A poignant look at Flight Simulator...

[MFRskyknight]

1979 to present...wow...20-minute video...what really threw me is the music. Enya???

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6812178327169236488&q=Flight+Simulator

 

[flyingnome]

very comprehensive, good old Flightsim 5.1 is where I started back when I was 12yrs old or so.

 

[BRIGADEAVIATOR]

sims

yeah i remember the old school microsoft flight sim days. Sad to see Meigs Field, the first airport i ever landed at on a comp. I bet that would have been a blast to actualy land at.

 

[User998]

I totally forgot about that volcano they showed! I remember when that version came out, and how unbelievably awesome that graphic was! How things have changed.

 

[C601]

brings back alot of old memorys... But i think MSFS 5.0 is where it started to really look good.

btw they missed out on flight path 737 for the vic-20/c64

 

[Kream926]

the first one i had was 98.....

there i just aged my self

 

[91100 100 set]

Wow, what a flashback. I think I started on FS4 on my parents 286 computer. They even got me a "Maxx-yoke", a horrible joystick-yoke thing that we could never get clamped properly to the desk. I spent way too much time playing around with the Aircraft and Scenery designer, like I was some kind of aeronautical engineer or something. Good times.

Nowadays, my computer is going on 5 years old, so I dare not try to install anything more recent than FS2000. Maybe if and when I get a newer computer down the road, I'll check out the new one.

 

[Gryphon]

I've got FS2004, A Century of Flight, and i love it.. had the 98 version, and that was great too, but then again, i'm biased, lol. Anything to do with flying is fine by me. Anyone have or tried X-Plane? It's supposed to be a step away from FS, in that you can use the tools and design your own bird.

 

[JSky26]

Wow, it has come a long way. My Dad bought me MSFS 5.0 back when I was 8 years old and I was hooked onto airplanes ever since...what a mistake that was ;-)

 

[gkrangers]

http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?$=main/notams06/fsx0104.htm

Flight Sim 10 is in development....I didn't know about it till today. Amazing. Why even become a real pilot? Easier to get a "good" job and fly the sim..as real as it gets, right?

 

[NuGuy]

Heyas,

I gotcha all beat. I had subLogics (later bought by MS) flight sim for my Apple 2. It ran much better than what the vid showed.

A bud of mine had it for his TRS-80. That was pretty choppy, though.

Nu

 

[dseagrav]

Pirated FS4 on my mighty 286 for me. I got my copy from the Snap-On tool guy who sold to my stepdad's motorcycle shop. Bought FS5 and all the PC versions after. My stepdad hated it; I had to play FS while he was gone or asleep because if he caught me playing it, he'd make me "turn that dorky thing off and go outside!" He swore I'd never fly because I was too much a worthless farkup, and convinced me that pilots were all super-geniuses with perfect health, and I had no hope. (I'm very badly nearsighted) I still regret never having worked up the courage to prove him wrong while he was still alive. Until some people at an FBO "worked me over" I really believed FS was as close as I would ever get to flying an airplane. If I hadn't gotten "super dorky" one day and gone to the airport to buy a sectional...

 

[Murdoughnut]

I just got the new Dell XPS 400 so I could run online flight sim sessions more smoothly. Then, like two days later, I learned about FS X which is coming out near the holidays. It's like everything's falling into place. If I get back home and my woman all of a sudden discovers a passion for fellatio, I'm definitely buying a lottery ticket. Things are looking up my friends!

I saw this in the most recent issue of Flying. http://www.hotseatinc.com/uploads/30/PAGES/1900/ I wouldn't drop the $900 they want for it, but might be easy to design and build yourself.

 

[Lostdog65]

The song about 9 minutes in is by Loreena McKennit (sp)...I think. The song is in the movie Braveheart. She sings with Enya and Maire Brennan on a few songs. Wonderful voice...excellent choice of music.

Eric

 

[mushroom]

First flew the Sublogic one on the Apple my freshman year of high school ('81-'82). Amazing how far the technology has come since then.

 

[Tinstaafl]

The song is one of Enya's, I think. Not Loreena McKennit. I have a lot of music from those two as well as Maire Brennan from 'Clannad'. Pretty sure I've heard it while listening to Enya. Her 'The Memory of Trees' perhaps?

 

[Ill Mitch]

Heyas,

I gotcha all beat. I had subLogics (later bought by MS) flight sim for my Apple 2. It ran much better than what the vid showed.

A bud of mine had it for his TRS-80. That was pretty choppy, though.

Nu

That's what I started with, Flight Sim 2 for the apple. I have had every version except FS2000 (because it sucked).

www.megascenery.com to take a look at what is out there now. Pretty amazing stuff.

 

[mtrv]

Here is an up to date flightsim video, that I just seen.
Very realistic looking! Microsoft's FS2004 and add ons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gigOl-8tsYc&search=fs2004

 

[~~~^~~~]

First flew the Sublogic one on the Apple my freshman year of high school ('81-'82). Amazing how far the technology has come since then.

Yep - Ran on a 5 1/4 inch floppy. Remember when Bruce Artwick was the FSim guy?

Probably the best Flight Sim ever was Fly! by Gathering of Developers (GOD). You had to know the systems to get the airplanes started and every switch in the cockpit worked as it was supposed to. On the Hawker you had to get the APU going for an engine start. I did some of the Beta testing on that.

What happened to the Sublogic sim where they would deduct points for exceeding limts and bad landings? Also, anyone remember the air ambulance add on where you had to fly rescue missions? The crop duster scenario was fun too. FS4 was the best Microsoft Sim - after that it was all grpahics and no flight modelling.

Falcon 3.0 worked well too.

Oh well, now I fly for a living and have not even loaded FS 2004. But those things were sure fun in high school.

 

[AirBadger]

While FS2004 is pretty cool by itself, its really 3rd party developers that make it realistic. The 747-400 from www.precisionmanuals.com and 767 from www.leveldsim.com come to mind. Really cool stuff, all the important systems are modelled.

 

[pilotguy733]

Anyone ever use Sierra Pro-Pilot??

 

[Ill Mitch]

While FS2004 is pretty cool by itself, its really 3rd party developers that make it realistic. The 747-400 from www.precisionmanuals.com and 767 from www.leveldsim.com come to mind. Really cool stuff, all the important systems are modelled.

For a 747, I prefer the 747-200 from http://www.panelshop.com/, although the designer is kind of a grump.

 

[Workin'Stiff]

Anyone ever use Sierra Pro-Pilot??

I used to but I never had a computer hefty enough to run it... It was a really good program though!

 

[dseagrav]

Anyone ever use Sierra Pro-Pilot??

I think I still have my copy. I never got it to run very well, but I think it was more my computer having issues than the software.

 

[Publishers]

My 12 year old son has been on this with all the add on's like Ultimate Traffic and Active Weather for two years. His transition into actual aircraft was almost anti climatic and his use of the Garmin 1000 etc was a no brainer. Kids today will be so far ahead it is scary.
The trouble is that he thinks a 172 should have auto throttles.

 

[User998]

The trouble is that he thinks a 172 should have auto throttles.

I agree. And FADEC with an auto-mixture would be great as well.

 

[gkrangers]

I agree. And FADEC with an auto-mixture would be great as well.

Already been done.

http://epicaviation.com/tae-distributor/tae-distributor.html