Flight simulators in today's world

Flight simulation refers to the activity where a person is flying an actual aircraft without ever leaving the ground. This is a fun, safe and exciting activity that one can perform.

How real is a flight simulator?

This all depends on the type and degree of technology which it is used for the flight simulator. It also depends on what the situation is. Let me explain further. It is very different flying a fighter plane than it is to fly a tourist plane. In the early days of flight simulation, fighter pilots used to make use of flight simulation in order to improve their accuracy when it came to aiming a machine gun at ground objects whist flying in mid air. Of course this was all done without them ever leaving the ground.

Why use a flight simulator?

If a replica model is built up carefully and accurately, then the results of careful training would be very good. Also using a flight simulator over a real life flight experience would provide a decreased cost whilst increasing the safety and security of the pilot himself. This also means that any maneuver can be performed over and over without having to risk resources and lives.

Other uses of flight simulation

The gaming industry has caught up in recent decades and over the past thirty years games have been coming up each and every year, always improving and making flight experience more realistic and closer to a real-life situation. As more years go by the experience of playing a flight simulator will become second to none because it would be better than anything else available in this regards.

What types of environments are available for flight simulation?

Basically, anything that your mind can imagine can be created using a flight simulator. Nowadays one can design cockpits, runways and terrains. These can all be customized and changed according to one's personal needs. In the case of the military and other aviation industries, the weather may also be adjusted and changed according to their needs. This means that due to such improvement in flight simulation, a real-life situation is so much closer to what one experiences during a flight simulation. This ensures that when the pilot is actually called for real flight duty, he is well aware of what to expect and knows how to deal with anything that comes up.

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The early personal flight sims were marketed primarily as games: screen graphics were simple, and the demands on the low-powered computers of the time were slight. All that has changed. Now there are many fully-featured airplane simulator programs available.

The in-flight graphics of today's programs are almost astounding when compared with the first airplane simulators for personal computers. But all those graphics and quick responses to control inputs exact a toll on computer resources. Here are three critical things to check before plunking down your cash for a flight simulator.

1: Computing power. Will the simulator match your computer system's specs? Most computer games make heavy demands on the amount and speed of a computer's random access memory, or RAM, and flight simulators are no exception. Plus, many of today's flight sims require lightning fast video cards that have their own collection of memory. As you can imagine, a graphics-heavy simulation that is moving quickly across your monitor demands a lot more of a video card than does a simulation of a piece of paper in a word-processing program, or a grouping of cells on a simple spreadsheet.

Seasoned gamers tend to invest a fair amount of money in their computers, with high-end video cards, lots of RAM, hard disk drives that can read and write information rapidly, high-definition monitors, speaker systems, and much more. But even when armed with fast hardware built expressly for gaming, some flight sim aficionados have been disappointed by the slow frame rates (the speeds at which graphics are refreshed) and the load times for the latest versions of Flight Simulator and other popular programs.

Before you buy a flight sim package, make sure you carefully investigate the requirements for the software. A flight simulator that advances in uneven jumps, or just freezes when too many demands are made on the computer's processor chip or video card RAM, can be a discouraging flight sim event.

2: Expandability. Is the simulator expandable for external controls? Just about any flight simulator on the market today comes ready-to-fly out of the box using a system of keyboard controls. For example, the up arrow pulls the nose of the aircraft up; pushing the down arrow reverses the yoke pressure. But, of course, pilots don't control airplanes with computer keyboards.

If you become a flight simulator enthusiast, you're going to want to control the simulator with more realistic inputs. Make sure that the flight sim you're considering will accommodate a number of control inputs, such as joysticks, yokes, throttle controls, and rudder pedals. Many of the controls marketed today come with USB inputs, but some flight simulators can still provide a struggle for configuring a specific control device. Check to see if the manufacturer recommends a certain brand or model of control input before you buy the software.

3: Regular software updates. Are updates available for the software? Make sure that you're not purchasing a flight simulator package that has been dropped by the software manufacturer. There should be updates of new scenery packages, additional, and other features such as air traffic control voicing and weather phenomena. For example, airplane simulator enthusiasts have been waiting for the next release of Microsoft Flight Simulator for more than four years. And that release may be a long time coming, because Microsoft did away with the product's development team in 2009. If you experience problems with a flight simulator package that turns out to be orphaned, you may not have any support group to turn to.

An airplane simulator can be a good source of flying knowledge. Flight simulators can provide hours of fun, learning to fly your own aircraft from the comfort of your own home. Investigate the various packages available, compare the features of realism, and benefits such as being able to load the program on more than one computer, and definitely check the technical requirements.

With the right flight sim software that matches your computer's performance, you'll be off the runway and bound for the wild blue yonder, and at a much lower cost than even a single hour in a real training airplane.

In recent years, these free flight simulators have even been significantly improved to rank equally with their commercial counterparts in terms of graphic design and features. One such online simulator that has caught the attention of many flight enthusiasts is the Google flight sim. This application is actually one of the surprises that you can find in the version 4.2 of Google Earth. Lets take a closer look at this simulation tool to see how it measures up to commercial simulators.

In terms of aircraft selection, the Google flight simulator leaves much to be desired, as it only allows you to choose between two planes: an F16 fighter jet and an SR22 propeller airplane. This selection definitely pales in comparison to the hundreds of aircraft options in commercial simulators such as the Pro Flight Simulator. Pro Flight even lets you fly several helicopter and glider models, in addition to over a hundred different types of plane.

In terms of selecting your starting position, the Google simulator gives you three options: First is to start in your current view of Google Earth, which means that you are automatically in the air. The second option is to choose from 27 available airports. Third, you can start from the point where you ended your previous session. In contrast, the Pro Flight simulator lets you choose from over 20,000 airports located in any country all over the world.

All in all, the Google flight simulator is a relatively simple tool as compared to its commercial counterparts. What makes it stand out is the experience you get of flying over real pictures of your chosen locations. While the pictures and graphics may be far from perfect, they are definitely as visually good as those of commercial simulators. In fact, the Google flight simulator even presents real objects better than most commercial flight simulation software in the market.

Outstanding graphics and real pictures notwithstanding, the Google flight simulator still cant really measure up to commercial standards, especially when compared to the Pro Flight software. Pro Flight also offers very realistic graphics and terrain based on US military mapping. In fact, everything you see in Pro Flight, from the cockpit controls to aircraft reactions to planetary alignment and movements is based on actual and current world data. There both good but Pro Flight tops it for accuracy and controls.

When you fly with the Pro Flight simulator, you will be able to take advantage of real-time synchronization. This feature lets you fly in exactly the same situation as when you are flying in real life. For example, if its a rainy afternoon in Sydney right now, then you will be flying in a rainy afternoon if you locate yourself in Sydney for your virtual flight. So, while its okay to practice on a free online simulator, its still better to get a commercial simulator such as Pro Flight for the ultimate virtual flying experience.