as a newbi I have just stumbled on this thread. i am an engineer and x pilot 71 years old and my reflexes are not what they used to be. I would like to say that x-plane can be what the owner wants it to be. there are the possibilities to make it what ever you want it to be. we have to realize that no matter what we do it is still a simulator. It will never replace the real ting. We can get real close by spending large amounts of money to get large surrounding screens, to simulate periphirel vision, get a motion table to mount it all on, to simulate the seat of the pants fee,l get the largest and most powerful computer that money can buy. It still is a simulator and will never replace the real thing. if you want eye candy use overlay editor and x-scenery to place everything from light poles to hangers to palm trees at your airport and create your own scenery. or download scenery from many areas. If you live on a large piece of land, use world editor to create your own personal airport, with world editor. If you want to fly just in your own area to airports around you then use a small craft and fly vfr to all of them. if you want to take a trans-continental flight then download afters 7x fly to your harts content on instruments. What i am trying to say is the possibilities to do what ever you want ,and can afford to do is here in x-plane. build your own plane from the ground up. paint it to your liking. This has to be the top of the line in a flight sim long live x-plane and thank you to the many developers out there that are making this a great org. Whether the eng. or the pilots are the best at determining the credibility of x-plane is a mute point it will take both to really get this sim to be all that it can be. LONG LIVE X-PLANE