I have been keen on flying of all descriptions for quite a few years now. I've had probably about 2 hours total actual flying experience (Cessna & a couple of gliders & a microlight) and really enjoyed it. I still have plans to get myself a paramotor once I'm feeling cash-flush enough (maybe in 10 years when my kids have left home!?
). However, in the meantime, I've decided the time may be right to get into some flight simming!I have dabbled briefly in flight sims in the past, but they have not held my attention due to the low scenery detail. Now however, things seem to have progressed markedly and I have been pretty impressed with what I've seen on my Internet forays on the topic. One particular Youtube clip took me a full 2 minutes to work out if it was actually simulated or if it was real and someone was pulling my leg, and I'm an IT engineer by trade as well as a gamer so I've seen a heap of impressive graphics before!
I've done a fair bit of Internet research on the current FS offerings, but TBH I'm a bit confused about what the best option for me is. There are of course a number of different options, each with varying pros and cons and a huge array of addons, some of which won't work with others and each also with their own set of pros and cons. So after stumbling on this healthy looking (& local!) forum I thought I'd ask you, the experts, what you think is my best option & why?! Any comments or suggestions gladly accepted!
Basically my requirements & preferences are (in order of importance):
- Scenery detail (Not just airports)
- Accurate local (New Zealand) scenery content
- A variety of planes to fly (and I REALLY want to be able to fly a YF23, my favorite plane of all time!)
- Oculus Rift support (or future support for)
- Accurate flight physics modelling (although this doesn't have to be a deal breaker and it doesn't have to be HUGELY accurate, just believable)
Basically I want to be able to fly modern jets low and fast, exploring large areas of detailed NZ scenery, with the occasional passenger jet runs / shenanigans.
Obvious contenders (in my mind at least) are:
- FSX (I am concerned about its age, compatibility with modern systems & seemingly huge hardware requirements for maximum detail)
- Prepar3D 1.x / 2.0 (I haven't been able to find much in the way of details about v2.0 yet!)
- XPlane (tho content for this seems to be lacking)
As for budget, let's leave that aside for the moment, I'll work out what I want first and how to pay for it afterwards!
So, fire away, what do you advise oh wizened ones?
Sam.
.. such a .. well - scraped design BUGGER ME ! ..............or did they 
.. lucky this is only a private message 
