MAD1

Hmm, more handy Bob Seaman tips! Today, Sun 22 Nov 2020, I installed the Brisbane International (YBBN) scenery from the FlightSim library archive (also available from VATSIM). I've seen it before, but must have installed it onto my other WinXP PC (which is inactive at the moment, got an erratic power supply). Anyhow, looks very similar to the airport as it is now. I've been in that place numerous times, in reality. The install went seamlessly (following the readme instructions). Also I have my regional area airports: Archerfield (a suburb of Brisbane) which is a very active GA training airport; Ballina (near me), and Coffs Harbour (a little south "down the coast" from me). So given Brisbane was a doddle, the others will be also. Will make my "home base" Ballina. And yes Bob, that is what I do, I have as my default, my Cessna 172 parked off to the side of any location that anyone in multiplayer might come online at, and with everything shut down. Thanks for the great responses. More anon. Cheers, Mark.

Thanks Bob for the reply and great tips. For some folks they want the "best possible" scenery. For others, like me, although that makes the experience more realistic and "pretty", but given the limitations of FS2002 "as is", I'm more interested to have the flying experience, i.e. the flight dynamics model, and just ignore the fact that 02 is much less pretty than later sims. (If I want to see reality, I use Google Earth to look at things, and if inclined, use it's built-in sim, and if you tilt the display until just before the instruments fade out, you get a good forward view.) My main focus is being able to climb in, start the engine, taxi, take off, do a circuit, land, more or less professionally. Still haven't achieved that and am still in the "out of the box" Cessna 172SP (yesterday I did a single circuit and went pretty well, however my altitude control is poor, was trying to do a 1000' circuit but drifted up to 1500' as shown on the flight analysis, but did use the heading bug for the first time (set to my takeoff/landing runway of 15) and gee, that did make all the difference in getting nice square turns, and could see the strip at the proper orientation through all legs. So the sim "out of the box" does "float my boat" or perhaps that should be tweaked to "fly my plane" (as the saying says "whatever floats your boat"). Being a returned newbie (have been a newbie for 15 years! But I say I'm just a "late developer"!) simming and new to FlightSim, but at 65 yrs in the "mature" category, I'm finding it very interesting to browse back through the forums. Wow, what a legacy, approaching 20 years of community! I've made contact with Chris Tarano, who seems to be active with FS2002, and he's sent me various scenery files, which I haven't had a chance to look at yet (still working full-time, got a house and wife to maintain, etc. etc.). Like I said in my first post, I want to "this time around" with simming, do it "properly", take my time, and work my way through the training. Am more and more impressed as I go deeper into the sim "properly" about how well the Microsoft Flight Simulator group developed and presented their product range. It's just so good! The Rod Machado training, with the ground school support material is excellent. Being both a computer guy professionally, and a educator/trainer also, I know a quality product when I see it. By the way, have finally realised my dream of setting up a somewhat decent sim booth. I have a semi-retired 1981 (yes, it's officially in the "classic" category, over 30 years old, and actually 40 yrs old in Jan 2) Mazda 929SL car in my garage under the house, and have put the gear in it. Being in a physical cabin adds to the feeling of being in an aircraft cabin. Plus I can lock the car, and it's so nice to be able to simply say to the wife "am going for a little fly...", unlock the car, plug in the power, start the PC, start the sim. Being Australia, the steering wheel is on the right side, so I have my yoke on the proper left front side, 1 standard desktop screen in front of me (I rigged up a little metal support stand for it), and to my right and below the dash, a second screen where I move the instrument panel to plus map view. On the front screen I enlarge the Cockpit view to fill the screen, zoomed full out. So it's quite a good surrogate setup. And cheap, cost me basically zero in money and only a little time. I just want to fly, I don't want to fiddle! I did try getting multi-player going, and dabbled in the last few months with VATSIM (have dabbled in all these places over the years, but not seriously), but now they've dropped Squawkbox and gone to their newer comms software, I can't work in that space. I recently tried FlightGear again, but problems with that, although it's very good. So I've decided to simply stay alone, and it has the benefit of no internet required. Will post a photo of the setup sometime soon. I hope to work my way, slowly, through all the training and get the various certificates. (As a young man I had six hours solo in a Blanik glider, and have dabbled in the past as a social member of my local flying club and got a number of free passenger rides in Cessna's etc. with the guys practising their circuits.) I have FS2000 also, and use the hardcopy manual that came with that. FS2000 training uses the Cessna Skylane 182S whilst FS2002 uses Cessna 172SP and the tutorials are slightly different, but as I only use the 2000 book and do the actual training in 2002 it isn't confusing. Finally, here are my notes re the FS2002 Introductory flight: about 11 minutes long. Montgomery Field, San Diego, California, runway 10L, Tue 28 Aug 2001 local time 18:48 (dusk, I change this to noon). Student does takeoff and climb to 1000', 2m20s Rod takes over, does a turn, 4m20s turn right, 4m50s Rod turns left, 5m student turns left, 6m Rod finds airport, 6m20s flaps 5 degrees rpm 1900, Rod lines up airport and student lands it. In the "Scenic Wonders" flights, interesting to note the two Sydney Australia items: FS2002 "Sydney Scenic" is dated 1 Feb 2001, whilst the included FS2000 flights (nice of them to have included them), "Sydney Harbour Tour" is 1 May 1997. This makes sense re the sim versions.

I have my old WinXP with FS2002 installed "out of the box". Works perfectly. Great framerate. Have gone "back to basics", and applying self-discipline, am working my way through the Rod Macado training. Very good. Am learning heaps. Started with the Intro flight. Last weekend I wrote down the timeline of the video. Now ready to go back through the Tutorials. Have the FS2000 hardcopy manual, which is very enjoyable to study, especially with a glass of beer or wine in the back yard under the tree in the sun. Will post my results of my study in this thread ongoing. A sim is a sim, no matter what epoch and vintage. If you like your sim, just simply enjoy it. Happy flying simmers!

Your son is quite young at 10. So I'd suggest a simple setup to start with, to see if he likes it, and he can then progress further as he gets older. Often children are very interested and excited about something for a short time, then lose interest and move on to other adventures, which is quite natural in their learning journey. So before you invest a lot of money and effort in a computer and the latest and greatest flight simulator (the world is all abuzz at the moment with Flight Simulator 2020, but as mrzippy said, that's very advanced). I don't have that, I have older software which suits my needs very well, and older sims can be bought very cheaply or got for free, and will work well on older equipment, but that's another story, as kids always want the latest and greatest like their friends and game type software is notorious for needing the latest and greatest computer (hardware). A good starting place, and quite realistic, with actual aerial photography, is Google Earth. It's free, is well known across the world, and has a built-in flight simulator, which for a 10 year old is not too complicated and will teach him the real experience of flying - ascending, descending, turning, landing etc. (and concepts such as pitch, roll, yaw). It has two planes built-in, a fast jet fighter and a "more normal" plane, he can learn proper flying things in the normal plane, and also have fun with the fighter (and if his friends are visiting him) zooming around. I use Google Earth sim to explore the "real world" (anywhere in the world!). Am happy to help with Google Earth flight simulator if you're interested (as I'm sure many other members can help with tips also.) You've come to the right place with FlightSim.com, as I'm a new member and am impressed by the very kind, helpful and professional advice, and the many years that this fraternity has been operating. You can feel safe and secure if you wish the FlightSim community take you and your son "under its wing" to get the boy started in the right direction in the right way. Cheers, Mark (VH-MAD in Australia)

As a newbi to flightsim.com and getting familiar to the forums, threads and user interface. Am interested if anyone else is using FS2002, the subject of this thread, and also if multiplayer will still work. The recent posts in this forum indicate there are still active users. Been researching this via e.g. YouTube etc. Found and joined "Australian Aviation East Coast" group and now got their discord going. Also joined Digitalthemepark.com. Re FS2002 users, just counting up the number of posts in forum "FS2002", thought it might be a dormant forum, but this year 2020 there have been 10 users posting 12 posts (22 to 31) starting 20 April 2020 (the last post before that was 24 Jan 2019, over a year before): Senior Member: Kapitan, doering1, zswobbie1 (Robin) Member: Ctarana45 (Christopher Tarana), UPHILL3, Skywatcher12 (Mark Danials) Junior Member: me MAD1 (was VH-MAD) (Mark), zswobbie1, dibbelld (Casey), casey jones, caphavoc. It seems that Member BobSeaman has a long history and is very knowledgeable about FS2002. Re forum “Group Flights & Events” I've just started thread “Multiplayer FS2002 - FSHostSpy”. I found FSHostSpy, downloaded and run it. Didn't know if anyone is still using it, but I've been seeing users login to it. I tried to connect in FS2002 to the sessions that show active users online but nothing showed up in "sessions". Will make this subject a new thread. I presume I need to do something re configuration etc. If anyone can help me, please see my thread "FSHostSpy", I'd very much appreciate any help I can get.

I found FSHostSpy, downloaded and can run it on my Windows XP PC. Didn't know if anyone is still using it, but I've been seeing users login to it. I tried to connect in FS2002 to the sessions that show active users online but nothing showed up in "sessions". Will make this subject a new thread. I presume I need to do something re configuration etc. If anyone can help me, please see my thread "FSHostSpy", I'd very much appreciate any help I can get. Questions: 1. Can I connect FS2002 via FSHostSpy to an active session? (Is this environment still working?) 2. If I get a succesful connection, can I communicate with other users, will I see their aircraft? 3. If 1, 2 are successful, can I communicate/see only other FS2002 users or will I also be interactive with FS2004 users?

Thanks Tom for the reply. As a newbie to FlightSim.com and also Digitalthemepark and Teamspeak3, am having the usual newbie experience of "learning the ropes". But am making progress, I'll get there! Am still unsure if I can connect my "legacy software" FS2002 into any multi-player environment. I found FSHostSpy which seems to still be active, and am posting a new thread re that (if it's not appropriate to put it into this forum, someone will advise me). Thanks again Tom, greatly appreciated. Cheers, Mark (MAD1, was VH-MAD).

Interesting, will have to go south and see if I see it.

Your post is old now, being April 2020, but if still interested, it's 2000. I have the physical book. The training is Rod Machado's school. The book has the Ground School lessons. I have FS2000, FS2002. In 2002 there is no book, the content is within the program. Yes, it's very good, I also have gone through the lessons and learnt from it about VOR etc.

Hi Tom, am interested in multiplayer. Have installed TeamSpeak3. What is DCS? Cheers, Mark (VH-MAD).

Hi all, found this thread just now. Have started my thread in this FS2002 forum, "FS2002 still being used. Legacy sim community." Very glad to find folk who are still using it. I think having simmers that can help newbies including kids and people e.g. older folk, who don't have the latest hardware or sim software, and who don't have the money or inclination to upgrade, is a good thing. At 65 I'm heading into the latter category. (Am still working full-time in computer mapping, so don't have much time or inclination for this hobby.) If we can support "low end" installations that's a community contribution. Anyhow, talking of "cheap", I got FS2000, FS2002, "VIP Classic Airliners", all in their boxes, from a friend who found them in his local council garbage tip, I got my CH Products Flight Simulator yolk from my local council garbage recycled shop, $5 (Australian) I think, it has two broken levers, only the throttle lever is intact, and was very stiff and jerky in yoke movement. I left it on the shelf for a couple of years, had wanted to pull it apart and service it but was afraid I might not get it back together again. But recently I decided to have a go, and was pleasantly surprised at how simple the innards were. Just used vaseline to lubricate all the sliding parts, and then drilled tiny holes in the top of the broken levers and inserted two short lengths of small wire into the holes, bent the wire around enough to form a short lever, installed into my 1981 Mazda 929L semi-retired "classic" car in my garage, which I'm using as a Dr Who Tardis ("bigger on the inside than on the outside") virtual environment, on the front passenger side (left side in Oz, so aviation correct), and it all works beautifully, no adjustment required. The yoke has much more subtle movement: pitch, yaw etc. than my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick (that was an extravagance a few years ago, bought new, $50). There's something nice about saving stuff that would go to the tip and either repurposing or saving it. So I'm a very happy camper living in the past in my FS2002 legacy world. Have FS2000 also (installed on a defunct PC, so not using it, but want to get the Concorde from it into FS2002, my ultimate goal is to fly it) and as that has the physical manual, am now doing "proper" training by going through the Rod Machado ground school lessons, then the tutorial flights, slowly and carefully. It really is enjoyable, and learning much. Very similar to my actual Blanik glider training I did in 1979! I had 6 hours solo. Am still getting used to powered flight, that combo of "pitch, power, trim" is what I'm enjoying getting under my belt currently.

Hi all, just joined FlightSim. Have FS2000, FS2002, latter is what I use. I'm quite happy with FS2002 as it meets my needs, and I don't want to fiddle around with new software, spending lots of time, and money. Am gratified to see here in FlightSim.com what seems to be a community of users who are still using it, so I might have some "friends" to get help and advice from now and again. (Have had the software for years, but little time or enthusiasm to get really into it, so have only dabbled over the years. I have flown a Blanik glider when younger, so have real flight experience.) Question: Is it still possible to join an online network with my FS2002? If so, what network might I investigate? Is FS2002 and FS2004 (FS9) more or less compatible, i.e. by following FS2004 forum/discussions, will that suffice re my installation (Windows XP, works well). I have recently set up my sim environment in the cabin of my 1981 Mazda 929L semi-retired classic car in my garage. It's comfortable and provides a realistic environment (if you throw in a little imagination). Have a yoke and two standard desktop monitors. That's enough for me for now. I recently investigated VATSIM (after a break of some years), FlightGear, etc. But now that VATSIM has changed it's communications software it seems that I can't connect to VATSIM via FS2002. Used to be able to via Squawkbox. The Swift comms client doesn't run on WinXP, so am stymied re that. So have given up on that for now. So am interested to know if there are any other networks I could join with my legacy FSW2002 and enjoy flying with others.