The 2004 version succeeds ten past versions dating back from 1982 with the 1.0 version to the year 2001 with Flight Simulator 2002.

So enough with the background, let’s get to the basics.

Menus

• Main screen introduces to the software’s hosts, John and Martha King. It also offers you an introductory flight and an overview of the entire program. The overview features a short video hosted by the Kings.
• There are nine different pages you can go to from here:

News

This page shows updated news from the Microsoft Flight Simjulator team directly from the Internet.

Century of Flight

This section contains articles written by Lane Wallace. The articles epitomize the nine historical airplanes in the game. Wallace writes for Flying magazine.

Create a Flight

The Create a Flight option enables you to select your aircraft of choice, departure airport, preferred weather, and time and season. You may optimize the amount of fuel in the plane, prearrange a number of different in-flight failures, or create an entire flight plan. You may also save the current settings to use in the future.

Select a Flight

The Select a Flight page offers well over a hundred different flying scenarios from 32 different categories. Historical and modern flights are included.

Flying Lessons

The flying lessons enable you to receive five “simulated” ratings: Student Pilot, Private Pilot, Instrument Pilot, Commercial Pilot, and Airline Transport Pilot. The lessons are instructed by Rod Machado (via narration). Machado has instructed real life students for over 8,000 hours.

Multiplayer

Have you ever wanted to fly with others people from around the world? This option enables you to do so. In order to play in multiplayer mode, you must have an Internet connection. You must also either have an IP address of a currently ongoing session, or host your own. I recommend downloading FShost to find active sessions to join and to host your own.

Learning Center

The Learning Center is a vast database of knowledge. Hundreds of articles explain every detail imaginable regarding FS2004.

The freshly-installed simulator includes 25 aircraft featuring nine historical craft. There are thousands of other aircraft to download on other websites.

• Pre-installed Aircraft List

Beechcraft: Baron 58. King Air 350;

Bell: 206B JetRanger;

Boeing: 737-400, 747-400, 777-300;

Bombardier: Learjet 45;

Cessna: C172SP Skyhawk, C182S Skylane, C208 Caravan Amphibian, C308B Grand Caravan;

Curtis: JN-4D ‘Jenny’;

de Havilland: DH-88 ‘Comet’;

Douglas: DC-3;

Extra: 300S;

Ford: Tri-Motor;

Lockheed: Vega 5B, Vega 5C;

Mooney: Bravo;

Piper: J-3 Cub;

Robinson: R22 Beta II;

Ryan: NYP;

Schweizer: 2-32 Sailplane;

Vickers: F.B.27A Vimy;

Wright brothers: Wright Flyer.

• 3-D Cockpits

Every aircraft in this 2004 flight sim includes a 3D. virtual cockpit. This means users can virtually take the place of a pilot, and enjoy a 360 degree view of the plane’s interior and control unit. Every control on the instrument panel is movable and usable; the yokes move, all knobs turn, and digital buttons respond.

Gameplay

• Physics

Extremely advanced physics makes for a realistic feel and believable aircraft handling.

• Graphics

This version has a definite graphical improvement on the 2002 version. With my Radeon 9600 series graphics card and 2 GB RAM, I get around 25 frames per second. You can completely customize the graphic settings in the settings page under the “Display” option. This way, the game will be able to display less intensive graphics for low-end graphic cards, and extremely intensive graphics for high-end graphic cards.

• Air Traffic Control (ATC)
  

New to Flight Simulator in this version is Air Traffic Control, or ATC. You can’t actually talk to a live controller, but it is very realistic, nonetheless.

It works by prompting you with all currently available ATC requests. For example, you may request clearance to taxi, clearance to takeoff, clearance to land, directions to your arrival airport, and much, much more.

Each available request is preceded by a number; when pushed, a pre-recorded voice of your preference speaks your request. An Air Traffic Controller responds to you request, and a new set of requests appears. ATC procedures continue on in this manner.

• Dual / Multiple Monitors

With FS9, you can use any number of monitors and customize each one with a different view or module or both. FS2004 does this by allowing you to dock or undock components into windows. For example, you can undock the GPS and move it around as a separate window, like you would do with any Windows window (not to be redundant).

The following lists some of the modules that can be organized to your preference:

Main instrument panel

Radio Stack

Annunciator

Global Positioning System (GPS)

Compass

Air Traffic Control

Throttle Quadrant

Overhead Panel

Here are the available views:

Cockpit – Normal 2d cockpit view

Virtual Cockpit – 3d cockpit described above

Spot Plane – You can position the view wherever you wish

Tower – View from the departure tower

Top Down – Displays a ground map and a crosshair