Lol, same richardson. I think the aircraft settings only go up to high. Thats with high detail VC textures, reflections, shadows and landing lights. Don't think there is any ultra high setting because there are so few settings for aircraft in the options menu anyway.
From what I can make out the display settings are affected by your video card. Having an outdated video card myself I was never able to permanently select some display settings. Some are linked & it's impossible for me to select full Terrain detail "Land & water" & "Water effects". I can have either but not both. Even when it's possible to select some options like "Ultra High" this returns to "High" when I exit Settings. I assume that it's only possible to select "Ultra High" if you have a powerful video card that supports all the FS9 features.
It might be possible to change this for some video cards by tweaking display.cfg.
Thanks Gunner. I also get the water effects but not the reflections. Strange as I did before reinstalling Windows. Not to worry as I really need a complete new system. Not likely in the near future though so I shall just have to put up with it.
I think that when you have water reflections on high, you can only move the land and water detail half way - land only. I think this happens in all fs9's and doesn't depend on your video card.