Crude flight simulators were among the first types of programs to be developed for early personal computers. Bruce Artwick's subLOGIC simulators were well-known for the functionality they managed to get onto 8-bit machines.

The advent of flight simulators as home video game entertainment has prompted many users to become "airplane designers" for these systems. As such, they may create both military or commercial airline airplanes, and they may even use names of real life airlines, as long as they don't make profits out of their designs. Many other home flight simulator users create their personal, virtual version of their favorite real world airline, and so virtual airlines such as Virtual Delta, Mexicana Virtual, Virtual Aeroflot, Viasa Virtual and so on can be found online. These modifications to a simulation (colloquially known as 'mods') generally add much to a simulation and often grant a significantly expanded playing experience with new situations and content. In some cases, a simulation is taken much further in regards to its features than was intended, or even envisioned by its original developers. Falcon 4.0 is an excellent example of such modification; whole new warzones were added along with the ability to fly hundreds of different aircraft, as opposed to the original single flyable airframe.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Ever wondered what it's like to fly? Step into the cockpit with Microsoft's Flight Simulator X and find out. The culmination of nearly 25 years of the landmark Flight Simulator franchise, Flight Simulator X is the most significant upgrade to date.

Microsoft Flight Simulator has been around for about 25 years, which is a long time in the world of software. In fact, Microsoft has been continually publishing Flight Simulator longer than anything else.

Flight Simulator X may be one of the hottest new computer games around, but don't be fooled, it's not like any game you've ever experienced. It's a simulation!

There's a unique sort of fun to be had using Flight Simulator, and there's no easy way to describe those who fall under its spell. Our fans include young kids barely able to read, teenage gamers looking for a thrill, college students at top aviation universities, airline pilots, truck drivers, doctors, teachers, CEOs, plumbers, movie stars, administrative assistants, retirees, and everyone in between.

Private MS Rating

Here are my FSX flight ratings as of the above date. Even though I had done the same for FS9, I thought I give it another shot and see if they fixed the few bugs that were present in the FS9 check rides.

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Get ready to take flight as two certified flight instructors guide you through the pilot ratings as it is done in the real world, starting with Sport Pilot training, then Private Pilot, followed by the Instrument Rating, Commercial Pilot, and Air Transport Pilot. They cover the skills of flight, how to master Flight Simulator, and how to use the software as a learning tool towards your pilot’s license. More advanced topics demonstrate how Flight Simulator X can be used as a continuing learning tool and how to simulate real-world emergencies.

PC-based simulations, though touted by many in the aviation community as excellent flight training aids, are not being used to their full potential. This guide and the accompanying CD illustrate how to get the most out of Microsoft® Flight Simulator with general suggestions, specific advice, and practical tools. Student pilots can use the comprehensive information to review specific concepts and prepare themselves for formal flight instruction, while certified pilots can upgrade their navigation skills, learn about advanced aircraft and procedures, and complement their real-world flying with additional hours in the virtual skies.

Flight Simulator X Service Pack 2

Flight Simulator X SP2 update introduce a new slew of performance improvements. These improvements are various but the bulk of the work focused around the improvement of our scenery/autogen batching technology. These goals were main in order to reduce the number of “draw calls” (number of times we ask DirectX to draw something) made to the hardware as the overhead involved is actually quite significant and is one of our major bottlenecks (especially on multi-core machine where other background tasks are spread across various cores). I do not have specific numbers on this and millage will generally vary based on settings and location. But overall, based on our test suite, the improvements offset the costs that came with some of the architecture changes we had to make in order to support DX10 and in some cases goes a little further and gives a reasonable performance boost.

Download MSX SP2 from the Microsoft site, or click here. Update to the latest DirectX as well, from here.