What's Good	What's Bad	3.5 out of 5.0
Unmatched cockpit detail Unprecedented realism in instrument flight More airports than you can shake a flight stick at	Ugly scenery No in-game tutorials Marketed to the MS Flight Simulator crowd but made for the hardcore General Aviation junkie Rubber planes

Other GA sims such as Sierra's Pro Pilot and Looking Glass' Flight Unlimited series have attempted to provide niche GA sims with varying degrees of success, but Fly! takes on Flight Simulator where it lives, the whole world. That's right, Fly! models the whole world including selected "detailed" areas in much the same way as MSFS 98.

So what do you call an ambitious sim that models 9500 airports spread throughout 50,000 square miles of satellite imagery based terrain incorporating 67,000,000 elevation points? You could call it the Canterbury Tales of GA Sims. Unfortunately, like Chaucer's epic masterpiece this work also seems not quite complete. At its initial release Fly! presented with a number of bugs including problems with Air Traffic Control (ATC), weather, and even instrument inaccuracies. Two subsequent patches have greatly improved many of these deficits, but considering this sim is all about instruments it seems clear that the release was rushed.

This brings us to one of Fly!'s greatest strengths or weaknesses, depending on how you look at it. The cockpits and cabins are fabulously detailed and look especially good at 1024 x 768. Five GA planes are modeled with each one having a beautifully rendered cockpit brimming with all the instruments you would expect in the real thing. To my knowledge no other GA sim has attempted this much detail. In a nod to the ever-changing world of civilian flight this sim even models Global Position Systems (GPS) to navigate by. This is probably the first PC GA sim targetting the mass market which provides realistic instrument flight. However, it would have been nice if Terminal Reality had included in-game step by step tutorial "missions" to train new users on the basics of instrument flight. In fact, I believe this is an essential addition if this product is going to reach a mass audience, because instruments are about all you get.

For the casual gamer wanting to pick up a GA sim and cruise around looking at the pretty scenery, Fly! will be a big disappointment. This is some of the ugliest scenery I've ever seen. Despite the claims of satellite imagery and millions of elevation points, the world appears pretty flat and greenish tan in most places. Even the "detailed" cities appear to have just a few landmark buildings plus some rather generic looking buildings dumped on a khaki quilt. I took a test flight around one of my favorite cities, Chicago. I was at first pleased to be able to fly between the Sears Tower and the John Hancock building, but as I traveled north along the Gold coast I started wondering where all the high dollar condos were. Upon reaching Wrigley field I found it sitting lonely on a vast tan tartan instead of nestled into the parking poor neighborhood it belongs in.

Heading back south I tried to follow Lake Shore Drive towards the Field Museum and McCormick place, but found there was no Drive and the generic look of the buildings sometimes made recognizing landmarks difficult. On the upside Solider Field was recognizable if not exactly pretty. Some will mark this up to a "Nintendo head" crying about eye candy. Let's face it, in real life part of the joy of flight is enjoying the view. Everyone wants the window seat, unless it's in Fly! then they pray for an aisle. To be fair, the terrain looks pretty good once you get to cruising altitude at around 5,000 feet or above, just don't expect to be wowed by the view. Considering the mediocrity of the graphics you would expect this sim to run smoothly, but I sometimes hit a single digit framerate when cruising low around detailed areas.

Fly!'s flight model appears to be quite good to me. I have seen several people on the web complaining long and bitterly about the flight model, but this net behavior seems standard for any new release and often comes from non-pilots. Since I myself am not a pilot, I will limit myself to saying the flight model appears complex and includes stalls, wind, trim, and other nuances enough to suspend my disbelief. However, I wish this complex modeling extended to aircraft damage. Basically there is none and absolutely no penalty for bad landings or the type of power dive now made famous by JFK Jr. Believe it or not your plane will hit the ground or water and bounce taking no damage. Often you can take off again although this is more difficult out of water. You can choose to turn a feature on that allows bumping into buildings, as opposed to passing through them, but this just results in more bouncing.

The story on the net is that this was a concession made allowing Terminal Reality the right to use the names and logos of the aircraft manufacturer. While I can understand an aircraft company not wanting to see their planes dig craters to make Dante proud, why not a simple dialogue box stating, "You have crashed"? Anything but bouncing.

To dwell on the graphics and damage model is to miss much of Fly!'s appeal. This sim is probably the most complex mass-market (priced in the $50 or under range) trainer you can pick up. You are able to learn about and manage every part of your flight from the initial flight plan, to load distribution, to following air-traffic control, to log book information. You can even go through a very long and detailed step by step check list and startup procedure prior to flight. One of the most impressive features is the ability to really use the complex instruments as you navigate through real world weather. Fly! allows you to download current real world weather files from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). PC pilots can fly into the airport of their choice while experiencing the same weather their real life counterparts are experiencing. The manual is fairly good and provides an introduction to all these features and instruments that is geared towards new pilots.

Despite some of my complaints I found myself more intrigued by Fly! the more I used it. I use the word "use" as opposed to "play" because this is really not a game as such but a serious training tool. For those interested in learning the complex ins and outs of civilian flight and instrument navigation this is the closest thing to reality you're going to get for under $50 range. If you're looking for relaxed visual rules flight over breath taking vistas you might want to hold out for Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2000.

Overall, I feel this is a strong and ambitious initial release that probably doesn't deserve the lukewarm reception it has received in some quarters. If a future release adds features to make this sim more accessible and visually palatable to the mainstream audience while maintaining groundbreaking realism, then Microsoft may finally have a true challenger...at least in the flight simulator market.