pilotextwo

Sorry for taking a while to check in. Thanks again for all your advice. Some great points to know. I went in for my second flight, and I really liked the instructor. So far, so good! I have two hours logged now I am shelling out $165 for one hour of flight instruction; that's actual flying time. For example, on my second flight we did the hour flight but spent about 30 minutes before that going through the preflight. But I was still only charged $165, even though I was taking up 1.5 hour of the instructor's time. I don't know if that's customary. Also, my understanding is that you don't actually NEED any ground school time to get your PPL and if you study hard enough, you can skip ground school?

You guys are awesome! Really appreciate the tips! Anything else besides picking a "credible" or trusted/safe flight school? Are a few good reviews on Google enough? Can you check this with FAA?

Hello fellow virtual/real aviators! I am slowwwly saving up enough money to at least start my private pilot license. I have had very little experience with flight schools, so for those who have had some experience in this regard, I wanted to ask you if there are particular points I should watch out for when selecting a flight school. Do all flight schools rank the same in credibility, safety, effectiveness, cost, etc.? Any way I can confirm the school with FAA to make sure it's "legit"? (Am I being paranoid?!) I am in Southern California, and I went up in a discovery flight/1 hr flight instruction at a local flight school in Van Nuys Airport. I was very pleased with the staff and their procedures, and I can actually count this 1 hr flight time in my log book (which I still have to purchase). I wanted to call them up and get started on at least another flight instruction, I have checked the school's reviews on Google and they have rated pretty good, even though they only have a few reviews. Anything in particular to watch out for? Also, a somewhat related question, once I have logged a few flight hrs, can those hours be transferred to a different flight school? My understanding is that those hours are good for life? Thank you all, any help is sincerely appreciated.

What stunt? And why would something happen to the crew? Looks like a normal takeoff to me; with some intelligent creatures underestimating the power of jet engines. Am I missing something?!

Fellow simmers, I am looking to upgrade from an old 9800GT to a new graphics card that's under $200. These are the two cards I am looking at: http://www.tigerdire...asp?EdpNo=41125 (GTX 550) and http://www.tigerdire...5335&CatId=3669 (GTX 560) As far as the question, I see that the 550 has a higher clock speed for core, memory, and shader. But it's stream processors and memory interface/bandwidth are less than the 560. My understanding is that FSX mainly takes advantage of the core/memory clock speeds, is that correct? If so, is the 550 a better choice? Which one would give me FSX better performance? I am not really worried about the price, but wouldn't mind paying less for the 550 either if it will run FSX just as good. Why is the 560 more expensive if it has lower clock speeds for core, memory and shader? Is it just a newer architecture? Also, any other recommendations for a good FSX graphics card under $200 are welcome. Thanks, Frank K. EDIT: Specs are i5-2500K @ 4.5GHz, 8GB RAM, 64Bit Windows 7

nice!

I very rarely get involved in any XP vs MSFS debates but what the heck...Your post made me visit the the X-Plane website and I went to the screenshots section for XP10 and that itself was enough to turn me away from X-Plane.I am sorry, but X-Plane looks like a cartoon to me. The smoke coming from an aircraft tires as it lands or the afterburner of the SR-71 or other jets as shown in the screenshot section is just a turn off. But hey that's just me. If you enjoy X-Plane, then keep on enjoying buddy! But for me, I'll stick to my FSX rig.

That's also my understanding that you are better off with a higher clock speed. I would recommend looking at Lenovo ThinkPads, the W series in this case. They make some quality laptops.

Aw man....not again!

Thanks for your feedback. I hear you but at the rate Intel is pushing out CPU's and the amount of time it takes for MS to push out Flight, I am afraid a 2600K will be like a Pentium 4! I just saw another thread which said Intel is coming out with an i7-2700K. My main concern was the amount of cache the 2600K has, it's 2MB more than the 2500K. I don't know; I guess the 2500K vs 2600K is similar to a "what came first? the chicken or the egg"! Happy building!

Don't mean to hijack the thread or anything, but will the larger cache on the 2600K make any difference on FSX performance?

Got it. Thanks Andrew. I'll probably go with the i5 2500k seeing that there is very little (if any) difference between the i7 and the i5. When you say loosening the timings when OC'ing, that means the timings will be higher (and thus not as suitable for FSX) correct? I am wondering how much of a difference that will make?

Good day all, Well, new build here and here are the specs: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO Intel Z68 Motherboard Either i5 2500k or i7 2600k (haven't decided yet, but hopefully this won't matter in deciding what RAM I am going to purchase) I think those are the only pieces that we care about here. Basically, I need some help selecting RAM. I did a bit of research and wasn't quite able to find the answer but my apologies in advance if this is a duplicate thread (probably is!). How fast is fast enough for FSX? I understand that the lower the Cas Latency the better, I guess I am shooting for 7 or 8. Another question is, can I buy slower RAM, perhaps something like this http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820231402 and overclock it to DDR3 2133MHz? (total OC noob here!) Also, how important is timing? What should I be looking for? I am looking to stock up on 8GB of RAM and my budget for it is anything within $100 or so. So any recommendations is welcomed! Thank so much in advance for your help. I hope I provided enough information.

I have known this website for a while and I thought I would share it with anyone interested. Full recordings of air crash investigation videos off of National Geographic channel and other channels alike. Check it out: HERE

I got an email from them as well... :(