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For those of us who are real world pilots, we know that general aviation is dying a slow death due to it's high costs and the fact that kids these days have way more entertainment options that require less cash and commitment than learning to fly an airplane. Flight sims and the communities that get built around them are a great way to get young people excited about flying and while DTG has some work to do to convince me they have a polished product that can adapt to the needs of people with real world flying experience, I applaud them for making efforts to bring in new people into our community. FS2000 was my first sim platform and it was far from realistic out of the box. Rod's lessons were optional, but in hindsight I wish some of them were required before you could be let loose. DTG at least is trying to provide new people with a structured way to get immersed in our hobby instead of aimlessly flying around and getting bored/frustrated after a few flights like many newbies do.

Like any advanced aircraft, the Dash 8 can fly coupled approaches all the way down to decision height so use the autopilot if you need it. There is no autothrottle on this bird so you need to be precise and delicate with the throttle. Don't make large power changes and don't reduce the throttle to idle when flaring as this plane drops like a rock. I can't say enough about the Airline2Sim videos for the Q400. It really shows you how to fly this bird well and the planning that needs to go into executing a successful flight. I also use FS2Crew as well which helps keep my workload down on approach. This is one of the best payware add-on aircraft ever made for FSX/P3D but it takes many hours to master it.

I can understand some of the other posters points who are not overly impressed by the video posted. Because honestly it looks like just earlier renditions of P3D as someone who has been a user of the platform dating back to v2.2. The avatar feature is cool, but it doesn't blow my socks off. That being said, I can also appreciate the changes that LM are addressing to really cleanup the performance of the sim. I think we have a very capable sim platform for the future that can meet the needs of many of us in the community who use the sim for short or longhaul flying and want an immersive experience with our ORBX, Aerosoft, and FSDreamTeam add-ons enabled. It's exciting that our hobby is spreading it's wings in so many directions and that we have options to choose from.

It takes PMDG 2-3 years just to develop one of their airplanes. I couldn't imagine the wait time on their own sim!

I flew into Ibiza on Vueling from Barcelona a few years ago. It's a beautiful island. I would add that the Aerosoft scenery for Ibiza is dated since they have now built jet bridges at the airport.

It's rare for smaller aircraft like Cessnas and Pipers to fly into large Class B airports in the US, but many of these airports will be accommodating to smaller aircraft if arrangements are made with the ATC facility beforehand so they can slot you in. There was a youtube video not too recently I saw of a 172 flying into O'Hare. The pilot was on his game and did a great job keeping up with ATC. Biz jets and multi-engine turboprops fly into large airports every day in the US. Many try and use nearby reliever fields if the client has no pressing need to use the larger field to cut costs. Another common reason biz jets fly into large airports is for repositioning purposes to pick up or drop off a client using the airlines. Try doing a repositioning flight between KOAK-KSFO or KVNY-KLAX. You will not have a moment to breathe, I can promise you that!

A DC-10 would be really cool. As a kid, I was so marveled by seeing those majestic three-holers at major hub airports.

I agree with cmpbellsjc that when flying the tubeliners, it really is fantastic to have a good airport scenery that gives you the sense of immersion that you are operating in an airline environment. I tend to only buy payware airports I know I will be using as hubs for my operations. For example, paying 30 dollars for an FSDT Hawaii airport seems a bit silly when I am only flying there once or twice a year. For those of you who use the ORBX regions and have FTX Global, I'd encourage you to look at checking the "hybrid" box as this uses a nice balance between showing eyecandy of the regions, but also removing some details to improve FPS. That being said, my system still struggles flying into KSEA with the Pac NW Orbx region enabled and being that KSEA nearly is always cloudy or rainy has a huge impact on my FPS. Having detailed regional sceneries like the ORBX regions become more important to me when flying low and slow GA. I don't need a detailed 40 dollar airport, but I need good scenery to enjoy while enroute.

I tell people that when you are first starting with vatsim, use something simple like a 172. When you see a center controller in the US, it generally means that center controller is controlling a large region of airspace and so you can pick two small airports within that region and get full atc coverage. In the mean time, spend some more time offline flying the Ifly 737 and watching youtube videos about how to operate it. The two most important things you need to have a good handle on when flying an airliner in the sim are use of the autopilot and using the FMC. When you feel comfortable in those areas, only then would I recommend flying the 737 on vatsim. VATSIM has a lot of resources to help get you started if you visit their main website.

I really like the Milviz 310. It was my first payware add-on aircraft for P3D and for less than 30 bucks, it was a steal. The sounds are great and I think what really impresses me is how Milviz took time to put the code in to realistically simulate engine-out procedures on a light twin, something that the default FSX Baron and other payware releases have failed at miserably. They don't have the size and scope of a PMDG, but my vote goes for the Majestic Q400. They're a small developer that put out an aircraft that has an incredible amount of details and system complexity on par with the PMDG. Rather than accepting the mediocre physics that FSX uses to simulate turboprop operations, Majestic decided to just engineer their own physics and systems characteristics from scratch and model them outside the framework of the sim which leads to an incredible airplane that is easy on frames and really makes you gain an appreciation for the difficulty involved in piloting a multi-engine turboprop.

They don't use an autopilot the whole flight. Just do a google search for "great lakes aviation uses no autopilot" and you'll get tons of hits.

Alaska is a great choice for jet flying. Here are a few others for those interested in some smaller airlines. 1. Great Lakes Aviation-Probably some of the most challenging flying you can do. Look up their routes out of KDEN and use the B1900(PMDG or Carenado). What makes the flying challenging is that the B1900's operated by Lakes don't use an autopilot so you have to hand fly the whole time. Particularly challenging in high elevation airports with bad wx in the winter. 2. Buffalo Airways-Flys vintage aircraft and is based out of the Northwest Territories in Canada. Load up the DC-3 and check out some of their routes out of Yellowknife. 3. Winair-Load up the Aerosoft Twin Otter and do short hops between numerous islands in the Caribbean. Depart from St. Maarten and head for St. Barts or Saba (1,300 ft rwy) for a real challenge!

I realize that the P3D team understands that there are many individuals who probably use it for entertainment purposes, but my point still stands that P3D was not designed to be a game. It has very specific real world applications that were at the core of its creation. That's a point that's really not up for debate as evidenced by the way the game has been licensed. This is in contrast with FSX which was licensed as a game, but had the potential to be used for other training applications.

P3D was definitely not made as a game. It's a training tool. FSX is a game. What would make a defense contractor release a product that is strictly for entertainment purposes? To answer your question about the stealth fighter, the aim was to have it used as a scenario based trainer. There isn't as much of an emphasis on systems for the default aircraft as there is to incorporate scenarios where it could be used in a real world setting for training missions.

I sadly agree with a lot of the sentiment in this thread. I have fond memories of flying their Mooney 201 and Cessna 210 for FS9 and working on my VFR cross country skills using a sectional. I thought they did a fairly good job with their F33 Bonanza, but their move into glass cockpits and high performance aircraft has really hurt their credibility as a high fidelity publisher. The 182T with the G1000 was a joke with little system simulations and heavy on frames. Since then, I've read review after review about buggy releases with little regard towards customer feedback and improvements on the systems front. A2A is at the head of the pack and I applaud them for taking their time to put out good releases for the GA community just like Majestic and PMDG have done with their airliners. Us FS peeps are an impatient bunch, but we know when we come across a gem of an FS aircraft.