Carl,

I had G2 for about a year and sold it a month ago in anticipation of G3. I received G3 two days ago and have been playing with it for quite a bit.

My overall impression of G3 is very good. The more I play G3 the more I like the sim. I do feel it is a worthwhile upgrade. The number of changes from G2 to G3 is very large and I would agree with the knife edge in considering this a new sim and not an !QUOT!upgrade!QUOT! from G2.

Graphics: The new graphics are very impressive. You will need a strong computer system to have good framerates with lots of eye candy. The developer did a nice job in giving the consumer the ability to change/remove graphical objects from the airfields to give individuals with lower end systems a chance to run the sim. There are numerous tweaks that can be done to the sim as far as graphics are concerned. The airport editor is very nice and quite intuitive to use. The graphics alone are a huge improvement and I thought the graphics in G2 were pretty respectable.

Physics: I initially did not like the changes to the physics engine but after playing the sim for a few days, I now really like the physics. The 3D physics are amazing. I personally have a Extreme Flight Yak-54 which is capable of some incredible 3D maneuvers. G3 comes with a similar Yak which I have been flying and I find its flight characteristics to be scary similar to the Extreme Flight Yak. I did have to make some minor tweaks to the exponential and throw settings for the Sim to get the plane to handle like my plane, but I now have a way to practice some wild maneuvers on the sim and not worry about destroying my plane. The sim handles the 3D manuevers extremely well.

Torque rolling with the Yak is difficult on G3. On G2 and the reflex sim, I found torque rolling to be too easy. I could torque roll those sims easily but when I went to the field it was not as forgiving. I am glad that torque rolling with G3 is challenging, for it is making me practice much more and hopefully that will result in better results at the field.

Ability to tweak: This is an area I really like with G3. The control features with the software radio are outstanding. You can create custom mixes (multi-point) just like if you had a JR 10x. I have used some multi-point mixes to mix out the pitch coupling on the Yak in the sim. The required mix was very similar to what was required for my own plane.

As far as I can tell you can change just about every physical parameter on the planes. This will give users the ability to create and tweak planes that match their own. With the potential large user base for G3, there is the potential to have some awesome planes to download off the net.

There are some bugs still in the software. The most significant so far is that I can't figure out how to export the color schemes to edit to allow for custom painted aircraft. Hopefully this will be fixed so or someone will educate me on the process. There are too many users out there that simply like creating custom paint schemes for this feature to not work.

Overall I am very pleased with G3 and would recommend the upgrade from G2. Just make sure you have a good computer to run the sim.