pete wrote:I flew one of the 1st MSFS (FS2 I think) for the 1st time on a pre windows computer.
Being a real pilot I was bowled over how realistic it was - and in my entire FS life - the only settings I have adjusted is to put all sliders to max or near max -- and I have never had a top of the range PC.
Nor have I ever purchased any addon - all free. My only bugbear is the ground scenery at low altitude and that's why I'm watching what happens on the Google Earth front.
In January 1952 I flew for the first time in a Tante Ju from Iberia, on the lap of my uncle Otto who was the pilot. I had my hands over his controling that aircraft, the sounds of three radials mixing with creaking corrugated aluminum & the wispering wind all over, is one of thee best memories!! We flew from Pamplona to Madrid & back. In January 1956 I crossed the Atlantic in a Super Connie of Air Françe.
Just arriving in México, I started gluing plastic aircraft sine 13 years of age
(1956), back then some Lindberg models had mouvable control surfaces & retracting gears. I was 16 when I started to build
(& loose!) balsa wood rubber powered free flights. Since the wind would take most of them into eternity, I decided to change for Control Line
(RC was very very expensive then), prefering Scale. My first Fokker D.VII
(with Baby-Bee .049 & no starter spring then: we had brave fingers!!) was so paint-heavy that it just hung from the propeler before hiting the ground & braking the prop. Little by little
(& splatering a lot of balsa wood) I advanced to .35 Fox engines & semi-scale for flight enjoyment, plastic props & third line for engine control. Fingers got braver & braver!! I still have some marks on my right hand index... backfiring is a bitch!
On one of my trips to the mexican pacific coast border with Guatemala
(1965) I met this captain fumigating cotton fields from a Kaydet bipe. He invited me to fly the Cañón del Sumidero
(today under water because of a dam) for a recognition & photography mission. When he handed me the controls, we were both surprised that I had
"the feeling" & did not over control, a common beginers error. It turns out that Control Line practice had given me that feel, the time lag between command & response. Since then I held controls flying in a Maule, a Bf-108 of CAF, a few Cessnas, a Piper Cub... and flew in many ultralights with an instructor. Have not flown any aircraft solo yet, nor aplied for any license
(no time & no money). Only in Skydive I went solo in a 30 jumps course.
As for Flight Sims, I started using PC's in 2002, with ME OS nightmare... learned how to install XP. Had my first Lap with Vista in 2012 with enaugh specs to install a copy
(now THREE COPIES!!) of FS 2004 from a DVD. FS 2004 was still not that convincing but not flying at all was worst. Since I had controlled real aircraft, I never had any problem flying with the default
(& AWFULL!!) FS9 configuration. Then, I joined Simviation & entered this Forum Q&A, where I learned how to configure my Lap Vista for efficiency, configure FS 2004 with all sliders to the right & configure the FS9 file. Now, FS 2004 is as smooth as a princess... skin!
Never purchased any addon either, Pete: all free-shareware mostly from Simviation. ABRAZOS