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Chat Area => General Discussion Area => Topic started by: shyboy on 03 January 2008, 20:17:02

Title: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: shyboy on 03 January 2008, 20:17:02
Anybody into flight simulators? I play around with MS flight sim. 98 which is very good, as is MS combat flight simulator, WW11 Europe series. The follow up to this for the Pacific theatre is absolute crap, even though it came out years later.
Anybody got experience of other brands?
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: Baron Von Spongebob on 03 January 2008, 20:20:31
No
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: shyboy on 03 January 2008, 20:22:54
With a name like that I thought you'd be a WW1 ace!  ;D
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: Baron Von Spongebob on 03 January 2008, 20:23:53
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With a name like that I thought you'd be a WW1 ace!  ;D

I am old enough  :D ;)
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: Golfbuddy on 03 January 2008, 20:24:45
Me neither. MS flight sim is the benchmark I believe.  :-/
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: Crazydad on 03 January 2008, 20:29:36
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Me neither. MS flight sim is the benchmark I believe.  :-/
I thought that you would be able to answer that one JR, do you not have it on your PC at work?? ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: wakeyomega on 03 January 2008, 20:30:28
I'm a flight sim fan. Have had most versions of MS (other than 2004). I currently have FSX, but don't have the best config to run it on (it very processor intensive), but have just returned from benchmarking it on my sons new PC and it runs great framerates at max settings. (he's also a real world pilot and says that the realism in FSX is stunning)
If you don't have a powerful PC I would suggest fs2002 or 2004 with add on UK scenery from Ebay.
Happy flying, Pat
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: Golfbuddy on 03 January 2008, 20:38:43
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Quote
Me neither. MS flight sim is the benchmark I believe.  :-/
I thought that you would be able to answer that one JR, do you not have it on your PC at work?? ;D ;D ;D

I've got it at home. I was recommended it by a pilot before I had a flying lesson at the local flying club. The realism is superb but it takes an awfully long time to get into it.  :)
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: Crazydad on 03 January 2008, 20:50:00
Oh my Gawd, sorry old Chum, didnt want to raffle the baffles ;D ;D
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: Kevin Wood on 03 January 2008, 20:53:16
The gliding club of which I am a member have built a serious flight simulator. It's the sawn-off fuselage of a 2 seater glider with all flight controls connected to a PC. 3 projectors provide a panoramic display over almost 180 degrees.

They run the silent wings flight simulator and, having clocked up quite a few hours in the real McCoy I was amazed how realistic it is.  

The chief flying instructor did a little experiment and managed to train a complete newbie on just the simulator to the extent that her 10th flight in a real glider was solo! (Normally this takes probably 50-70 flights depending on the pupil :o)

Only problem is if you fly it for too long, you walk as if you've had too many Stella for a few minutes ;D Oh, and if you put it into a spin, the standard recovery procedure doesn't work, but at least it doesn't hurt when you hit the ground.

Kevin
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: RichardH on 03 January 2008, 21:53:08
I am a bit flight sim guy myself.  There are two avenues to go down when it comes to flight simming.  One is the action adventure side of things where you just basically blow everything out of the sky and mess around.

The other is the real life simulation side of things where you replicate real life procedures as best you can.  The Microsoft series of sims are the best I believe personally.  There is another version called X-plane which is supposed to have more accurate flight dynamics but is not visually as good as Flight Sim 2004 or FSX.

I fly online a lot with an organisation called Vatsim which is basically a huge online environment where wannabe pilots fly their sims, but it also has wannabe Air Traffic Controllers who control the pilots.  It's a very realistic and professional environment and actually this weekend a real world software company is beta testing a new client to be used for actual ATC centres using this Vatsim network.

There you go, that's my geeky side exposed for all to see!!! :-))
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: Paulus on 04 January 2008, 12:40:29
I've been in a real simulator. I used to work at CAE in Burgess Hill...there are about 8 of them there.

I crashed.
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: cem_devecioglu on 04 January 2008, 12:43:40
Wow, many pilots here :y

Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: ians on 04 January 2008, 13:37:59
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Anybody into flight simulators? I play around with MS flight sim. 98 which is very good, as is MS combat flight simulator, WW11 Europe series. The follow up to this for the Pacific theatre is absolute crap, even though it came out years later.
Anybody got experience of other brands?

I've got both CFS 1 and 2.  But I have not been able to run CFS1 on our home PC since I upgraded to Win 2K (joystick problem I think).   CFS2 does run but I've not tried it much.

I've also gone through spells of being addicted to Age of Empires, but that's about it game wise.
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: Nickbat on 04 January 2008, 14:11:18
I run FS 2004 which is great. Or at least it was until my C Drive went South. I'd downloaded boat loads of scenery and AI aircraft but had to do a complete reinstall of the program and, alas, can't remember where I got many of the downloads from.

The RAF and other flightschools use FlightSim for training. I notice that they also use these cyber seats:

http://www.cyberseat.co.uk/Flyer%20Post%20ITEC.pdf

Now, that would give you an extra bit of realism  :y
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: RichardH on 04 January 2008, 16:25:32
Last November I took part in a sponsored round the world flight sim trip with all proceeds going to the Orbis flying eye hospital.

Eight teams from around the world took part and the event took place over 6 days, with simulated flights taking place 24 hours a day.  Each team took part in simulators which various people had built up over the years and were all extremely realistic as you will see from the clip below.  Here is a funny clip of what happened to us on one of our flights during the event and it give you a good idea of how good the sim is!  :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQmE3BhQzqQ
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: JiMbOb789 on 04 January 2008, 16:54:15
flight simulator 2004
Title: Re: Flight simulators for PC's.
Post by: shyboy on 04 January 2008, 21:03:59
Great to read all your comments.
I must say that a real flight simulator session would be terrific, and most of you are clearly more heavily into the whole thing than I am.
I did fly a simulated 'holiday' over several real time weeks some time ago, in a Cessna, island hopping in the Carribean, using all the navigation tools and instruments, including night flying. That was fantastic. In fact, I think the plane is still in Trinidad.
I think I'll try one or two of the other versions mentioned to compare with my older stuff.