Flight Simulator X Acceleration and the Dreamflyer

Posted By: GamePad
September 12th, 2007

Gamepad got the chance to check out the Dreamflyer Flight Motion Simulator along with Microsoft's Flight Simulator X Acceleration for Windows.



I had the chance to try out Microsoft's Flight Simulator X Acceleration Expansion Pack last week at the Porter Airlines Terminal on the Toronto Island Airport. Though definitely not very experienced with any flight sim games, I was pretty excited to try it out because the Microsoft Team had the Dreamflyer Flight Motion Simulator set up.

What is the Dreamflyer you ask? Well, it's basically a cockpit hooked up to a monitor and a computer that is supposed to deliver the real sensation of flying. All you have to do is a grab a seat in the simulated cockpit, plug it in to a USB port and you're ready to fly.

It comes with a joystick, throttle and rudder pedals too. And lemme tell ya - flying ain't easy. As someone who has zero hours of flight time logged - I was a true beginner - complete with un-intentional barrel rolls and lots of crashes. Luckily you can set a "bounce" application on Flight Simulator X - phew.

The Dreamflyer is cool because you can pitch pretty much all around. It's made out of aluminum tubing and only weighs about 100 pounds. There is an optional LCD screen mounted to the "dashboard". Basically, you swing the joystick in any direction you want to go and chair will move in that direction - it's the same with the rudder pedals. Of course the Dreamflyer costs almost $3,000, so it's mainly pilots right now - both active and retired - than own and use it.

Flight Simulator X Acceleration was pretty awesome too. For instance, Microsoft has mapped most of the globe for this game. You can fly all over the world and most spots are very finely detailed, including correct positioning of cities, streets and famous structures. There are over 20 missions and multi or single player races that can do but don't expect to find any fighting style missions - though you can take off and land in a fighter jet, there are no dog fights.

This is strictly a flying game - with the mechanics of the gameplay simulating real flying. So, until you've logged maybe a few hours, be prepared for a few crashes.