Best Flight Sim

[Zacko10000]

What do you think the best flight sims out there are? Are there any really good ones coming out soon? Which ones offer the most realism. I am interested in both military and civilian sims, thanks.

[SkyMunky]

Civilian: I love MS Flight Sim 98, think that ProPilot is also very nice.
Military: For realism: dunno. I don't fly mil. planes. For playability/fun and nice grafx: love RedBaron3d for WWI fun, love MS Combat Flight Sim (WWII), Jane's so-so, not so keen on Falcon, haven't tried many other modern mil. ones.

[Xstar]

Flying Corps Is THE WW1 Sim. From empire interactive. Campains, one on one dogfights, go directly to any version of ww1 conflict. Fly german and allied planes. Very realistic, sights and sounds. Microsoft flight sim is a childs toy to this. Fly in and out of a real cloud (mist in and out). Get ready to tax your cpu. Not voodoo but man you gotta see it. Set up can be a pain but hang in there it will be your last!

[Bazango]

For some good reviews of flight sims try www.gamespot.com . There are also some nice demos at this site. (FA18 Korea, for example) Try to avoid game oriented sims, these are where reality is generally lacking. Part of the fun of sims is getting in the plane, starting it up, taxiing it out to the runway and trying to get the thing in the air. This can be especially exciting with the military hardware - frustrating too. Be patient. Check out a few books from the library on flying real airplanes. I recommend Langewische's "Stick and Rudder". Landings are harder than takeoffs.

I am currently flying "A-10 Cuba!" and this sim demonstrates that some of the older sims are still pretty good. Don't get too occupied with fancy graphics until you get the hang of things. This doesn't mean you shouldn't have a good video card or a fast chip. If your chip is too slow it makes the sim unmanageable. Try to avoid running a sim with it's minimum system requirements. This is another good reason to stick with older sims.

[Xstar]

I agree. FC is not a game really. For a buff you'll like the very real flight characteristics of the aircraft. This program is also a history lesson of sorts. Short films are showen depicting the campains and it comes with a WW1 flight handbook and maps taken from the areas which show the land as it looked at that time. This software just happens to found in the gaming section at BestBuy or the likes.

[Zacko10000]

Thanks, now I know what to look for, I've bought MSFS98 may buy a military sim later on. All the files at www.flightsim.com will keep me busy for now