Greetings one and all, long time lurker, first time poster.I've been reading posts on this forum for quite a while now and thought I would finally put my 2 cents in. A lot of discussion has gone on regarding how real FS9 is and comparing the game to real aircraft. I'm a sim tech for Flightsafety International and have hundreds if not thousands of hours flight time in FAA certified level D simulators. I've been fortunate enough over the years to work on everything from the 777 to the Metro to Bell helicopter simulators (the bell 412 sim was my favorite!) One of the most amazing things I've noticed over the years has been the pilots reactions to the sims. One guy will hop out of the sim and complain to high heaven that the sim is junk, doesn't fly anything like the real thing and that it's totally useless. The next guy jumps out and says he can't believe how close to the real aircraft it is, flies just like the real plane and is a tool of immense value. Go figure! Sounds a lot like this forum :-hah FS9 is an amazing piece of software and a great bargain in my humble opinion. Perfect? Certainly not and yes, I agree, I would like to see a patch that could address some of the many valid complaints that have been brought up. The sims I work on cost 20 - 25 million dollars and every sim I've ever worked on and flown has problems that the pilots would love to fix, little things that seem to distract from the realism of the experience. So even $25 million won't get you the perfect simulator!I paid $54 USD for my copy of FS9 and the scenery and aircraft there are second to none. I enjoy my "GAME".... it's a great "GAME"... makes a wonderful hobby.... thanks Mr Gates.Thanks for listeningDave

>I'm a sim tech for Flightsafety>International and have hundreds if not thousands of hours>flight time in FAA certified level D simulators. Hi Dave,Great to meet someone from Flight International !.I generally agree but I have to snicker at this "as real as it gets" stuff. Take for instance what Microsoft did to the GPS that proudly bears the "Garmin" name. They completely butchered (not too strong a word) this very fine instrument depriving it of probably 40% of its core functionality and totally ruining the Garmin's fine quality display. If I were Garmin I would be mad as hell and ask to delete my trademark. But if you consider how the King Air panel (and other) look (poorly) - you realize it is all part of the same pattern. In my opinion MS lost interest in making fine airplanes and concentrates on weather and scenery where they really excell. So yes, I still do thank Bill Gates, but rather for delivering world-wide coverage with airports, Jepp data and beautiful weather effects - and for a very affordable price like you said. But they could keep the airplanes in the hangar or use them as AI only. Best,Michael J.

Everything is dumbed down so that the average joe can use the sim. Microsoft could probably make a great plane, but they wont cause then the sim wont sell as well as it has. We will probably never have a sim that appeals to the serious simmer.

I'd like to add I thought I had earlier:There are 23,000 airports in flightsim - each one accurately portrayed (runway wise). Odds are during our flying, we will visit less than a quarter of them, and see between a half and two-thirds. Same with scenery - I bet few if any flightsim pilots will EVER see the north coast of Russia, or the plains of middle Africa, or the mountains in darkest China - but they will be there.--------FYI: With 23,000 airports there are: 529,000,000 possible flightsIf you assume each flyer has about 100 aircraft, this makes 52,900,000,000With 10 general weather themes: 529,000,000,000With the choice of flying at Day or Night: There are 1,058,000,000,000 possible different flights....http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/36121.jpgStill waiting for my new PC

>I'd like to add I thought I had earlier:>>There are 23,000 airports in flightsim - each one accurately>portrayed (runway wise). Odds are during our flying, we will>visit less than a quarter of them, and see between a half and>two-thirds. >Same with scenery - I bet few if any flightsim pilots will>EVER see the north coast of Russia, or the plains of middle>Africa, or the mountains in darkest China - but they will be>there.>>-------->>FYI: With 23,000 airports there are: 529,000,000 possible>flights>>If you assume each flyer has about 100 aircraft, this makes>52,900,000,000>>With 10 general weather themes: 529,000,000,000>>With the choice of flying at Day or Night: There are>1,058,000,000,000 possible different flights....>>http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/36121.jpg>>Still waiting for my new PC>>There seems to be something wrong with the maths there. Just with the airports, assuming only flying from one airport directly to one other airport would be 2^23,000 - a number far to big for my spreadsheet program to even calculate.

Well just have 23,000 x 23,000. Since from each airport (of which there are 23,000), there are 23,000 different airports you can fly to. So 23,000 choices for 23,000 airports makes the 529 million total. (I think)http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/36121.jpgStill waiting for my new PC

I think you have a good point there, Fattybear. Sam Goldwyn once said to somebody working on one of his films,

Yes, I agree Michael, the GPS is so-so at best as far as functionality is concerned. I wish the flight planner had SIDS and STARS. The King Air..... well, I rarely fly it for the very reasons you mentioned, but overall the sim gets my vote. I am constantly amazed at the quality and skill of the those who design freeware, those are the folks who make simming what it is today.

You wants as real as it gets without the dumb down simulation? Wanna be serious?Check this out.http://www.sportys.com/acb/showdetl.cfm?&U..._ID=6244&DID=19PC simulation.... and only $2600! Now that's a bargain!

>Everything is dumbed down so that the average joe can use the>sim.That's ok but then why not to drop the pretense of "as real as it gets".How about "flying for dummies" instead ? Michael J.

Greetings Dave! And welcome to Avsim!Whenever I think about the validity of the flight models in flight simulator, I think back to FS3, FS4, FS5, FS95, FS98, FS2K, and FS2K2.If you were to pick up a copy of FS3, for instance, you'd see that the flight models were incredibly simple when compared to today's standards. You couldn't even hold a positive angle of attack in FS3, making the flare out in the landing impossible!!FS4 was a slight improvement. For the first time I could actually flare during a landing. Then came FS5, which was a huge improvement, and I loved the way the aircraft "felt" during flight. FS98 had many more flight model improvements still, but when I recently installed FS98 for nostalgic reasons, I couldn't believe how simple the flight models felt compared to the flight models in FS2K2 and FS2K4.My point is this: People rant about how wrong the flight models are in FS2K4, but they don't realise how much the flight fidelity has improved over the last 10 years. At this rate, we should be flying aircraft with Level D simulator fidelity in 10 years from now!James

Microsoft is focused on the shell of FS such as the scenery and clouds because that is what appeals to the guy they are trying to get to buy FS. The only solution we have is X-Plane, but the systems on heavy metal haven't even gotten close to FS standards since I last checked. The ultimate sim would be a combination of FS and X-Plane, of course that will never happen, but always nice to dream. :)

So why not start at airport one, fly to airport two, then three, etc, etc, etc. Then the total number of flights would be 22,999 (23,000 -1)Weather scenarios, number of airlines, season selection, time of day/night are all irrelevant to the process -- if you want to focus on touching the tarmac at every airport in FS.If you average 10 legs a day (11 airports) it would take you 5.8 years to finish the circuit.That is doable. Course if you discipline yourself to only making touch and goes (except for fuel) and always fly to the next nearest strip, I'd bet you could do at least 25 legs a day on average. That brings the duration down to a more managable 2.5 years. Just a tad longer than a typical FS release.Now that I've spent the past few minutes calculating the most stupid exercise I've can ever recall, I'm off to grab a brew and visit my shrink.Don't waste your time confirming or correcting my math or you'll too be making a visit to the local head doctor.Now let's see, where did I put that map of Middle Earth??Racartronit means something, but I just can't remember what

>At this>rate, we should be flying aircraft with Level D simulator>fidelity in 10 years from now!>James,I am afraid even 10 years is not enough since if there is no will no amount of time is enough. Judging from progress Microsoft makes in 10 years we will be flying over waves spilling on beaches and cities will be full of pedestrians and buzzing traffic and you will see leafes on trees but aircraft will be changed little ...No need to wait 10 years either. Maybe not at Level D but you can enjoy very statisfying flight modelling on some freeware any many payware aircraft - TODAY.Do I complain ? No. I always argued specialization is way to go to achieve this -perfect- simulation. Some organizations are unfit to make decent aircraft but have obvious talents in other areas. And vice-versa.Michael J.

It's fine to have realism on the ground but not if it takes away fro the real flying nessities like a real GPS or a FMC. Beauty is splendid, I guarentee that. But here is my criteria of a good sim.1. Works well: meaning flight dynamics and flight models, Navigation etc. etc. will work like the real models.2. Accurate depiction of the ground texturing, perferable satilite imagery but excellent mesh will do as well.3. Accurate weather depiction. I noticed that real weather will seem to like cumulus even though there is stratus clouds for some reason. Maybe I need to explore this but it sure seems to like cumulus much better. It did improve on putting cirrus where cirrus should be compared to earlier sims.4. Sky color turning darker at high altitudes.5. Clouds should be fixed to how big there are. For instance your flying at flight level 370. Clouds at 10000 should look smaller than they are in the sim. They seem to be as big as if you are flying right above them.Now most of the sim is very nice. I like adding models and flying them. I do find that adding my own weather is sometimes more accurate than the real weather. 1. I know what weather should look like because I have been on many planes, and 2. I do have an interest in metorology.The biggest complaints is the navigation that needs alot more of attention now.