I first came across one of the early Microsoft Flight Simulators about 7 or 8 years ago. It was a very complicated programme relying mainly on keyboard controls to fly the plane, and a list of commands as long as your arm, that you needed to try and remember in order to get your plane off the ground. The graphics in those days were terrible but that was probably understandable considering the PC's and graphics cards available on the market then.
Flight simulators have however come on in leaps and bounds over the last few years and Microsoft's latest two versions, FS2002 and FS2004 (FS9) are top class. FS2002 was a great leap forward in terms of graphics and reality compared to previous version with many great features. FS2004 entitled "a Century of Flight" built on the great FS2002 version and enhanced the graphics and some of the GPS systems. Athough a great package besides these two main features it is fairly similar to FS2002.
Features of Microsoft FS2004
The great thing about MS Flight Simulator is that there are an enormous amount of adds ons that you can download from the internet for free! Just about any plane you can think of is available for download somewhere on the net if you look hard enough. Flight simulators not only enjoy flying aircraft and learning the many different aspects of virtual aviation, but many of them like to create and design their own aircraft and liveries or colour schemes. Often this is based on their real life experiences of flying in different aircraft with different airlines.
Their is also a wealth of information and forums for Microsofts Flight Simulators and even better, tonnes of realistic scenery available for download for just every possible location you can think of!
One site I can highly recommend for all your Microsoft Flight Simulator add-ons is www.simviation.com
