Go out and take a few introductory flights at the local FBO's that you are considering taking lessons from. If, in these introductory flights, you can make a decision on which one you will continue taking lessons from, you will know which aircraft you will be training with. Some schools only use the 172, if so, why practice in a 152 ? Other schools may use the Diamond Katana or Piper Warrior or Archer. Best to find out what's in your area first.Some schools may have both older 172's and newer 172's with fuel injection. Some may have climb props and others will have cruise props. These things affect the way you would "think" through your flights for training purposes. The best help the sim is going to be is in the thinking through setting up the aircraft for take off, cruise, descent & pattern profiles. If the power settings in the real world 172 are differnt than the sim you will make things harder for yourself.When I trained for my PPL my instructor had a difficult time getting me to fly the plane visually. I was always being told to look outside and fly by reference to the horizon. I had no problems flying the ac using the navigation tools and during my under the hood time. It took longer than I expected to achieve my PPL (61 hours to checkride), but I passed the first time through. I also did it in 6 months start to finish.If you do decide on an FBO to take your future training from, hopefully they will still have the same ac when you are ready ;). Take a camera with you to take some pictures of the cockpit layout and instrument cluster for comparisons to MSFS aircraft. Ask them the power settings and resultant speeds for take off, pattern speed, cruise speed and descent (including flap settings). This way you have something to think about and hopefully the sim aircraft respond closely to the numbers :)Lastly, fly the sim aircraft with reference to the horizon MORE than you do the cockpit with just quick glances to the instruments to verify altitude and bank angle. If I had done this more I would have done better IMO. YMMV :)

This is very interesting. Can you elaborate on this? I'm not a R/W pilot and it always seems a 172 is easy to flare in FS. What's the difference in real life? Does it float more?

I would like to join in here, as I am aiming to take my first flying lesson after 20 years simming (since I was 9).I am dreading the, "OK, these are the alerions." walk around. "Yea, yea, ok, and thats the rudder and those are the wheels, spare me the newbie stories,check teh fuel caps and get on with it." It can go either way. Your insttructor for the day might think you are a prat and your relationship is down hill from there, or he could appreciate your virtual ground school and steepen the learning curve for you to get the best out of the 30 mins in the air based on your prior knowledge.BAck to perspective and handing....I have flown quite a few sims and I have sat in the cockpit of several planes (on the ground), the Shorts Sherpa transport for one and an old non-flying 1950s jet fighter.The very first thing that struck me when I first fired up the cessna in FS is that I was looking out the window through a zoom lense and I could only see about 20% of what my normal eye level vision would show me in reality. I constantly have to zoom out to 50% to get any width of vision and at 50% you get a fisheye lense effect.The next thing I found was that the default 172 has the abiltiy to rotate 60 degrees about it wings in no time at all using only a tiny amount of elevator. Holding alt in a turn was amising to say the least and I leant to a bad habbit of flying the a/c with the trim wheel. Landing with flare my PC Phathom joystick was very jerky, the slightest up pressure (and I mean pressure not yanking) and the nose would flick up 10 degrees, the jerking would continue and effectively wreck teh landing trim settings, casing the flare to rise the plane and near stall it, until it plopped onto the runway with a thump and a tyre screach.The Real Air 172 doesn't have the jerky elevators, but I still need to zoom out to 75 or 50% at least for landing.I agree with the comment about the sideslip in FS going un-noticed and without rudder pedels, using the keyboard and the yaw ball is not exactly easy. I'm sure in a real plane you will feel and see the slip much more and can "feel" your way to push the rudder as you roll.I hope the comparison between learning to sim and learning to fly for real continues...In the meantime I am trying to find a "good" realistic Piper Cherokee Tomahawk, which may be what I will take my first flight in, either than or a high wing cessna of some flavour.Thanks again. :)

Sorry to reply to my own post and take more of your time reading my drival, but...Navigation skills. I can fly almost all navigation skills I know of in FS2004.Most people stick to VORs and ILS. However I have moved to learning to fly with only NDBs including NDB approaches and distance checks. I can even position myself fairly accurately using nothing but 2 or 3 DMEs and a pencil and chart. I can fly sind correction angles and end up after a 100nm leg only being a few nm out.I can fly the Real Air Cessna for 2 hours in 100meter visibility in mountainous terrain using only instruments and land on a runway I can't see.Do these skills translate to real flying?

My experiences with translating real world to FS and back:I am at 57 hours of real world training in a C152, just looking for the right moment to take the final checkride.I have about 30 hours in the Flight1 C152, repainted to look like one of my club rentals.In my opinion, it's an excellent way to keep current with the procedures and planning needed in the real world. I can even perform steep turns to PTS standards using FS and the CH Yoke. It's by no means a perfect simulation, but it's better than practicing in a Mooney or something.The simmed plane is too smooth, but this is probably a problem with the game in general. It's almost too easy to trim the plane for straight and level, whereas in the real world, winds are almost always making the ride rough enough that you have to keep your hand on the yoke and eyes on altimeter and DG.In my opinion, the F1 C152 was the best FS purchase I have made. For less than 30 minutes of real world rental, I can take my own plane up whenever I desire.My recommendation to the original poster is that if your local flight school uses 172's, get the Real-something 172 package mentioned above. I haven't used it, but I'm positive it will be a great investment.And above all else, go take a $49 BeAPilot.com intro flight. I've even convinced my non-pilot wannabe friends that it's money well spent.//Ryan

Hi,Some of you all may not know this, but we fully understand the 172 angle. In fact, it was the training route we decided to go with the 172 we are working on.As you know, Flight One Software has released many titles that deal with the needs of the "Entertainment" audience. There are many features that are very important to that crowd. What we are doing is taking the "what is important for training" approach on the 172. That is the first priority.It is the training side which caused us to launch a specific corporation that deals with the training approach only: Flight1 Aviation Technologies, Inc..You can see more of this at http://www.flight1tech.com (there are a few 172 photos scatterd about there).In fact, for the first time we are going to Oshkosh not as Flight One Software, but as Flight1 Aviation Technologies, Inc. in building "B" booths 2098 - 2099.We will be showing the 172 there if you happen to be at Oshkosh.Regarding releasing it as an entertainment title, we are considering it, but without the training tools. That release would be through the Flight One Software side.But this is the first product we developed with the training approach as the top design goal.Hope this gives you some interesting info! It seemed to fit in well in this thread.

Excellent idea IMO !I'd even argue the line on your web page which states :"There may be other systems that provide a better flight model"In addition to MSFS, I've used simulations such as FLY, X-Plane, Flight Unlimited & IL-2 Sturmovik. While in some instances, a certain model may exceed the flight characteristics of an MSFS counterpart; but at the same time I've seen many excellent models produced for MSFS that outdo the competition.In "my" mind, there just isn't a P/C simulation on the market that has an overall flight model to beat all others. It'a often claimed, but it's just marketing hype, myth, or B.S...........IMOL.Adamson

Totally agree.I have about 40 hours in a 172; two things my instructor had to keep reminding me of were to LOOK OUT THE FREAKING WINDOW and USE THE RUDDER PEDALS!!Basically, while you really aren't supposed to trust the feeling in your @ss when you're flying, the fact is that when you are training in VFR, you rely on it a little bit - and a little bit more for keeping yourself in coordinated flight. I was -barely- pushing the pedals because that's all it took in MSFS.The 172 in the sim feels like it flies like a heavy, slightly overpowered truck compared to a real 172 - or, at least, the one I flew.Also, the real-world effect of the 3d buffeting of the plane when there is light turbulence is just about nonexistent. If there were a "pilot's head" view which shook around a little, like in some rally sims, it would serve to add a huge amount of visual realism.Lessons are pretty expensive - but they're the only thing that's going to give you that feeling. One of the biggest downsides of simming is that although everything might work the way it "really does", for VFR and lessons there is no comparison to real life.It is good, however, for learning your radio work.Two things I'd love to see in FS: Busted airspace notifications, and some type of checklist that flags things you've missed.

>Totally agree.>>I have about 40 hours in a 172; two things my instructor had>to keep reminding me of were to LOOK OUT THE FREAKING WINDOW>and USE THE RUDDER PEDALS!!>You'll find that even rudder pedal usage varies in turns with different airplanes. As I remember, the 172 needs a bit more than the Piper Cherokee. And I put some pedal into Diamond Star I flew a few weeks ago, with it's long 41' wingspan.But planes such as the RV that I've built, require little or no rudder pedals in turns because it uses "frize" ailerons. These are hinged, so that as the trailing edge goes down & creates drag, the leading edge of the opposite aileron also travels down into the airstream to somewhat cancel the other out. The ailerons are also setup with differential travel. They have more up than down.L.Adamson