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[Edmus]

Just got my new joystick and I want to increase the number of games I can fly planes in. Pew-pew is optional, but preferred.
I'm using a PC, Win7 and I should be able to run most things.
thanks.

[Rilder]

IL-2 1946 is of course the standing Combat Flight sim these days.
(Don't get it off steam though, its still being patched but they aren't being uploaded to the steam version)

I've heard a few good things about the DCS series if you want something a bit more modern, though the selection is a bit limited as far as planes go, but if you want a incredibly detailed simulation of flying an A-10 Warthog, there you go.

There is also Rise of Flight for a WW1 flight simulator, but their business model is just terrible.

If you want more arcade MP flight games there is World of Warplanes and warthunder of course. I personally play World of Warplanes and enjoy it a fair bit. The only thing I know about Warthunder is that it's playerbase like lording over how much better they think it is over World of Warplanes.

The Arma devs also have a Helicopter sim called "Take On Helicopters" which looks fun though haven't played it myself.

Also if you want to design planes and such you can always play Kerbal Space Program, though the flight simulation isn't that detailed, its still quite fun to design planes and space planes.

[Rakonas]

WW2OL has a bit of a flight sim component, to the extent that it's impossible to be good at flying without a joystick. It's the only MMO with that element, I believe.

[Skyrunner]

Ahem.

Microsoft Flight Simulator X.

* Skyrunner ducks out of thread

[clone95]

Thirdwire is producing a very large, linked series of flight sims called the Strike Fighters series, set primarily in the pre-BVR era of air warfare (All the way from mid-fifties to late seventies)

 Vietnam, Israel, Europe, Iceland, and a Middle Eastern Conflict (tm) have their own modules, each with a bunch of different hundreds series fighters. Difficulty is scalable from just above War Thunder/Warplanes level all the way to near-DCS levels, at least in flight dynamics.

[Ozyton]

I would say Sim Copter but unfortunately that game doesn't work so well on modern machines.

Damn was that game fun, but that may just be nostalgia speaking.

[JWNoctis]

About serious sims: DCS series and Falcon 4.0 with BMS mod are good for military sims. I think DCS World comes free with a Su-25, and it's not that difficult to find a copy of Falcon 4.0 if you know where to look -- F-16 is really a dream to fly...Or at least the one simulated in F4BMS.

FSX and X-Plane 10 are good for civilian flight sims.

Go for IL-2 series for some WWII flavor, and Rise of Flight for WWI flavor.

For arcades, there are plenty of choices available.

[Anvilfolk]

Some interesting discussion in these threads: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=112775.0 and http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128112.0

I can't believe I'm doing this, but if you want to slowly grow into playing hardcore flight sims, I'm going to suggest War Thunder. Here's why:
1) It's free!
2) It's freeeeeeeeeeeeee!
3) It's freeeeeee...quent to have fun in that game?
4) It has gameplay that is very similar to what people seem to enjoy these days, including a relatively OK unlocky metagame that gives you more and more content.
5) You can build up the realism level slowly. There's 3 modes, starting with Arcade which is absolutely a-historical, you just go and shoot people. Then there's historical, which is still fairly a-historical, like F4F Wildcats and F6F Hellcats attacking Berlin *eyeroll*, but where you only get one life and are forced to play a little more carefully. Finally, there's the full-real modes, which are somewhat comparable to IL-2's full-real modes, in that you probably need that joystick, and managing prop pitch might make a difference (even this was not well modelled in '46).

Rise of Flight is a free WW1 alternative, but it definitely be more towards full-real than War Thunder at first. And you pay for every plane (there's a couple of free ones though). The DCS series I would absolutely not recommend at first, as they are study sims. Which means literally spending hours to figure out how the plane works, including pouring over manuals, videos, tutorials, etc.

Again, the main point of Warthunder is that it begins as a nice, easy, quick and fun introduction to flight sims kind of like FPS in the air, but you can definitely build up to becoming more and more hardcore. If you eventually find out that hardcore is where it's at for you, then you should graduate over to '46, Cliffs of Dover, study sims and so forth. That's my suggestion

--- edit ---

Added another thread link to the top

[Edmus]

I'm downloading War thunder at the moment.
Thanks for the suggestions.

[Tilla]

Rise of Flight is a pretty good hardcore sim, if a little on the dlc-heavy side for their purchase model. I didn't hate the recent MS Flight for a casual-ish flight game. There's a new IL-2 spinoff coming up by the Rise of Flight guys that was getting some pretty good Word of Mouth out of a recent 1C event.

[Anvilfolk]

Yeah, IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad is by 777 Studios who made Rise of Flight. There should be some early versions out soon. I'm really worried that it won't allow for the same amazing amount of stuff happening that IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 or Cliffs of Dover allowed. I played in '46 servers with over 60 people on at the same time, and I know some servers went up to 80 or so, and Cliffs of Dover purportedly allowed over 100...

[Mech#4]

It's not much of a suggestion but the only flight simulator I've got is "Air Warrior III" which I played once when I first got it and have never tried it again.

I've done a very brief look up of the game and see it's gotten some good reviews, so might be another to look into (if you don't mind rather primitive 3D models that is).