Jay, I'm sure you're right when you say with enough additional
components one can get the MSFS to be more realistic. I was interested
in the out of the box experience, I tried the thing again with realism
set high, and yes, it torqued to the side, and was a lot 'touchier'
than the out of the box unit. My limited experience with Mooneys (I
have only logged time in a Ranger simulate that Joe bar landing gear
retraction, boys and girls and an M20J) tells me its soul is a
beautiful, intellegent, and responsive woman. I wouldn't want mine to
know I was messing around with another Mooney. "It's only simulation,
dear, with a younger and faster model" would make my next flight
difficult :-).


I am only a sample of 1, but was led to understand controlling a sim
airplane from a primititive keyboard was difficult. It was not. I
'flew' with not nearly the level of precision that would be acceptable
in RL, but never the less up and down arrowed well enough to not bend
electrons.

I am also more aware that an important part of the flight experience
is wrapping the airplane around me. The seating is low, legs are in
tunnel, view to the side in flight is great, and the control 'feel' is
exquisite . RL flying for me is steak, I was hoping for hamburger, and
got candy cotton.

I don't want to build a pseudo Mooney in my office. I'm sure doing all
of that would get the experience well out of the candy cotton level
and even past hamburger helper, but it's not that important to me.

I appreciate the offer of sim time with your rig, and if I find myself
in your corner of the world (or as a way point) I'll take advantage of
it. My bio technology real life world is not randomly distributed, but
rather is in clusters. So far the upper midwest is one of the leaner
areas (exclusive of the area around Rochester MN). BTW, there are a
couple of good B school theses hidden in that question: how come
Rochester MN, or Cleveland OH?

I'm going off frequency now.


On Mar 1, 12:29 pm, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
This is what I think of PC simulators also.

Tony and Danny, you guys got it wrong. Way wrong.

You can't fly a flight sim program with a KEYBOARD. Try to drive your
car by pushing arrows on a keyboard, and let's see how far you get.
You'll be wrapped around a tree in a few blocks.

You can't expect realism from a sim without real flight controls.
With a real yoke/throttle/prop/mixture, and rudder pedals (with
brakes), trust me, you'll find it real enough.

And, as others have pointed out, you also have to set the realism
levels up. Out of the box, MSFS is designed for 12-year-olds who have
no clue what they're doing. Slide the realism controls all the way to
the right, and I guarantee that you will NOT track straight down the
runway on take-off!

See our set-up hehttp://alexisparkinn.com/flight_simulator.htm

I'll let you fly it all day. I'll set you up in your Mooney, in any
weather, day or night, at any airport. You'll go away with a
different attitude toward Microsoft Flight Simulator, guaranteed.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"