First real-life flight and making FS2004 more real

Hi all,

Yesterday I had the privelege and good fortune of experiencing a real
life trial instructional flight. This was an early birthday present
from my fiancee and her parents, and I'm not thinking of doing my PPL.

My instructor was a lovely older lady that had been flying since the
1950s. We took off from Hoxton Park in Sydney's west (YHOX), flew NW
then W almost to Warragamba Dam, turned S, and returned East to YHOX,
entered the circuit and landed. I got to do maybe a total of half a
minute of taxing (and did have trouble staying on the line), and flew
for about half the flight once my instructor had gotten us to altitude
(2000ft), set the throttle and trimmed. I probably flew half the total
flight and I did have a little trouble getting us down to 1400ft
because I kept drifting up.

It was gorgeous up there but for me at least it was very bumpy. I came
down with beads of sweat rolling down my forehead and it wasn't because
I was hot or scared. I got very motion sick (but fortunately not to the
point of throwing up or allowing myself to hand control back of the
aircraft, though I was glad it was coming to an end when we were
landing).

Naturally before going up and to make the most of my experience I had
practiced on FS2004. I my practice with Vista Australis and the clear
weather theme, and started from runway 34 which is the preferred
runway. I'd looked up the VFR guide for the Sydney basin, made sure I
was familiar with the 172 (not that I wasn't to start with) and made
sure the flight school was reputable. I also sim quite a bit so I know
what the instruments are and how they work (without which the entire
experience would have been no more than a joy flight)

On the day we had clear skies but a variable moderate wind, which meant
runway 16 was in use instead.

There many differences between the real thing and the simulator but
here are the ones that counted:

1) Even with turbulence to severe and variable winds, I'm not having to
spend time in flight sim making sure the plane continues to fly in a
straight line. There was no way on earth that the real Cessna 172 would
have flown in a straight line. My instructor certainly didn't seem to
think this was unusual. I really have nothing to gauge this by other
than hearing pilots say a properly trimmed plane will want to go back
to being wings level. Did I mention motion sickness? Next time (if
there is one) I won't forget to take a motion sickness pill.

2) Noise. I never have my computer up loud enough to make it difficult
to speak to someone in the same room. The headset cut out quite a bit
and it was definitely difficult to hear my instructor. Fortunately she
would point at the instruments quite a bit.

3) Cramped conditions. I'm not a small guy (average height but soft
drink belly). It was awkward keeping my feet off the rudder pedals. and
not having my legs hit the yoke.

4) Controls. I use a joystick and racing wheel pedals. Joystick to yoke
actually wasn't too different, but the rudder pedals with differential
brakes etc certainly were. All the controls were "heavier" than the
sim, but particularly the pedals. I'd like to get a better look at a
set of real Cessna pedals some time and actually have a fiddle to get a
feel for their "sensitivity" to use the flight sim term. I'd need a lot
more practice to learn to taxi.

5) Scenery - Vista Australis is not very like the real thing for this
suburban airport. The strip is right. The houses and roads are all
wrong (Western Sydney is a lot more populated with houses and a lot
less bush like, and there's a new motorway near this airport, which
incidentally is scheduled to close in 2008 unfortunately).

Okay so given that I've already said I don't want to persue a PPL but
do want to make my simming more realistic, here's my question:

To get more realistic, 2 and 3 are really easy to fix if I really want
to - turn up the computer volume, put stuff around me to make it more
cramped (not that I'm likely to want to do either of these). 4 is also
easy if I throw money at it (CH pro pedals and yoke, though I don't
fancy the AUD530 price tag). 5 I can live with (or I can pick areas
where there is better scenery to fly in YSSY is much better for
example).

The problem for me is 1 - flight dynamics in turbulence. I don't want
the actual motion since I find nothing fun about the motion sickness so
I don't have any want of a motion platform, but how do I make FS2004
fly more like the real thing with regards to turbulence?

For example would it be worth buying Weather Maker Professional or some
other weather product? (Anyone use WMP here?)

Needless to say I had an absolute blast despite the motion sickness and
would recommend a trial flight to any simmer with the means. It cost me
less than the average flight sim addon. Naturually do pick someone
experienced and safe though.

Oh one thing I forgot to add. I mis-identified the pair of Beechcraft
Skippers at the airport. I thought they were Piper Tomahawks. When I
went back and looked it up on the web it turns out there isn't an
FS2004 Skipper available (that I could find) but there were FS2000 and
FS2002 versions.

I was both amused that I could only identify aircraft I'd seen in the
sim, and embarassed that I could think anything without an all glass
cockpit was a Tomahawk.