VATSIM

This was recently recommended to me as an ATC simulator. I have had a quick look and it looks fairly sophisticated to say the least.

http://www.vatsim.net

At this stage I am not overly interested however I was told that this is as real as it gets in the virtual world of flying/ATC.

Anyone had any experience with this?

Cheers

Roger

Hi no experience with it yet but I know you need so many hours on it to join the Virtual Australian Air Force

Old topic I know, but was scanning the forums as a new user to see who has been using simulation stuff, as i'm a simmer.

As a user of VATSIM for a number of years now, I can tell you that it has its good and bad points just like anything else, all depends on the controller and how well they know the software and procedures.

I've never used it as a controller, but as a sim pilot, I find it very valuable, makes it all seem real or at least as real as it can get without getting in a plane, you'll even find trainers willing to help you learn coms for your tests.

If you are looking to practice radio coms within Microsoft's simulator without actually speaking to a human, a nice little program I have used in times when no ATC is present on VATSIM is a program called VOXATC, it does the job.

If you want to check out how serious some simmer's are, just checkout this site http://www.insitesolutions.com.au/737project/links.htm the cockpits these guys build are so expensive it blows the mind $300,000+

http://www.therealcockpit.com/

A how to on creating a Cessna 172 cockpit panel for simming, the ideas could be used to recreate any cockpit

http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?$=main/howto/172proj.htm

Truly amazing stuff.

I reckon your setup must come close to the cost of my plane. You can't get off the ground and I can't fly IFR. Looks like good fun.