Editing Microsoft Flight Simulator (section)

===Aircraft===
[[File:AFA Beech in Flight Simulator.jpg|thumb|A [[PMDG]] [[Beechcraft 1900|Beech 1900D]] of "American Flight Airways", in AFA Express colors]]
Individual attributes of ''Flight Simulator'' aircraft that can be customized include; cockpit layout, cockpit image, aircraft model, aircraft model textures, aircraft flight characteristics, scenery models, scenery layouts, and scenery textures, often with simple-to-use programs, or only a text editor such as 'Notepad'. Dedicated 'flight simmers have taken advantage of ''Flight Simulator's'' vast add-on capabilities, having successfully linked ''Flight Simulator'' to homebuilt hardware, some of which approaches the complexity of commercial full-motion flight simulators.

The simulator's aircraft are made up of five parts:

* The model, which is a 3D CAD-style model of the aircraft's exterior and virtual cockpit, if applicable. Models consist of two distinct sections - the main chassis or "core", and accessories or dynamic parts, such as the landing gear or ailerons.
* The textures, bitmap images which the game layers onto the model. These can be easily edited (known as ''repainting''), so that a model can adopt any paint scheme imaginable, real or fictional.
* The sounds, literally what the aircraft sounds like. This is determined by defining which WAV files the aircraft uses as its sound-set.
* The panel, a representation of the aircraft's cockpit. This includes one or more bitmap images of the panel, instrument gauge files, and sometimes its own sounds.
* The FDE, or ''Flight Dynamics Engine''. This consists of the air-file (a *.air file), which contains hundreds of parameters that define the aircraft's flight characteristics, and the aircraft.cfg file, which contains more and easier-to-edit parameters.

Most versions of ''Microsoft Flight Simulator'' include some of the world's most popular aircraft from different categories, such as the Mooney Bravo and Beechcraft Baron 58, which fall into the general aviation category; the Airbus A321 and Boeing 737, which fall into the civil jets category; the Robinson R22, which falls into the helicopter category; the Air Scheffel 738, which falls into the general aviation category again; and many other planes commonly used around the world.

Not being limited to using the default aircraft, add-on planes can be downloaded from many sources for free or purchased, which can then be installed into ''Microsoft Flight Simulator''. The Beechcraft 1900D, pictured above, is an add-on aircraft. Similarly, add-on repaints can be added to default aircraft; these repaints are usually downloaded for free.

====AI traffic====
A growing add-on category for the series is AI ([[artificial intelligence (video games)|artificial intelligence]]) traffic. AI traffic is the simulation of other vehicles in the ''FS'' landscape. This traffic plays an important role in the simulator, as it is possible to crash into traffic (this can be disabled), thus ending the player's session, and to interact with the traffic via the radio and ATC. This feature is active even with third-party traffic. Microsoft introduced AI traffic in MSFS 2002 with several airliners and private aircraft. This has since been supplemented with many files created by third-party developers. Typically, third-party aircraft models have multiple levels of detail, which allow the AI traffic to be better on frame rates, while still being detailed during close looks. There are several prominent freeware developers. Some third-party AI traffic can also be configured for "real-time" departures.