ORIGINAL: BillyGoat
This debate has raged on and on. I suggest grabbing yourself a bag of popcorn and going over to the RC Flight Simulator Software forum
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/forumid_138/tt.htm and doing a ton of reading. Then judge for yourself, based on the comments presented.
Keep in mind when you clicking and reading, very VERY rarely has any one person spent time using all the sims available making them truly able to give an opinion of which is best and which is crap.
It has gone on ever since the 2nd sim came out. Sorta like the joke about automobile racing.
When did auto racing start? When the 2nd one rolled out of the factory.
What you will discover are a lot of details about each sim. It turns out that almost all of them are decent at simulating 4 channel planes. Cost varies, and there are some free ones.
Yeah, the RC Flight Simulator Software forum is a good place to find what's already been written, and written again comparing them all.