That might cause some hardrive issues...

And remember that this is not combat flight sim, so dont get your hopes up on default fighters, instead, proceed to worship 3rd party a/c developers

I somewhat agree with that, except it is just as easy to ask the opinions of others in the "Aircraft Wanted" section. But it would be nice to have some sort of shortlist of high quality aircraft downloads, I know there are also threads about this very topic, and there are notices on the main page of popular new downloads, but a more organized list of sorts, that is updated frequently, maybe sorted for easier finding of specific crafts.

But for now, just searching around works for me.

Well just go to the screenshot forums and see what is kicking around there most often and you'll see what is good.

They don't use real airline names because they would want royalties or something for appearing in the sim. There are plenty of repaints available for the default aircraft available in real world colours.

The comment about some Freeware planes being 'crap' is out of order. They are FREE for goodness sake!

I have literaly hundreds of freeware downloads of all types and have NEVER found one that didn't work. Yes, some were harder to install than others but when you consider the amount of time that goes into a decent freeware AC, you can't complain. There are many that could easily be payware and there are some that are no better than the default but all it's cost you is a bit of time to download and try it out. For me, half the fun of FS9 is the joy of finding something special or getting something working properly. Without such a variety of freeware AC on Simviation, AVSIM, etc. I'm sure many FS9 copies would be gathering dust by now.


Back to the original question, again, i'll say that all is required is one of each type of AC (GA, commercial jets/prop, helicopter, etc.) purely so new users can 'find their feet' and for multiplayer compatibility issues. Any specific AC we wish will be created by the third party freeware and payware designers.

I honestly dont fly too many 3rd party aircraft. I download them like there is no tomorrow though. But my current system cannot handle most of the higher quality downloads, and it just really detracts from the flying experience when you get less than 10 FPS. And I just plain love to fly, so the defaults serve my needs just fine . But I love to download my favorite planes and fly them around a little, just to appreciate them. But after that they pretty much dont get used too much, just dont have a nice enough system. But I never cease to be amazed at the beautiful and just plain awesome things that 3rd party designers do. Thats what keeps me downloading.

Thanks for the tips on sorting the good 3rd party from the bad. I have had a bit of a think about this. Installing 3rd party is a learning curve , i'm getting better , if microsoft spent as much time on aircraft as the 3rd party guys do the cost would be huge, so let microsoft make the bones and leave the meat to the 3rd party developers, thank you to all the guys who spend so much of there own time making good quality add on's.
Cheers