Just curious as to how many flight simmers use avsim. If you didn't know the downloads were available--scenery, aircraft, etc. etc.--you prolly wouldn't miss them. But what about all the tweaks and improvements?, some of which I think are critical. Must be a large percentage of people just fly it right out of the box...But then again, they prolly spend a lot more time flying. I spend half my time twinking or adding and removing stuff. :-)billg

No badness, but you wont get an answer, becuase if they dont use it they wont see this question.Just my thoughts.Jason

lol, I was just "musing," wondering what it would be like to play out of the box. With all the help I've received on the boards I would think it would be tough, but then again if you didn't know better I guess it wouldn't matter...billg

Strange post, actually FS9 is very good straight out of the box, which is how it is intended to be flown, too many addons are what ruin the performance. I used my design PC to test out new files and my gaming rig is pretty lean with mostly payware aircraft and a few high end freeware ones and only a handful of environment tweaks (water effects, Blue Spere, etc).As far as AVSIM goes, this is my FS place of choice next to Hovercontrol. I belong to quite a few forums and play an active role at other sites, but love it here. Stats have shown that the file library is one of the most important things here for users. Personally I like the way the uploads work.Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://mysite.verizon.net/res052cd/mybannercva1.jpgCalVirAir International VACougar Mountain Helicopters & Aviation[link:www.cgrmthelos.com]Cougar Mountain Helicopters

I don't use Avsim or the Avsim forums at all.LOL. Anyway, the default is really not bad at all in FS2004; mine lasted in virgin state for about two minutes but I had the chance to try a clean install on someone else's machine recently. Booted in seconds, ran smoothly, default aircraft aren't bad, etc. etc. The bottom line is that even without tweaks, it is fantastic value for money.Mark "Dark Moment" Beaumonthttp://www.swiremariners.com/newlogo.jpg

There's about 2 million copies of FS sold each version, probably 50% to existing customers.Given a 50% rate of people giving up on any version before the new one is out, there should be about 3 million users of FS2000 and newer.I'm not quite sure how many regular users there are, but even if there are ten times as many as people that signed up for the forums that's still under 100.000 regular users or about 3% of the total FS userbase.

Every one who is not here raise your hand!

I still have some links to some of the smaller forums and download sites. The kinds that get one or 2 questions a day. I answered one guy's question and he pm'd me to thank me, his question had gone unanswered for 2 weeks. I steered him here so maybe he'll see this and remember.

I downloaded a scenery file a couple of weeks ago from flightsim. I don't recall the file, but the author was most emphatic in his readme.doc that he absolutely forbade it being uploaded at avsim. I really could not figure out what his beef was. I spend time both here and flightsim, like both, but generally download more from here because transfer time is so much better...btw, I do have broadband...ShermOh, and my hand is raised..:-)

Oops, sorry, I'm NOT here....!JS

The next version of FS should install a shortcut to Avsim! It is a shame that people might miss out on this site.

At the Microsoft Web site for FS, there is a Links section which has AVSim listed. FYI.

brb :-)

It's funny in an ironic way that you ask this today. My boss's father recently got into FS9 after being away from simming for several years. The last sim he used was the Win95 edition. One of the first things he asked his son was if he (his son) would ask me what resources on the internet I use to help make the experience better. I fired off an e-mail to him last night saying that the only resource he needs is Avsim. I mentioned a few other links but told him that the resources, both from files and the forums, are the best he will find anywhere on the Internet. He did a quick lurk, downloaded a few liveries for the default planes, and wrote back that the hobby had certainly advanced over the years and he would be hanging out here a lot more than he could have imagined he would.I agree that some (maybe most) simmers do not visit sites like Avsim, but if they get even a little bit serious about the game they eventually find the on-line resources and Avsim certainly leads the way.

No doubt at all that Avsim is the most popular both for downloads and the forums(fora?).I have found that if it doesn't get answered here - it probablyisn't going to get answered anywhere.These forums have solved several problems for me - usually very quickly .In fact I wonder how I managed without the advice from here back in the past.Regarding the numbers of users here - I'd say 3% of the total FS users is probably generous- most likely less than that.Surprisingly large number of people I've spoken to have purchased FS2000/2002/2004 but use it only infrequently.Many(the majority) have no idea you can add aircraft ,scenery etc.Even when you tell them how it is with sites such as Avsim - they're often reluctant to try adding things -usuallly fearing they will "break" their computer or catch a virus when downloading.I guess their loss is our gain - just imagine what it would be like if all FS owners were regularly logging on to Avsim.Dave