Using Win XP Home, Nvidia FX 5500 128MB card, 1280 MB RAM, Pentium 4 1.5 GHz.

Very inexperienced with flight sims. Have only played the Sega Genesis/Electronic Arts YF22 fighter game, Crimson Skies, and Secret Weapons over Normandy.

Just loaded and am in the very first tutorial, flying the Warthog. Wondering if this is normal. The stick is giving odd responses. The plane flies like a pig in mud. The stick either gives too little reaction, or WAY too much. Cannot get the stick to stay aimed at a point on the ground steadily, it keeps wanting to pull away. Pretty weird for a dive-attack plane. Is there a setting on the game to choose between "Hyper Realistic Impossible to Learn Immensely Frustrating Aggravating Waste of Time" and "Fun"?

Still trying to avoid studying prior to flight, huh? First- have you gone through that setup procedure I told you about yet?

Next-try checking the command for "ALT HOLD". The A10 will show the status of the Auto-pilot in the bottom/left corner of the HUD. You will see a "ALT HOLD", "PATH HOLD" OR "BARO". "BARO" means you control the flight path manually.

Next-the A10 (and ALL other aircraft except the F15) require constant "trimming" This is a minor adjustment to the control surfaces to assist in keeping the desired flightpath and AoA.

FYI- This may be a waste of keystrokes, but you do know that you're only about the umpteenth-thousandth noob to come here and talk about "bugs" when it's almost a solid gold guarantee that the problem is rooted in user error. This sim requires READING & STUDY my man. You might as well accept this if you want to learn. I did it. Everyone else here that flies LOMAC did it- you have to do it too.

Those titles you flew before were arcade games- not simulations. Big difference. I had a quite a "career" in Nova's L3 for- a long time. It doesn't get much more arcade than that. Transitioning to LOMAC was a helluva challenge, and I loved every minute of it. So buckle down with that manual and get to work.

On a somewhat unrelated note- that hardware setup you have sounds really really weak. I'm kind of surprised it runs on it for any length of time.