Which plane, which flight sim?

In the course of building my 737 shell, I have had a change of heart. I have become really interested in Soviet era airliners and wanted to build a cockpit interior "inspired by" this type of aircraft but not an exact replica of any aircraft in particular. One of the reasons for this more freedom in designing a cockpit.

I really like the Tupolev 154 from project Tupolev. It is an unbelievably detailed model. Unfortunately it is only available for FS2004. I have found a version changed over to FSX, but it seems to be missing things. In particular, the engineers panel where you spend a lot of time getting everything to go.

I would happily build my sim around fs2004, but I find the scenery so much better in FSX. A lot of people build detailed sim around FS2004 and seem quite happy with it. So I have a bit of a dilemma.

So a few questions. Are there scenery upgrades that make scenery quality comparable to FSX? If I could improve this alone, I would be happy with FS2004. It runs very well on my aging computers.

Is anyone aware of a good Soviet era airliner model compatible with FSX?

I'm sure I'm not the first person to choose an aircraft not built for FSX. Any thoughts?

BTW, I am going for a basic build with functionality added as I go. I have no problem with a keyboard and mouse in the cockpit.

Thanks for you input.

I dont know about which flight model , but check out this guy http://www.opencockpits.com/modules....g2_itemId=8002

Yes, I have read about that project. They have posted on these forums. I'm not sure what they are using for software or how to contact them. Other ideas that come to mind. Use a 727 or 737, make the cockpit "look" the way I want, and use a texture repaint for the exterior. Any other ideas?