There is no significance to this post, just thought I'd mention it here. The observations are quite obvious really. I'm just exercising my memory.I went to the Red Bull Air Race at Longleat, UK yesterday (it's 5 minutes away from where I live). Unfortunately, the weather was atrocious and so the race was cancelled at 4:30. That was a long time (7 hours) standing in the wind and rain for nothing :( Then it took me 4 hours to get out of the car-park!!! I'm serious! However, there was a FSX tent with about 30 computers set up. I spent a lot of time watching others 'flying' and flying myself.As an aside, the staff were COMPLETELY clueless. It was quite obvious that most of them had never used any version of FS. They were even confused if the version being run at Red Bull was a beta or the release candidate. It was clearly a beta and very buggy. I suppose the UK MS office just conscripted a bunch of marketing/packing boys to go.Generally it was a scrum of kids and adults trying to get out of the rain. The vast majority of them were flying around in tail-view. Even when they realised they could switch between views, they chose to fly in tail-view. So it looks to me that the vast majority of general people (if you take the Red Bull audience as a 'random' sampling of the public) are console game oriented. It now appears to be a very wise marketing move by MS to implement the X-box controller. Also, the missions were very popular and a natural place for people to start from. Another good choice by MS.Loads of people were flying airbusses, etc., with wheels down, just trundling over the landscape. They seemed to think it was quite fun. Many had no idea of how to use a joystick, so there was lots of see-sawing flying with the inevitable crash into the ground. A very, very small minority actually knew what they were doing and I didn't see anyone who appeared to be familiar with FS key commands, etc. which would have suggested that they had at least FS9.I took off with the Extra 300, did a circuit, a split-S, an immelman, etc. and then landed. Some people watching me asked if I was a pilot. They seemed to be quite impressed. I had the same reaction when I took off in a Maule and landed somehwere in the Alps. So my overarching impression of Joe Public is that they have absolutely no idea about flying. Nada, zip, diddly squat.By the end of the day, there had been so many kids fiddling with the settings, etc. with their sticky virtual fingers, that the sims were a sorry sight. The MS people could have periodically reset the setups to keep it looking/performing well I thought. I also though they could have at least walked around and given a little guidance, like putting gear and flaps up. Instead, they just stood there gawmlessly handing out sickbags and saying "I don't know" an awful lot.I fiddled a bit with settings and took a few flights. Generally it looks nice, but only really on par with FS9 + addons nad some shiny aircraft. In some places (perhaps because it was a beta) it looked worse than FS9 + addons. e.g., my home town of Adelaide, Australia looked nothing like it. Not even the mesh was accurate. Hopefully that info is/has been included.At the end of the day I really felt the FSX display was far less effective than it could have been. Because there was no guidenace (or competence) by the MS staff, most peole had no idea what they were doing and just did stupid things, giggled and then gave up. I'm sure most of them walked away saying to themselves, "This looks hard to fly and confusing. I can't really be bothered to learn. Where's my X-box game?".I personally walked away far less enthusiastic for its release than I was before. Perhaps it was the 8 fps preformance at medium settings, and that was with a 7900 card. All my didgets are crossed that it was an early beta.And if MS UK is reading, can you hire me next time you do a display, so I can do it justise :) You really should get some people who know about the program and who are willing to actually do their job rather than mill around and hand out sickbags.

FS2004 was on the top 10 of PC sales charts for at least a full year after it came out if I'm not mistaken. That's a helluva lot of copies. Now I know there are a ton of people like us in the "FS community" but I have a feeling we don't even make up 1% of the number of copies sold.I think (purely speculation) that the majority of people buy MSFS because they see the pretty pictures on the back of the box, or are intrigued on the premise, or simply because it's one of the few non-violent games on the shelf. I think these people ultimately use FS for not more than a total of 10 hours in their life, either because they are overwhelmed by its complexities, can't get it to run well on their system, get bored because there's nothing to shoot at, or otherwise can't think of anything to do with this wonderful sandbox of a game.I think the majority of people who go to airshows don't know much about flying; they go because it's something to do or something "cool" to watch like a fireworks display or a monster truck rally. I think most of the people you saw playing the beta would not have been any more or less impressed had it been less buggy or had the MS people helped them to do things "properly" or not.Think of it like a discovery flight. About half of the discovery flights that I did as a flight instructor were people who knew very little about flying and just wanted to see what it was like. They were content with simply looking out the window, holding the controls for a minute or two, and generally just enjoyed the idea of what they were doing.A couple times I tried to actually teach and explain what was going on in a very general manner, or let them do the takeoff. In general when I did that, those people were overwhelmed and didn't seem to enjoy the flight as much. There were exceptions of course.If the MS people had "helped" the public any more than they had, I'm not sure how much good it would have done, since you can't teach someone enough to get them comfortable with the sim in 5 minutes (or even a whole hour), and in the end it would have given fewer people general exposure to the sim, and I'm sure maximum exposure is more important to them (if it gets MS to sell more copies then they will be able to keep their job handing out sick bags).Not sure where I'm going with this; not saying you're definitely wrong but am trying to give you a different perspective maybe. I'm sure MS could have done better, just not sure how much the payoff would have been. Probably if there were more real pilots in the audience, a more guided explanation of MSFS would have done much better. But as you can see, the majority of the public is clueless about flying and about PC gaming, so the amount of effort a presenter would put in compared to what return you would expect would probably be minimal.As a flight sim enthusiast, you're definitely not their target audience. MS knows that all of us will buy FSX as long as they give us a couple improvements every generation; and as many have said, the most pleasant surprise is the extent that they are reaching out to the community when if you look at the spreadsheet, doing that will probably not affect sales much.I guess think of it this way. Think of shows like ER, House, CSI etc. I know doctors who say the doctor shows on TV is BS as far as realism goes. They are popular shows because me and the rest of the general public don't know any better and don't care if it's perfect or not. I know FS is supposed to be "as real as it gets" but they also keep it in the games section at the store, and when John Q. Public buys it, they're going to want to be entertained, and if that works out, maybe he'll find himself here one day, joining me in my crusade for MS to implement cloud shadows. ;)Ok enough aimless rambling from me. :(

<>If it is 5 minutes from where you live why didn't you walk???????The weather is the exact reason I buy my tickets for airshows on the door, yes you may pay an extra 5 quid but you can check the weather before leaving and if it was as bad as yesterday then I dont go.When you buy the tickets in advance you are committed and go even if it is chucking it down because you dont want to waste your money.

Tickets were only available in advance (and they refunded everyones in full on the day). I didn't walk because entry is only by car or bus. Not even motorbikes are allowed in. However, they sell a vehicle ticket, and you can then take along as many as is legal to fit in your vehicle. I heard they sold 27,000 tickets, so there was probably 100,000+ wet & cold people there.