Three Flight Simulator Mistakes to Avoid

The early personal flight sims were marketed initially as games: graphics were simple, and the demands on the low-powered computers of the day were modest. All that has changed. Now there are a number of fully-featured airplane simulator programs on the market.

The in-flight graphics of today's programs are almost unbelievable when compared with the early airplane simulators for personal use. But all those graphics and quick responses to control inputs take a toll on computer resources. Here are three critical things to check before plunking down your cash for a flight simulator.

1: Computing power. Will the simulator match your computer system's specs? Many computer games make heavy demands on the amount and speed of a computer's random access memory, or RAM, and flight simulators are no exception. And, many of today's flight sims require lightning fast video cards with their own block of memory. As you can imagine, a graphics-heavy simulation that is moving rapidly across the screen demands a lot more of a video card than does a simulation of a piece of paper in a word-processor, or an array of cells on a simple spreadsheet.

Seasoned gamers tend to spend a fair amount of money on their computers, with high-end video cards, lots of RAM, hard disc drives that can read and write information quickly, high-definition monitors, speaker systems, and much more. But even when armed with fast hardware built expressly for gaming, some flight simulator enthusiasts have been frustrated by the sluggish frame rates (the speeds at which graphics are refreshed) and the load times for the latest versions of Flight Simulator and other popular programs.

Before you buy a flight sim package, be sure you carefully check the requirements for the software. A flight simulation that advances in choppy jerks, or just freezes when too many demands are made on the computer's processing chip or video card RAM, can be a disappointing flight sim event.

2: Expandability. Is the program expandable for external controls? Almost any flight simulator on today's market comes ready-to-fly out of the box using a system of keyboard controls. For example, the up arrow pulls the nose of the aircraft up; pressing the down arrow reverses the stick pressure. But, of course, pilots don't control airplanes with computer keyboards.

If you become a flight simulator enthusiast, you're going to want to control the simulator with more realistic inputs. Make sure that the flight simulator you're considering will take a number of control inputs, such as joysticks, yokes, throttle controls, and rudder pedals. The majority of the controls marketed today come with USB inputs, but some flight sims can still provide a struggle for configuring a specific control device. Check to see if the manufacturer recommends a certain brand or model of control input before you purchase the software.

3: Regular software updates. Are updates available for the software? Make sure that you're not purchasing a flight sim package that has been orphaned by the software manufacturer. There should be updates including new scenery packages, additional, and other features such as air traffic control instructions and weather phenomena. For example, flight sim enthusiasts have been waiting for the next release of Microsoft Flight Simulator for more than four years. And that release may be a long time coming, because Microsoft disbanded the product's development team in 2009. If you experience problems with a flight sim package that turns out to be orphaned, you might not have any support group to turn to.

An airplane simulator can be a great source of entertainment. Flight simulators can provide hours of fun, learning to fly your own aircraft from the comfort of your own desk. Investigate the software available, compare the features of realism, and benefits such as being able to load the program on more than one computer, and definitely check the specifications.

With the right flight sim software that matches your computer's performance, you'll be off the runway and bound for the wild blue yonder, and at a cost far less than even a single hour in a real trainer.


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Gary MacFadden is a licensed pilot and a flight simulator enthusiast, and has published widely on flying topics, including biennial flight reviews and licensing requirements. Visit http://www.eairplanesimulator.com for a free video on what to look for in your next airplane simulator.