Flight Simulators

[Kycntryboy]

For all you guys that are already flying are there any good simulators/games that you guys would recommend.

 

[Whatsisname]

are you looking for something to be fun or to be very 'realistic'

 

[Kycntryboy]

realistic mainly (but fun too) just specify please. Thank You.

 

[theblakeness]

my favorite is still Falcon 4.0

 

[JimmyK]

If you have a PS2 get Ace combat 4 and 5. Those are, in my opinion, the best flying games out there.

 

[Whatsisname]

yeah but those are very action oriented, they arent very good 'sims'.

 

[bch]

as far as accurate flight models and stuff, LOMAC was supposed to be good, but I think it had a lot of bugs. I think Microsoft's flight sim is still supposed to be pretty good. Have not touched a sim though in over a year so this may all be old news.

 

[zab1001]

For all you guys that are already flying are there any good simulators/games that you guys would recommend.

I think you'll find most of the guys in the program are so beat at the end of the day, the last thing they want to do (or have time to do, with studying for the next day's flight) is play flight sim games. That said, I knew a few people who swore by using the patch programs available for Microsoft Flight Sim with the terrain for Corpus (I dunno if there is one for pcola), to practice radio calls, maneuvers, and course rules.

In the Fleet, I haven't known anyone who played flight sims at home.

 

[Godspeed]

I thourghly enjoy Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator II (if you are looking for some old fashioned dogfighting). For the most part, it seems fairly realistic (although I must say I've never dogfighted in a P-51). On the highest difficulty, there are a multitude of things that can go wrong. I.e. broken oil lines, fuel pump failures, control cable loss, damaged ailerons, elevators, full or partial landing gear failure, and about anything else you can think of. You experience blackouts, etc from pulling excessive g's, sun glare, etc.

As far as the MOST realistic simulator I have every played around with? Microsoft Flight Simulator 2003 professional without even a close second.<-too many features to list. In order for this to be any fun, you have to retrofit your computer with a flight yoke, rudders, and powerful enough components to handle all the detailed graphics.

note-> I am not flying in the military, so these weren't professional reccommendations or anything :icon_smil

 

[akamifeldman]

Yeah, sure seems like Microsoft has the monopoly on realistically depicting flight. Probably best for PPL or instrument students, it can really help with learning the gauges. (as you know, I'm not in military). BTW, think you meant MSFT Combat Flight Sim III (thats the European theater, II is the Pacific one) and MSFT Flight Sim 2004 (2002 was the last one with Standard and Professional versions, there's only one version of 2004).

Check out www.flightsim.com and read the forums if you're so interested...beware though, they're primarily populated by seven-year-old kids who like dive bombing with 747s...

 

[xof]

Check out X-Plane, put out by laminar research. (http://www.x-plane.com/about.html). Never used it myself (I have to get through my EP's first), but it comes very highly recommended. It's realistic enough to count towards an FAA airline transport certificate (well, if you happen to have a full motion simulator). The deciding factor for me was that it runs on a mac, in addition to windows and linux.

 

[Kycntryboy]

I remember a flight simulator growing up, probably when I was in middle school where you could create your own jets with its own properties and then fly it, is there anything out there like that right now?

 

[Kycntryboy]

Keep in mind I'm just a Sgt who's in PLC, but my personal recommendation is Jane's F/A-18E Combat Sim. I've ridden in the back of an F, and sat in the cockpit of an E. So from my limited perspective the replication is perfect, and the actual physics of the simulation are very acurate. The power-to-weight ratio is a little underdone, I think, contrary to most games and sims who make planes way more powerful than their real life counterparts. On top of that they [Jane's] wanted it to be a simulator, not a game, to the point that you have to actually punch the buttons on the UFC and MFD's manually (with the mouse pointer) to get it to do what you want(Don't get it without the manual, you'll be lost.) Plus they do a pretty decent job of capturing DoD vocabulary for radio calls and such. I can't rate how well they sim a trap, of course, but you have to utilize the ball, the AoA ind, and the ACLS needles just like real life, not to mention the pitch & power acting like they really should during a trap. They incorporate all 4 wires on the deck of the carrier, and an LSO even calls out your approach.
My only complaint is the limited color pallate (they emphasized blues and grays, understandably), so you sometimes get the feeling you're playing a black & white sim, despite the color.
Now I look like a nerd, but what the heck. I've gotten hours of daydreaming enjoyment from it.

That looks like a reallly great game, to bad it was made almost 5 years ago but the pics look great, I tried to find a copy on the internet apparently Jane's went out of business, I could only find one copy of it on ebay (that should tell you how scarce it is) and the a-hole was trying to give the buy it now option at $30 which is a little to much for a game that is 5 years old and is probably used. Too bad I was going to try to get it too.

 

[kmac]

I second the mention of X-Plane. It does a better job of modelling the physics per aircraft than MS Flight Sim. Like MS, you can use it to practice approaches or even a PAR (does MSFS have this capability yet?). The one thing that is disappointing is the carrier approach since it does not have a realistic ball.

Jane's F/A-18 is probably the best at modelling that despite the enlarged lens that pops up in the center of the bottom of the screen when you call the ball. There are some flaws built into it, including the LSO's calls but these are minor. The nice thing about Janes is that most of the comms are accurate (especially for a Case III).

 

[Fly Navy]

There are some third party aircraft downloads for Microsoft Flight Simulator that would make your head spin. Hyper-realistic. I had one for the ATR-72 and you HAD to have the checklists and HAD to know how to fly this aircraft and use its systems. Pretty crazy.