I was an enthusiastic simmer in the 80s and 90s, but I was a “away” for a few years in the 00s because of studies. Back in the days, flightsim.com and avsim.net was good resources for add-on content etc. But how is the situation today? What are the main portals for simmers, except this site?
By the looks of it, both the above-mentioned websites has the same look as in 1999 (especially flightsim.com).
Avsim has been around for a long time. They have a huge repository of information and files. They also have people with a wealth of knowledge and friendly. They tend to attract a more mature crowd. It’s a good forum imo more so for anyone looking to step up their Flying Sim experience from game play to Flight Simming!
Pretty sure they have a good many real world pilots on the forums.
Also Flightsim is good. Sometimes there is more under the hood than what the paint job would lead you to believe 
Careful. Avsim has become pretty toxic in terms of a community as well…
Agreed, I really don’t think of them as “friendly” unfortunately. Toxicity and pedantry seems to be the norm to me.
Avsim was great years ago, but not anymore.
Over the years, I’ve come to realize some degree of toxicity tends to go hand in hand with communities largely populated by so-called harcore simmers (of any type). The Orbx forums, for example, can make avsim look like a petting zoo, as recently demonstrated in the aftermath of the London landmarks debacle.
But in the end, once this new sim’s users start looking under the hood, avsim and flightsim will be the places where the freeware community will be posting their goodies. Of course there’s always the Steam community, but then that’s another kettle of fish.
Whenever I feel like talking to old and grumpy flightsim grandpas, I visit avsim.com 