I need a good flight simulator for a PC

X-Plane, gives you the entire earth, moon and I believe they've also got Mars now. Uses realistic physics and real planes.

 

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 looks pretty good. I had Flight Simulator 2000 and really liked it. Pretty realistic, good choices of planes, cool audio. Get him a flight yoke (Airplane steering wheel) if possible. I remeber using a control pad with the simulator, it sucked.

 

X-Plane is awesome... though I can't comment on MS Flight Sim as I haven't had any experience with in at least 5 or 6 years.

http://www.x-plane.com - check out the demo.

 

MS Flight Sim 2004 is hands down the best flight sim. It's amazing what you can do with it.

 

just lookin around on Gamespot.com, they gave miscrosoft flight simulator 2004 a century of flight a 8.8 out of 10. thats pretty good, so you might want to look into that

 

Nice how they show the old Ferrari NA Piaggio Avanti in the first couple of pics.

 

Xplane is a great simulator. In fact, when I was a teaching assistant back in University I taught labs using Xplane. The flight yolks we used were made by 'CH products', they seemed like a quality product. They have yolks, joysticks, pedals, and throttles. Our lab used a combination of them depending on the type of plane/helicopter being flown.

I was actually looking at Xplane the other day to see if there was a way to make the conveyer belt in the airplane physics thread to do some testing.

 

Hope you have a good graphics card and lots of RAM - the sim games suck a lot of resources

 

If you want him to develop good habits, get the CH yoke and rudder pedals. That's what I have + the throttle quadrant.

http://www.chproducts.com/retail_flash/index.html

Flight Sim has the most add-ons and freeware of any of the sims. The payware stuff is fantastic as well.

RMX

 

Falcon 4.0, without a doubt, the best ever. It was cutting edge when it came out years ago, and they are still producing software for it to this day. I love it.

 

Flightsim 2004 is great because it has a selection of classic airplanes...you know, kind of like old Ferraris. I think CH is the company that makes the reasonably priced..$100 or so...but very realistic off the shelf yokes that you can find at places like Best Buy. I haven't done much flight simming in a long time but used to really be into it.

 

Get X-Plane 8. I have it, it is the best flight sim I have ever played. Its way better than Microsoft Flight Simulator. X-Plane is done by like only a few people, while Flight Sim is done by like hundreds of people.

 

I have FS 2004 and really llike it. The recommendation that you get CH yoke and rudder pedals is also a good one. Absent these realistic devices (that is, using the keyboard or a joystick) it's not much for practicing.

 

Flight Simming can get expensive. Trust me, I know.

I started with a few payware additions such as the PMDG 737 ($40) + the addition of the 800/900 series (another $40). The manuals for this "simulated" jetliner number several hundred pages. You can then start graduating to things like 38m terrain mesh, scenery like Ultimate Terrain (photorealistic scenery of the entire US and Canada), weather add-ons such as Metero (wake turbulence, real METARS, etc). Get on VATSIM and you'll be vectored by real controllers in real time. It's totally insane how much you can spend, both timewise and financially, on flight simming. I built a $4,000 computer around it. I added almost all the Carenado stuff as well as most of the Flight1 payware.

Both XPlane and MSFS are great procedural tools when you're trying to learn how VORs and NDBs work as well as things like the Avidyne system (on the FS2004 Eaglesoft SR20 G2) and the Garmin and Apollo systems. They're modeled well enough you won't be out of your element when faced with the real thing. It's also good for procedural training of things like DME arcs and learning the basics of GPS, VOR and ILS (including backcourse) approaches. One thing neither will do is simulate the feeling of a real aircraft...you need a real airplane for that.

But you can dial in IFR minimums and practice til your heart's content. BTW, I've been on FS since it was a SubLogic product way back when. I got my PPL at exactly 40 hrs - I credit a lot of time with MSFS for that.

RMX

 

If you want to see how crazy it can get, check this out:

http://www.flypfc.com/
http://www.projectmagenta.com/
http://www.em.ca/~cockpits/main.htm
http://home.wanadoo.nl/norbert.bosch/

All this stuff is built around MSFS.

Here are some planes:

http://www.precisionmanuals.com/
http://www.leveldsim.com/sevensix_home.asp
http://www.carenado.com/ecommerce/index.php3
http://www.flight1.com/

Terrain enhancements

http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=utcan
http://portal.fsgenesis.net/

Weather generators:

http://www.hifisim.com/
http://www.fsmeteo.com/

VATSIM:

http://www.vatsim.net/

Reminds me of the way people used to obsess about model trains. I admit I'm hooked.

Have fun!

RMX

 

MSFS is a game. X-Plane is actually used by NASA and several private companies to develop aircraft (or spacecraft, as the case may be).

X-Plane is also an FAA-approved tool for training towards an Airline Transport Pilot certification. MSFS...isn't.

I don't know about you, but that makes it a clear choice for me.

Plus, Austin Meyer (X-Plane's lead, and pretty much only, developer) has good taste in cars.

 

Get him the Microsoft version, I remember being about your son's age and playing one of the first versions of it when the graphics were plain old green lines, and it was still alot of fun. Buy a cheap joystick, save the flight yoke and pedals for his birthday or something if he shows a real interest.

 

David, you started on it a lot earlier than I did. I purchased MS Flightsim 95 in December '96, along with my first computer.

I agree, going the MSFS route with a joystick is the best way to start..less than $100. What really matters is the system you're playing it on.

 

Speaking of joysticks... I just picked this up yesterday night:

http://www.saitekusa.com/usa/prod/x52.htm


Cool setup, and for $109 it wasn't a bad deal either.

 

That is a cool setup...I haven't seen one with the readout.

 

Howdy Scott! It's funny, the graphics on the MSFS have improved dramatically over the last 20 years or so but the layout is still the same, a 2-D instrument panel on the lower half of the screen, and a "3-D" picture out the front window.

 

Ummm...true but you need a $150,000 full motion Motus sim and a paid instructor at an approved location to log time with this program. Might as well buy the On Top or any of the Elite programs. You don't need a full motion sim to log time with those.

As the owner of both programs, they do very little apart from each other as a flight proficiency tool. The both tune radios, navaids and beacons the same exact way. You can shoot approaches the same way. If you like tinkering with wing design, aoa specs and aerodynamics, XPlane is the way to go. MSFS has the edge in the eye candy department and third party support.

RMX