ldsandon

Paypal is far from perfect (and it's always a business on its own) - but it is better than sending everywhere your credit card number, especially to small shops that may not handle it securely. You could also check if your bank or credit card issuer offers you service to buy online safely (there's a huge market for stolen credit card numbers on the Internet...) For example my bank offers a service that let you ask for a credit card number valid only once for a given maximum amount (set when you request the cc number) - it's safer than Paypal and the seller does not have to pay the Paypal fees - although some may prefer Paypal because it checks the payer. There are also reachargeable cards... just, when you use your cc number directly, do it only with known seller with a good reputation. It is true when credit card data are stolen customer are protected enough, but your card is blocked and it can take time to see the money back. Be careful.

How to lift the usage limits is country-specific. For example in Italy you just need to add a credit card and follow the Verifiy Code Programme. Probably differences stem from how the debit/credit card is connected to a bank account, and some rules can be very country-specific. Thereby you have to check the rules for the country where you Paypal account is created.

Actually using Paypal can be safer than sending your CC credit number around the Internet, you send it only to Paypal and it should store it safely enough - something smaller seller may not implement properly. The risk of sending your CC data is it could be intercepted while in transit (if the connection does not use HTTPS properly, or the site is spoofed), or it could be stored in an unsafe way (and it could be harvested later - it happened). I would advise you to setup an email account you use for Paypal only and nothing else (if your mail provider allows for "plus addressing", you can use that as well with your actual account). This way you could spot easily any phishing attack and keep your Paypal messages private, but always check any email is actually from Paypal, and don't clik any link that looks like Paypal unless checking what the real link is. It's always better to go to the Paypal site typing its address directly. For both your Paypal account and email account choose sound passwords (the longer, the better, no less than 12 characters and complex enough and not easy go guess).

> 4. Those road builders who decide to make roads over runway. Actually, it happens in real life too, ever been in Gibraltar? ^_^

This book Microsoft Flight Simulator X For Pilots: Real World Training could help you a little. See also here: http://www.avsim.com/pages/0208/Wiley/Book.htm

Between the Cub and a 737 there are a lot of planes.... and sure, it's ATC responsibility to mantain separation, but you have to comply with their instructions, they are not piloting your airplane... and if you're asked for the full procedure it's up to you to fly it. And having to talk to ATC adds another layer of complexity - you have to multitask much more than just flying in an empty world all on your own. It's more challenging.

Weren't Flight people who complained FSX ones always fly on autopilot? And no, not every plane as an autopilot, and autopilot can break and you'll have to learn to fly without...

You can get *real* ATC (and real multiplayer experience), both using the built-in multiplayer feature (if someone "plays" ATC), or joining networks like VATSIM or IVAO. Multiengine aircrafts, which were absent in Flight, and require some more skills. What I also like is diversity - there are so many different type of planes that even flying a landing pattern in a busy airport needs good skill because there might be very slow and very fast planes around you. I really felt the "experience of flight" when I started to fly in busy scenarios - it's not only keeping the plane straight, is being able to handle it completely - keeping the correct altitude, speed, heading and so on, sometimes with very little margin of error. And last but not least, carrier operations! :P

Check the Citabra/Decathlon/Scout package from RealAir: http://www.realairsimulations.com/flash.php?page=scout07_intro, it's maybe a little old now but still a good one. You get three different models, and you also get a Scout with tundra tyres and and amphibioous one. There's also a scenery included of a small airfield among mountains and woods.

That's the problem of being a 32 bit application (they can't target more than 2-4GB of RAM depending on what systems they run on). When FSX was released it couldn't be a 64 bit app because 64 bit OS were not widespread yet. Today it would be a silly idea not making it a 64 bit app - it could also target some newer processor (and GPUs) and take advantage of some more performant features - at the price of cutting out some older systems. But with Flight instead they took the opposite approach - trying to make it run on older systems in an attempt to broaden the customer base. The problem is FS should be a high-end niche product or a lower-end wider one, IMHO Flight shown that the latter approach doesn't work, especially when the average user finds a $9 airplane expensive. Probably is better to target a smaller market where users don't find a $39 airplane expensive as long as it is good enough (and may probably spend more if it is really worth the incresed price).

One among these: Voice-controlled ATC + STARs/SIDs request/assignment (and some holds, if enabled, why not?) Per-plane flight control settings. Better turboprop simulation, and some flight model (and "ground model) improvements, some already added in flight. Some turbolence modelling would be nice as well.... If they add all of them plus some visual enhancements I'm ready to spend $200+ for such product.... Ehmmm.... that is Flight "The Sims", or something alike....

Is your Windows 32 or 64 bit? For a compatibility list, see here: http://www.microsoft...ght Simulator X You may need Acceleration or SP2 to run it without issues. Trying to run it in XP compatibility mode IMHO is just a waste of time. XP compatibility mode is just a Windows Virtual PC virtual machine running a copy of Windows XP that can show only an application active window and not the whole virtual machine desktop. You will get slower performance, and I do not know how much DirectX support is built into the virtual graphic card.

In my experience - and I'm R&D technical manager in a software company, so I think my knowlegde in HW and SW stuff is pretty adequate - most problems with FSX (or any other software) is user creating any kind of havoc to their machine - installing low quality software (or hardware) and add-ons (then trying to remove them, sometimes, leaving behind often a lot of crap), cracked illegal software of dubios origin (often malware ridden) and so on, modifying settings without really knowing what they're doing just because they read it will give "incredible perfomance" on some unknown blogs, and so on, while often avoiding to install patches and upgrades - Then when the software crashes they blame the software itself and not what they did to their machine, often because they already forgot. Sure, FSX could maybe have been better, but unlike most games it has to model the whole world on the fly - there is no precomputed areas, walls and "fog of war" to limit what it has to display - it has to display the way you could see from ground to thousand of feet way, from different angles, different seasons and different time of day. And because unlike most games it models places you may know from real, it has to do in a realistic way. And the model of a real, large airport may be damned complex. That's while computing your plane flight model, plane systems (navigation systems, engines, etc.) updating weather etc. etc., something very few games has to perform - because that's not what their player ask. That's why MS had to simplify a lot Flight to make it simpler and thereby more performant. A few months ago I was shown a software able to generate on the fly a realistic high-res landscapes for simulations, it is a professional software for military and civilian use - it was running on hardware starting from €20000, and didn't cost $50. So don't blame too much what FSX developers were able to achieve seven years ago for the price.

There are massive pre-release complaints about the new (ex) Metro Windows 8 interface, and not only from enthusiasts forums, but from influential companies like Gartner also. And while almost noone knows Flight outside the simmer community, Windows 8 is the flagship MS product. As with Vista, a Windows 8 failure (and reputation loss) will be enterily on those at MS who made the wrong decisions ignoring their users' needs. And for the matter they had to write off *billions* just because someone acquired an online adverstising company that never brought in the money they thought. Who was to blame? Those who didn't clicked their ads "to support them"? Wait for Skype being next in line - and there are no users complain about Skype (but here again noone wants to pay, as with Flight DLCs...) MS has lost a lot of reputation in the past years because of its bad management and silly decisions, not because of user complains.

Correct. There are some tips to use FSX language files and how to install IVAP from IVAO and some FSX AC/sceneries into Prepare3D.

Believe me, you won't keep the Lancair pump running unless you really need it....

Many people learnt to fly in much more crowded environments - and don't fly Cubs only. When you're close to cities, big airports amd other restricted areas it's not only "stick and rudder" anymore - since the beginning. One of my "simulation friends" is a real ATC controller in a medium-sized airport. In a good evening we can have 20-25 airplanes (from Cubs to regional jets) continuosly getting in and out his simulated airport counterpart with real ATC and procedures. A lot of the fun is being able to fly properly in this situation, sometimes simulating some emergency, following procedures. And still you need a lot of proper airplane handling to mantain course, spacing, height and speed... much more than when you just fly alone and only the weather can be an issue - a weather you set and not weather that changes....

The feeling of flight is made up of many pieces, including the need to master the airplane and the environment. Procedures are part of it, to ensure a safe flight. It is also true for sailing, or racing. Being able to enter a pattern properly while other airplanes faster and slower are flying the same pattern gives you the "feeling of flight". Would you like a F1 car race game where your car is the only one in the track? The car model can be the best ever made, the driving "experience" could be the best, but you would miss something anyway. Where's the challenge of outperform the other? Where's the challenge of a sudden and unexpected change of weather that forces you to change tyres? Where's the challenge to win without breaking the rules, otherwise you get penalties? Where's the challenge of preparing a car for each track needs? Racing, sailing, flying is much more than simply holding a wheel or stick, and a gas lever. Part of the challenge is planning, mastering the vehicle and environment, interacting with other people and "return home alive", even if it is a simulator. Remove a lot of those features, and you get a much duller game,

That's exactly the mindset that killed Flight. The whole business model could not work if Flight people kept on complaining about the prices of DLCs. IMHO there was no way to keep it alive and deliver high quality DLCs if people kept thinking that a plane should cost $9 or less and a scenery $15. They are much more complex to develop than the average game DLCs, while the user base is smaller. If MS shut down it so soon, it is clear it didn't sell nowhere near its targets. Meanwhile what is keeping the FSX/FS9 market afloat is a user base that will pay $35/40 for a high quality airplane without issues. Frankly I'm ready to pay $200/300 (and maybe something more) for a good simulator and $40/80 for good airplanes and sceneries. I know this is a niche market and will never become much larger, thereby I know I have to pay more than people thowing silly birds at piles of rubbish to keep it alive and pay for the development of high quality software. As long as it is a real simulator. But don't complain about FSX users not spending money in what didn't fit heir needs at all. It's Flight users that killed it because it was too expensive for them.

Pedals are more realistic - that's what you find in real airplanes. You need rudder not only to turn coordinated, but also to avoid to turn when the airplane would like to do it on its own. P-factor, slipstream and gyroscopic effect all try to turn the airplane and need some rudder to keep it straight. The latter happens on tailsitters when the tail lifts (guess the Carbon Cub should simulate it). Rudder trim may be useful in a climb, but not in "transient" effects.The strenght of those forces depends on the airplane design, and in simulators on your "realism" settings. Flight has no multiengine airplanes yet, so you don't need rudder to fly without one engine. Whenever it will introduce them and properly simulate one engine failure pedals are far better to control rudder than a joystick in such situation.

For those interested, the paint kit is now available: http://www.realairsimulations.com/list_box.php?page=legacyfsx_downloads

Sorry, but that's like saying that Flight is not good because a subset of user will just fly cockpitless airplanes hunting aereocaches and learning nothing about real handling of an aircraft. There's nothing in both products that hinders you learning the basics - an excellent book like "Flight Simulator X for pilots - Real World Training" does a very good job teaching you the basics of flying and it uses the Cub, the 172, the Mooney and the Baron to guide you from simple VFR flights to more complex IFR ones. Unluckily here you see the limitations of Flight. No twins (yet), basic IFR capabilities, no ATC. For many pilots who are not lucky enough to fly in large areas with little traffic and controlled airspaces ATC is something to be learnt from the beginning. I live in an area among three large airports where even GA ones are so close to the large ones you have to be very careful leaving and approaching them. Frankly I almost never flown a liner in FSX, but I do like twin, turboprops and small jets. And I like to fly in a "crowded" environment under ATC control, because flying is something more than flying the plane itself, is being able to control it safely within the environment, and again unless you live in a scarcely populated area with little traffic it could be far more complex. Unless your goal is just to enjoy the scenery, play missions and collect aereocaches.

Any fighter plane has rearview mirrors. Even modern ones. Of course they are inside the canopy. not outside.

Bought! Ckick on "Products" and the Lancair is now available!!!

IMHO a false cockpit would just increase the wish for a real one. Moreover warbirds are not the simplest planes to implement a cockpit for. They were the most complex planes of their era with big, powerful engines to take care of, and most cockpit were designed with maintenance and combat in mind, not "sleek design". That means a complex cockpit full of levers and gauges, especially late models (moreover the standard six-pack design was yet to come) A trainer, even a modern one, has a much simpler cockpit. The Smithsonian published a couple of excellent books showing warbirds "from the inside" (i,e, http://www.smithsonianstore.com/clearance/books-media/in-the-cockpit-ii-10395.html), they are an interesting reading showing the difference with modern planes. I understand why MS has decided to include them to get the attention of those looking for "aggressive" military planes instead of the pacific civil ones, but they are also complex models to implement fully. And without the proper gauges the engine simulation has to be simplified too - those large, powerful engines uusally required some care in their handling, especially at startup and lower speeds.