Flight Simulatiom

Whats it all about?

As the title implies this hobby is where enthusiasts simulate flying aircraft, ranging from the venerable Cessna to the mighty Boeing 747 on their home PC. They can simulate civil or military operations on a variety of different programmes which are inexpensive and readily available off the shelf at most high street software vendors. The degree of reality they conform to is only limited by their hardware or inclination in fact most modern home simulations have more a comprehensive graphical representation than their commercial counterparts. The truly dedicated simmer can (if they have the time, money and know how), build a complete accurate and fully functional flight deck with motion see below:

The vast majority of simmers simply fly on their standard pc setup with the addition of a joystick for controlling the aircraft as opposed to using the keys. They purchase highly detailed scenery of almost any of the world's majot airports and further enhance the experience by buying high quality accurate aircraft which are a vast improvement over the out of the box variety. They can and often do also purchase utilities such as fuel calculators and advanced IFR flight planner utilities, weather and water enhancing addons are also common place on the keen simmers setup.Simmers also vary in the level of realism they fly at, i.e. some just jump in point the nose skyward and away they go. Others plan out their flight using charts, approach plates, notams and weather adhering as closly as possible to real world operations, this is the individuals choice both the software and hardware is readilly available to accommodate almost any level of realism required. To further enhance their experience simmers often become members of "Virtual Airlines" these organisations offer a more structured way to fly providing flight plans, timetables and often promotion through the ranks as flight hours increase. Another "realism enhancer in onlive live virtual ATC. This is a worldwide system of "virtual" air traffic control, the controllers can track virtual flights across the globe via the internet and provide almost the same service as their real world counterparts indeed many of them are real ATC's as indeed many of the pilots also fly in reality.I hope this has given you a flavour of this element of our hobby, if you would like any further information please email me here and I am more than happy to help.