Flight Sim Pro is pretty much the best on the market. The coolest thing about Flight Sim Pro is the multiplayer option. Dog fighting (plane fighting) with other online players. Which means you can not only do flight simulation, but also fun player vs player flying! I'll link to it below, hope this helps! :)Learning to fly? flight simulator, flight simulation whats the best?
What is best is to fly a REAL airplane with an instructor! Simulators which are games are simply that -- games. Simulators that are worthwhile are not generally available for private purchase, because of the price (more than the cost of a small plane) and sheer size. If an instructor wants to recommend a student use a simulator, the instructor will send the student to a flight school which sells time on simulators. Simulators you use on a PC are as effective in learning to fly as the "drive a car" programs are in leaning to drive. I suggest you save you money for dual instruction and airplane rental!Learning to fly? flight simulator, flight simulation whats the best?
FlightSim Pro (which may go by various names) is a ripoff, it's a paying version of a freeware flight simulator, Flightgear. It's also not a very good simulator. Avoid it.
The leading desktop flight simulator is Microsoft Flight Simulator. The most recent versions are FSX (the Microsoft Simulator X to which you refer) and its predecessor FS 2004. FSX has somewhat more eye candy than FS 2004 but also requires a much more powerful PC. The basic simulator is pretty realistic, but there are many third-party add-ons available that can increase the realism of the simulator dramatically. This is especially true for add-on payware aircraft, from companies like PMDG, Carenado, Level-D, Eaglesoft, Dreamfleet, Wilco, etc. You can also get add-on scenery to make visual flight more realistic, and add-on airports to make takeoffs and landings more realistic. Some add-ons provide extremely realistic, real-time weather.
The competitor to MSFS is X-Plane, which has a smaller add-on market but runs on multiple platforms, not just PCs. MSFS is good for simulation of normal flight in real-world airplanes; X-Plane is good for simulation of aerobatic or unusual flight regimes, and simulation of theoretical or experimental aircraft. MSFS is no longer in active development, so FSX and FS 2004 will be the most recent versions available for the foreseeable future. X-Plane is still being actively developed and new versions regularly appear.
For both simulators, controls such as a joystick or yoke, a throttle quadrant, and rudder pedals are useful for making flying more realistic, although you can fly with just a keyboard and mouse.
And for both simulators, you can enhance your experience with ATC by joining a free virtual flight network such as VATSIM or IVAO, where you can communicate by voice with "controllers" who use exactly the same phraseology and procedures as those used in real life. MSFS has built-in simulation of ATC, but it's far less realistic than the online flight networks.
Can you learn to fly with just a desktop simulator? No. But you can learn a great deal about the concepts of flight, and you can learn all the essential principles of controlling an aircraft and navigating, along with systems and procedures. It can give you a great head start when you finally start taking flying lessons in a real aircraft. You can't officially log the time you spend with a desktop simulator, but you can still profit from it.
Real pilots often use desktop simulators as well, for various reasons. Desktop simulators are very good at simulating instrument flight, so they are handy for keeping in practice with IFR. Desktop simulators are also useful for practicing flights that one intends to make in real life, so as to reduce the number of surprises one might encounter on the real flight. And of course, desktop simulators cost thousands of times less per hour of flight than real aircraft, so if budget is a problem, simulation can help deal with the need to fly until there's enough money to fly for real again.
Your total investment for desktop flight simulation can be as little as $19 or so, for a copy of FS 2004. How much you want to spend beyond that is up to you, as you can buy add-ons, controls, and other gadgets. You could conceivably spend thousands of dollars, but if you're able to spend that much, it might be worthwhile to spend it on flying a real airplane (although it will go farther in paying for simulation than it will in paying for real time in the air).
There are still some old-school pilots and instructors around who have a visceral distaste for desktop simulators, either because they don't know what simulators can do, or because it impacts their self-esteem to think that anything could ever provide a realistic simulation of flight. Best to take what they say with a grain of salt. Simulation is very useful and fun, especially if you keep it in proper perspective. If you can only afford to fly a real airplane for one hour a month, you'd be depriving yourself if you refused to consider simulation out of some misguided all-or-nothing stubbornness.
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