So I'm FINALLY making the upgrade from 2004 to FSX. Obviously I've got to start clean now with my aircraft so is there anything you recommend? Can be freeware or payware! Looking for warbirds, military and classic jets!

Thanks in advance.

You're going to get A LOT of personal opinions on this. 

For me, I have the VRS Superbug and LOVE it (see sig).  It's by far my favorite plane to fly, but I love F/A-18s so I'm biased...the IRIS freeware stuff is really good too. 

If you like rotorcraft I recommend the Aerosoft Jayhawk/Seahawk package and the freeware Eagle Rotorcraft Simulations choppers (event though they're not military).

Have fun!

FoxThree wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2011 at 8:21pm:



That's a pretty comprehensive list......but, certainly not  "all currently available".

There are too many to list.......this covers quite a few of the good ones though

Browse the main site here at SimV

For freeware the choice is nowadays extremely wide. Also, a little part of those freeware planes are ex-paywares, mainly the IRIS birds mentionned by other members earlier.

From what you wrote you are mainly looking for military-style planes, so I'll skip the civilian ones.

I'll also skip the FS9 port-overs since you will probably already know most of them. I'll talk only about the FSX-native format planes.

In general freeware, I would recommend you the various birds created by Tim Conrad, some of them already exist in earlier versions for FS9, the FSX versions are new models of the same birds, compiled in FSX native format with better textures, VCs and more detailled shapes.

There are also quite a lot of classic old military planes available at Britsim.com, classic jets like the Vampire, Venom, Hunters and more.

You might want to take a look at the birds created by the French team Restauravia, mainly the Dassault Mystere, which has some great visuals, an excellent virtual cockpit, great sounds and fantastic flight model ! Same for their Epislon jet. For French stuff, I would also recommend you to download the Etendard from the Royale French Navy website, which is on the same level of quality of the other birds mentionned before.

Oh, and of course the Tomcat and T-45 created by Dino Cattaneo

The last freeware classic jets that comes to my mind are amongst the best ones:
- the F-104 StarFighter created by SimSkunkWorks. It's FSX-native, it has a beautifull external model, a very good virtual cockpit, great sounds and an excellent and extremely challenging flight model !
- the Mig-21MF which is almost on the same level than the F-104, but I can never remember the exact author name 


For payware I would recommend three things:
- for modern military, the VRS F-18 Super Hornet, it's simply the greatest modern military bird available so far in terms of realism, visual details, virtual cockpit complexity and interactivity in the cockpit.
- for classic warbirds, the P-47, the B-17 and especially the Spitfire made by A2A with the Accusim extention !! Nothing, absolutely nothing will come close to that. Just take a look at the official presentation videos of those birds on the site:
- there wil be an Accusim Mustang by A2A in the near future, but in the meanwhile you might want to take a CLOSE LOOK to the WarBirdSim Mustang, which is without any doubts one of the most beautifull 3D model ever created in the history of Flight Simulator.

Here are the videos showing what "Accusim" means.

Close, but no dice! 

This one is my next project. The one you might have is the S-46 model. My sig shows the S-15. 

If you can find it, The Rollus mirage 2000 Is the non-American VRS F/A-18E of freeware. 95% of all buttons in the cockpit work .

FoxThree wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2011 at 8:21pm:




   The Hawker Raytheon isn't native 

i would advise the spartan executive,no military but great model and textures,looks real at some moments.
the extra liveries one.

i also recommend the rafaele and Xpand's f22,its great.