Just had to share this. I am an avid flight simmer, run a VA, do scenery design, repaints, working on aircraft design, etc. I truly get into the experience and strive for realism when applicable. I fly mostly GA and rotory. Mostly payware as it offers the detail I look for and have always struggled with performance like most here (all sliders maxed, no other way). Don't have a PPL but have had a bit of yoke time in various GA ships. I have a dedicated FS rig and it's fairly high end (although dropping fast with the new cards and PCIExpess tech) except for the vid card which is/was the weakest link, well recently I got a 9800XT and this has just changed the experience.I live 5 miles from KDFW, but rarely fly there as I don't use the heavies and usually come in and out of Addison airport. I used to have the simflyers DFW installed in FS2002, but that was a slide show without a Cray, so yet another reason to go to Addison instead.This morning I got up and it was thundering and raining outside, pretty nasty, and I decided to see how well FS represented itself in the sim. loaded up a flight in the 206, loaded up real weather and decided to see what DFW had going on. I flew for over an hour and had the best experience in performance and reality, it was truly nasty weather and the thunder seemed to match what I heard outside (surround sound helps also ;-) ). I use Ultimate Traffic AND PAI and the airport was full of AI and looked like what I see when driving thru many times a week.This was truly a gratifying experience, I guess since it was close to home and I could actually appreciate the sim in all it's glory, in realism, performance and visuals. Really makes me excited to see what furture versions of FS will be like.Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/PBTMCa.jpgCalVirAir International VACalVirAir Internationalhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/88419.ziphttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/88420.jpg

Nice shot,Interesting you mentioned about liking helo's. I've always found any helicopter flight models pretty terrible in any flight sim. Probably because I'm comparing them to 400 hours PnC in 500's.Can you recommend a good helicopter model to try out?

Michael,I live in the DFW area too.what is the DFW Airport scenary you are using..the one in that picture?Manny

I dont know if you are into military sims but I do hear that an oldish game KA-52 Hokum has a decently realistic helicopter flight model. Another one to check out is "Search & Rescue" ( think thats the name). I hear that one simulates a US Coast Guard Duaphin helo pretty well.But like u said...finding a good helo sim for the PC is well hard...:(I want the payware people to come out with a good helo add-on for FS9!

I love basically every helecopter from hovercontrol.comthe jayhawk, blackhawk, there are so many to try. Just remember to check the forum for tweaks to realism and your control settings to give the helecopters more control and less out of control unrealistic wobbling. Flying helecopters is a blast, definately a great change and allows you to actually see scenery instead of worrying so much about flying a plane you don't have a chance to look out for more than a second