Just a casual observation......But is it fair to say that (on the civil side, non military)Apart from X plane, is MS Flight Simulator really only the other commercially available General aviation sim out there now? Seeing that sims like Flight Unlimited etc died a death long ago...Is X plane the only challenger to FS now?I know there are other sims that focus on specific areas like 'gliding' or space flight even (orbiter)But in the world of general aviation,..... Are X Plane & MSFS the only two players?cheersHyper

pretty much, if you restrict yourself to the entertainment market.In the market for training products there are of course other companies, with completely different products, and there neither X-plane nor MSFS have any customerbase worth speaking of.

Flight Gear is not a commercial product but it is also available. It's open source software and it is also a free download.

>pretty much, if you restrict yourself to the entertainment>market.>In the market for training products there are of course other>companies, with completely different products, and there>neither X-plane nor MSFS have any customerbase worth speaking>of.I remember back in the old days, that I used "On Top" for instrument practice. But it lacked the topography and general immersion of MSFS, and I gave it up.These day's MSFS doesn't have all the options of On Top or Elite, when it comes to IFR practice, yet it seems so much more worthwhile to practice with, because it's still so much more immersive. MSFS is just fun and a practical for real life practice at the same time!And, okay..............The same can be said for X-Plane. :)L.Adamson

With no competition, is there really any incentive for Microsoft for substantially improving the sim?I'm sure I'm not the only one who immediately shelved MSFS as soon as Fly! was installed on the hardware. A pity that Fly! hasn't survived as a viable competitor. (leaving aside for the moment the horrible personal tragedy of Richard Harvey -whose legacy, of course, continues to live on in the hearts and minds of many people).Just imagine what a combination of Richard Harvey and PMDG's (the first addon producer, if I recall correctly, for Fly!) could have accomplished. Lol, I still recall the halcyon days of 1999 when everyone on this forum was busy "terraforming" for Fly!ricardo

>I'm sure I'm not the only one who immediately shelved MSFS as>soon as Fly! was installed on the hardware. A pity that Fly!>hasn't survived as a viable competitor. (leaving aside for the>moment the horrible personal tragedy of Richard Harvey -whose>legacy, of course, continues to live on in the hearts and>minds of many people).In the beginning, FLY had a different & good take on panels & systems, but it's flight models were not up to what I had been experiencing using Microsoft's CFS2 combat simulator combined with FS2000 & the (original) Pacific Northwest Megascenery addon.Rob Young, who now produces the RealAir Simulation's addons for MSFS redesigned most of the original default FLY models into something worth flying, and called them the V88 versions.I don't exactly remember who was first, when it comes to Rob or PMDG.L.Adamson

American Flyers Inc., a nationwide chain of flight training centers, has recently begun replacing its Frasca 131 simulators with x-plane based pc simulators running x-plane. American Flyers is actually one of the largest part 91 and part 141 primary, instrument, commercial and CFI programs in the country. So that's a pretty good market chunk for x-plane.

About 6 years ago the flight simulator scene was vibrant: Flight Unlimited, Fly!, SimPilot and MSFS. I really enjoyed Fly! of all the most (flying GA). Back then I would have even considered it to be a strong contender to MSFS, but MS has always been the best. And MSFS is only getting better with numerous add-ons sceneries and planes, weather generators, flight planners and an armada of freeware programmers. FSX will close the gap with more vibrant airports with dynamic scenery, better visuals, Airbus (FBW?) and hopefully some technical advances that will overcome FS9 limitations. I can't wait.

With no competition, is there really any incentive for Microsoft for substantially improving the sim?Flight Simulator has very strong and substantial competition - though not much within the simulator market.The competition is first-person shooters, console games, music, children, the wife (or husband), mowing the lawn, weekend trips to grandma's house, etc....Leisure time products like Flight Simulator have a massive competition base. Breaking through the clutter to get some notice is very hard - but is something which Microsoft does well.If they want to continue to make money on an entertainment product - they have to keep coming up with improvements and new and exciting things. The product must attract NEW fans with each release.It doesn't matter what flashy gimmick gets them to buy the product - it's important that they buy and hopefully enjoy the game.Then we really hope a few will find the forums and add-on market and convert to obsessed fans like ourselves.For people really interested in flying and simulation products - the greatest things about FS is it's openness for addon products.

There is a huge lack of alternatives. I am a proud ELITE user. I can't regret I have invested on their "Premmium" platform which includes the full "fleet" of ELITE aircraft.I also use MSFS and XPlane, and from time to time check how things are going with either FlightGear (www.flightgear.org), alsim (www.alsim.com - used to have a PC-based solution, and maybe one day they decide to bring it back to the PC market...) and ETC Protrainer (http://www.flyprotrainer.com/ - the successor of Propilot...).In the end, and although I recognize a great potential in XPlane, I end up using mostly MSFS and ELITE...

>With no competition, is there really any incentive for>Microsoft for substantially improving the sim?>ricardoI think the product sells, and sets of another 3-4 year cycle of creating a development environment that feeds both the 3rd party developers AND MS. FS will get stale if it doesn't keep up with what the hardware (and software developers) can do, hence sales will fall off steadily. A new version that is appealing can start the 3-4 cycle all over again.Noel

Hi, virtual PICs.>= About 6 years ago the flight simulator scene was vibrant:>= Flight Unlimited, Fly!, SimPilot and MSFS. . . . And the one I liked best, for a long while: ProPilot ! ! Anyone remember ?? It was SO REALISTIC that flying around CYHU,I could see THE STREET where I live ! I still live near CYHU, and what saved the pleasurefor me, in FS200#, is the new ROAD SYSTEMs addons ! Now I can AGAIN find the street where I live, butthat is CERTAINLY NOT because of Micro$oft ! B-) Because I also fly REAL Cessna 172N around CYHU, see my stuff there:http://library.avsim.net/search.php?CatID=...&Go=Change+View Blue skies.

> And the one I liked best, for a long while:> ProPilot ! ! Anyone remember ??>> It was SO REALISTIC that flying around CYHU,>I could see THE STREET where I live !>At that time in history, I was known as a Pro-pilot "shill" :D definition: (self-interested promoter: somebody who promotes somebody else or makes a sales pitch for something for reasons of self-interest)I wouldn't say it was self-interest, but at the time, I liked it much better than the competition, and we had some great, and long lasting "wars" with "those" FS98 "users"... :-hah Besides, my Salt Lake City area (KSLC) was done in photo-real too!As the year 2000 was getting close, the "in production" beta of Pro-Pilot was no longer making headway for a releasable product. Several members of Avsim attended a Pro-pilot party at my house, and we quitely buried the sim, along with a tombstone in my backyard.L.Adamson

>At that time in history, I was known as a Pro-pilot "shill" :D>>>definition: (self-interested promoter: somebody who promotes>somebody else or makes a sales pitch for something for reasons>of self-interest)Ah! Those annoying Pro-Pilot shills, Flight Unlimited shills, X-Plane shills... (ehm...) :(Marco

Ah the good old days....Yes-it is interesting that practically every feature that simmers demand today-realistic mesh/scenery, cockpits, sounds, atc appeared first on Pro Pilot.It was a product way ahead of its time, along with Flight Unlimited and Fly-and they all focused on different areas of reality which was nice to have.I personally feel that hard core simmers were a big help to kill these products-especially in the case of Flight Unlimited which was the first product to introduce "sliders" to control demands on the computer. Of course, instead of being glad there was a product that could grow for the future, most just turned the sliders up to the max over the defaults-then complained that the sim would not run properly. The tirades about this on the net I am sure killed sales enough that it doomed this small but incredibly creative company.There I go sounding like a shill... :-)For this reason I usually buy every other version of xplane. I usually do not end up using it much, but I like to support as many flight sims as possible. For the price of a family meal, I think it is a good investment-it is such a shame the others didn't make it-our sim world is much less rich.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg