Yahooo!  I got it to work only with the help of another poster in this forum.  I tried what he did by changing my Windows icon to run as administrator and it worked!  Everything connected at first, then I ran into a "slight" problem.

Very pleased to hear you're up and running - thanks for sticking with it!

What do you think is going on?

1.  When I would start my FSX, get my plane ready, go and launch FSFS software, my FSX window would go completely "black", hang up and eventually I would get a Windows System error, and the FSX would start all over again.

2.  If I start the flying school first but don't "connect", start up FSX, get plane ready...yada yada...then go back and connect everything seem to work fine.  Your manual says to do the #1 way, but I seemed to have better luck with #2.  Is something still wrong or have you heard of this problem before?

I don't recall such behaviour being reported ever before. In truth there are so many variables in the set up (XP and Vista in all their different flavours, SPs and options), versions of FS2004 and FSX, etc. , strange things do happen, but if you have a method to make it work then that is good news indeed.

And on a flying note:  Made my first small flight and score impressive 85.41 for just screwing around seeing if it worked and backing too hard, coming in too steep....yea baby!

Splendid! I'll bet the instructor had a few words to say...

Make sure you read the section in the manual about flight modes and also about setting NAV1 OBS to runway heading - oh and that you fully understand the difference in the way that FSFS handles approaches and landings with ILS versus "without ILS" (visual).

Anyway, look forward to talking to you some more.  I'm sure I'll have more questions.

Keep us in the loop!

Thought I'd let you know....

Joe