I run AFP on a 3 year old Athlon XP 1600 w/512 meg PC 133 and a GeForce 2 MX 400 card. The sim runs fine in 16 bit color but is slow and stutters bad with 32 bit color enabled. AFP is more video card intensive than anything else and doesn't need a lot of memory or processor to run well.

They are so expensive because the market is so much smaller compared to MS Flightsim, there just aren't as many people who are going to buy an RC flight sim. FWIW MS Flightsim is ok but the one thing you need to do proper training for RC is the controller that mimics the real RC transmitters we use at the field, a PC joystic just doesn't cut it for getting your thumbs working with your brain. The third person persective available in MSFS is pretty poor and is very limited in it's usefullness as a training aid for flying RC planes IMO as well.

I know the sims are expensive but they are worth every penny that you will save in repairing damaged planes.