Hi all I am not a pilot but a have and have had a very keen interest in GA going back many years also a keen airband user, I would have loved to take ppl lessons but it is out of my league money wise, I noticed in some of the flying mags some years back articles about flt sims and they got my interest, but I did not have a pc and that dont help, anyway got around to getting a pc mainly to try out this flt sims stuff I had been reading about and I must admit it was indeed an up hill struggle, getting to grips with the pc but I got there with help from my friends, as for the flt sims I was thrilled with them, I could do all the stuff I had dreamed about over the years, took all the flt sim lessons and passed the checkride, sad I know but I was quite pleased with myself, I then got to know about VATSIM the online ATC flying group with full 2 way voice atc comms, and now I never fly off line, they are a very keen group of guys who take there simming very seriously manning lots of airfields online around the uk/world, all my flying is vfr with the help of vfr scenery and FS2002, I use the realair cessna 172 developed for a flying school in australia, which many folk say has quite very good flying characteristics and you can download it for free, since then I have got to know and become a good friend of a ppl and fly with him on a cost share basis about once a month, and even get to do some of the navigating for him, as for joysticks bog std one for me no peddles unfortunately, so all in all flt simming has opened up a whole new world for me.
Nick in cheshire.