MS Flight Sim' Add On's  Do you have Microsoft Flight Simulator? And if you have, are you bored to death with it? Yeah? Well it's nothing new, that's how most people end up feeling about it. I've always liked flight sim's on computers, right back to the good old day's on the Sinclair ZX81. With every new computer development the flight sim' has improved, but it's only with the coming of the Pentium PC that it's really come into it's own. And what happens when we finally have what we've always dreamed of? Yep, after a while we're bored! Once you've landed on the Golden Gate and on the aircraft carrier out in the bay, and even flown through the hanger deck in your Jetranger, took off (fell off) from the heli' pad on the top of a New York skyscraper, flown under every bridge along the Thames, played pylon racing around the tower blocks at Meigs and followed all the other aircraft on their little circuits, there's nothing much else left to do, is there? Even learning to fly the Bell Jetranger and managing to land on Alcatraz and the heli' pads on the top of buildings wears off after a bit, and  even if you can be bothered to learn how all the navigation aids work, flying from London to Paris, or whatever, soon palls too. So, most of us end up never using the thing. It's lonely little icon sit's unused and unloved on our desktop. That's how it was for me too. Until one night, browsing around on the net, I came across a Flight Sim' site. I immediately went to downloads and was amazed to see dozens of aircraft to download, free! So I downloaded  a couple.  When I unzipped the files I was disappointed to find I had  a pile of files and no idea of where to put them! The next one I tried had a Readme file attached to it which explained where all the various files went. After that there was no looking back. If I downloaded an aircraft and it was using the default Cessna control panel I'd scour the net to find an appropriate panel for it or use one from another aircraft that looked okay.  The same with engine sounds too.    Things are a lot easier now, most zips will unpack themselves into their own folder with all the files organised inside for you. All you have to do is copy and paste it into your Flight Sim' Aircraft folder and it'll work. There are even utility programs that enable you to just click the zip and it'll do the rest automatically. These are free downloads too. A lot of aircraft then had no moving parts. By that I mean moving elevators, rudder, ailerons, flaps,undecarriage and propellors, but now things are much better. Not only  are the aircraft rendered better, they also usually have a full complement of moving parts, a proper control panel duplicating the original and  the correct sounds. Some even have a full cockpit interior so when you look around using your hat you see the back seats and windows just as you would in the full size. Some even have a pilot who moves his head when you move the controls! Neat. It's funny how much more satisfying it is to fly  an aircraft with the proper sounds and panel, although the view out of some of them is horrendous. God knows how they managed in the full size! You'll soon find the type of aircraft you like, whether it be Pitts to Concorde or Gee Bee to F18. Just about anything you can think of is there somewhere, and if you can't find it you can e-mail one of the people that design them and they'll make it for you! You'll probably have to supply a few pictures and details of the full size flight envelope, but then everyone can enjoy it too. Having a few new aircraft will give your flight sim' a whole new lease of life. Crank up the volume because that night flight to Paris is going to be a whole lot different accompanied by the synchronous throb of the Pratt & Whitneys in your new DC3! Or how about beating up the airfield out of the bottom of low level aerobatics in a nice Cap231 or Pitts S2 or in my favourite, the Gee Bee Z.  Or how about cranking round the church spire in your Piper Cub to line up with the grass runway at Brooklands, and just floating in over the trees. The whole thing set in the 'thirties..... If you really get carried away by all this you can purchase packages to design and build your own aircraft from scratch. Then you can upload them to one of the Flight Sim' sites for us all to enjoy. How about it then? Then there's scenery to download too and all sorts of utilities to help you along the way. You can connect with other players on the net and fly together in realtime. There are airlines and airforces to join too. But for the time being go to the Links page and click on the Simviation link.  Or do it here... Simviation. I mean, c'mon, how else are you gonna to fly all winter? I'll do a follow on later on linking up with other players on the net. This can be really good if you have a group of mates and you all download the same sceneries and aircraft. You can make yourself a virtual flying world set in any era you choose... G :-) FF 1.2.01.