Realflight G3 is high end graphic intensive software. Most computers bought off of the shelf today will at least meet the minimum requirements. The graphics card however is a crucial piece of hardware. Ensure that your card is at least Direct X 9.0 compliant or G3 will not work. I found myself with an ATI Radeon 7500 128mb card installed that does not fully support past DX 8.1. It was time to upgrade anyhow, so I found a great price on an ATI Radeon 9600XT.

To install G3, place CD one of two in the CD drive, it will auto play and begin installing G3. After a few minutes of installing, it will ask you for Disk two of two. After this is complete, you must enter the serial number from the back of the CD case as well as the SN that is on the controller. The software will ask you if you want to install DirectX 9.0. If you do not know if you already have 9.0 installed or are not sure, go ahead and let it install. It wont hurt anything to reinstall if your machine already has 9.0 installed. The computer will prompt to restart and installation is complete. From this point, I plugged in the controller and started the software.

After G3 loaded the airport and scenery. I was able to choose from the list of available aircraft. For my first flight, I choose the familiar CAP 232. This was a favorite of mine in previous releases, so it was a natural selection. Once airborne, I was pleased with the feel. The plane felt much more responsive than that of G2 and allowed me to perform basic 3D maneuvers without having to tweak the airframe settings. I moved from the Cap to the Yak 54. This has to be my favorite addition to the Realflight lineup. The stock airframe I found to be very sensitive to input, but was able to tone down the control throws and add expo for more of a "real feel". It is a blast to perform a lomavechek and then transfer into an elevator all the way down to the runway!

G3 now has slope soaring..with an actual slope.. I was very impressed with this feature. I have spent countless hours flying the Mistral 3M full house glider off of Buena Vista. It is thrilling to perform 90 mph high speed passes and hear the realistic whistle of the wind flowing past the composite wings.

As I tried other aircraft and flew around, I took note of the movements in the background. The trees swayed, the windsock pointed downwind and clouds floated overhead in a very realistic manner. I am impressed with the living atmosphere that I found myself flying in.

Another noticeable improvement is a greater field of vision aspect of the simulator. The simulator does a very good job in including landmarks in the field of view that assists in plane location, orientation, and setting up an approach. If you are not interested in that, you can press the "Z" key and the software will zoom in and keep a tighter view on your plane. This is great for in your face 3D as it lends a better view to what your control surfaces are doing.

Another neat feature is the Virtual Instructors. While G2 had this feature, it didn't have the likes of Jason Shulman or Frank Noll Jr. Click on one of these guys to learn how to Slow Roll, perform four point rolls, Torque Roll, Lomavechek and countless other maneuvers. You can also watch the stick movements using the pop up Radio to learn placement while they talk you through it.

I have also wondered how Heli's performed Tick Tocks, Piros, Tail slides, and Rolling Circles. I found it exciting to be able to watch Peter Niotis and Todd Bennett make it happen.