Good Flight Simulator?

mattangle

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Jun 16, 2012
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For Christmas I would like to get my father a really good flight simulator game of some sort. He had his pilots license and flew for many years before his health forced him to stop. He has a pretty legit laptop and enjoys video games almost as much as I do, I think he would really enjoy a flight simulator game if it was high quality enough and had a joystick of some kind. I am not sure if such a thing exists? If it was even some kind of air craft related game with a nice joystick of some kind that could work. If anyone has any suggestions I would be greatly appreciative!

Thanks TH Community!
 
There are two game types of waht you ask.
One is combat based (i guess thats not what your fatehr will enjoy).
Second is a regular flight simulator.

Its hard to recommend one since there are actually quite few, and they tend to be old.
If i remmber correctly, there was a microsoft flight simulator where you could download world landscapes (i think each continent is about 10gb+).

I cannot suggest a good joystick unless you have a good budget (the really good ones are two joysticks, one is the regular joystick while the other is the joystick for flaps and engine control).

I think it was flight simulator X.

i hope this helps at least a bit.
 

tinyE

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Nov 30, 2012
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This may be way off but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the IL-2 series. It started as a Russian WW2 combat sim but they just keep adding on to it. It still is technically a Russian WW2 Sim and most of the missions reflect that, but the number of planes just keeps getting bigger and the simulator aspects are too the point that I have to turn a lot of them off just to get in the air (as I'm not a pilot).

Two negatives:
A) It is somewhat dated and while the models remain good the basic graphics will be outshadowed by modern sims.
B) These are WW2 planes. Someone who just got their wings may find them kind of archaic, and as a history buff let me just say, THEY WERE ARCHAIC!

The copy I have is titled "IL-2 Sturmovik : 1946" but they keep tweeking the name with re-releases and mods.

As for a controller I'm no help. I use a gamepad and somehow I don't think that is going to cut it for an actual pilot.

Best of luck!