Reply #13: It depends on what you want. [View All]

[maine_raptor]

The program I use is called IL2 Sturmovick Forgotten Battles with an expansion module called Aces Expansion Pack. It has all of the most popular WWII fighter, fighter/bombers, and regular bombers. This includes not only US planes, but planes from the UK, USSR, Italian, German, Romanian, and some Japanese. The retail price for IL2 is about $40 and the APE add-on is about $25. Check the on-line stores.

As for equipment. First and foremost is a good PC, at least a 2.0 GHz processor, 512Mb or more RAM (1 Gb better) and a 128 Mb video card for these programs is necessary.

As for the stick and such:

You can get a halfway decent stick for under $50 bucks. If you do go the single stick route, get one that "twists" and has a throttle lever. I don't normally like those sticks and the reason is simple; Never saw a real live cockpit yet that had a twisty stick instead of pedals.

What I have is a Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar with rudder pedals. The stick and throttle are both modeled after what is found in a real live F-16 and are not plastic, but medal (each weighs about 7 Lbs). They are fully programmable, capable of over 4000 commands total.

I have had several of the cheaper plastic sticks from other manufacturers, but the TM gear outlasts and outperforms any thing else on the market. The retail price for a new Cougar (stick and throttle) is just under $300 and you can pick up a set of pedals for about $75.

As far as "scenery and fairly realistic", the IL2 series is the best in that regard that I have seen in the WWII sims. But a lot of the eye candy (in any flight sim) depends on the video card and the monitor being used.

Flight sims take a lot of time and practice to get right, and that's just in learning how to take off and land. Dogfighting is something else. But there are settings within the sim that allow you to start off in easy mode and work your way up. Once you get to the point where you want to take someone on, there are a number of game sites where you can meet up with other simmers and fight it out. Remember though, they are probably going to be better than you and thus you'll find yourself making a big smoking hole in the ground a lot at first.