Well after getting over the error message (video card related) I managed to put in about 5 hrs on the sim. On a 19" monitor it is very difficult to distinguish the airplane direction. It is very easy to loose perspectives (get lost). After some frustration I brought my pc out to the family room and connected via DVI to my 60" SXRD. Much better. The scenery I used was the sod farm. I tried flying the Nexstar trainer for a while did NOT really like the way it handles. I settle in for the PT-40 "The Perfect Trainer" After several hours I managed to do a pretty good job at flying, and avoid crashing providing I didn’t get lost. BTW, to my surprise I can do acrobatics pretty damn good. Said that, landing is very painfully difficult. When I come in to land I can never tell how far I am from the runway or if I am lined up. When I make what I thought to be my last vector once I get close I discover I am nowhere near around the runway. I can land pretty damn good in the grass field next to the runway but lets just say I might as well be landing on a moving aircraft carrier very difficult.

BTW, I was surprise to have a video problem since I had a relatively up to date pc. The problem was with the MOBO integrated video card. Word of advice, they don’t work. If your motherboard has the video integrated most likely it will not work. The error message I got was could load snow.tga file and then could not create prop disc. I corrected the problem with a new Nvidia GeForce 6600 video card.

Any advice or tricks on landing? Also, I viewed some of the tutorials. Although there was good useful information I did not know if I could fly with the instructor or is that just for looks?

Regards,
Jerry