Everyone seems to miss the point about FS9.FS9 is designed to appeal to the mass market and that means the games market with a high level of eye candy built in. This is where and how MS make their money and they have produced an excellent product to achieve this.Although I have never been inside a multi million dollar simulator I suspect that they don't have beautiful clouds and ground textures etc. They simulate flight and not eye candy.Anyone who wants a good PC based flight simulator should look at products like Aerowinx's PS1 or Elite for accuracy and consider the price of these products compared with FS9. Everyone else should buy FS9 and contemplate just how much they get for their $50 - including the odd wart because nothing is perfect in this world.I have both PS1 and Elite. PS1 especially is incredibly complex to learn and fly. If I had the means to be able to learn to fly a real aircraft I would choose Elite to hone my skills, but I can't afford to do this. So I have an incredible amount of fun and fly FS9 instead.Considering all that you get in FS9 I really do think it is a real as it gets on a PC based simulator.David

Einen sch

Thanks Gunter (wish I spoke German...lol)Most people would be amazed at the lack of detail in a professional full flight simulator visual system. There are a few really good systems out there but for the most part they are pretty basic. Why? Because 75% of what they train for in the sim is in bad weather. Not much details shows up in CATII weather! The sims I work on, as mentioned above by a poster, concentrate on the flight model and, of course, the cockpit itself. Every button, every switch has to be exact.... right down to the fire bottle, fire axe and escape rope.There are many wonderful software programs for pilots to train on but they cost a heck of a lot more than $54 USD.What I would love to see added would be programs like we have in our sims at Flightsafety (and maybe they are out there). I would like to see greater ability to manipulate malfunctions.... set speeds for a V1 cut, or have wake upset, engine fire while descending through 700ft AGL. That's how they train in the professional sims. Anyone know of a program like that?Keep 'em flyingDave