Lead Chicken

I gladly donated my "like" to the cause. I'd love to believe there's a chance of it doing some good but i haven't been able to find anything to read on the subject that I'm able to interpret as encouraging. It's sad, something like 30 years ago MS Flight Simulator 2.0 provided me with countless hours of entertainment and the opportunity to learn things while enjoying the gorgeous scenery provided by wireframe approximations of mountains rendered in just the most soothing phosphor green glow. I missed some of the versions between FS2.0 and FSX, but it's been such a cool ride to return to FS after not having kept current for a while and seeing the huge jumps in graphics quality delivered by the new release. So with FSX I thought I'd clearly seen the dangling carrot of truly photorealistic graphics and then... Sounds like the ride is over just when it seemed like we'd gotten to the best part. Oh well, I guess that's disturbingly often the way things work out. I suppose FSX probably has quite a few more years of life left in it especially considering a whole other world of add-ons and mods I haven't even started to explore yet. Maybe third party development will even be boosted. I would expect that lots of FS fans who were ready to pay the price of admission for FS11 represent a significant pool of money earmarked for FS that might make some third party developers pretty happy. RIP old friend, I've enjoyed the ride(s) we shared.

Greetings fellow avsim forum n00b :) Way to offer up some interesting nuggets of info for me to dig into right off the bat and I'll be keeping an eye on this thread 'cause I'm curious about the answers to your questions as well. This seems like a great forum and I'm sure you'll find the expertise you seek. Avsim greenhorn ^5! xD

I was just setting up my profile and when I tried to do the "log in with google" thing to link my account I got: Error: invalid_request Missing required parameter: client_id I'm not particularly concerned about this, I just figured someone may want to know. No idea if it's a problem on my end or something about the forum link but it looks more like the latter to me. When I clicked on a "help" link after the failure, the "explanation" looked like it was complaining about authentication version.... maybe...not claiming ultimate expertise or anything. While I'm here, thanks for a great forum - this place is friggin' huge - where do I download the GPS data to help me navigate it? ;) /tony

Reading this made me wish for some kind of reasonably easy to use way to customize/modify planes. Based on my very limited research and the fact that decent add on planes that don't cost a relative mint seem quite rare, I take it that it's far from a trivial task. But for a second there I had these visions... I want a C172 with either a Lambo or Mercedes engine, preferably painted '96 Ford Mustang Cobra "Mystic" purple. Where do you hang fuzzy dice in a cockpit since there's no rearview mirror? It was a very brief albeit quite lovely fantasy while it lasted. Of course from now on everyone who happened to read this will probably just think of me as "Oh, that redneck" ;)

Thanks a bunch everyone! I'm pleasantly surprised 'cause I was a bit worried that my post might qualify as flame bait and your responses resulted in a little sigh of relief. Maybe I've got digital shell shock from all the trolls and flamewars I've been seeing on youtube. ;) I'll definitely make use of the tutorials section. I just spent a little more time with FSX and realized what at least part of my problem is. Back in the day you used to get an actual book with flight sims (and other games), and now you have to figure out where detailed information is buried amongst tutorials, fragmented bits of in-game documentation and possibly a set of pdf files. I was trying to figure out some of the comm and nav gear just by trying to interpret the markings on the buttons which surprisingly didn't turn out to be very effective. Oh how I miss the dead tree editions of manuals! I have a strong renewed interest in spending some quality time with flight sims, so I expect I'll be around. It's amusing to be thought of as "fresh blood" though. The stuff in my veins qualifies for antiquity two times over! :) Be afraid of more questions to come. Be very afraid. /tony

I apologize in advance if this turns out to be one of them. I did quite a bit of research before deciding to ask without being able to find anything and would appreciate input from someone experienced I was looking for a way to pull up a chart in MS Flight to find out the altitude of airports I'm approaching because when I don't know how far it is to the deck, I'm guaranteed to make a crater. As I was looking for answers I started to wonder why nobody else seemes concerned with this. So, my question is: Should I even be particularly concerned with knowing this, or should a proper approach and lineup with the runway yield enough visual cues to get the correct altitude and glideslope without knowing how many feet between me and the runway? I'm just not sure if I'm worrying about something trivial or if it's so important good sim pilots always know the answer before ever taking off and that's so obvious it goes without saying. TIA for anything helpful thrown my way. Sincerely, A clueless clustercluck.