Experience with Flightsim

Anyone here have any experience or play any flight simulation games?

I'm looking at Flight Simulator X to start learning in it, so just wondering if anyone else here plays/played it?

Yup Top Gun on NES and Blade Force on 3DO

end user, those are not flight simulators...

Yep, i do, in Flight Gear, sujjest that you try that over the Microsofts thing. Who ever wants it?

I am into it for quite some time, and even went as far as buying a joystick.

If you're looking for combat flight sims, here's some I can recommend:

Combat Flight Sim 3 - WW2 - (I really like this game, the 'Firepower' addon improves the game a lot and allows you to drop nukes from the amazing Superfortress! The graphics are solid, the interface is nice, there's plenty of things to do and although the campaign lacks drama and a bit of atmosphere, it's a very competent and realistic sim). Not as many mods for this game as others although you can download small things like custom planes, particle FX, hud and cockpit fixes and ground objects, etc.

IL-2 Sturmovik - WW2 - (in many peoples' eyes, the very best combat flight sim ever, includes lots of mods and improved content, has a very avid community). Probably 'better' than Combat Flight Sim 3 as it has a very active community that Combat Flight Sim 3 lacks, although I don't think it's quite as strong graphically and if IL-2 is being looked at in its 'vanilla' form, I'd prefer to play Combat Flight Sim 3.

European Air War - WW2 - a good game although it is pretty dated and very hard to get running on modern hardware (I had to download a load of stuff on a lot of different forums to get it running).

Falcon 4.0 - modern - (some of the custom mods and other spin-offs (e.g. BMS) that have been made are amazing and constantly updated - check the wikipedia page). 'The Falcon 4.0 series is one of the longest running game series using the same code base in PC history spanning well over a decade.' The amount of content is crazy. There's a free version called 'Free Falcon' but I'd probably check out the advantages/disadvantages of each game/mod before installing.

F-22 Lightning 3 - modern - a nice sim focused around the F-22 fighter jet - more limited than the other games, lacks a real community and is more focused on just getting you to complete missions but I still have fond memories of playing it and it certainly has an atmosphere to it.


For normal flight:

The Microsoft flight sims are good, well supported and recommended by all. 2004 and X are solid and you might want to try the fairly new and free 'Flight' game (far more limited but really good looking). You can download a lot of custom terrain textures that are completely accurate using satellite data for 2004 and X (possibly other games too depending on which terrain packs you buy) which is really cool.

X-plane, never played it but, along with the Microsoft flight sims, it's the most 'complete' and realistic flight sim out there.

Just Flight has a lot of cool, addons, games, etc. just look at the amount of content here: http://www.justflight.com/category/flight-simulators


There are soooo many flight sims out there although the best often have a great community behind them that keep things up-to-date and add custom content. That is an extremely important part of flight simulation imo.

Thanks for the replies guys, especially rocknroll, that was very in-depth!

Well I'm going to try Flight Simulator X, hopefully I won't suck too much at it after a bit. If anyone here plays it, let me know as could probably do with some help

Xonotic kind of feels like a flight sim with these physics.
On a serious note, have a look at http://www.flightgear.org/ if you want a free product.

Downloading flightgear, will try it out until I get FSX.

aa do you use IRC, perhaps you could give me some help if I require it?

Well, currently, I am away, and my machine is not capable of running flightgear, but i willl try to help you as i can., althought there remains the problem of timezones. Yes, irc, yes. What server and chanel do you sujjest? (#xonotic.flying? lol)

I'm in #xonotic.flying now, created a channel I'm on quakenet.org - channel, #xonotic.flying

Take on Helicopters - only because it was made by Bohemia Interactive and cost 2€. Not hardcore but realistic enough. Made me hate helicopters because hovering and landing is either full on concentration or death.

Tried several other sims but didn't get into them because they are generally repulsive, look obsolete and have RTFM attitude.

Not a sim but helicopter-driving in BF2 is ridiculously fun.

aa, when your on IRC in the channel and I'm there, if I don't respond private message me on IRC. I will hear the pinging sound so I will know someone is messaging

Does anyone have FSX Steam Edition?

Started to learn to fly and would quire like to do a shared cockpit sometime with someone (once I learn the ropes a bit more! ).

Bought a texture pack already and intend to get another next month..kind of addicting is the game!