Once again thanks guys, I really appreciate the help. i'll forgoe the direct quoting and answer in general
I turn off AV when flying, normally i use fsautostart but have tried without.
I turn off all autoupdates AV, Windows etc all the time
I'm as certain as anyone can be that i'm free of malware with regular scans using multiple AV and spyware tools
Turning off heat blur does improve things slightly with slow downs less frequent and less severe
Water to low gives a marginal improvement as well
edit \ Pilotasso, i don't have that option, it looks like an nVidia feature, thnx anyway
i'd guess that its 20-25% better but still hard work
i noticed another thread about stutter so maybe i've got a bad case of it
what really confuses me is the underground view. i've treble checked my view.cfg file and it has camera terrain restriction =1
i'm going to reformat, re-install with fresh downloads tomorrow. i'll let you know
Thanks again