So summer boredem has set in and the same old FS flights just aren't doing it for me anymore. So i was wondering, are there any other fun aviation games that ya'll love? Games like airport tycoons, tower sims, etc. What could you recomend?

Well, as far as ATC sims go, there are plenty, and more on the way too...You've got Tower Sim from Wilco, which is very pretty, being mostly about simulating pushes and arrivals. It includes 3D models of all the airports and aircraft, but the airports featured are somewhat limited and it could do with a few more in some other countries, although what is there is intended to make it linear in terms of difficulty, but it is crying out for a few airport expansion packs to broaden its appeal. Like most ATC sims, it includes a game aspect with ratings to achieve etc. Then you've got ATC Simulator 2, which does Tracon stuff and a lot more besides if you have the Pro version of it. This is probably the most well developed ATC sim there is, and it comes in two flavours, a standard version and a pro one, the pro one having the customising tools which allow you to create your own sectors. So there is the capability to expand it at no extra cost as long as you are prepared to make some effort. ATC Sim 2 also offers two different types of controller station, which is a nice feature that sets it apart in some ways, since most other ATC sims tend to concentrate on the more modern equipment that is actually not always really installed in all places yet.Then there's London Control, which is also an ATC simulator, but concentrated in the UK with a variety of sectors to control. This one is also very realistic. The name is misleading by the way, since it actually simulates sectors right up to Scotland and out to Wales in addition to London, as well as accepting and offering flights for mainland Europe, plus Transatlantic departures and arrivals. The Manchester Sector part needs updating however, because that is now handled by Scottish Control, although it works in much the same way. London Control is currently available at a reduced price of 24 quid by the way (normally about 35 quid), so if you are considering it, now's the time. The regular updates for this cost about a fiver, since they include an AIRAC cycle. This one is probably my favourite, since it includes the area where I live and fly for real, which makes it a useful tool from an educational point of view that relates to my real flying.Then you have Tokyo BigWing, which is also known as 'I Am an Air Traffic Controller 3'. The name sort of betrays its Japanese origins, since it doesn't translate well into English, but the thing itself is good. This is more of a 'game' than perhaps the other ones are, and although it only has one airport (Tokyo, rather unsurprisingly), it is fun and certainly the most accessible of the many ATC sims there are. Definitely worth a look.There's also Vireos Simulations, who are a new player in the ATC sim field. They have nothing out yet, but are intending to make a lot of US stuff, starting with Boston. It's too early to say whether these will be good or bad, but it is their stated aim for the things to be realistic, so that sounds promising.Most of those allow voice control as well as mouse control, so having a decent headset and mike is a bonus.There are plenty of other simpler ones kicking around too, including some free ones, and for some freebie entertainment, there is also this, which you will probably like: http://www.radarvirtuel.com/#Beyond all that ATC stuff, one of my own personal favourite games which is related to flight simming, is Air Hauler, which allows you to simulate your own cargo airline with FS9 or FSX. It's not the first time such a game has been done (see things like FS Hotseat, FS Passengers, Cargo Pilot, Airline Pilot etc), but Air Hauler is vastly superior to every other attempt at this kind of thing.If you want something a bit simpler, but equally accomplished and with a focus from the aspect of a pilot, then African Airstrip Adventures is also worth a look, since it virtually turns FSX into an adventure game by using the missions system in an open-ended fashion.Some of the above have been reviewed by Avsim, and a search of the ones which have not will turn up reviews of most of them from other places too.Al

[Tower] is crying out for a few airport expansion packs to broaden its appeal.

Tower II developments -http://forum.iemit.com/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=4380--

Well, as far as ATC sims go, there are plenty, and more on the way too...You've got Tower Sim from Wilco, which is very pretty, being mostly about simulating pushes and arrivals. It includes 3D models of all the airports and aircraft, but the airports featured are somewhat limited and it could do with a few more in some other countries, although what is there is intended to make it linear in terms of difficulty, but it is crying out for a few airport expansion packs to broaden its appeal. Like most ATC sims, it includes a game aspect with ratings to achieve etc. Then you've got ATC Simulator 2, which does Tracon stuff and a lot more besides if you have the Pro version of it. This is probably the most well developed ATC sim there is, and it comes in two flavours, a standard version and a pro one, the pro one having the customising tools which allow you to create your own sectors. So there is the capability to expand it at no extra cost as long as you are prepared to make some effort. ATC Sim 2 also offers two different types of controller station, which is a nice feature that sets it apart in some ways, since most other ATC sims tend to concentrate on the more modern equipment that is actually not always really installed in all places yet.Then there's London Control, which is also an ATC simulator, but concentrated in the UK with a variety of sectors to control. This one is also very realistic. The name is misleading by the way, since it actually simulates sectors right up to Scotland and out to Wales in addition to London, as well as accepting and offering flights for mainland Europe, plus Transatlantic departures and arrivals. The Manchester Sector part needs updating however, because that is now handled by Scottish Control, although it works in much the same way. London Control is currently available at a reduced price of 24 quid by the way (normally about 35 quid), so if you are considering it, now's the time. The regular updates for this cost about a fiver, since they include an AIRAC cycle. This one is probably my favourite, since it includes the area where I live and fly for real, which makes it a useful tool from an educational point of view that relates to my real flying.Then you have Tokyo BigWing, which is also known as 'I Am an Air Traffic Controller 3'. The name sort of betrays its Japanese origins, since it doesn't translate well into English, but the thing itself is good. This is more of a 'game' than perhaps the other ones are, and although it only has one airport (Tokyo, rather unsurprisingly), it is fun and certainly the most accessible of the many ATC sims there are. Definitely worth a look.There's also Vireos Simulations, who are a new player in the ATC sim field. They have nothing out yet, but are intending to make a lot of US stuff, starting with Boston. It's too early to say whether these will be good or bad, but it is their stated aim for the things to be realistic, so that sounds promising.Most of those allow voice control as well as mouse control, so having a decent headset and mike is a bonus.There are plenty of other simpler ones kicking around too, including some free ones, and for some freebie entertainment, there is also this, which you will probably like: http://www.radarvirtuel.com/#Beyond all that ATC stuff, one of my own personal favourite games which is related to flight simming, is Air Hauler, which allows you to simulate your own cargo airline with FS9 or FSX. It's not the first time such a game has been done (see things like FS Hotseat, FS Passengers, Cargo Pilot, Airline Pilot etc), but Air Hauler is vastly superior to every other attempt at this kind of thing.If you want something a bit simpler, but equally accomplished and with a focus from the aspect of a pilot, then African Airstrip Adventures is also worth a look, since it virtually turns FSX into an adventure game by using the missions system in an open-ended fashion.Some of the above have been reviewed by Avsim, and a search of the ones which have not will turn up reviews of most of them from other places too.Al

Thanks a bunch man! I've pretty much heard of all of these except for a few, and these are great sites. Do you know of anymore like tower sim by wilco? Or if there is a an addon for big wing that allows unlimited play time with real airlines? That'd be sick. Thanks for the feed nack, mates.

Airport games include, but are not limited to Airport Tycoon and Air Mogul.

for some rwason, that tower sim II link wasn't working and i can't find a working one, any ideas? I'd like to see it :)

for some rwason [sic], that tower sim II link wasn't working and i can't find a working one, any ideas? I'd like to see it :)

opps ... forgot ... you need to register on the forum -main site - http://forum.iemit.comonce registered look in the Tower support forum. the thread is titled - POSSIBLE TOWER II --

Ones that are aviation related (at least loosely) that I recommend. ArmA 2: A battlefield combat simulator. Not so much a flight sim, but has flying elements in it (not very detailed though, it's a little better than Battlefield 2 in flying, however the main strong point is on the ground when playing as infantry for the base game, and the mods.) If you go for this, be sure to get Combined Operations, so you get Operation Arrowhead and ArmA 2 bundled.IL-2 1946 as always, probably the best value out of any CFS that I've ever seen. Add the mods for even more fun on top of the existing 200+ flyables.Orbiter: This is a good free space flight sim. There are tons of mods for it as well which add space craft and missions.Evochron Legends: A pretty good space combat sim. Think of the old Elite games or Wing Commander. It does have some problems however when it refuses to boot.X3: Terran Conflict: Kind of like Evochron, but a bit less in the simulator category and more in the realm of a single player version of EVE Online where you can pilot everything from first person view. It's a shame there are no cockpits in the game however.Overall, I'd say that when it comes down to it, I have logged a good 200 hours on ArmA 2 at this point. The next most used is IL-2 1946, and after that would probably be either Evochron or X3. I have Airline Tycoon and Airport Tycoon somewhere, I'd have to find them. They were pretty cool way back when, but if I were to play a more business simulation game now, it would most likely be X3 Terran Conflict because of the highly detailed building a commercial empire element in it.

Ones that are aviation related (at least loosely) that I recommend. ArmA 2: A battlefield combat simulator. Not so much a flight sim, but has flying elements in it (not very detailed though, it's a little better than Battlefield 2 in flying, however the main strong point is on the ground when playing as infantry for the base game, and the mods.) If you go for this, be sure to get Combined Operations, so you get Operation Arrowhead and ArmA 2 bundled.IL-2 1946 as always, probably the best value out of any CFS that I've ever seen. Add the mods for even more fun on top of the existing 200+ flyables.Orbiter: This is a good free space flight sim. There are tons of mods for it as well which add space craft and missions.Evochron Legends: A pretty good space combat sim. Think of the old Elite games or Wing Commander. It does have some problems however when it refuses to boot.X3: Terran Conflict: Kind of like Evochron, but a bit less in the simulator category and more in the realm of a single player version of EVE Online where you can pilot everything from first person view. It's a shame there are no cockpits in the game however.Overall, I'd say that when it comes down to it, I have logged a good 200 hours on ArmA 2 at this point. The next most used is IL-2 1946, and after that would probably be either Evochron or X3. I have Airline Tycoon and Airport Tycoon somewhere, I'd have to find them. They were pretty cool way back when, but if I were to play a more business simulation game now, it would most likely be X3 Terran Conflict because of the highly detailed building a commercial empire element in it.

Arma 2 is sick!

Arma 2 is sick!

nah, my internet connection sucks.

A. Try and get ahold of someone at simsoft, i've sent tons of emails and phone calls. Maybe they just don't listen to me?B. Is there anything as elaborate as any of those? Like 3d?

One thing I got addicted to about 4-5 years ago was Airline Empires. It used to be free. Back in the day (2003-2006), the game was really popular with the folks at PAI. Ity was created by a person that claims to be in the industry. He wanted to created a computer model to simulate demand, capacity and its impact on pricing.http://www.airlineempires.org/You run you own airline, buy, trade, sell aircraft. You choose the cities you operate from, build hubs, set prices, adjust frequency lease gates. You can buy new aircraft, used aircraft, sell your used aircraft on the market - aircraft operate on the basis of range and speed.It was pretty cool back then but it had a few serious bugs that made it really hard to make money unless you were updating things on a hourly basis. I ended up giving up on it because of the bugs but they working on them when I gave upI have not been over there in a while but from the looks of things there are a couple different versions running - I imagine one of those version doesn't have the bug mentioned above.I quick read of the forum shows that they may be doing a reset the first week of August. I think they may limit how many people can join for each session. The best time to join is when everything is reset so you can get the jump on things. The will run a session for a few months and then reset it to a new game because if you start in the middle of a session, it is pretty hard to catch up.Its a fun game and it can be very addicting.Check out this page. They have a couple screenshots so you can see what the game looks like: http://aeclassic.simulationcloud.net/screenshots.htmlNow that I am talking about it, I may even join up again.