How about the Flight 1's Golden Eagle 421, the Conquest 441, and/or the Cessna 310?These aircraft look really great. I don't know how good you would rate them. Can anyone recommend any of these?RH

All three are very enjoyable...DJ

Are they accurate?RH

Hard to say - I've never flown any of them... I guess the best measure in FS is how much fun they are to fly.DJ

>With all due respect, who the #### are you, and why are you>taking Rico's post so personally? I think the problem is Ricos constant posting of his "negatives" which are flat out wrong, at least according to real world pilots.

Right. And BTW, the FAA maintains a database of all US and non-US resident certificated pilots. Interesting to see who is in that database and who is not.(-:Regards,Jim

I absolutely love it when people get all defensive because someone stepped on their private parts. The internet is fun.Hehehe. Yeah, I agree.

<>Ummm...assuming that you keep the aircraft essentially right side up, how do you slip without cross-controling or, in the alternative, how do you cross-control without slipping?In another thread, you stated that the DF Baron does not slip like a "real airplane" in that the real airplane is supposed to gain airspeed while it gains rate of descent. That, of course, is incorrect. The slip allows an increased rate of descent WITHOUT an increase in airspeed.I think you need to brush up on your RW aerodynamics before you compare FS models to RW aircraft.<>No it doesn't. Not on my rig or at least a dozen others about which I have first hand knowledge.:)>>First, the US Navy and most reputable flight schools disagree. Multi-engine training in the engine out regime is LARGELY a function of learning by rote, the correct PHYSICAL hand/foot procedures required to Identify,Verify and Feather correctly. Assuming the user has a proper twin engine throttle quad/yoke rig, the above physical actions can be practiced with extreme usefulness...even using default FS9 twins. You don't need ANY flight dymamics to do so since all the information required can be found on the guages.As a matter of fact, any instructor worth his/her salt will teach you to be utterly suspicious of ANY one cue to which engine is out. "Step on the ball"? Maybe. How about the RPM and MP guages? "Dead foot, dead engine?" Maybe. How about PARTIAL engine failure wherein rudder pressure differentials are not all that great??So, in my opinion, and that of countless noted observers as chronicaled in AOPA Pilot, Flying and virtually all other such publications, your basic premise is wrong.Regards,Jim

<Actually, in another thread, he represented himself as being a certificated pilot with at least some time in twins, flying out of a US airport. Working on his MEL rating if memory serves...or maybe recently having acquired it.But as I noted elsewhere in this thread, the FAA maintains a public access database of all US certificated pilots.Interesting to see who is listed there...and who isn't.And I concur that it is tiresome to read complaints from users who have not bothered to read the developer's specific instructions about how to configure their aircraft. As you point out, NOT ALL INSTRUCTIONS ARE THE SAME.In addition, some develpers require their aircraft to be loaded first and not switched to from some other, non-default flight or aircraft. I think many users forget about that instruction and then blame the developer for glitches...when there actually are none if loading instructions were followed.Regards,Jim

<>You're a funny guy. You "war" on a supposedly "defensive" post with a "defensive" post.If it is cool with you for people to post misinformation, that's OK. As you pointed out, you wouldn't know one way or the other who is right and who is wrong and then you butt in with the most offensive post on this thread.You go guy.(-:

<The only 310 I own is the DF model. It is INTENTIONALLY a dated, VERY COOL retro ship (I don't recall the model year from memory) but that is part of its charm.I owned a 310 (it was totalled when a tornado came through the KARR area) and can vouch for the DF model's fidelity to the real thing, of course, witin the limitations of simming.Regards,Jim

The DF Baron does not slip correctly - it will float and even gain altitude instead of sinking without airspeed gain as it should. I would conjecture that less than 1/2 of 1 percent of Flight Simultor users who own the DF Baron, and futhermore understand real-world technique for crosswind landing, ACTUALLY replicate such in the sim. It would be very interesting to watch some of the 'experts' on here make a video of themselves piloting the DF Baron in a 12 knot or so 90 degree component crosswind landing! It would serve to prove my point.The single engine dynamics of the DF Baron are again, horrible. For the arcade game players, these sort of things really don't make a difference, but for real pilots, it's endlessly frustrating.I know the Navy has used MS Flight Simulator, but only as a conceptual trainer, not actual simulation of hands on flight training. X-Plane by contrast has managed FAA certification for a limited number of training hours. The alogorithms X-Plane uses for flight dynamics is light years ahead of Microsoft and always has been. There's a good reason why one program has FAA certification and the other does not :) Look here: http://www.x-plane.com/FTD.htmlI promise you that Microsoft Flight Simulator will never be approved by the FAA for ANY type of real-world flight training under any circumstances. MSFS is not in the same league, not even by a long shot. The DF Baron is not evil, lol, it simply manifests the shortcomings of FS2004 more than some it's comtemporaries.

<>Hi DJ,RIGHT YOU ARE!! Just as a general "editorial comment" the supposed adherence to "real world" flighy dynamics is...first...impossible in FS and second would be utterly ill-advised for developers who wish to sell to the mass market of simmers, the VAST majority of which are not RW pilots.The landing regime is one of the significant cases in point. If sim models required the same skill to land (more than once at least) then most simmers would demand their money back!A few years back, A 400 hour ASEL Instructor did an article for a major flying magazine in which he attempted three VFR landings in a 737 sim at one of the MAJOR sim training organizations...with "talk down" guidance from an instructor. He went 0 for 3 in "survivable landings." He stalled out twice and over-shot once.My point is that while flight dymanics are important and some developers are better than others in that regard, it would be STUPID of them to target TOTAL real world dynamics (assuming they could..which they can't) to the vast majority of simmers who actually realize that they are playing a GAME and, not being pilots, have no clue how a real aircraft handles in many aspects of flight.***Finally, I can hardly restrain my giggles when some...too many...critics, bash sim models when they are "test flying" them with joysticks or plastic toy yoke/rudder/power quad rigs.Really get the chuckles when I read that stuff!*** Let me hasten to add that from an avionics perspective and with respect to normal climb, cruise and descent profiles, the GAME has gotten so good that I would bet a sim-only "pilot" could carry on fairly well in real aircraft, including large jets. But no airplane has ever left the earth and not returned to it...at least once...and I would turn down an offer of $10 billion to ride through an landing in in ANY jet with a sim-only pilot at the controls. My price in a Skyhawk would be several million..although non-pilots have certainly been known to get away with it.Regards,Jim

To me, this is the best post on the thread.My ratings are none, I don't fly anything outside of FS, whether it's 100% accurate or not, I don't really care, if it feeds my joy of the thought of flying, then so be it.If it's fun, it stays on my HD.

"the GAME has gotten so good that I would bet a sim-only "pilot" could carry on fairly well in real aircraft, including large jets. But no airplane has ever left the earth and not returned to it...at least once...and I would turn down an offer of $10 billion to ride through an landing in in ANY jet with a sim-only pilot at the controls. My price in a Skyhawk would be several million..although non-pilots have certainly been known to get away with it."JimHow much will you give me? I did three landings on my second lesson. The instructor decided we should do some circuits round the field as the weather was not up to much else. He said he'd take over just before landing but in the end he only needed to help out with the pedals. I had the stick the whole time. Was he right to let me? Perhaps not. Was I pleased as punch? You bet. I like to think the simming helped a lot, but of course I never mentioned it.Three safe returns to earth with less than two hours. So I reckon you owe me a few thousand quid :)Ian