I can see it now---------- every simmer is required to have a full operating panel including throttle, prop, & mixture knobs or levers. Might as well throw in a Piper Arrow "emergency landing gear lever" while we're at it!I'd like one flight instructor to actually tell me that we can even get close to doing all cockpit/panel functions in "real time" with a friggen mouse!! Especially in an emergency!!!!!!!!! "Pause" isn't exactly real you know!And what about our first officer for biz & commercial jet's within this simulation? Who is doing all the radio calls, load calculations, etc? Looks like another compromise with the "pause" button if you ask me!When I see all these "PILOT" testimonials about how faithful this $50.00 simulation should be to it's real counterpart's---- off the shelf-------- it becomes laughable & gives me much less interest to acknowlege these forums. Face it, MSFS is great for what it is, when it comes to it's navigation data-bases & getting a feel of what flights all about. But to constantly condemn the "off the shelf" simulation because it falls short of an exact real aircraft is something that I can't even begin to understand. Maybe it makes these "pilots" feel big or something.... :-roll L.Adamson -- pilot who knows better

Dear Mr. Adamson,I'm not quite sure who you're aiming at with offensive remarks such as " it makes these "pilots" feel big or something" ...I think that everyone is entitled to have his own personal opinion, even if we don't always share the same views.I stressed out the fact that FS2004 is NOT a class IV CAE simulator (sold at a bargain price of 16 million $).Perhaps you missed the point which was that "IF" it's not too much trouble and "IF" it can be achieved within the limitations of the FS2004 platform, I'd rather prefer realistic flight models.Now, if you think that writing something like that is "laughable" and was done with the intent of inflating my "real" pilot ego...Personally, I couldn't care less if the forum users are or aren't aware of the fact that some of us fly real aircraftI don't think that being a private pilot is such a big deal but it does give you a different perspective when trying to analyze certain aspects of the simulator.All the best !

If it makes you feel better, I wasn't even thinking of you when I wrote that. Just a few individuals in particular.L.Adamson

A) How do you deduce what you just wrote from anything I wrote? Where did I say that software is a real aircraft?-on the contrary I stated that the fm's on computers are all universally pretty lame. Where did I state that I do not practice as real as I fly? I stated a flight sims value is as a procedural trainer-I think that goes without debate. You seem to like to put words in others mouths-is there a reason? You also seem on a mission to prove that flight sim has no value in training. I think you are dead wrong. The US Navy, EEA, and countless flight schools seem to think otherwise.It seems that you like to lecture a lot, based on assumptions on your part which frankly I can only conclude must be to inflate your own ego. I have met only a few pilots with this trait, and they are usually the dangerous ones. I will not make wild predicitions about your flying skills as you have mine, but with what comes across in your posts I would be hesitant to fly with you personally-no matter your time and experience. :( My experience of 662 hours commercial, ifr piloting over 14 years is fairly varied with 3 cross the nation flights and landings in 42 states. I will however, readily admit that I am always ready to learn, consider myself a permanent student, and certainly have lots to learn-as it seems all of the pilots I fly regularly with and idolize do also-one a wwII carrier pilot, korean jet carrier pilot, navy instructor with 68 years and 25,000 hours, and another an atp,past test pilot for boeing. By the way-they also own and use fs, and find great value using it with their students too, but I am sure that won't impress you either. Somehow, that doesn't really bother me.c) As far as real life-I have experienced a vacuum gyro failure in imc requiring a no gyro approach, a triple emergency of prop overspeed, altimeter/static failure/autopilot runaway in imc over hostile mountains, landing gear malfunction, alternator failure, rough engines, along with a whole slew of other smaller emergencies in my flying time. I attribute my skills in handling them not only to training but to practicing such "imaginary " scenerios on the sim on a regular basis. http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

It was supposed to be repaired later that day.... :-)http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

Do not forget ---- $50.00 times a million individual sales!!!!!Dick KLBE

Oh well, here we go again but with a bit of a more acceptable set of attitudes. Of course we have the old saw about the "$50" sim. We all know that if you multiply that $50 times sales MS has a nice chunk of change. To just sit back and accept, or as some do "adapt", is ok if that is what you are willling to live with. Perhaps it is more of an issue with non-pilots.I feel deceived when I have enjoyed sim-flying an airplane for a few months only to be told that its flight model is flawed. In fact I feel downright foolish. I really like the latest incarnation of the scenery. I fly many times to just see what the other parts of the world look like. But during those flights I have convinced myself that that I am experiencing the dynamics of a real airplane and I find that satisfying and enjoyable. Now, I discover it was not what I thought and all I was doing was admiring scenery as I scrolled elevatated textures across my screen. What a disappointment. What a fool.I am not, however, ready to give up and accept deception. Rather I hold out hope that those whose talent lies in correcting flight dynamic flaws in previous versions will once again come to my rescue. You see I, and many many others, have absolutely no idea that the simulated flight may be a deception. We cannot hope to comment, we can only seek comment from those who might know. Those who can tell us that some behaviors are not close to reality. Significant changes were made to the FS2004 code that remain somewhat of a mystery and have a variety of different effects. I thought that the RealAir 172 Cessna was a standard but now I find it to be flawed by the coding changes and that the MS 172 is pretty close. Actually I do not know what to believe. It is only from people who are experienced in real flight that I can draw rational conclusions. So don't toss in the towel and accept. Comment and maybe one of the experts, to whom we owe so much, will find a way to correct it. And if the aircraft is really good tell us that to so we may enjoy our moment of simulated flight without deception.Dick KLBEDick KLBE

>Do not forget ---- $50.00 times a million individual>sales!!!!!True----But $50.00 still doesn't get me a full size simulated panel with buttons, knobs, and levers. No first officer either.....

Hi, Geof.I see that you have an IFR rating, you should have no problem passing the IFR check ride. Post here with your results. I suppose it

Right on, Dick! I feel exactly the same way. But you put it together much better than I would have been able to. Thanks.Call me naive, but I find it very reassuring that people like Ron Freimuth sit down, make their test gauges, and then try to figure out what's going on in the sim, even without waiting for SDKs to be released. In another thread (don't remember now which forum on which website it was) I saw Ron's post explaining how he was investigating the vertical component of wind (as that editorial on flightsim.com mentioned that updrafts and downdrafts are non-existent and would be difficult to model in MSFS). That's the attitude!Michal

I guess all these debates start from the MS marketing slogan"as real as it gets" The simple fact of the matter is its not real infact no where near reality:1. Arguments like so what if its a $50 software, MS has sold million copies so they should give a sim as good as any commerical FFS is ridiculous. MS modeled the flightsim as it is not because of lack of money but because of lack of processing power available at typical homes. If all of us had mainframes at our homes MS would gladly give us the software as good as commercial grade FFS. Please understand commerical grade FFS do actual calculations to arrive at each varibales and thats why they need so much procesing power unlike FS which has a situation table and picks up the most relevant situation applicable to a given limited set of parameters. If I have to run a close integration equation of the wing surface to find the lift and drag applicable to each point of the wing at each instant of time and then derive the flying conditions...you can imagine the processing power I'll require!!! So...2. I agree some basic things should be ok, like when you pull up the aircraft should gain height etc...the adverse yaw I feel falls in this category. MS should correct it, it can be corrected by a simple look up table and not fancy 2 nd degree polynomial equations.3. Perpetual fights and arguments between sim pilots and real pilot and between real pilots with other real pilots. This is most disgusting. My 4 yr old daughter drives the GP ferrari in the computer way better than me and beats me to it everytime. Does it mean today she can actually drive a car and beat me in rw? or does it mean just beacuse i know to drive in real car i should be better than her in computer game? Answers to both the questions are NO. The fact that I know real driving does not qualify me to pontificate on the software simulation so should real pilots realize and abhor from giving righteous, I know all, pontifications on software simulations and most importantly they should not fight amongst themselves and digress from a forum topic. The real pilots are somehow under the impression that if they say they are real pilots everybody will start worshipping them as gurus and therefore the perpetual fights among them to prove who has more hours, experience etc..please stop this. If you know how adverse yaw can be corrected by re-programming the fs9.exe file then comment else please keep quite.

First, Microsoft makes enough money to perpetuate the product through its several incarnations. Since this is not a loss leader those interested in better performance may have a lobbying opportunity.Second, your daughter may have a better chance at developing the real-world driving skills needed to operate an actual motor vehicle. There have been many testimonials relating how Flight Simulator made the achievement of a Private Pilots License easier , and more fun, to obtain.Third, I fail to see that our disgussions are disgusting. Two things are occuring here. A dialog develops the actual flight simulation problems that are a part of the product. That is, we develop problem definition. The other is that Microsoft allegedly looks at these forums and just may take heed to our lobbying.Fifth, you sound like you are harboring considerable anger toward the product. I would suggest that you join in the discussion to lend a volume of credence to the value of improved flight characteristics. No one is fighting - yet.Microsoft has an excellent platform for viewing synthetic scenery, producing weather, animated aircraft, etc. They continue to develop those elements that they believe offer the most appeal to the public. Perhaps it is time to now offer an improvement in actual flight simulation. The argument that a mainframe is needed in the home is speculative. Some unknown portion of CPU/Memory is consumed by scenery, ATC, weather, etc. We really are unaware of how much computing power is utilized for calculating flight dynamics. Since there are sliders and settings galore for in Flight Simulator perhaps Microsoft could actually construct better flight dynamics and offer "adjustments" for those whose PCs are compromised by the all sliders to the right settings. I can envision setting Autogen to None and the new Flight Dynamics slider to Maximum Fidelity to be able to feel confident that reality was actually at hand in my little PC.Dick KLBE

As I have stated before-beta testers test lots of things, find lots of things, and report lots of things. No I cannot pass the fs ifr checkride.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

I am almost laughing, reading some posts above where some fellow forum participants are tying to convine us that the sim in fact shouldn't be correctly modelling an aircraft, because it only costs $50, or because in real life some aircraft behave differently than intended.The issue is very simple:1) Is adverse yaw modelled incorrectly?2) If yes, is it easily correctable?By "easily", I mean by fixing the flight model code at no huge expense/cost3) If yes, the MS should DO IT, and we should keep asking them to do it !Anyone arguing the opposite makes no sense to meIf the answer to 2 above is NO, then we have to take it as it is, because if MS had to fix this bug(?) it might have costed them a lot of money, not justified by the product retai price.But to argue that we should not ask for flight model accuracy from a... Flight Simulator product, just because it costs $50, well, it defies logic.Stamatis

Maybe I missed the post-but I didn't see anyone state above that this issue should not be fixed-or that the sim should not be striving to get better and better, or that the flight models and other thousands of steps towards reality shouldn't be requested or pursued.I will however,stand by my long held opinion that on a motionless computer monitor, a flight models feeling which is largly determined by the controls an end user uses, will always be the weakest and least convincing part of the sim. As far as the numeric reactions-absolutely-lets keep improving! It appears to me that we are.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg