I have been playing PC flight simulations for over 15 years. Over that time, I have come to love the sophistication civilian flight simulators offer with each new version. Several products have been around since the beginning, such as the Sublogic's Flight Simulator (now known as Microsoft Flight Simulator) that came out in the early 80's. Being the supreme flight simulator geek I have personally taken on the task of evaluating the crop of simulators released last year. The end result is over one hundred and fifty hours of butt cramping, brow sweating, and wife annoying flying. No hunchback this time - my HOTASS has made this evaluation a hemorrhoid free experience.

Let me try to picture for you the current flight simulator status. Prior to 1999, Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) has been flight sim King. They own most of the world market share for home PC civilian Flight Simulator products. Coupled with the open-ended architecture, MSFS has guaranteed their users a wide range of add-on's to extend the shelf life of the product and your enjoyment. Several companies would like a piece of that pie. Terminal Reality and Looking Glass software last year released their own versions of Civilian flight simulators.

Fig. 1. Fly!'s King Air 200

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  I thought it would take just a couple of rounds with each sim to determine the winner of the fight. I would simply examine each simulator for what it promised to do and compare that to the other two sims. I took a look at the crowd watching this professional fight. Less than 10% of the crowd is hard-core civilian flight simulation zealots! Over 90% of people who buy these products are not out for 100% accurate flight model, detailed cockpit design and vast environmental settings; they just want something that is easy to use, fun to fly, and has a long shelf life.

This match-up has taken only 5 rounds to come to a decision, not because each simulator has a lot of features that needed months of investigation, but because I had to change the way I scored the fight. After spending over one month with each product, I have come to a remarkable conclusion that I will discuss later.

Fig. 2. A C-47 Taking Off in Flight Simulator 2000

Each product's installation was fluid with no errors or interruptions, and each install method allowed for varying computer hard drive sizes. If you wish to take advantage of the 'full' install, be prepared to give up valuable hard disk space. All three installations took up nearly 6 Gigabytes of disk space. Back in the early nineties, my copy of Flight Simulator 5 only came on two floppy disks! Flight Unlimited III was the largest culprit taking over 2.1 Gigs. Using the full install for Fly! and FU3 allows you to put your CD's away after the installation, however Microsoft requires CD verification every time you start up the application. This type of copyright protection is a nuisance if you regularly use the application. Average installation times for each took anywhere from 10-25 minutes and all three sims had options allowing you to take advantage of modifying the install to your needs.

Score: 10 for all. I could give FU3 a score of eight, but since all full installations were over one gigabyte, they all share the space-hogging status.

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