I've never been particularily impressed by X-plane, gui is not very intuitive, 3d cockpits are rare, I paid for 9, don't want to pay again just to have 10, it will be the same story when 11 is released.
In terms of realism I guess it's pretty good, they focus very hard on accurate flight modelling.

Same here and the terrain is really naff unless you want to pay out for add-ons. Many people say the FM is far superior to FSX but FSX has such a wide base now you can get almost anything you want, much of it free. I like it for simple flying around over the photo terrain I added although the MS terrain is better than X-plane IMHO. Since I'm not dogfighting or doing serious aerobatics I don't notice any 'faults' in the FM. Its more than adequate. I will get Flight when it comes out just to see what the final release is like.

They are consciously targetting a different market, trying to pull 'gamers' towards 'simulation'.

Thanks for the news on the upcoming DCS P-51! It's my favourite airplane, the cockpit shots look awesome!

can i ask you? why you like this plane?
It's not beautiful, bad maneuverable characteristics, but good speed.
Why this plane?:confused:

Why not....theres something for everyone in this world.

I rather think I'll buy that.

Best answer;-)explains it all/

I'll probably support this one as well. The trouble is though, if it turns out to be modelled far more realistically than CloD and you enjoy using all the new bells and whsitles then it won't feel great going back to a simplified CloD model.

I am pleased with what 1c have given us in terms of CEM. However, I do think they need to tweak things a bit to make the figures match the manuals more accurately and add a few missing elements such as parking brake, priming etc. for those who like it full real.

The feeling of flight and superb sound of CloD will really take some beating in my opinion. I was bobbing around in the water the other day and was totally enthralled listening to a dogfight overhead - incredibly real. The new sound guy really deserves a medal.

Once they fix the outstanding issues then CloD should be hard to compete with - huge maps, large number of period objects and aircraft etc. Attention to detail.....

everything you described in the last half of your post 'won't' happen in the DCS sim, you will get a P-51 to fly and that's it.

I think you're right there bongodriver. Still, a bit of competition on the realism front might keep 1c on their toes. I know for a fact that things like priming will have zero effect on game performance as the code only needs to run pre-startup. Great for immersion though - I'd love to be able to flood my engine through sloppy priming. They really are so close to the full startup procedure that it seems crazy not to go the full distance - with options of course for those who like things simpler.