11 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

Yes, that was the first thing that surprised me, and one reason why the video is relevant and worth the comparison. 
I was quite surprised by the rudimentary graphics.  No jet2 737's at Terminal 1! 

A bajillion years ago, I saw a flightsim being run by a pretty-much house sized government supercomputer. The graphics were black-and-white and were sub-FSX; but at the time I was sure such fidelity for regular people could never possibly be reached in my lifetime. The computing power required would be preposterous.

Its why I appreciate MSFS so much, because I remember.

That video is great. Nice to see someone who is enthusiastic about aviation able to get some time in a sim.

40 minutes ago, dbw1 said:

About 20 years ago a guy I used to fly with was about to upgrade from the 737-200 (no fms) to the NG (700) and like me he came from the dinosaur background starting flying for a living in the 1970s. A few years earlier we'd both been flying for a local regional and he had a chance to move up to this un-named airline, now these days a major carrier. I'd bailed from the regional several years before and got into forest fire (wildfire) suppression....a govt job with a govt pension. Back then the public really knew little about aviation and forest fire suppression and my job impressed my neighbors about as much as if I'd been driving a truck for the local sanitation company, lol.

Anyway he was just a little concerned about moving into the NG technology and had a decent computer flight sim setup at the time so I introduced him to the PMDG 737-700.  In the six months he used it before starting training he found it helpful. Down the road a couple years he got me into his company level D sim a couple of times and I was amazed just how much was familiar from using the PMDG product.

Any simmer would have a great time getting into a Level D sim for a couple of sessions if it fits the budget. You'd make a memory that would last for a lifetime. You would probably find that the visuals in MSFS are much better than the $10-15million level D sim.

I flew and made 7 successful landings in an major Airline Level D 767-300ER sim, after two years flying the Level D 767. The instructor pilot after my last landing asked me how much "turbine time I had?". I told him I only flew SEL aircraft like C 172,C 152 and Piper Warrior, but I did have hundreds of hours on my PC flying the Level D sim program. He was amazed. 

Edited August 27, 2025Aug 27 by Bobsk8

Why does everything have to turn into a"""💩show""" with you guys?