>>the only thing I've missed from FS all>>these years has been WEATHER RADAR!! There have been a>couple>>of payware weather radars but nothing has ever caught my>>attention.>>I agree, weather radar would be a great addition to the>airliners, even if it's a separate gauge from the GPS. Of>course, then we would need ATC to allow us to vary our course>around the weather.You have to have a good 3-d weather aloft first, so you could make use of your weather radar.

Hi Arman,You said:"I still maintain that I could forget about all the other problems with the unit if I found something useful such as the weather radar"A Garmin 500, 530, 430, 400 does not have "weather radar".What they do have is the ability to import Nexrad satellite weather radar data into them, and if you have been reading the real aviation forums, you would find the following:1. It is VERY expensive to do this in real life, and you still have to pay a monthly fee to get this service.2. It does not work as well as other solutions, and does not display weather in real time (it's a several minutes delayed).In other words, what's the point of MS doing this?Do you want MS to make you pay for a monthly subscription to Nexrad weather data? It is something like $50 a month.The Garmin GPS500 in FS2004 may not be 100% the real thing, but as someone who uses a real Garmin GNS430 in real life, I still fail to understand what the issue is with the MS unit, especially when one considers what it costs. ;-)When one takes cost into account, I am still trying to figure out just what is wrong with the MS version of the GPS 500.Yeah, it's not 100% the real thing, but then again, thankfully, you're not paying for the real thing either. ;-)We paid something like $10,000 to put a Garmin 430 in our panel, and if we added the Nexrad, that would have been another $5000 or so plus several hundred dollars a year for the service. That's on top of the $1000 a year we pay just for the data base updates, and the $400 a year I pay for paper chart subscriptions.I think what MS gives you, even if not 100% realistic, is an incredible bargain.No offense to anyone, but if you really want "realism", be prepared to pay for it. We do it in real life, and that IS the real deal.Regards,Lou

Just curious Lou, couldn't you get the ADS-B service where you fly?

>All of these things can be done in the map window or the>flightplaner without the limitation of having to do it with>just five or six buttons. From a user interface point of view>the map and flightplanner might actually be better, I don't>see where time invested in these would benefit the Average>Joes.And do you know what happens when you try to switch to map view while flying on VATSIM? (Yeah it pauses the entire simulation.) :(Paul

I attended an ADS-B seminar at the aopa expo in Tampa in the fall on ADS-B. Without a doubt-this will be the way of the future, and probably be fully working in a couple of years. My understanding from the seminar is that although most of the East Coast of the US is operational and covered, that it is still in the "experimental" stages right now.I have however, been using xm weather for over a year now-first on my pda with Anywhere map, and now on a tablet pc with Flightprep Pro.It cost me about $600 for the xm box, and I pay $29 a month for the service (I don't need lightning as I have a stormscope-and that is mainly the difference between the $29/mo. fee and the $49).Soooo-for an intial investment- the price of a handheld gps, and a $300 fee every year I don't find it expensive-in fact it has already saved me that money in 10 fold by enabling me to make better choices in flight-and when burning 26 gallons/hr. the savings add up quickly.Even though the nexrad is 2-5 minutes old it is amazing how close to reality it matches, and all the other info such as icing levels, metar reports, tafs, tfr's,airmets,sigmets,cloud cover -all downloaded on the fly-is simply amazing.I could already tell lots of stories of how this device has helped me complete flights, and again make decisions that have saved me lots of money and enhanced safety. For a long xcross country I now consider xm a go/no go decision!I'd love to see xm simulated in FS-after all it is a datafeed just like the real weather...http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

Hi, just adding my 1 cent's worth with this quote from Lou-->>>>We paid something like $10,000 to put a Garmin 430 in our panel, and if we added the Nexrad, that would have been another $5000 or so plus several hundred dollars a year for the service. That's on top of the $1000 a year we pay just for the data base updates, and the $400 a year I pay for paper chart subscriptions.I think what MS gives you, even if not 100% realistic, is an incredible bargain<<

>no service>costs or chart update costs either!Uh ... I don't get that logic. :)You pay for what you get and we don't get any nav db updates in FS9 for free.I think the FS9 GPS units are great - it would just be nice if they were worked on a bit more for the next release. If the dev team added a few more features every release we'd end up with really nice GPS units out of the box. If they're 50% of the way there and most users only want/need 70% of the functionality why not add the remaining 20% over another two or three releases?Forking out another $30 for a GPS addon isn't worth it in my opinion.Paul

And if MS were to give you a fully functional GNS500 modelled in FS (plus a fully functional handheld) you might see the price of FS go up by that amount.And you'd still not be happy because it wouldn't include some pet feature you think it "should have" (like weather radar, autoland, or whatever).

:-zhelp I think I'm beginning to see why the FS dev team may choose not to feature the new generation avionics lol.

>And you'd still not be happy because it wouldn't include some>pet feature you think it "should have" (like weather radar,>autoland, or whatever).That's a bit of a presumtion isn't it?You're saying I'd never be happy no matter what they add?All I'd like is cursor scroll mode and I'd pay $10 extra for it.Is it not possible to voice one's hope for new features without being labeled in the "ungrateful and never satisfied user" catagory?If you reread my post you'll see I never asked for a 100% working solution. Oh nevermind ... I'm clearly wasting my time and AVSIM's bandwidth again. :DPaul

I meant "presumption".

>All I'd like is cursor scroll mode and I'd pay $10 extra for>it.What you want is there already. Click on the center of the small right knob to activate the cursor. Use the large outer knob to scroll the cursor... :-roll *note: you can place the $10 on my PayPal account... ;)

Hi Paul,>>Uh ... I don't get that logic. :)You pay for what you get and we don't get any nav db updates in FS9 for free<<

What I meant is map scroll mode.In map view, you press/click the cursor knob. Then you can scroll the map to anywhere in the world while you are flying and look up info.In FS9 it's locked to the aircraft position but with the Garmin simulator you can unlock it and pan around the world.Paul