Hello,
I am not a pilot but have flown in planes since a child and am looking to start lessons soon. That said, I love flight sims so I thought I could give you some recommendations. I would definitely recommend Flight Sim X + Acceleration (the gold pack that's $29).
A key thing to know is that neither flight simulator has great planes out of the box but luckily third party groups have made some great planes, depending on what you're looking for. Also keep in mind physics at or beyond the flight envelope are hard to find even in otherwise great add-ons.
For small planes, look no further than Real Air Simulations:
http://www.realairsimulations.com/
- Their Scout is one of my favorite planes and does nice stall, slip and spin simulations. In fact, there was a video someone posted here not long ago of a pilot trying to turn around on takeoff after an engine failure and skidded into a spin. I tried this in FSX with the Scout and had a near duplication of the video: slow steep skidding turn, inner wing dipped, stalled and instantly pointed the plane directly at the ground and began to spin.
- Their Duke, piston and turbine are bother wonderful to fly, also.
- Their next plane will be a 172 which I am excited about to finally get a solid one.
Carenado makes some good planes, especially their recent aircraft, although don't expect the same envelope physics that you get with real air. But good for normal flying around and the planes are all beautiful and easy on the system:
http://www.carenado.com
Finally, if you're into airliners, PMDG has amazing system depth and the planes come with the actual POH in many cases. I've also used sites explaining how to operate the real planes to learn them (I love their MD11, JS41 and just recently the 737NG).
For scenery, if you're into low+slow, ORBX (fullterrain.com) is amazing.
You may also want to look at X Plane 10 as noted. It is much more modern and actively developed. However, it's pretty rough around the edges and doesn't have the product support yet that FSX has. That said, I foresee it getting there eventually. XP10 has a nice feel to the flying of the planes. That said, some of the physics is a bit crazy like just flying into any cloud will cause a little plane to be thrown around like crazy.
Even more so than FSX, XP10 really needs to have add ons to be appreciated -- the default planes are laughable, to put it kindly. The stock 172 has some pretty interesting behavior. However, Carenado has started releasing their planes for XP10 and they are quite nice. I have the Bonanza V35 and the Seneca II and both are very nice.
I think XP10 has issues dealing with stalling and other edge physics -- for example, it seems to feel a stalled plane will dive until it picks up speed then magically pull up since it has speed and go into a nose-up attitude until it bleeds off then stall and repeat.
XP10 has a free demo to try at x-plane.com and FSX can be had for $29 from Amazon or wherever.
Either way, get some Saitek Cessna yoke and Throttles or CH Products (I prefer Saitek although it's not perfect). Definitely get the Saitek Combat Rudder Pedals, though. And keep in mind it can get expensive no matter what you do
If you have any more questions, I'd be free to answer!
