It isn't personalized towards me.

[Tyrion101]

My favorite flying has always been airliners, I only occasionally fly GA aircraft for fun, I love the challenge of a complex systems like the PMDG 737, or any of their products really, and it seems like the days of airline simming is over. This makes me sad, I will never try Flight again until I find they have added the ability for airline flying.

[JSkorna]

FS 2004 and FSX are still going strong.

[Tyrion101]

I will likely fly FSX until the next MS "simulator" to attempt some sort of whole world, or maybe even one of these days try X plane 10.

[scruffyduck]

There does seem to be a Flight OR FSX. I think it is pretty well established now that Flight is not FS11. It is a GA flying simulation. If your interest in is flying airliners, using ATC, having AI and so on then Flight is not for you at the moment. Fortunately FS9/FSX are going strong and support that. I have both and will use whichever provides the best experience for my interest on the day. I actually prefer GA flying (I crash airliners regularly) so Flight is my first choice at the moment. I would say that the underlying engine for Flight would allow many of the features of FS9/X but we will have to wait and see whether they are turned on some time in the future.

[angels355]

I think what a lot of us have to do is come to the understanding that Flight is a game from the MS Game Studios and not from the Aces. I was watching a video on the making of Halo 4, and they sounded just like the Flight people in their department. It was designed as a game by a game department, they have a particular method and approach, similar to developing sitcom comedies for example versus full featured film series. Or here is another example, the Stargate movie versus the tv series. The movie was grandiose with fine production methods, the tv series carried on the enthusiasm for the story line (many fans love it), however obviously there isn't the same production value. Or vice versa, the Star Trek tv series was definitley a cookie cutter type of production but of course we loved it, especially the Shakespearian quality acting by W. Shatner. Then with the Star Trek movie series you can see the obvious difference in production quality. In brief, the MS FS series by Aces was a high fidelity flight simulator production, whereas Flight is the sitcom tv series so to speak. We can still enjoy Flight if we want or if we like the format, but it is not FS.

If you can accept that, then perhaps you can appreciate Flight for what it is if you like it. It may never be a full flight simulator, but might be entertaining for short bursts.

I also fly heavy metal IFR, I was explaining to someone how I'm less critical about scenery because most of the time I view the world from FL250 to FL960 or on average FL360 and Mach .84. I've only tried one "mission" from FSX, it seemed just like Flight. I think Flight took out the Simulator, and expanded on the "missions". From my viewpoint, what I enjoy doing, it seems just common sense to check the weather, your load and balance, sit there and go through the startup checklist, go through the steps with ATC having already determined your flight plan, and having the airport plates you will be using handy. Then go through all of the complexities of making the flight and landing, and proper taxi to the gate. I just couldn't understand why MS didn't think that was the height of entertainment also.

I think the main reason behind the disparity, managers from Aces and other departments (Game Studios?) argued intensely about the future of the FS franchise. The Game Studio, making a lot of profit, while MS FS was making a good profit it was not a blowout success like the GS big titles, the Game Studio won out, and FS was downgraded or wholesaled out for production by the Game Studio, which as I mentioned their productions are more analogous to tv comedy sitcoms versus feature length movie series. So what GS does, in their more limited format, they do well, but we hardcore flight simmers were left behind. When you fly Flight, you can easily see that it is similar to FS, but really it is not FS, even the buttons are wrong.

These things happen in life, it is sad and hard for us who only cared about FS itself and real high fidelity flying as they call it. MS has been known to make mistakes. FSX has become a new entity with all of the incredilbe addons, and with its' long run the addons will only get better. Perhaps another flight simulator company will step up to fill the void. I am not very hopeful about a future FS, but their management say that it is not ruled out. I'm not optimistic, probably be years, if ever. In the meantime, there is FSX and FS9 plus incredible addons.

[AllanD]

Succinct post angels355, I quite agree! I think a lot of people are unduly hung up on the idea that Flight isn't what they expect, or that it is not an evolution of the MSFS series. It's quite a lot of fun for a free download, even though its is clearly more of a game than a simulator - it is like a modern version of Flight Unlimited III... nobody moaned that you could only fly that around San Francisco, they just went all gooey over the graphics and accepted it for what it was - a fun way to veg out in front of a computer screen!

[ReggieF5421]

It was designed as a game by a game department, they have a particular method and approach.

You do realize that the Flight development team has a higher precentage of real world pilots and higher level pilots, including at least one passenger jet captain, on the team than the Aces staff ever had.

Though it might have an aspect of flying focus like some of the commercial pilots I know. The ones who use FS almost never fly jets, just GA. Those who fly for fun in the real world also prefer low and slow VFR GA. I guess when big jets is your real job, flying one in FS is too much like work.

[remilton]

Would that I could take the best of Flight and marry it to FSX. I enjoy GA flying, but I also like to do it in combination with ATC, Garmin nav instrumentation, AI traffic, custom weather, RealAir and Carenado planes, Obix Scenery and other goodies.