Ever since I started flying with Flight Simulator 2000, I've been trying to develop the most realistic flight experience from my desktop that I could find. This has been a rather expensive feat for me however, but I'm going to be offering tips and tricks in this month's article that will help those of us with limited budgets who can't go and buy those Flight Consoles from Go-Flight or other gear that we hear about so frequently on our favorite website, FlightSim.Com.

To start off, bear these items in mind for the ultimate home flying experience:

1. What type of flight do I want to perform? Airline, general aviation, or military? There are numerous resources out there that can help us achieve the most suitable realistic level, (although with military that is kind of difficult to accomplish) If you think to yourself, "I'm going to do a flight with Southwest Airlines from Providence's T.F. Green Airport, do what I do: Go to T.F. Green Airport's home page, and find the departures, and look up Southwest. They will have a list of times and cities Southwest is flying to. Then, when you find a flight, write down its flight number, so if you fly on Vatsim, you can place in the call sign Southwest Airlines Flight Number #####. You can also go to Airliners.net and look up airlines, and use their proper registration number in repaints and find out where that flight is at the airport in the captions, and search for "show similar photos" and see if it lists any other airports that plane may go to, and you have yourself a route that way. If it is a general aviation flight, such as a corporate jet, try these other steps for more realistic environment.

2. When you fly in the real world, you do not have the luxury of changing time of day, weather, and visiblity selections. That is one area that Flight Simulator lacks in "as real as it gets." When I fly, I now keep the time to what it actually is - before I used to go all over the clock. Sure, you might miss some pretty scenery going by, but what is it all really about? Racking up the flight hours.

3. When you do fly at night, try this: Turn off any overhead lighting in your office or room where your computer is. If you have a Go-Flight rack set up like I do, you can still see from the glow of the monitor. Also, another item to pick up so you can write down your clearances to properly read back on the Vatsim controllers, is a USB powered LED light that you can plug into your computer. It is just bright enough like those map lights and can easily simulate a nice glow of the instrument panel flood lights. I remember reading this one back in the old days when I was into the Flight Simulator 2000 with the red instrument panels for some of the new Microsoft planes still use red gauges: pick up a red light bulb and plug it in the desk light nearby. That will also simulate the nice red glow of the gauges to make it more realistic feel in your office. Do use caution in changing the bulb afterwards however, depending on how long you fly, it will get hot!

4. Weather. If you have a broadband connection or cable connection, there's no reason why we can't fly with the real world weather. Always use the real world weather to have what we have outside at that momment. It makes it a wonderfully challenging flight when you don't know what to expect out there instead of using the weather themes such as "fair weather" or "clear skies".

5. Also, don't try to go nuts for taking excellent screen shots all the time on your flight. Actually, flying on Vatsim, I find it rather difficult to take excellent screenshots because I concentrate more on the flying. They also don't like pilots to pause the simulator either. Usually, I can get one on the ground, one or two good ones enroute, record the landing, play it back, and then capture the screen shot. Sure they're nice to have, but they do clutter the hard drive and take up extra space, which can slow down performance on the computer.

Remembering these little tips can help out alot to make your flight time more enjoyable. Try them and feel free to let me know what you think...I always enjoy hearing from my readers.

Performance on computer systems will vary so please don’t email me about my FPS too slow if I mention them on mine. Computer system for this article and all others of Flap’s Flap is the following: Dell Dimension 4600 2.66 GHz Pentium 4 Processor 512MB RAM 128MB Nvidia GeforceFX 5200 AGP 8X Graphic Card 19" Flat Screen Monitor Altec Lansing Surround Sound Speakers Go-Flight Cockpit Control System

If you happen to come up with some tips on your own, please feel free to email them to me for future publications in my Flap’s Flap articles - Be sure to include your real name so I can give you proper credit as well.

Now, for some light legal stuff:

Flap’s Flap does not accept any responsibility for varied performance in systems. Please note my system specs and the display properties work fine with MY system. Set your display properties accordingly to your computer. Also, with any How To items that are given in these articles, please use at your own risk! I will hold no responsibility to any damage done to your system. And, as always, remember: Back up your files before changing them!

John J. Thuot II
ragtopjohnny01@aol.com

Read Flap's Flap #1
Read Flap's Flap #2
Read Flap's Flap #3
Read Flap's Flap #4
Read Flap's Flap #5
Read Flap's Flap #6
Read Flap's Flap #7
Read Flap's Flap #8