Free Flight Simulators

[laserblazer]

On a Wednesday afternoon, we have a non-curriculum session for Y7 kids. One of our governors is a pilot and has agreed to give flying lessons, so I'm looking at flight simulators for him to use. I've seen Flightgear but wondered if anyone could recommend something better. It needs to be reasonably realistic.

[Brpilot99]

Hiyah I have a pilots licence and have done something similar and using Flight Simulator X .... Theres lots of add ons but you will need a fairly beefy PC with a decent graphics card to run it at top resolution ....

 

Cheers

Brian

[Brpilot99]

But its not free !! You might be able to get an earlier version such as FS2004 on Ebay for not a lot of cash ...

 

Cheers

Brian

[rad]

Google Earth has a flight thing, see the kids playing it.

 

Might be pants quality but you dont pay for it.

[laserblazer]

I've downloaded the Flightgear one and it looks pretty good. Loads of planes to choose from and world-wide scenery. I've suggested he limits the plane choice to something simple to start with.

[kesomir]

Flightgear is your best bet for a free sim, there's also YS Flight etc, but Flightgear is the best of the free / os bunch.

 

If you can spend any cash - then I'd recommend X-plane. It runs much better than MSFS on the same hardware and focuses more on flying itself. (I fly both).

 

Best situation is if you can get yoke / pedals as well. Fewer units, but much more immersive. Cheapest yet is perhaps a joystick.

[laserblazer]

I've just given "Biggles" the Fkightgear install disk for him to try out. I can't see us getting money for joysticks with our zero budget!

[computer_expert]

If you can spend any cash - then I'd recommend X-plane. It runs much better than MSFS on the same hardware and focuses more on flying itself. (I fly both).

 

Isn't X-Plane cross-platform as well?

 

I did have FS2004 and i used a PS2 (playstation, not the PC connection) controller which was ok, but didn't do too well with throttle control though.

Edited March 18, 2010 by computer_expert