I am not making this page a definitive list of flight simulation links - there are already enough pages providing that information. I will provide links to what I deem the best flight sim web pages, and I will also provide information that I can't find elsewhere. Remember you can use the Flightsim Ring at the bottom to find other sites.
Why you should re-visit this page later - I will update this page with sites I find interesting and useful.
First off, flight simulation is not a game! There are a myriad of
flight simulator software available:
But this hasn't really explained what flight simulation is all about. Without ear-bashing you about how magnificent it can be to feel like you're actually flying (give me a break), I'll give a bare-bones explanation suited to someone who has not heard of it before. Remember, in this page we're only talking about software running on a pc, not aircraft simulators as used by real-life flight schools or large airlines.
Flight simulation is software running on a "standard" pc, although the more powerful the pc is the better. The latest software usually requires a Pentium as the minimum for the software to be usable (I'll explain this later) even though the software may say that a 486DX66 with 8Megs is a minimum - of course, this may suit older software written pre-1995. The software may be DOS-based or Windows-based (3.1 or 95), or even run on a Mac.
A basic flight simulator will have the top half of your monitor appear as
though you're looking out the front of a plane cockpit window, with the
cockpit control panel on the lower half of the screen. Depending upon the
complexity of the software and type of plane, the cockpit instruments will
have an altimeter (to tell you how high you are), a speedometer, throttle
(to increase and decrease engine speed), flaps (to aid takeoffs and
landings), gear controls (to raise and lower the landing gear), compass,
engine gauges (such as oil pressure, fuel, etc), and more and more
instruments as required. You could have auto-pilot controls,
communications radio, navigation radios, ILS -Instrument Landing System-
controls (to aid landings at night or in poor weather), and a host of other
engine gauges. In other words, the cockpit could be extremely basic if
you're in a WWI bi-plane or very complex if you're in a Boeing 747 or
Airbus A200 for instance. This is the Cessna 182RG panel in Microsoft
Flight Simulator:
To control the instruments and the aircraft, you would use the keyboard, plus (as the case may be, and as your pc setup (and budget) allows) mouse, joystick/s, yoke, throttle, and rudder pedals - now we're "really flying"! The keyboard and/or mouse is usually the best way to set and change the instruments, while joysticks, yokes, throttles, and rudder pedals are left to "fly the plane". However, good quality joysticks and yokes have multi-function buttons on them which you can program (very simply) to control certain functions of the plane as you desire. To illustrate this and depending upon the software you're using: to raise the landing gear (once you're airborne silly) you could set-up your simulator to use either the G key on the keyboard, a specific button (or button combination) on the joystick, or a specific button on the yoke.
Usually, novice flyers are content to simply use the keyboard when learning
to understand the basics of flight simulation and trying not to crash on
too many landings (you would use the arrow keys to "fly the plane"). If
the "flying bug bites", it's not too long before the first basic joystick
is purchased.
When flying with just the keyboard, joystick or yoke (flight controls), you
would probably set-up your simulator to have the flight controls link the
ailerons and rudder so that the one motion of the flight control would
activate both the ailerons and rudder for smooth turns. (The ailerons are
the small flaps on the wings that make the plane "tilt", and the rudder is
the flap on the tailplane that makes the plane "turn" - remember, this part
is not intended to explain how a plane flies or the correct terminology, so
please forgive the basic language here.) Having the ailerons and rudder
linked makes flying the plane a lot easier, especially while coming in to
land, but is not realistic and doesn't allow you to replicate landing in
tricky cross-winds. So, once you have "progressed" to owning a yoke, the
next logical choice is buying rudder pedals.
Of course, no-one is stopping you from lashing out and buying your flight simulation software, yoke (or combat joystick and throttle) and rudder pedals all in one go. Hey, go for it (lucky mongrel *grin*).
Usually, various keys or buttons will allow you to view outside the aircraft in different angles, not just straight ahead, so you can look out to the left, right, or rear. You can also use a "spot plane" view, as though you're in another aircraft flying near your own and you're looking at your aircraft from the neighboring one. Other views could be from the control tower, or in the case of fighter planes, you could have a view from a missile - either one you've fired, or one from the enemy as it zeros in on your tailpipe! As with most software, the complexity and availability of functions is dependent upon the flight simulator itself.
Depending upon the type of flight simulation software, the scenery in which you fly is varied. As more advanced techniques for scenery display are designed, we are seeing some unique and "breathtaking" renditions of scenery available for the latest software offerings, including 3D. Flying at 5000 feet and looking down, the visuals are photo-realistic (Flight Unlimited II boasts that flying low you can almost see the birds in the trees). As I hinted at the start, the latest software usually requires a good Pentium to have a usable simulation, so don't be surprised to see the side of the software box recommending a minimum of a P166 to run the sim. As the complexity of the flying model (allowing a plane to fly realistically, so a DC-9 flies/feels like a DC-9 and a F/A-18 Hornet flies/feels like a F/A-18 Hornet) and scenery complexity increases, the frame rates required to allow smooth transitions necessitate a powerful processor, otherwise the plane will appear to fly across the sky in minute jerky motions - very disconcerting and frustrating. Sometimes, you can determine the complexity of the scenery to suit your pc within the software, so you can have "sparse" scenery to speed up the frame rates or "complex" scenery to show the full features of the simulation (at the expense of frame rate speed). Of course, having a P233 or higher plus a top-notch 3d video card allows you to run complex scenery with no problems.
To make the flight simulation more realistic, general aviation software, such as Microsoft's Flight Simulator, provides dynamic scenery. This dynamic scenery allows other objects to move within the simulation, so a fuel tanker could be moving about parked planes, other planes could be taxiing with you, and still other planes could be landing, taking off or flying about the skies in the vicinity. The complexity (number of dynamic objects) can usually be controlled to suit your pc. You can even hear "radio chatter" between other simulated planes and Air Traffic Control.
'So,' you say, 'that's all there is to it? You get to pretend to fly a plane?' Nope. Most flight simulations provide "adventures" for you to fly. With the war-orientated simulators, these are usually flight "missions" which you have to fly, with set targets for you to destroy. For example, some of the F15 Strike Eagle missions simulate the Dessert Storm missions into Iraq. You have primary and secondary targets (random) to destroy, such as a scud missile site or tank column. You have to select your own weaponry (with help provided) and you have to use the in-built radar and instrument systems to fly the route and return to a preset "friendly" airfield. Of course, you can choose the difficulty of the mission, from novice through ace, and you usually have to contend with enemy missiles, AAA (anti-aircraft artillery) batteries and enemy planes.
The non-war simulators provide adventures in various guises. They can be preset flight routes, where you have to calculate your fuel and fly your plane accurately from one airport to another, and are awarded "points" for efficiency. They can be "mystery" flights, where you have to locate various objects (find the pyramid in the dessert) or note various conditions (what was the height of the mountain near some town). You can also fly while a simulated Air Traffic Control (ATC) gives you permission to taxi and take off, tells you to climb to altitude, and gives you flight bearings and destination details, while you have to select various radio frequencies and plot your course as you are handed from one traffic centre to another along your route - complete with "background chatter" from other aircraft. Pro Controller and Squawk Box software allows a real-life person to act as ATC while directing aircraft which are flown by other real-life people over an Internet connection using Microsoft Flight Simulator!
Ancillary to the available software, are what is termed Virtual Airlines. These are usually based around a web home page, and simulate an airline company running flight operations. There are various Virtual Airlines (VA) operating on the web, each with their own operations, plane colors and logos, etc. mimicking the real world. Each VA may have one or more hubs - centres of operations - such as (for the US) the Chicago hub, New York hub. The hubs are overseen by a hub captain, who issues the flight operations to the member pilots. The pilots fly the prescribed routes, at their leisure, and report back to the hub captain with details of the flight. The pilots can progress up the flight ladder, becoming proficient in a certain plane type (eg. Cessna) and achieving captain status, and then train on another plane type (eg. A200 Airbus) and progress up the rank for that plane type. Depending upon which VA you join, the number of plane types, specific rules and available hubs varies considerably. The VA's web page should contain all the necessary files, rules, planes, routes, approach plates, information manuals, etc. required. All you need is the flight simulator software. Virtual Airlines are a fun way to expand the use of the flight simulation experience, at your own pace. I belong to Air Australia and East West Airlines (see the links section below).
Are you bored with flying in clear, blue skies? Well, go to the random weather generator and create some thunder-heads complete with lightning and haze allowing only 1 mile visibility, for a thrilling landing at San Fran's Oakland airport. As you approach the runway (that is the runway, isn't it?) with 300 passengers on board your 747, your palms start to sweat on the yoke and you feverishly re-check (for the fifth time) that the landing gear is down and the flaps are set correctly. Damn, below the glide path and the speed has dropped while I checked those instruments! I don't need this, having spent two hours flying my route from Seattle. If I crash this sucker now, I'm buying that Indy car game! The runway's lined up and the Inner Marker beeps on the panel so now it's decision time - continue on in or abort the landing for a "go around" - all looks good, so you continue. Landing speed's okay, but the plane flies sluggishly with full flaps and gear down (yes, it's down). The runway threshold looms up, you flare the plane, as it glides down for a smooth landing, and you realise that you'd been holding your breath.
For some interesting articles concerning using/flying Microsoft Flight Simulator, see the links section below. A link below also explains how to read those weird aeronautical airport charts.
I run mainly Microsoft Flight Simulator FS98. Until December 1997, I ran a 5-year old 486DX33 with 20Megs RAM and a Trident 8900 video card, on Windows 95. After torturing my wife, she agreed to upgrade the system (click here to read about the trials and tribulations of the upgrade). The following are my current system specs:
I use the yoke/pedals with civilian flight sims (such as MS Flight Simulator) and use the joystick/pedals with military sims (such as Falcon 4.0 and Combat Flight Simulator).
My own experience (and that of others) has proven that a good video card outweighs the importance of a top-line CPU. By this I mean that you could have a screaming P-III with a cheap video card and get lower frame rates than a person with a P266 with a good 3D video card. For comparison, I ran my old Trident 8900 video card on the AMD and got the same frame rates as with the 486DX33, cause the card could not process any faster. As soon as I replaced it with the Diamond Stealth the frame rates "exploded". Food for thought.
As an adjunct to this section, I have created a comprehensive listing of all the separate flight simulator training articles I have found on the web. My Flight Simulator Training Page is worth bookmarking in its own right.
PC Aviator is a flight simulation specialist shop in Melbourne, Australia. They deal only in flight simulation products, such as software, hardware, and all the ancillary stuff as mentioned under "What's flight simulation?" above. The PC Aviator On-line Catalog is the place to go to see what PC Aviator is all about.
Computer Pilot Magazine is an excellent full-color glossy magazine produced in Australia by PC Aviator (see above). There are six issues each year, full of software reviews, hardware reviews, flight instructions, hints, flight simulation industry news, etc. This is the definitive flight simulation magazine for everyone - not only for Australia. For an online index to articles and a full cross-reference of all articles, see my Computer Pilot Magazine Index Page.
MicroWINGS, the International Association for Aerospace Simulations, is a US-based flight simulation company. Check out their impressive site for some excellent information and links concerning flight simulation, aircraft and online question & answer "notice boards". A must-see is their Flight Simulation Products Page which lists practically all flight simulation products, with a description, publisher contacts, and a hot link. Excellent! MicroWINGS also publishes their own magazine - I have not read a copy so I can not comment on it's quality or content, however, their main page has a link to the magazine page for you to check out.
AVSIM Online! was formerly called Aviation Simulation, and produced a monthly online magazine (see below). They still produce the excellent magazine, but have evolved into a great flight sim site, with daily news and heaps of goodies. There is even an extensive Knowledge Base of problems (including software, hardware, aircraft and scenery design, etc.), in fact a plethora of technical articles. This site is huge! Check it out!
FlightSim.Com and the similar simFlight.com are flight simulator specialist web sites, jam-packed with information, updates, news, the works.
Virtual Pilot and AVSIM Online! are an online magazines which can be viewed via the web or downloaded for later viewing. They are both excellent magazines with good quality articles and layouts. Both have daily updates and news stories, so these make excellent sites for re-visiting. Virtual Pilot even has a VA Stock Exchange where you can play the stock market (virtually) with the current Virtual Airlines. Some of the staff of Virtual Pilot write for PC Aviator's Computer Pilot, so this online magazine is no slouch in quality content.
The Aviation Shopping Network and CHS Distributing - High Flight are on-line aviation hardware and software order houses. They specialize in aviation products, from pc simulation to flight-school rated products.
Australia, BASI: Bureau of Air Safety Investigation
United Kingdom, AAIB: Air Accidents Investigation Branch
USA, NTSB: National Transport Safety Board
USA, ASRS: Aviation Safety Reporting System
Canada, TSB: Transportation Safety Board
The web sites below belong to various clubs at Moorabbin airport, Melbourne, Australia.
The Civil Flying School. Links in the left frame, and click Learn to Fly in the right frame for some useful information.
The Moorabbin Flying School. Plenty of info here to keep you happy, but hasn't been updated since early 1997.
Troy Aviation. Quite a few missing links in this site.
The Royal Victorian Aero Club. This site is even kept up to date!
General Flying Services. A good site with plenty to get you up and flying, so to speak.
Click here to download a little program (8k) I wrote to calculate circuit patterns based on the runway heading - nothing fancy.
Radiotelephony Procedures describes the correct radio procedures for ATC and aircraft. These procedures are useful for Virtual Airline pilots who want to use the correct phraseologies in their flying. The procedures here have been reformatted by me (for ease of use) from the official AirServices Australia procedures.
Here are three sites devoted to computer hardware information, which
would suit anyone from a computer newbie to a techonerd, and is a "must"
for anyone wishing to upgrade their computer (and who doesn't at some
time!). Recommendations for motherboards and CPU brands, as well as a
comprehensive listing of makers and brands are provided. The sites are
full of hardware reports, benchmarks, suggestions and recommendations.
They include guides for motherboards, CPUs, chipsets, RAM, harddisks, video,
BIOS, overclocking, and new technology.
You know when you've been flying too long when ... humor.
George Watson's flight simulation links page called Touch & Go has a definitive list of links for newsgroups, general flight sim, virtual airlines, planes, scenery, screen-shots, and heaps more. George compiles the On-Line Flight Sim Resources page for Computer Pilot magazine.
(These links no longer work - if anyone knows the new links, please contact me.) Two "main" pages I found at the same site had me exploring that site for days! The World Wide Guide to Flight Simulation is chock full of pages to keep anyone interested in flight simulation busy (for days, hee hee). Check out the tutorials page which covers everything from building your own rudder pedals, flying different types of planes, instrument flying lessons, performance tweaking, and (as they say) much, much more. The companion site is The World Wide Guide to Flight-Sim Scenery Design and is another information packed site. I'm not into scenery design since FS4, but I found the information fascinating.
Moby's Hanger , by Alan Stuart (an Air Traffic Controller), provides links to some worthwhile sites and heaps of useful information. There are specific links for Australian and New Zealand users, but the site is not devoted to just Aussies or Kiwis.
The Pro Controller Home Page. Pro Controller is the hot add-on to Flight Simulator 95/98. It is an Air Traffic Control program that allows you to control other pilots that are flying with FS95/98, over a server. See also Moby's Pro Controller Page above.
The official site for Microsoft Flight Simulator.
The Simulated Air Traffic Controller's Organization page has some interesting tutorials dealing with air traffic control procedures, flight plan filing, approach plate use, flight strips, and other goodies. Click on the Tutorials link and Lessons link at the SATCO page. Includes a Squawk Box and Pro Controller (two hot add-ons) page. Very interesting, and well worth a visit.
This is the Air Australia Virtual Airline introductory page. I am currently a member of the Melbourne Hub, operating out of Moorabbin airport, Melbourne, Australia, licensed on the twin-engined Chieften (and I have a Private Virtual Pilot certification from Steve's Flight School (see the link below)).
This is the East West Virtual Airline introductory page. I am currently a member of the Melbourne Hub, operating out of Melbourne International, Australia, licensed on the twin-engined Saab 340 turbo-prop.
A useful tutorial on how to read approach plates can be found at one of the pages of the makers of Final Approach. The Home Page of Final Approach and Navigator should be visited as well.
OZPACK are Australia's own Microsoft Flight Simulator scenery design team. Their scenery files, which covers the entire continent of Australia, are donation-ware (a donation is requested for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which operates an aerial doctor and ambulance service in remote areas of Australia). They also have a good selection of aircraft, mostly in Australian civilian and military colors. Of course, you can download all their available scenery files.
I was searching for flight terminology and came across this site. It is the VFA-13 Shadow Riders home page (VHF being the naval designation for fixed-wing, fighter aircraft). This group is into combat simulations, mainly using the F/A-18 Hornet. For an interesting insight, at least read their Squadron History and there is even a Top Gun training school written by an actual Top Gun.
Steve's Flight School contains flight lessons, scenery reviews and heaps more. It is also the home base of Shore Air Virtual Airline. One interesting section has a Virtual Pilot's Certification programme, where you can test your skills and become certified - a very innovative idea - try it.
AirPage, the Interactive Aircraft Handbook, lists all the aircraft manufacturers and their aircraft, with specifications. Another notable site is the FlightNet Africa database for performance specifications by aircraft manufacturer.
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