AlaskanFlyboy

Yeah, my answer was sort of simplified, but not entirely incorrect. It's the fact they have the same overall shape (there was some redesign in the NG series' wings, as I recall, but the same general shape) that leads to that. ;) But, yes, I probably should have elaborated a bit more. I'm also aware of the NG's transitional panel. Midcon, the VA I flew for, actually required its use.

I've been using it since shortly after release with no issues. Given the wide variations between computer hardware and all the add-ons one uses, there are times when conflicts crop up and then add-on developers have to work to find out where the conflicts lie. Given that not everyone suffered the OOM error or even had the same symptoms leading up to the OOM error, it makes it even harder to sort. For FS9, it adds some new features and refines others that have made it worth it in my opinion. I've noticed an increased occurrence of terrain induced down and updrafts that has made mountain flying more challenging and realistic. I also like the fact that you can actually set limits in terms of feet per minute rather than percentages. There are other settings that allow more refinement than ASV and AS6 do as well.

The stand alone throttles, like you have, are USB. One comes with the Saitek Yoke that looks just like the stand alone units, but plugs into the yoke via a PS/2 style port so those three levers are registered as part of the yoke. His problem is that he's been looking for the quadrant to show up as it's own joystick in the settings when it is actually part of the yoke. I have both the Saitek Yoke/Throttle and a stand alone Throttle Quadrant and quickly realized this.I've since purchased FSUIPC and used it for my settings as it allows me to set up feathering and reversers for each engine whereas FS only allows me to set one to reverse all or feather all. I also like that I can set up the axes for separate aircraft so that I do not need to keep switching them for single engine props, twin-engine props, and twin/tri/quad jet set ups - other than changing the heads on the yoke, which is quick and easy compared to re-assigning axes.

The Tinmouse II has a panel as part of the package.I personally have the Tinmouse II, Wilco/fT 737PIC, and the PMDG 737NGs and enjoy all of them. The virtual airline I flew for used to use the 737-200, 300, 400, 700, and 800. We had more 300s and 400s in the fleet than anything else and retired the 200s eventually, so I mostly few the PIC. It's a good simulation of the aircraft. The PMDG is also a good bird to fly and represents the NGs well. I hate to say which one of the three is better as they are simulating three very different generations of the aircraft who all had different engine families and cockpits. The only thing they really have in common is the hull shape.

Project AI has quite a few air cargo carriers. I have all of them installed. If you're looking for the smaller outfits like Ameriflight and Airpac, then look on the library for the flight plans and paints. Though the trouble with those is that they change their schedules often.

I have and run both, but keep coming back to FS9 as I've spent several hundred dollars on payware add-ons for it over the years and it makes FSX seem kinda bland without them.

The standalone throttle is USB and registers as Saitek Throttle, the one that comes with the yoke is PS/2 and registers as part of the flight yoke.

I admit it helps in the flare, I was just commenting that in terms of keeping down the centerline in a crosswind, peripheral vision isn't needed. I know with my glasses, I generally hit rougher in real aircraft than I do with my contacts and catch myself glancing at the ASI a lot more than normal, but I can still track that centerline as best as the wind will allow.

Having bought and installed UT Alaska/Canada, I find myself wondering if perhaps I'm doing something wrong in the installation or if it's just the nature of the beast, but I have lost a lot of lakes from the default in the Kenai Area and many large lakes are not even depicted. I've even lost several lakes that have seaplane bases (Salamatov comes immediately to mind) in them as well as the Kenai Municipal Airport float pond. Is UT Alaska/Canada really missing all these, or have I just botched the installation?

Unfortunately, Flight Simulators airports are still completely flat, which causes problems with high-definition meshes such as LOD10 meshes. Most major airports have runways nearly 2 miles long and they are never completely flat in the real world and the airport elevation they use for the flatten is always the highest runway elevation on the airfield. The majority of the airport may actually be lower or higher than that point which leads to some airports being grossly higher or lower than the terrain around them.

ONT is just ONT. He's 11 miles out on the 045 radial of the ONT VOR. It would say KONT045011 if it were the airport.

I was not speaking of gauges, but of the cues most pilots are trained to look for to detect drift while coming down on final. Peripheral vision may play a part, but the primary focus for the pilot when trying to keep straight in a cross wind is the runway in front of him. I'm not discounting the use of peripheral vision, but in the grand scheme of landing on the runway in a cross wind, it's the runway a head of you, not to the side of you that gives you your cues for kicking in less or more rudder.Bicycles also are fairly stable in motion thanks to gyroscopic forces, which is about the only reason they are ridable. The instability typically comes from forces against the bike such as wind or rocks in the road. As for aircraft, the instability greatly depends on the aircraft, most training aircraft and aircraft intended for private use are rather stable and, in clear air, will fly with your hands off the yoke. Most of the instability is from the air currents. I know in a Piper Cherokee in calm winds, on a cold day, once trimmed, you can fly level while not touching the yoke with little to no altitude deviation. Acrobatic and military fighter aircraft are designed to be unstable as it allows them to be more maneuverable, but most aircraft are designed with positive dynamic stability and a forward CG range to reduce work for the pilot to keep it in a specific flight regime.

I find I have to hit rescan several times before I can get the right lever. Also, when you calibrate it in FSUICP, make sure the "center" is 0, or else 8152 is the lowest value it'll send to FS and prevents you from cutting the engine with the mixture.

Having used both the CH and Saitek Products, I can safely say that the yokes are about par with each other. The biggest detractor for me on the Saitek is that it has centering detentes and they are kind of substantial, so it's not as smooth when moving through them. Having said that though, I'm still using it as I like the features of it. The POV hat is on the left side along with the trim switch rather than on the right like on the CH, so I can actually use the POV hat on landings and keep my right hand on the throttle.The throttle quadrant is also much more realistic in terms of feel and movement to most of the piston planes you would fly. It's also separate from the yoke so you can mount it where you want it. I also bought a second throttle unit to have multi-engine control. The unit that comes with the yoke plugs into the yoke via what looks like a PS/2 jack while the add-on quadrant is USB. The yoke happens to have three USB ports on it to plug in your pedals and quadrants and saves you from buying a hub. It's also possible to set up reversers/feathering/etc. Pulling the levers back, there's a detent for 0 and pulling beyond that pushes down a button that can be set for your reversers. Unless you have FSUIPC, though, you can't set it for individual engines (FS doesn't given an option for individual engines, but the registered FSUIPC does). Each quadrant also has 6 press buttons below the levers. If you buy the separate quadrant, it comes with extra heads for the levers to set them up as you want. 3 throttle, 2 mixture, 2 prop, and a wide throttle lever that links four levers at a time. The quadrant with the yoke just has one throttle, one mixture, and one prop lever head, so with the two, you can run a 4 engine jet or a twin-engine prop aircraft.The clock/stopclock feature is nice, though it seems you cannot sync the clock to FS. It only displays your Windows System time. It's not a problem if you always fly in real time. In any case the stopwatch gets a bit of use by me in IFR flight in light aircraftAs for rudders, the Saitek and the CH really have little difference other than the selectable torsion on the Saitek offering. I do feel that the Saitek's brake pedals don't quite have the same range of motion as the CH. I still have my CH yoke though and could see trying to use it as a secondary yoke someday.If you do go with CH, one thing to watch out for on the pedals is wires to the brakes fraying apart as they rub through the groove meant to keep them out of the rudder pedal tracks. I don't know if they've fixed this, but I spliced mine about 3 times and it was my running out of length to splice with that made me can them finally. I couldn't track down the connectors for the wire ends to replace them and CH only offered to fix them for $50 plus shipping and handling. I figured it'd be better to just spend $120 on a new set than $70 to repair a 7 year old set.

I've never experienced any trouble with crosswind landings with either CH or Saitek pedals and I would disagree that lack of peripheral vision makes them harder. In fact, I would disagree that peripheral vision is the primary cue. The runway ahead of me is the cue. On final, the centerline should appear to be running in a straight line before you. If the runway lacks a centerline, than the angles of the edges should appear mirrored. Peripheral vision mostly plays a factor with your cues on speed and height over the runway, which is what makes flaring a little trickier in the sim.

SIDS and STARs typically have nothing to do with runways and just bring you into and out of airport areas. In the real-world, you would be given a runway approach and be vectored from some point along the STAR to enter the instrument approach for the assigned runway. This is when you'd load it into your FMC. Pilots really have little say in what runway they'll use. ATC determines that based on wind, and also traffic if there are parallels. A pilot may request a different runway from approach control, but there is no guarantee.

Generally, any aircraft at near MTOW is going to want to climb like a Geo Metro. It'll do it, just expect it to take a day or two. I believe MTOW is typically calculated for the most weight they could still hope to get a respectable climb in with the given aircraft. Working on the ramp at UPS I've seen our 757s limp into the air, though it's usually Christmas season when it's about as loaded down going out as in. Normally it's emptied and sent back with empty ULDs.

Is it cynical of me to think that we'll suddenly hear a shift from Al Gore towards, "Stop the global cooling crisis! Buy coal and Hummers for the good of our environment!"

The only programs I know to do this are Ultimate Terrain USA, and FS Genesis' American Data: Roads, Railroads, and Streams. There's a setting in the configuration dialogs that ask how far you want the streams sunk in the ground. I usually set mine to 1 or 2 meters. The default is 5 meters.

You can find the charts here: http://www.myairplane.com

Occasionally you have your moments. Though uncontrolled fields with ag pilots are generally the worst for that sort of stuff. They fly without radios and use the "he who is fastest and lowest has right of way" rule to their advantage. I don't know how many times I've come into KPUW set in on final only to catch a glimpse of yellow hugging the ground at full throttle. There are days I wish they had a radio so I could cuss them out while I'm aborting my landing.

Typically, these are outlined in the aircraft's operating handbook. Things like manifold pressure and RPM are generally listed in the procedures section and broken down by things such as Economy and Best Performance. Often, they will list the ideal climb speeds also. For cruise, the numbers for speed and RPM setting come from tables or charts in the POM. Generally in light aircraft, all these speeds are given for the aircraft at max-gross and there really is no way specified to adjust for weight differences. Having never seen any of the POMs for aircraft larger than 6-seater multi-engine planes, I couldn't tell you about how they look with jets.

A lot of it has to do with the control limits of a twist grip joystick. It doesn't move very far in either direction, but it's controlling the rudders full range. Pedals help since a tiny push on the pedal isn't nearly as much movement as the tiny twist on your stick. I recommend pedals anyway as the toe brakes help and in some older taildraggers such as the DC-3, they're pretty much essential. As Ronzie said, there's some cross controlling going on in the real world, but I've yet to see the sim care about elevator and aileron positions. I've tested it. If you want to be as real as it gets, just remember on tricycle gear, it's "dive into and fly away".