Anyone into flight sims?

I've recently been hooked on DCS: World and IL-2: 1946, and I'm wondering if anyone else flys and what kind of setups people run.

I'm currently using an old Logitech Attack 3 joystick, and the pedals from a Wingman Formula Force as my rudder control. Works pretty well, but I'm still a fairly poor pilot.

I'm a filthy casual, so I play War Thunder with a mouse & keyboard.

I looked into getting back into a last year, but the cost of the joystick, rudder pedals and a computer worthy to run it all changed my mind.....I used to play the original Microsoft Flight Sim and some fighter ones way back in the day.

I practice RC flying with a "Real Flight" sim. It helps for sure and crashes don't cost a thing.

I used to be seriously into flying sims. Full Thrustmaster control set. I flew everything up until buying Falcon 4.0. Then life changed and I didn't have time for it. Those Falcon missions could take up to 10 hours of planning and executing if you were on a hard mission. Simulation in deed. I did enjoy the F-15 game a whole lot. I loved one mission to bomb some nuclear reactor plant where I managed to sneak into the area avoiding enemy CAP, destroy target, and then provide support for friendlies on the way out. It was an intense mission and I was happy to complete it so cleanly.

My other favorite moment was flying an actual Boeing simulator that my Dad's company worked on. I landed a 747 after several tries.

I also used to fly RC airplanes from age 13-2? and again life changed and I didn't have time or space for it. I miss the RC planes and may get back into it later.

Flew light aircraft on the way to my pilots license.

I like the idea of flight combat simulators, but the lack of situation awareness with a monitor bothers me. I have heard IL-2, even though a bit old, is quite comprehensive and good (and cheap).

That said, if they could get that Oculus Rift VR thing in a simulator, that might be good fun. I would love a highly realistic WWI sim with one of those (you need LOTS of visibility to make that work well).

Being a gunner in an FE2 would be pretty wild:

aircooled wrote: I like the idea of flight combat simulators, but the lack of situation awareness with a monitor bothers me. I have heard IL-2, even though a bit old, is quite comprehensive and good (and cheap). That said, if they could get that Oculus Rift VR thing in a simulator, that might be good fun. I would love a highly realistic WWI sim with one of those (you need LOTS of visibility to make that work well). Being a gunner in an FE2 would be pretty wild

I hear good things about Rise of Flight, a WWI sim, and I keep meaning to try it out since IL-2: Battle of Stalingrad will be using the same engine. It has a free version that comes with 2 planes, couldn't tell you what, and the rest are modules I think.

For situational awareness, I picked up a TrackIR5 after mucking up 2 webcams trying to make a freetrack setup. It's the single most expensive part of my setup (save the computer itself), but well worth the cost or effort if you go freetrack. Trackir set me back about $220, including shipping from the US.

The high point of flight sims for me was Janes USAF. Semi-sim, but still some decent gameplay. Everything after that seemed like a step back. I fussed around with Falcon 4.0, but just didn't have the hours/days/months it would take to master a program like that. (I spent a month just learning to navigate into the pattern and land without mucking up my plane)

My son occasionally plays Birds of Steel on the PS3. Not much of a sim, but the on line swirling dogfights are a hoot. I do get sick of getting sniped by pimply faced teenagers, though.

Fobroader wrote: I looked into getting back into a last year, but the cost of the joystick, rudder pedals and a computer worthy to run it all changed my mind.....I used to play the original Microsoft Flight Sim and some fighter ones way back in the day.

Same could be said for me when I was doing my simflying on the Commodore 64 with subLogic's Flight Simulator and EA's Chuck Yeager Flight Simulator. I Have a desktop PC that could run one of the more current flightsims, but I haven't got the money ATM to get one of them let alone a decent controller.

Graefin10 wrote: I practice RC flying with a "Real Flight" sim. It helps for sure and crashes don't cost a thing.

I used to have this, I stopped around the time Real Flight V2 was new-ish, before V3. Now they're up to what? 7? because of that, I believe, I never crashed a real RC plane due to incompetence. I had a few hard landings when the engine ran out of fuel and the plane started coming down a bit faster than I expected, but never a straight up crash.