any carrier based jets you may want to use. Search for "Barendregt" and his COP (carrier operations) addons. When installed correctly you can experience highly realistic catapult launches and cable trappings with all the related sounds. I gaurantee that you will have teeth marks on your joystick or yolk after your first landing attempts. Good luckHans

thanks...I'll check it outMike

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I'm using FS2004 not FSX.

Oops, sorry :(If you search for uss_nimitz_ike_version2.zip you should get a nice 2004 compatible package, Javier Fernandez made it. AIcarriers2.zip this comes recommended with before mentioned package.

Re other sims you might want to look at...If you can find a copy of it, you might want to get hold of the old Janes Combat flight sim 'Jane's F/A 18': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane%27s_F/A-18Although it's fairly old now, it is still a pretty good simulator and does feature quite detailed carrier operations. You can (with a bit of searching) turn up used copies of it on ebay, and there are quite a few 'mods' kicking about on the net which can improve it further and make it look a bit more up to date. If you know Falcon, then you can pretty much regard Jane's F/A-18 as the US Navy version of Falcon.If it seems like too much trouble to seek out F/A-18, I'd recommend taking a look at Third Wire's Wings Over Vietnam, as it features a lot of US Navy carrier operations flying from Task Force 77 (aka Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin), mostly being missions into North Vietnam with things like the F4 Phantom, A7 Corsair, A4 Skyhawk, A8 Crusader and the A6 Intruder. You can find that here: http://www.thirdwire.com/project_wov.htmYou might also like their updated 2009 Vietnam sim, Strike Fighters 2 Vietnam, which is a much improved version and also features carrier operations. IMPORTANT - it is worth noting that this is what you'd have to go for if you are on Windows 7 or Vista, since the earlier Wings Over Vietnam doesn't like Vista. You can find Strike Fighters 2 Vietnam here: http://www.thirdwire.com/project_sf2v.htmAl

Oops, sorry :(If you search for uss_nimitz_ike_version2.zip you should get a nice 2004 compatible package, Javier Fernandez made it. AIcarriers2.zip this comes recommended with before mentioned package.

tried to search for both in the AVSIM library and neither was found

May be exclusively on flightsim.com then, go to search file libraries.

tried to search for both in the AVSIM library and neither was found

I downloaded Waikato from Simaviation. I checked and it is still there. Just type Waikato to search for it.

There is the USS Stennis as well, and when added with the arrestor wire program is a neat little package. The disadavantage is that there are no AI aircraft, the advantage is that you can move this carrier anywhere in the world, its not stationary in one position.Andy

I recently bought the Alphasim program USS Enterprise as this ship was of my era during my Navy days in the mid 60's having served aboard the America (CVA-66), Constellation (CVA-64) and Ranger (CVA-61). I was not satisifed with the AI that came with the program and particularly the catapult launch which simply had the AC rolling down the deck (not accelerating) and lift off took place a good 1/8th of a mile beyond the end of the deck. To remedy the lack of detailed AI, I decided to use the programs FSstat and AI Easy along with the gauge programs by Rob Barendregt for catapult and arresting operations. The only draw back is that when using flyable AC to create static AI AC, the poly count is MUCH higher for the regular AC that become your static AC which can affect performance if you have too many AI on board. Overall, it has worked very well for me. I've attached a couple of screenshots to give you a sense of the detail. I also added steam to catapults 1, 3 & 4. Without a doubt, landing on a carrier, not using an ILS, is the hardest exercise you probably will encounter in FS.