Microsoft Flight Simulator For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)) Paperback – March 21, 2023

Although this is a well written and organized book, I would have liked to have seen more of the navigating around in the Flight Simulator application itself. I am a pilot with a certification already, I wasn't looking for the Ground School portions.I did love that the way the author laid it out and presented tips on how to read the book which made for a quick read!Bravo

Maybe not hard core simulation. A good read though, with a lot of solid information on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

I wanted to evaluate whether the program is something I would use and enjoy before actually purchasing and installing it, and thought the book would help me do that better than any review, as well as being useful if I do get it.I haven't yet made up my mind. Having actually flown, I knew how much there is to keep in mind. This takes time and repetition. The book will help you to decide whether you want to make that commitment.

Nothing better than a book socked with water

If I had bought this book when I first bought the game it would have been some help , after being a 2 year user of MSFS it was not much help , I already new most of what it said .

Great book, good detail, wish I had purchased it sooner.

This item was a gift

I am a MSFS, VR and Dummies enthusiast and also a real-life private pilot. Therefore, when I discovered this book, I was very excited and curious to see who was chosen as the author, given that the Dummies management choses proven experts to write their books about a given subject. My pick would have been two co-authors with one being a real-life pilot with experience with different types of airplanes, and the other one having a deep knowledge about what’s behind the cutting-edge software technology used in MSFS, providing us with valuable insights how to improve MSFS performance. To my great surprise, the author is actually a journalist and gamer, who’s main credential for writing this book is that she has “logged hundreds of flying hours while writing this book.”In case you don’t know, amateur flight simulators have long been more of a niche product for aviation enthusiasts like me who frown upon using the word “game” instead of “flight simulator” or using the word “joystick” instead of “flight control stick”. Geeks like me take the piloting part very seriously. For us, it is more important that the airplanes in a simulator are (or feel) realistic to fly than to have a beautiful scenery. Many of us were heartbroken when Microsoft decided to discontinue their Flight Simulator in 2006.And then Microsoft came back with the Flight Simulator in 2020 and boy, what a game changer it has been in terms of graphics, scenery and several other factors. It is clear that Microsoft targets a broader audience with this simulator, far beyond the enthusiasts and geeks like me, that’s why it was launched on the Xbox platform as well. It should be appealing to gamers, and why not actually?So, in my opinion, MSFS for Dummies was written by a gamer for gamers, and it certainly makes a lot of commercial sense. It gives you a good rundown of MSFS’ more entertaining aspects, like spotting animals in Africa or flying with friends. It gives you a basic introduction to how to fly a plane. And if that’s all you want, this book is for you.Now, if you are interested in a dumbed down but nevertheless solid real-life flight training, or if you want to learn how to make a flight in the A320 from Los Angeles to San Francisco for example, using instrument flight rules, or if you have a VR headset and are struggling to get a decent performance, then this book will probably disappoint you. I would have also wished to learn more about finer details of the software such as what is behind the different graphics settings. So overall, I can give this book only three stars. If you’d like to know more about what I am missing in this book, read on please…MSFS allows to use VR, and boy, what a difference it is compared to using a monitor, especially if you are a real-life pilot like me who is trained to look out of the cockpit 80% of the time. With a monitor, there is a tendency to stare too much at the instruments, but a VR headset instantly shifts your focus outside the cockpit. But choosing the right VR headset, PC hardware and setting it all up for a decent performance can be a daunting task in my own painful experience. I must have spent close to 1000 hours looking for often contradictory and cryptic advice on the internet. Therefore, instead of just propagating the beauty of VR and offering you scant advice how to get started, like this book does, I would have provided much more solid advice and background information how to make VR work for you.The instructions about basic flying skills provided in this book are really just the bare essentials to fly around in the simulator but provide little perspective to real-life flying or important background knowledge. This book tells you to keep an eye on RPM and speed but doesn’t mention how much exactly at different stages of a flight in a C152 for example. How can you fly, let alone land, an airplane like this? When explaining how to land, the book doesn’t even mention the concept of “flare”. Airport traffic patterns are briefly mentioned in the context of safety but not how they help you to land better. There is no word about how to fly and land with cross winds, let alone how it differs from a plane with high wings to a plane with low wings. I could go on but won’t.The book gives a most superficial introduction to flying under instrument flight rules but is limited to the very limited options that MSFS provides in this regard. No word of Standard Instrument Departures (SID) or useful third-party tools like Navigraph. In fact, I cannot imagine how someone can do a flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco for example by reading this chapter in the book.In conclusion, if you are a gamer or someone who is more interested in travelling around the virtual world of MSFS rather than piloting an airplane, this may be a good book for you. If you want more than that, I am afraid I can’t recommend you any better book (except perhaps for “Stick and Rudder” of Wolfgang Langewische which was written decades ago), so you may as well start with this one.