When I was a kid -- and that's longer ago than I care to dwell on -- the term "fly by wire" meant something entirely different to what it does today. I built a hot little balsa wood model aircraft that flew in circles constrained by control lines. I could control the elevators by altering the angle of my hand, a bit like controlling a modern kite ... 

Download and read the full articles above for some ideas about how to use Flight Simulator X to practice flying model airplanes.

Insider Tips

Here are a few other ideas to help you get the most of your simulated model flight:

1. Simulation Rate - when you're first getting used to flying from this new perspective, it can be helpful to slow things down a little bit. Then, as you get more experience, speeding things up can make the full-size aircraft in Flight Simulator appear to move faster with greater maneuverability, just like their small-scale counterparts. To change the Simulation Rate, press the R key, and then use + and - keys to make everything go faster or slower.
   
   
2. Fly-by View - This view operates somewhat like the Tower view, in that it is fixed and tracks your aircraft. However, once the aircraft has gotten far enough away from the camera, the camera jumps ahead and repositions itself for another pass. For a challenge, switch to Fly-by view when you're on the runway, then try to keep the airplane flying close enough to the camera so that it doesn't jump. This is good practice for beginners, since novice model airplane pilots often have a tendency to let their models get too far away.
   
   
3. Custom Cameras - If you want to experiment with placing your own cameras, tweaking things like preset zoom levels, tracking behavior, and a number of other features, you can find the documentation you need in the Camera Configuration portion of the Flight Simulator X SDK (exclusively available in the Deluxe version).