First time simmers

[charles_king]

I am curious to know how long did it take beginners, with no experience at all at flying, to actually start flying the big jets? I assume you go through a course in FS2004, right?

I'm just curious and eager to to start flying. I just bought the FS2004 yesterday and awaiting my computer to arrive. Unfortunately I have to wait a little longer.

Here are my spec guys:

P4 550(800mhz) HT 3.4GHz
1024 MB DDR2 SDRAM (533MHZ)
2 x 160 GB SATA (7200)
An extra removable 160GB (USB 2.0) UATA (7200)
DVD 16x optic player
DVD+/- RW+/- R/R9 player
PCI Express Geforce 6800 256MB
TV card with hard drive recoder and remote control
Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS
cordless mouse/keyboard
TFT 19" 16ms analog and digital connector
Logitech Z-5300 THX (280W) surround sound system

What do you guys think? Will it be able to handle FS2004 with all it's add-ons and glory?

[beefhole]

Welcome to our beloved hobby charles!

[Nexus]

Well, you have a cuting edge rig there  :)
You should have no problems running the game, but don't expect frame rates like in standard shoot'em  up games....for us simmers, everything above 25fps will do  :)
I have mine locked at 25, and my computer was state-of-the-art one year ago    ;D

As for how fast people transition between the small props to heavy iron jets...that's all individual. Take a guy like our forum member Fozzer who is a true FS veteran. It took him many years before flying a B737,simply because he enjoys bush flying much more  :)

But I cannot stress this enough: LEARN THE BASICS..you must know how to walk before you can run, as the old saying goes. So take the lessons that comes with FS2004, and you will always have friendly people here at SimV to help you out when you're wondering about stuff.
When you're comfortable flying the Cessna and the basic navigation principles, then is the time to fly larger stuff. It's never a good idea to jump in the cockpit of a 747 and the ask yourself  "what's ILS?", kinda takes away half the fun with flying the big boys  :)

Small steps at the time is my recomendation

[charles_king]

Thanks guys. Nice to be here. I will take my time but the eager spirit can sometimes get the better of me. I'm so eager to fly the big 737 but know I have to start small gradually gain momentum before tackling the big boy. I'll try to resist jumping the gun.

[Nexus]

Ah..the 737..now there's an aircraft that's close to my heart  :)
Though it's quite small, by Boeing standards  ;D

[Rocket_Bird]

When I was like 9 or 10 years old, I used to have a lot of trouble... with errm.... crashing planes in the old flight simulators.  Took me a fair amount of time to learn it... of course I was very young... With FS2004, I personally found that the tutorials were really well done... and with just a bit of reading and toying around, you will be landing 737s in no time!

And yes your machine is the awesome of awesomeness for running FS2004  ;D

[charles_king]

Thanks the words of incouragement.

I was wondering, I know, Lots of wondering going on. I would like to fly a route between New York and Sweden. Now, is there a flight plan that FS2004 picks out randomly or does this particular route has to be installed as an add-on?

[Rocket_Bird]

Theres a built in flight planner in Flight Simulator 2004 in which you can select where you start from, where you want to go, and it can jot out several routes for you

[charles_king]

Nice! Things are getting clear. Boy, I'm getting over anxious.

i take it though, you must have those flights or planes installed that usually fly this route before this can work right?

[eno]

You can use the default  aircraft to start off with and there's a great selection there. Once you are comfortable with them then there are thousands of downloads, from hundreds of sites to add to your hanger.

In answer to your question everything you need to get you flying either long haul or bush flying is included. So you can jump straight into the 747 and fly Stockholm to New York if you so wish or you can jump in the Cessna 172 and head off into the bush.

As has been said in other posts .... we're all here to help and there's no such thing as a stupid question.

enjoy the wonderful world of simming.

eno

[commoner]

Welcome to the club C-K....There is also GPS and Autopilot which together can take you from where you are to where you want to be with no sweat on your part ......guess the only thing I might add is...NEVER expect to achieve COMPLETE satisfaction with the sim.....NOBODY does..well not for more than 10 minutes anyway....enjoy ...commoner

[charles_king]

Thank you all. I definately will.

One thing I'm curious about is how do you guys handle dual screen setup? I know how to set it up but what windows or screens do you keep on them that are of vital?

Isn't it possible to keep one window open and use the other monitor for scenery at the same time while flying?

[krylite]

yes, it's a great time to get into FS as today's versions are so smooth and visual compared to just 10 years ago.

The flight lessons in fs9 are the best MS has doled out in all the versions. Adapted from  Rod Machado's actual Private Pilot Handbook with imported illustrations.  The "Learning Center" is the real manual for the program giving step by step instructions how to use the features such as ATC the Garmin GPS, and the default planes. Dual screen setup is explained there. You can basically make a new view window and drag it from monitor to monitor.  The checkrides are another story, still ridiculously hard and unrefined since FS2002. Mr. Machado actually makes jokes about going through the lessons step by step to seeing "iron" "in your future", i.e. working up to the 737 lessons.

[z1010]

How long it took me to learn to fly?


I'm only flying for about six or seven years, so I don't know. But there comes a time ...

[charles_king]

Great. Then I look forward to learning the beast