How about a private pilot using the yoke as a steering wheel vs. using rudders and proper aileron correction for winds. I used fs4 in 1989 to cure my steering the yoke as a car steering wheel tendency-it only took an hour of fs4 to cure with countless takeoffs-wonder how many real flight hours it would have taken to get the same....

Steering the plane on the ground with the yoke- that’s one of the easier problems to fix. For the first few flights, I have my students taxi with their left hand on their laps. I introduce the crosswind correction later on.Occasionally, somebody will try and vacate the runway at say 20 or 30kt using the yoke…that’s when I may have to use one of the 9 lives I got with my CFI certificate.Paul

Been spending less time in front of the computer now that the weather is getting nice and a ton of time here with my other hobby now I can not golf anymore... (Make sure your speakers are up )Cheers everyone...Paul

Gee! I thought our roads here in the UK were in a bad state but nothing like the cracks and bumps in those!Iain Smith

Gee! I thought our roads here in the UK were in a bad state but nothing like the cracks and bumps in those!Iain Smith

Ha! Those roads are in great condition compared to the 3 foot potholes you find around NYC!! They can swallow your front wheel whole and put you over your handlebars in a heartbeat. Your best bet if you can't avoid them is to just nail the throttle and try to fly over them ;) Sorry to hear anyone moved away from our radios :( ... Especially now that we have technology to interface dual mode phones (cellular and wifi) that can seamlessly integrate into the radio systems so you can even PTT (push to talk) from one of our new phones directly to the Radio system... If you are inside on a wifi connection available the phone will seamlessly fail over and when back in the field it seamlessly converts the call back to cellular. Pretty cool that you can be off duty and listen/speak to on duty without even having to carry the radio :) As for the concept of using FS for RW flying lessons the one thing my instructor noticed immediately was that I was flying with my eyes on the instrument panel the entire time opposed to looking out the window and glancing at the instruments as you should be. With that being said, my instructor was amazed at my situational familiarity with the cockpit and my immediate comfort level opposed to a "normal" student (because I am far from normal) Now I believe I just need to go for a Statement of Demonstrated Ability or Letter of Evidence to get back in the cockpit after I was put under temporary restrictions due to my back and a pain killer prescription...Cheers everyone!Paul

Hi allI am 50 and live on an Island in Scotland. I work as a PC specialist and Project Manager for a small computer company. Some call it the 'Big Blue'.I have started flying the flight sim when it was still MicroProse on the Atari and I have still got the software flying around somewhere. Since then I have been a constant flyer of the FS and I am now on FSX.Just waiting for the PMDG NGX 737 to arrive. I have been flying Gliders when I lived in Germany and will in May fly a 4 seater over the Firth of Clyde as I got this as a present for my 50th Birthday. The pro will do take-off and land, the in between bit will be mine.I am a member of VATSIM and the call sign is G-BUTE

Hi All,Am 39 yo from Manchester, UK. I live around 5 miles away from Manchester Airport! I can sit in my back garden and watch the planes flying overhead as they take off! :)I'm an IT consultant by trade and work for a group of PR type companies based in Cheshire. FS wise, been simming sine MSFS4 but took it seriouly from FS98 onwards, and have owned all versions so far! I just finished a reinstall of my PC to Windows 7 64 bit, and have so far not reloaded FS9. But FSX running a whole lot better. Anxiously wating the arrival of the NGX! In the meantime though I have the FSLABS Concorde-X to play with!Real world flying: I've done 2 hours in a piper warrior, can't afford anything else yet, as the cost of PPL in UK is ridiculous! :(

23 year old addicted to flightsim air traffic controller

I hold a BSEE from a university in southern California, where I worked as an engineer in Orange County for a number of years. I pulled up stakes a few moons ago when that SoCal summer smog started to get to me, and now I spend much of the year in Africa where I run a catfish hatchery and fish farm located in a string of earthen ponds excavated along the fringes of a flooded rain forest, way out in the sticks. The fish ponds are created with a 1980s vintage D7G Caterpillar bulldozer shod with 34" extra-width LGP tracks that are designed to keep the 20-ton beast afloat on soft mud that would sink a man up to his waist. I must confess that flight simming is one of the few activities that give me greater satisfaction than driving that growling, snorting monster in its semi-liquid element.A die-hard FS9 heavy metal hound, I own all the PMDG Boeings and their MD11, but my hands-down, all-time favourite remains the Level D 767. I recently acquired the Feelthere Embraer 135/145, the Feelthere Embraer 170/190, as well as the Leonardo MD80 and the Dreamfleet 727, all of which I am only beginning to study in what spare time I have. Work is indeed the curse of the dedicated flight simmer.Regards, Tony

37yo unemployed Travel Agent(bad econonomy and all) 18 minute drive door-to-door from KSEA. Started in the 80's with FS2 and owned every update since. Aviation/Travel started for me at the age of 2 when the family moved to Hong Kong and I still have fond memories of First Class on a PanAm 747SP on the Kai-Tak SFO run. Unfortunately it is all back of the boat for me now. When not flying I'm a poltitical party activist (won't say which side) and I serve on the Board of Directors for a local non-porfit issue advocacy organization.Michael

Small world Gavin, I also had a 'hedge-hop' flight in a Gazelle courtesy of AAC (bliddy scary) and I worked on the Merlins they had in the wind tunnel at Boscome Down - at least I believe it was for there lol.John Ellison

Indeed they did have Merlins in the wind tunnel. Well that is when I was doing my work experience thing in 1981 they did. :(

Student - 9th Grade. Am I the youngest?? Lol. From YSSY, in a few years plan to leave for NZCH to complete there flight school to get my commerical pilots licence for either Qantas, Air New Zealand or Emirates. Still tossing around :) But on the other hand i might become a flight instructor... Thats my life set. hahaha

I don't know if you're the youngest but you're now probably the most hated there Aidan, hahaha. Just kidding :(, but first thing I did when I read your post was felt some envy for your beginning of life (before starting your carreer) and having the flight sim experience early enough to find your passion. I know if I did I'd definitely be (hopefully be) in the air right now ;)

We just switched over to Vertex Standard about 2 years ago:( God I miss those Motorola radios, the old MX350 series worked better than a nightstick! We ended our Motorola series with the Sabres.

Yup, we ditched the Motorola about 4-5 yrs ago. Now using TETRA Airwave. Pretty good system. But I know what you mean about the nightstick function. (That's why I have a maglite)

I'm 26 years old, live in a small town on the Norwegian coastline called Kristiansund, a strategically important place for the oil and gas industry in the north sea.I am a student at the moment, attending the maritime technical college, and have 1 more year to go before i hopefully can become a deck officer cadet. I used to dream about becoming an airline pilot, flying the heavy iron all over the world, and i got accepted to a flight school a few years ago, but the cost of the education was simply too expensive, and seeing how the chances of getting a job in an airline after my education was, i decided to rather go for a career at sea.Aviation is still something that interests me alot, and at some point in time i will go for the PPL license, as i simply love to fly.

35 year old systems engineer working for a large travel technology company. I started on flightsim a while back when a friend of mine had an Apple II and a copy of flightsim from Sublogic. I finally had my own copy on the amiga a few years later and graduated to an IBM PC Jr. Currently living in Kalispell, MT which is close to Glacier Park(which I can see from my office window). When I am not in FSX, I spend my free time in the mountains on my horse or fly fishing. If the economics allows, I also like to jet off to a location where there is lots of warm water and sharks to do some SCUBA diving. So far, I have had awesome close encounters with black tips, tigers and hammerheads. Trying to line up a trip to Fiji next year to do this dive:

I have also done this dive:Cozumel:(not my video)

And this dive:(not my video)Blue Hole Belize:

Currently a certified advanced open water(&nitrox) diver. Hope to knock out my rescue diver cert sometime soon. I am also a new homeowner so I will be doing lots of yard work.

That's awesome Scott. I love to dive. The rescue diver course is pretty fun and probably the most informative one there is. I would love to do more shark dives. Once a year there are a few Mako sitings in York Maine and soon as they have them, we load up and go diving but so far, no joy :'(

is a video I shot playing with a seal. This is always fun too, but shark'n is pretty great!