Tackleberry said:
I love how the people that PLAY flight sim tell us how real it is...
With the right stuff (i.e. big screen, screaming graphics card, metal flightstick, throttle and rudder's, head tracking device etc...) it will feel real. A lot of PC flight simulators are just games, but some stand out more and have an exceptional attention to detail. The latter are usually patched, tweaked and loaded versions of the retail copy with third party add-on's to make it simulate in even greater detail flight characteristics, avionics, weaponry etc. Obviously there are limitations as far as classified material (military radar's for example) and how much juice your home PC system has compared to a multi million dollar, full motion simulator (although often with today's video cards, the graphics beats that of Level D sims hands down). My point is that what is commonly referred to as a game could with the right setup and tweaks be highly realistic! Out of the box on an average PC, even I agree that it doesn't get close to the real thing. Most people who write some of these sims off as computer games, don't really see the potential gone missing.
The average Joe probably doesn't think of PC flight sims being able to do much more than teach you basic fundamentals, instrument skills and putting around using a plastic Logitech or Microsoft joystick. You'd be surprised how realistic you can make it with the right hardware and tweaks within the software and that's why the real PC simulation community is so small, cause most people don't go the extra three or four steps to setup and modify their stuff and calibrating it. Some of these sims would bore the hell out of someone who came looking for a game since the learning curve is pretty steep.
Now, don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that this in any way could replace or even come close to the sensation or accuracy of the real life counterpart, just merely that for all of you who consider flight simulators toys to PLAY with - you should take a closer look again before you make any assumptions that all PC sims are just simple games!
As far as being able to say it it's accurate. You're right! I've never flown a F-15 or F-16, however the developers often have real life pilots on their teams who help develop the flight models. Will it fly like the real thing, probably not - but accuratetly enough for real life pilots flying those jets to endorse some of these sims. Again, we're not talking about the arcade games here, but games made by pilots for pilots (or pilot wannabe's). Which is also why many people don't have the time and patience to get into it (understandably sometimes).
Real life flying is not done justice on a PC, in some ways not even in a Level D sim, even I know that! All I'm saying is that most people (and many times) pilots especially go knocking these fairly advanced PC simulators off as nothing but junk. Guess it takes another pilot growing up in the computer generation and used to customizing these sims to fully understand it...
