I first got into flight simming with the release of MSFS 2004.As a 15 year old, it was amazing. I'd saved my pocket money/"allowance" for our American friends :( and rushed out to buy it as soon as I had enough money.My idea of customising my sim environment was downloading a new livery from the AVSIM library and taking off from my local airport, doing a couple of loops and flying in to land again. I enjoyed this immensely but as I went through school exams, college, first job etc. flight simming fell down my priority list.Another issue I had at the time was an archaic computer which really didn't deliver the best simming experience.Only within the last year have I got back into simming in a big way. I've always been a plane nerd but the simming just stopped until a year ago. Many, many months of reading forums (and spending massive amount of money!) have now led me to where I am today, a fully fledged sim-addict. Everything has happened so fast! Within a year, I've discovered payware add-on aircraft, airports, etc. I didn't know what a texture was. I never gave a thought to weather simulation. Or custom sounds. Or FMC's. Or enhanced ATC simulation. It's been a wonderful, and expensive blur!My experience has recently been made complete with the discovery of mesh. Until that point, I had always been disappointed that when flying, everything just looked flat. Now, the world is alive with hills, mountains, ravines etc. It really has taken my simming experience to a totally incomparable level. Now - 8 years on from where this story begins - running FSGlobal, UT Europe, GE Pro, REX, Active Sky Evolution and various other small upgraded items, coupled with high quality add-on scenery and aircraft, I am experiencing this hobby like I never have before. :( And the best bit? It's only just beginning. It's been 8 years and I've only literally now taken this thing to it's higher place. I now have years of enjoyment ahead of me to immerse myself in this world! And I've also just signed up to a Virtual Airline to bring another element of realism to my hobby.So, pelase share your stories of how this wonderful hobby came to be for you, and those eureka moments when you realised what it could become!

My story is a bit similar also, as far as really hitting a groove late in the game. I started in the 80s with Jet from Sublogic, then Falcon, and any other combat sim I could get. Eventually I got FS98 and then each one after. Im mellow in my older age, so I dont really do much combat flying anymore. And I didnt start using any type of add-on until the last few years. So I am really late to the party. Whats old to most folks is still fresh and new to me. And I dont use many payware addons yet, so I still have that to look forward to.The best thing for me though, is the ability to go back in time and fly the old propliners, thanks to ALL the folks who have created such great stuff. Big tip of the hat to all the great folks over at CalClassics. It's Convair heaven over there :(

I started with FS95 (it was ok) and then fell in love with FS98. At first I was able to buy an occasional add-on from my local software store but then discovered AVSIM and that took everything to a whole new level. The advice and encouragement on here has given me an ability to keep adding new tweaks and products that I would never have discovered or been able to do on my own. With all the available improvements and add-ons, the flight sim experience has improved incredibly and I feel like I'm still just scratching the surface. (Well, having just about scratched the surface off my credit card I have to control the pace of adding new stuff) :( It's a great hobby and you also get to know some pretty amazing people as well. As a retired real world pilot, flight sim has given me back a part of my life that I thought had receded into a bunch of old log books and photo albums.

-8 years old, first time on a plane, I was so curious that I asked "too many questions" which my parents couldn't answer.-9 years old,first loong trip on a plane,a big one,China Airlines 747-400,my jaw kept falling that I couldn't find it at that time :( window seat right next to the right wing,the most beautiful seat+view I've ever had.-10 years old,while finding some websites to play cartoon games, I accidentally caught a picture of a 737 that had the line "Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002", I rejected eating until I have it,so mom bought it with CH yoke for me the next day-After months,using keyword "flight simulator" on google and yahoo search, I find out flightsim first,and then avsim and justflight,I was amazed by the flightsoft products (hongkong and hawaii) and simflyers airport (OMG SO REALLL haha). But at that time,no payware addons for me,uh' uh` momy wouldn't spend a penny!-12 years old,back to my hometown,after a year searching for Fs2004,I finally caught it at a store near my house, mom bought it for me again ^_^And then it all happened quite fast,already 11 years have passed by and I'm still looking foward being a pilot,currently training some muscles to pass the health requirement.If I can't pass it, I will take the engineer courses. Aiming to stick with aviation related jobs."Why don't you go and train to be a pilot, rather than sit here playing all day with that loud and noisy engine sounds!! " ..mom and dad always yell at me like that :(

My first experience of a flight simulator program goes back to March 1981 when I bought a Sinclair ZX81 - see Wikipedia if you don't know what this is, or was, and see what computing was for us "old timers". If I recall correctly, all you could do was land an aircraft on a runway - and the graphics were crude and blocky. No colour, no joyslicks, no scenery, just a keyboard that wasn't easy to use. But it was fun as we were never able to do anything like this before. And remember, this was the days when a very good chess program was written for the ZX81 and ran in just 1K of memory!!I bought various flight sim software as it came out and it got progressively better - for the standards of the day, that is. Then I moved up to the Sinclair Spectrum with 48K of memory and became a big boy!! The graphics were still poor but much improved over the ZX81. The Spectrum had several flight sim programs written for it and, again, I bought them all.Back then software came on a tape which could take 15 or 20 minutes to load and you kept your fingers crossed that nothing went wrong! Oh, and your aircraft was just a dot or a blocky square!!When Microsoft introduced Version 1 of Flight Simulator I bought it. The graphics were still blocky but a great improvement over earlier computers and a standard had now been introduced.Since then I have owned and flown every version of MSFS. I won't bore you with details of every single one, what they looked like, how they performed and how MSFS grew to what it is today as you can Google for that information.When I look back to 30 years ago I never imagined for one moment that flight simulation would become what it is today. We have gone from crude simulation to incredible realism. I wonder what flight simulation will be in another 30 years time? Who knows, I might still be around as I'll only be a "young" 98 year old!!David

Hello David,Aah! The Sinclair ZX81! (I still have it somewhere in my attic together with the ZX80 and some software on a cassette). I remember that when I purchased my first "flight simulator" I had to spend one week in our subsidiary in Holland. So I took the ZX81 along and hooked it to the TV in my hotel room and wow! : the screen background was black with two white lines representing the runway and a few white patches that I thought were representing houses on a hill, and I went "gee, they even modelled houses!"I still have the MS FS1 diskette and the only machine it can run on is a Radio Shack portable with black and white screen, no hard disk but two diskette readers...There was no Avsim at that time, but we had a FS Forum on Compuserve, downloading the posting titles through the telephone and reading them offline and then selecting which one we would download. I still have somewhere diskettes with zip files downloaded from Compuserve ;-)At the age of 73 I am still a flight simulator addict and as most of us I am eagerly waiting for the next generation Fight Simulator.Jean-Jacques

My first experience of a flight simulator program goes back to March 1981 when I bought a Sinclair ZX81 - see Wikipedia if you don't know what this is, or was, and see what computing was for us "old timers". If I recall correctly, all you could do was land an aircraft on a runway - and the graphics were crude and blocky. No colour, no joyslicks, no scenery, just a keyboard that wasn't easy to use. But it was fun as we were never able to do anything like this before. And remember, this was the days when a very good chess program was written for the ZX81 and ran in just 1K of memory!!I bought various flight sim software as it came out and it got progressively better - for the standards of the day, that is. Then I moved up to the Sinclair Spectrum with 48K of memory and became a big boy!! The graphics were still poor but much improved over the ZX81. The Spectrum had several flight sim programs written for it and, again, I bought them all.Back then software came on a tape which could take 15 or 20 minutes to load and you kept your fingers crossed that nothing went wrong! Oh, and your aircraft was just a dot or a blocky square!!When Microsoft introduced Version 1 of Flight Simulator I bought it. The graphics were still blocky but a great improvement over earlier computers and a standard had now been introduced.Since then I have owned and flown every version of MSFS. I won't bore you with details of every single one, what they looked like, how they performed and how MSFS grew to what it is today as you can Google for that information.When I look back to 30 years ago I never imagined for one moment that flight simulation would become what it is today. We have gone from crude simulation to incredible realism. I wonder what flight simulation will be in another 30 years time? Who knows, I might still be around as I'll only be a "young" 98 year old!!David

Since the age of 12 I have owned: FS 4.0, FS 5.0, FS 5.1 (improved ground textures), FS95, FS98, FS2000 Pro, (not FS2002 - college!), FS2004, and FSX. I also had Flight Unlimited 1 and 2, which had great graphics at the time. I remember my very first landing in FS 5.0 in the Skylane, and then the Learjet, after many many tries. It was on Chicago's Meigs Field, and I remember that I was very proud of myself. I also remember using a ruler and an atlas for navigation. In my very early FS days I didn't understand how real pilots were able to fly from A to B without getting lost. I had no clues what VORs or NDBs were. So I used a map of Europe, drew a circle around my destination city, and estimated the heading with a ruler that went from the departure city to the destination. I invented dead reckoning for myself, I suppose - and it worked great!My best memory was a Lufthansa 747 flight from Frankfurt to Kaitak in real time. I used an adventure/navigation program from Abacus (can't remember the name) for FS 5.0. The 747 was also an Abacus product. My brother was my copilot as he managed my landing gear, flaps, spead brakes, etc. during take-off and landing.Now I exclusively fly GA aircraft because I am bored by the airliners. I want to see stuff and the graphics are actually good enough to simulate VFR flights well.