Fliptunes,

You're system sounds good but I wouldn't make any rash assumptions regarding G2..... I've seen a P4 PC with an allergy to the fog function. Mine also reacted badly to the fog. My new gfx card is a GeForce2 (#$%^ e machines won't support Radeon 9000) and that handles the fog OK but frame rates are still a little slow. If yours is a GeForce 4 then you should be OK, but I bet you can't turn all the graphics functions up....

I think Realflight have been very conservative in their performance requirements for the sim (gets more people to buy it, then they have to upgrade their PC).

The virtual Flight Instructor is the best tool I've seen to actually tell you the inputs to make for a maneuver, but its darned near impossible to fly your plane in sync with the instructor

The Ripmax Sim has a set of exercises that have you following lines and flying through hoops, but this can get a bit repetitive and boring.