On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 05:01:41 -0700, "Tom Sixkiller"
wrote:

Maybe that's why, a few years back, MSFS '98 had me crash into a mountain
on a flight from CHD to the Grand Canyon when flying at 13,000 feet. That's
1000 feet higher than any terrain in the area (Mt. Humphries, which was
misplaced by 70 miles). I never went back and bothered to upgrade the
product. It also misplaced the runways about 100 feet left or right.

I don't know what the FS98 terrain was based on, but I have a feeling it
was at least a lot less accurate and probably not based on the same
digital elevation data that the newer versions are. The landscape looks
a LOT better in FS2004 than FS98, believe me.

A couple more notes:

- the resolution of the terrain mesh in FS2004 varies by area, but
almost without exception it is lower than what you get get both as
freeware and payware add-ons. (See http://www.fsgenesis.net for both
types.) But, in general the stock data should be sufficient to represent
mountain peaks and the like accurately. The higher-rez mesh serves
mostly to make mountains and hills look a lot more realistic.

- Many times, I have flown instrument flight plans and approaches in
FS2002 and 2004, using add-ons that hook up the Garmin GNS530 PC-based
emulator softare to FS. I've never noticed any inaccuracies whatsoever
(in the area I fly, which is almost always northern California) with
respect to elevations, runway locations, etc. in FS and in the Jepp
database in the emulator. I have also never run into rocks in the
clouds unexpectedly.

I can set the wx up for 800' overcast and 1/2 mile viz, shoot an ILS,
and assuming I keep everything centered I'll be perfectly lined up with
the runway on short final. And, just as you'd expect, for non-precision
approaches the runway shows up somewhere other than where I'm pointed
8^) . I'm not a terribly experienced IFR pilot by any means but my
experiences in FS are very realistic as compared to the IFR work I *did*
do during the instrument ticket training.

Dave Blevins