Kind of a new simmer.

I played MSFS many year ago with a variety of combat sims like Airwarrior. Since I am getting close to retirement age I don't think my wife would be too thrilled if I were to invest 40 grand to get a Private pilot's license and a 172 or Cherokee. So I thought I would put this gaming system and 4K tv to good use and save myself about 39,000.

So here is my questions. Do people RP this or is it just kind of free roam, do what you want when you want, Are there air traffic controllers or is it more like non controller airfields, are there career modes or just flying from point A to Point B?

I have a Saitek x52 that is a joystick yoke and also has a throttle could I fly with that or should I invest in rudder pedals too. At some point I would think about the Honeycomb system because the throttle body components seem to be flexible. and instead of investing $2,500+ on gps , panels, and switches I was going to see about air manager for my interactive instrument cluster with their knobster. Talking with another Simmer he recommended Aerofly because it has a pretty good training scenario that other don't.

If anyone would like to offer their 2 cents I would gladly take it under advisement.

So here is my questions. Do people RP this or is it just kind of free roam, do what you want when you want, Are there air traffic controllers or is it more like non controller airfields, are there career modes or just flying from point A to Point B?

With either Microsoft's FSX or Lockheed-Martin's Prepar3d you can run it in free flight mode, which means fly any aircraft that you have anywhere you want to go at any time, whether for 5 minutes or for 5 hours. There are two ways of doing multiplayer (that is connecting to and flying with someone else), either connecting directly to the machine of another player and flying with them, or connecting to one of several available servers and having several folks in the session. A couple of these include people acting in the role of ATC.

In free flight mode there is also a crude built in ATC with which you can talk to towers, file flight plans, etc. There is also a fair chunk of "AI" (Artificial Intelligence) air traffic, and it lets you adjust how much (more traffic uses more machine resources). There is also boat traffic on lakes, rivers and seas, and you can adjust how much you want. In both free flight and multiplayer you also get automobile traffic on the roads, with an adjustment for how much you want. Again, more traffic means more machine resources used.

There is also a "mission" mode, in which you can fly packaged missions, such as a rescue mission or such. There also are built in flight lessons you can choose to fly.

In addition, you can choose various types of weather to fly in. Also there are thousands of add-ons, both aircraft and sceneries, plus many other types of packages (check the download section of this site), including programs to let you build your own aircraft and/or sceneries. All of this is available in both payware and freeware.

Others will probably chime in with more information on other features, and you certainly can ask lots more questions if you wish.

X-Plane is also available, which does have free flight, weather, and more, but I don't know as much about it, so I will leave that to someone else.