Jay Honeck wrote:
Until now, flying MS Flight Sim '04 using the big screen projector at
the hotel has been cool, but, well, unreal. A joystick -- even a
force-feedback stick, like we used -- is simply a bad compromise

Yes, far better with yoke and rudder pedals with toe brakes.

To solve many of your sensitivity problems and be able to add all sorts
of cool things, be sure to get the #1 FS addon: FSUIPC:

http://www.schiratti.com/dowson.html

Next, order up your local scenery and better terrain from someone like:

http://www.pcaviator.com/megascenery/
http://portal.fsgenesis.net/

I can actually follow the roads and lakes around northern NJ on the
sim!

Personally, I use a sim to pre-plan flights (hey, look there's a ridge
I could use as a landmark, cool), practice instrument scan and
navigation (zoom yourself somewhere random and then try to find
yourself with VORs), and to keep fresh with flows. The last requires
you go a bit crazy and build radios, fuel, magneto, etc switches in
more or less the right spot to practice emergencies.

So here comes some radio links, which should make you drool a bit:

http://www.flyelite.com/hardware.php
http://www.goflightinc.com/order/index.php
http://sim.itra.de/default_en.htm
http://www.simkits.com/

Best, Kev