I agree with almost all of the wish-lists. However, realism is the primary selling point for me. Real weather, that would be nice - I own all three major sims discussed and have to say I have never been able to configure ANY of them to have a TRUE feel of changing weather and airflow. G3 comes the closest. However, I am not just talking about wind-speed, direction, collision or convection layers. I am talking about barometric pressure, humidity, temperature, etc. For those of you who want it REAL, for those who want to TRULY test airplane/heli setups, this is the only way that is possible. Your DA150 or your OS .46 is not going to run the same on a 70deg day at sea level as it is at 95 deg 90% RH at 2200' MSL. Moving clouds in different layers is nice - as are the trees. You may not use them, or THINK you don't, but I do. I fly foamies, gliders and IMAC and trust me I use all the sights and sounds of MOVING AIR - planes don't fly without it and are sometimes even at its mercy.

You want physics? I want physics !!! The model is already around, has been for YEARS. Was once even available commercially. Some of you may know or remember an aerobatic flight simulator called Flight Unlimited. I'm not talking about FU II or III or any of that stuff that was trying to compete against Microsoft FS. I am talking about the very first FU which had a Pitts, Su, Extra, Grob glider, etc. Those guys didn't play with vector tables - the way almost all flight physics are derived. These guys modeled the environment. Mass, inertia, NACA foils, incidence, CG, weather, it was all there. The particle system - smoke, etc. was all manipulated by the full fluid dynamic model that they had built. You could model a plate of jello and it would fall, impact a surface with the collision model and the jello would, well, you know - JIGGLE. This sim had an instructor training system thats AI would react to your flight inputs. It could grade individual figures - loops, rolls, hammers, etc. and show you what you were doing wrong. Gyroscopic procession, P-factor, torque - all properly modeled and impacting the way the aircraft flew. Take it from a former IAC competition pilot, for it's time - well over a decade ago - it was close to heaven for someone who lives in Ohio and has a greatly reduced flying (practice and competition) season. All of this magic ran well on a then 286 or 386 system with 256MB or less. As i said - MAGIC. Find those guys, by the way, all flew full-scale but I think some also flew RC, and I would almost be willing to pay radio or airplane prices for something that could be produced. Only thing I would have EVER added to the wish-list of that piece of software would have been a competition model. A way for muliplayer - real-time or even time shift - judging and flying of complete known and unknown sequences. Not having that probably saved my life though, I would have never left the house - LOL.

Oh and for those nay sayers' of G3 while it has it's own problems, on bad weather days I practice for competitions more with G3 than any other sim. Reflex gets a close nod (because G3 will not run on my current laptop, and shame on KE for that) but as an IMAC and freestyle pilot some sims are WAY to easy to fly. I can fly pattern or 3d, TR's waterfalls, H Alpha rollers - OK got the thumbs for them. But I assure you that NOT EVERYONE does. I am the only one at my club who competes at the level I do. I am the only one at my club who flys like I do - and I fly at least 1 hour EVERY day real or simulated - nobody there does eye level rollers like me at the field, but many of them love to do them on some sims. Why? fear factor is part of it, but the truth is - THEY CAN'T. Even in G3 multi-player - with the TWEAKED out planes some of those folks fly - they TR with the best of them. In real life... well, I guess it's just not real life.

Sorry for the long wind, got on a roll 'er' and it got good to me. Check out Flight Unlimited though, it's worth the Google.