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.

EVVFCX wrote on Nov 24^th, 2011 at 4:21pm:


You downloaded the Mirage 2000-N, a two seater, great model but FS9 port-over.
We were talking about the other one from the same author (Rollus, Roland Laborie), which is a Mirage 2000-5, single seater, and FSX native. That last one cannot be downloaded anymore, excepted from torrents.

hyperpep111 wrote on Nov 24^th, 2011 at 12:05pm:

/yabb?num=1317020495 (last reply)

Lots of nice posts here, thanks chaps! I'll hopefully have some screenshots soon!

BlackAce wrote on Dec 12^th, 2011 at 9:06am:


thats the same with the mirage...
and you can shoot the misiles.

Most freeware developers don't have a website you can go to and raise hell if something doesn't work. If they do it's the...life is busy don't like it make your own thing usually.
Payware forums you raise hell at their forum and every other flight sim forum get their attention and they fix it....or lose lots of money

Xpand wrote on Dec 12^th, 2011 at 3:50pm:


Payware companies are not gaining terrain over freeware creators at all. Those are two different terrains, that's all.

Look at the planes Black Ace have mentionned:
- B-737: Do you know any good 737 for FSX ? The Posky one is beautiful externally, but inside it is as complex as the default, which is quite bad. There is the TinMouse but it has no virtual cockpit. Nothing else.
- A10. Do you know any freeware A10 that has good quality ? There are absoluetely none. There might be one or two, in FS9 format (or older), and without virtual cockpit.
- F22. There is one beta model for FSX, with a nice external model but a very basic VC. Future updates might make it interesting, but so far the most "complex" one is the freeware Alphasim one... and even the default Cessna is more complete that this.
- F16: No freewares for FSX. Only the Kirk Olsson's one from FS9, with a nice looking model, and a basic and non-clickable VC.

Some payware offer a level of quality and realism that freeware creators cannot offer, or have not offered yet. My opinion about this is that we should be glad some companies are actually producing stuff that is totally missing in the freeware world, making the amount of available models/sceneries for a sim even greater.

My hangar is full of freewares, but I have some paywares that have no equivalents in the freeware world, and I'm glad those addons existed to fill that gap.

Now that's some cool real world flying experience there ! 
For the Mustang, you might be pleased by the next A2A Mustang with Accusim... I mean, when it will get available :/
(I'm waiting for it since ages, just like the future Accusim F-104 and Accusim F-4...)

Daube wrote on Dec 15^th, 2011 at 8:16am:


Yes it was. A big thing I do miss are the vibrations and the smells. Nothing like 130 octane burning in the morning.

I have been in a crash once, when I was 16. I was rear seat in a T-6 chasing another throught a loop while practicing for an airshow. Nothing more scary then being on your back almost upside down and a piston releases taking the jug with it. Yea, I grew up right there and also realized I dont trust silk. We rode it out and danced in a bean field near Thibodeaux Louisiana. Also learned what money could do that day. Ole Dr Charles Lewis, God rest his soul. Man could fly anything. The joke was he could fly a soup can if you strapped a big enough engine to it. Im a gifted pilot but he was nuts.