A friend turned me on to X-Plane a few days ago, and my copy just arrived, and I’m in awe. Total awe.
This is like the flight simulator to end all flight simulators. It has gobs of air vehicles from real planes to science ficition ones, it has totally fantasic topographical data, amazing imagery detail laid over that, and can utilize incredible input devices. So good is it, I’m given to understand the FAA will allow time in the simulator to count as flight time.
Even more impressive, the software was written on a Mac so that it is capable to work on Linux and Windows as well. The price is cheap, cheap, cheap …like in the $59 ballpark. For that you get seven DVDs jammed packed with the software and detailed world images. The rendering is more realistic than any other simulator I’ve seen. And you can add real-time current weather! Plus, if you want to splurge, for an additional $15 bucks or so, you can get two moer DVDs with the full topographical and image data for Mars. Yes, Mars. Fly a plane, or even the space shuttle, around Mars.
A downloadable demo is available online, and honest to God, undoctored screen shots are presented on the site. The software even lets you make movies of your flight, plus the software is deliberately networkable and hackable, so you can play with other people, beam your data to programs, or have your software control the planes.
And that’s not all, if you like dog fighting in the dark verse, snag a free copy of Space Combat. All platforms supported!