FSXScreenshot By PositionGames

Posted: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - 11:51
PositionGames.com, developer of FSXFollow and FSXControl released a free app for iPad iPhone and iPod Touch. FSXScreenshot, Get inspiration for your next flight or just watch the virtual world for aviation. Enjoy thousands of FSX screenshots.

Cessna 340 II from Carenado

Posted: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - 1:46
Staff reviewer Mike Cameron straps on a twin as he takes Carenado's Cessna 340 II for a test flight. "Cessna borrowed the wing design from the 414 and the undercarriage & tail unit from the 310 but introduced an all-new pressurized cabin with the 340. The Cessna 340 joined the Beechcraft Duke as the only pressurized six seat piston twin engine aircraft produced by a major manufacturer."

"Carenado has always made aircraft with great looking textures and the Cessna 340II continues that tradition. Everything from the creases in the leather seats and the folding table in the passenger area to small things like the headset ports all looks great. The Cessna 340II has a very nice panel with instruments that are very easy to read. All knobs, switches, buttons and dials are all three dimensional and labeling is also very readable without anything being out of focus. Besides the Virtual Cockpit view, there are eight alternate views and a no panel view with the pop-up window key assignments."

"Four paint schemes and an all-white aircraft are included with the package. All of the exterior textures are just as great looking as the interior textures. Other great looking exterior details include: detailed landing gear, readable signage, wingtip lights, static elements (pitot cover, wheel chocks & caution cones) and many other things."

"If you are a new twin engine virtual aviator then this Cessna 340 II will make a nice addition to your hangar. I thought that it was a nice aircraft to fly and was very forgiving."

Avelina Elektra Released

Posted: Saturday, January 21, 2012 - 21:02
Newly released from Lionheart Creations is the futuristic 4 passenger Avelina Elektra, a fast, sleek general aviation plane with a wild LCD digital set of instrumentation screens, automotive styled interior, and 7 versions of themes in the package. This is our most advanced aircraft yet with new forms of coding and animations. The Avelina is available in both FSX and FS2004.

Tre Cime from Real Earth X

Posted: Saturday, January 21, 2012 - 18:16
New staff reviewer Daniel Martinez heads to Italy to fly around Real Earth's Dolomiti X Tre Cime. "The Tre Cime di Lavaredo are three peaks in the Dolomite region of the Alps and are named (in Italian and German, respectively): Cima Piccola/Kleine Zinne ("little peak"), Cima Grande/Große Zinne ("big peak"), and Cima Ovest/Westliche Zinne ("western peak")."

"The Tre Cime mountain scenery was created as a very large 3D object as opposed to the usual landclass and customized mesh method. The result is breathtaking and very realistic. My wife saw one of the screenshots and asked if it was a photograph. The Tre Cime scenery is very well done and I highly recommend checking it out if you fly through the Italian Alps or just like some great VFR. The modelers have really set the bar with realism by creating the peaks using a 3D object."

Latest News From Aerosoft

Posted: Saturday, January 21, 2012 - 1:32
Maastricht-Aachen X - Maastricht-Aachen airport is a busy regional airport on the Dutch/Belgium/German border. It`s popular with cargo companies and low cost carriers (like GermanWings and RyanAir) because of its location. It is close to many major cities and the industry heart of Belgium and Germany.

It's also the airport that EUROCONTROL choose as its home base because of this central location. Next to the cargo and passenger flights the airport has two flying school and a lot of general aviation traffic.

The version that Andras Kozma made for Aerosoft is a small marvel of state of the art scenery design. Even though nearly all buildings and structured are modelled in great detail and textured with photographic textures the framerate remains remarkably high and fluent. Unlike many other airports it also got a very lively feel to it with many animations. It's a perfect location for you regional flights around Western Europe and online flying.

US Cities X - Detroit - Detroit completes the US Cities X range around the great lakes. "Motown" as many call it, is one of the largest cities in the US, full of history, home to a major hub for Delta Airlines and home to some large industry corporations. Detroit is without a doubt the industry capital of the US.

But it is going through some dire straits as the heavy industry found it hard to compete with other nations. Unemployment forced many people (up to 25%) to leave the area. The massive traffic jams of the 1980's are only a memory. But Detroit has a strong spirit and seems to be leaving the problems behind. The low prices draw young people and the heavy industry is slowly replaced with smaller more agile companies.

Like most other activities aviation took a hit but passenger numbers are increasing. Detroit Metro and the many other smaller airports make this a complex and busy environment for pilots. But there are many rewards, the region looks great from the air. Even outside of the downtown's boundaries there are some fascinating sights from the air: Let it be the Dearborn test track, which was one of the first international airports in history, Detroit Metro, one of the largest airports in the country, a military airport at the shores of Lake St. Clair and islands with airports scattered along the course of the St. Clair and Detroit rivers that are home to thousands of vacation homes that can often only be reached by boat.

Major airports in and around the city as well as the islands are covered with new high res ground images with customized mesh terrain (no new building structures added):
KDTW - Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport
KDET - Coleman A. Young International Airport (Detroit City Apt)
CYQG - Windsor (Canada)
KYIP - Willow Run
KPTK - Oakland Co Intl
KMTC - Selfridge ANGB
KONZ - Grosse Ile Mun
Z92 - Harsens Island
Y47 - New Hudson
1D2 - Canton Plymouth Mettetal
7D2 - Oakland/Troy

10th German Flight Simulation Conference - Come and join Aerosoft again for this year's annual FlightSim Conference on the 24th March 2012.Our 10th German Flight Simulation Conference will take place at the Flugwerft Oberschleißheim near Munich. They will be welcoming more than 1.000 FlightSim enthusiasts and quite a huge number of developers at our exclusive show such as Oliver Pabst (AES), Thorsten Loth (SimWings - Gibraltar, Anchorage) and Thomas Molitor (Flight Keeper, FS Map). After the conference you can enjoy the royal atmosphere of the castle very close to the Flugwerft which is the location of the traditional Captain´s Dinner. Application forms and more information about the conference are on their Conference webpage.

FS Streaming COMM New 1.2.8 Released

Posted: Friday, January 20, 2012 - 15:10
A new release is available for this program and can be downloaded also at avsim.com as shareware. This 1.2.8 release provides some upgrades on the GUI and the internal global-check routine. FSSC is an application that provide mechanisms to link FS Comm frequencies with Internet streaming URL, providing a lot of useful features for hearing what you want during your flights. It requies P.Dowson FSUIPC.dll interface (FS9/FSX)

Sim Savvy Scenery Available For X-Plane

Posted: Friday, January 20, 2012 - 2:00
Sim Savvy is happy to announce we are now able to serve the X_Plane community. Their new product is called "Pic-a Port" Photoreal Scenery for X-Plane. It is airport specific, one meter resolution photoreal scenery covering the airport of the customer's choice. It is sold in 1 degree lat/long tiles and contains a region about 60 miles in diameter. The data size per tile is 6.5GB and it ships on a 8GB flash drive. A one year membership is also available for purchase. The membership gives the customer access to all completed tiles by returning the flash drive for more completed airport scenery. Orders will take 1 to 2 weeks to complete including shipping time. A sample one degree tile of southwest Colorado is available for download at the website.

SKY SIMULATIONS BOEING MD-10 Service Release

Posted: Thursday, January 19, 2012 - 14:26
SKY SIMULATIONS proudly presents an a updated version of their Mc Donnell Douglas BOEING MD-10 For FS2004. Free for current users of both the FSX and FS9 versions. Features included with the update:
-New Landing Gear with new animations.
-NEW Wings, stabilizers, Fuselage and Engines Textures.
-NEW Flight Dynamics.
-NEW Cargo Bays (Lower and Main Cargo Bays).
-Several NEW Textures.
For more information and to download this pack visit the SKY SIMULATIONS Homepage.

PMDG Announces Another Update Coming for NGX

Posted: Thursday, January 19, 2012 - 4:04
Rob Randazzo tonight announced that PMDG is working on releasing another update to their popular 737 NGX. Here is what Rob had to say; "This is a minor update that is being done primarily to clean up a couple of items that we have addressed since the release of SP1b on 09DEC11. We have found some areas for improved performance efficiency, as well as a few other items that have been fixed along the way.

In addition, this update will prepare your NGX installation to fully utilize products created by developers using the NGX SDK. A few developers have had access to the SDK for some time now, and they have been quietly helping to provide feedback on various functionality bits in order to help us ensure that we are accomplishing the desired tasks without any unexpected consequences."

You can read his entire announcement in the AVSIM Forums here.

FSXFollow Now Available For Windows Phone

Posted: Thursday, January 19, 2012 - 2:14
The highly popular FSXFollow program for the iPhone and iPad is now available for the Windows Phone platform. Users running the newest Windows Phone OS (called mango) can track their FSX flight on the go on the map. You can watch the view of the cockpit from anywhere. Setting up FSXFollow is easy and doesnt require entering any IP address. The flown route is also shown on the map.

FSXAirport Released For Mobile Devices

Posted: Thursday, January 19, 2012 - 2:11
The Hieralex company announces a product for use with any flight simulator for the iPad,iPhone and iPod touch. It provides information about airports, runways and it has a overview diagram of the airport. The diagram can be zoomed in. Alternatively to the diagram a top down view of the airport is shown in google maps. Handy for if you want to make an approach to an unfamiliar airport.

Viscount Legends of Flight from Just Flight

Posted: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - 17:59
Staff reviewer Peter Hayes looks at Just Flight's Viscount: Legends of Flight, a classic multi-engined commercial airliner. "JF have produced a dedicated FSX design, encompassing a highly detailed exterior model in which you get 12 highly detailed super-resolution repaints, and fantastic animations coupled with Hi-Fi sound for the Rolls-Royce Dart turboprop engines. The repaints or more accurate liveries cover Great Britain, Europe, Canada and Australia."

"JF have produced quite a highly detailed stretch fuselage with nice smooth lines and reflections due to good specular and bump mapping. There is a single VC layout for the 12 liveries/repaints and there are no 2D panels. The VC depicts fairly realistically the pre-modern "Glass Cockpit" avionics/navigation instruments and shows a very crowded design of analogue instruments."

"This is a nice plane to fly and it is a nice plane to look at. You can travel long distances in a fairly short time and due the JF Flight dynamics, this is an easygoing experience. So if you are into noisy vintage FSX airplanes where you can almost smell the kerosene then this is the plane for you."

Virtual-Dispatch Online

Posted: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 - 13:09
Virtual-Dispatch Online announce the start of the public beta of this easy to use flight planning software. Virtual-Dispatch Online are going to offer all the important features of the client software as a web-based service now. Key Features: Operational flight plan, map view, weather briefing, airport briefing, flight plan export to common addons, etc. You can access the new service at Virtual-Dispatch Online .

World of Subways 3 - London Underground: The Circle Line

Posted: Monday, January 16, 2012 - 0:40
Senior staff reviewer and RailSim/Railworks enthusiast Gene Davis looks at a famous subway route underneath the city of London England. "The London Underground features over 30 miles of drivable track with reproductions of 35 different stops along the Circle Line route and includes a virtual reproduction of the C Stock train that includes both the cab and passenger areas along with an accurate sound set throughout the entire virtual world of WOS 3 that literally brings the simulation to life."

"In World Of Subways 3, sim play is broken down into two different categories. In one you will have the option to Drive to Schedule which will allow you to select from 10 different route options, each with the ability to select time of day and weather conditions. The routes will run from 5 AM until 1 AM making this portion of the game somewhat customizable when it comes to running a train schedule. The other is called Missions and this gives the Subway Driver the ability to select from 10 different missions that include a first time out scenario, to that of dealing with delays caused by an accident on the subway line."

"I like this simulation as it is one of the most comprehensive subway simulations yet released from Aerosoft. Its graphics are simply phenomenal and the control and feel from inside the cab gives the user a true to life feel of what it would be like to be at the helm of one of these trains."

John F. Kennedy Int'l Airport (KJFK) Released

Posted: Sunday, January 15, 2012 - 17:27
BluePrint Simulations is proud to announce the release of their KJFK, New York - John F. Kennedy International Airport scenery. Years of development resulted in the most detailed and accurate rendition ever attempted for this important airport. Taking advantage of the current generation of GPUs, they spared no effort to reproduce each of the seven terminals at the maximum level of detail possible.

Models featuring true 3D details and the highest resolution textures combined with accurately laid out runways, taxiways and ramps offer virtual pilots the opportunity to experience the airport like never before. The scenery is available in two versions, one for FS2004 and another for FSX. Please visit their web site for scenery details and features, documentation and numerous screenshots.

FSSymphony Released As Freeware

Posted: Sunday, January 15, 2012 - 14:20
Ruediger Ebert's FSSymphony released as freeware. The program acts as smart interface between the Microsoft® Flight Simulator (2004, FSX), FSUIPC and the PoKys56E® Ethernet interface. For cockpit builders with no programming experience FSSymphony provides all relevant standard FS Controls in a drop down list and lets them quickly and easily assign to the appropriate inputs and outputs. The program can also act as bridge to the SIOC programming language. Each of the PoKeys56E® digital inputs, outputs, analog inputs and encoders can be assigned to a SIOC variable. This gives cockpit builders a maximum of flexibility and the opportunity to interface none standard FS controls and own SIOC scripts to the PoKeys56E® interface. For more information visit his website and read up on FSSymphony .

VATSIM’s Newest ATC Radar Client vSTARS

Posted: Sunday, January 15, 2012 - 14:12
Ross Carlson and VATSIM are proud to present VATSIM’s newest air traffic control radar client: vSTARS, a high-fidelity simulation of a real-world approach control radar system used in many ATC facilities. The vSTARS client has many of the features of its real world equivalent, such as:
*Full-screen mode for enhanced realism.
*On-screen simulation of hardware knobs and switches.
*RDVS (Rapid Deployment Voice Switch) simulation.
*CRDA (Converging Runway Display Aid) simulation, to assist with sequencing arrivals into converging runways.
*MSAW (Minimum Safe Altitude Warning) simulation.
*Conflict detection.
*Full radar coverage volume simulation.
*TPA (Terminal Proximity Alert) graphics, including J-Rings and TPA Cones.
*Video Maps with adjustable brightness and separate map groups.
*Top-down mode for VATSIM controllers covering Approach and Local positions. (Allows aircraft on the ground to be visible.)
*Automatic tracking of departures.
*CA suppression zones to prevent nuisance conflict alerts.
*MSAW suppression zones to prevent nuisance low altitude alerts.

vSTARS is a challenging and realistic tool designed mainly for VATSIM approach controllers. You can visit the vSTARS site to learn more and download the software at vSTARS Homepage.

Review - Real Environment Xtreme v2 For FSX

Posted: Saturday, January 14, 2012 - 22:31
Staff reviewer Aaron Graham looks at the FSX genre of Real Environment Xtreme v2. "Sometimes when you see something, you know it will be great before you use it."

"Real Environment Xtreme is basically a complete graphics package for Microsoft Flight Simulator X. Anything to do with textures in FSX; you can bet REX will have it covered. It covers land textures, water textures, cloud textures, airport ground textures, sky colors, lighting effects and finally sun and lens flare textures and effects. REX also includes a weather engine and flight planner."

"I am stunned by this product. It is a marvelous piece of programming that many graphical packages should aspire to. If you are in doubt as to whether you should purchase it, just get it."

New iFly 737NG Interface Tool Public Beta

Posted: Saturday, January 14, 2012 - 14:15
New iFly 737NG Interface Tool Public Beta, A new tool for the Flight1/iFly 737NG series has be launched to allow cockpit builder large or small to interface their hardware with all the functions available in the iFly 737NG range. This has be created by iFly Pro team member Jouni Törmänen and while initially designed for the Pro cockpit builder version it works on the current FS9 and FSX versions just as well. The tool is a public beta at the moment to allow any final bugs to be found and to get feedback from the community before the final release.

Jouni said "This is the interface between iFly 737 and FSUIPC. With this interface you can use your FSUIPC compatible clients (OC,SIOC etc) with your Hardware to read lights/states from the iFly and to write commands based on your Hardware switches/rotarys etc. As this is public BETA version the documentation is not completed yet and bugs surely exists. You use this public BETA version at your own risk!
Pre-reqs:
1) FS9 or FSX Flight simulator
2) iFly 737NG addon
3) MS Visual C++ redistributable package (32bit)
4) FSUIPC addon
5) FSUIPC compatible client configured to use iFlyToFsuipc offsets."
Support is given via iFly home cockpit forum.” The file can be found on the Flight1 file library.

X-Plane 10 Global-Edition Available 16th February

Posted: Saturday, January 14, 2012 - 14:07
The X-Plane 10 Global-Edition will be available from 16th February 2012. The simulation experts from Aerosoft exclusively enhanced the global edition of X-Plane 10 with European airport sceneries.
The airports of Nice, Faro and Paderborn-Lippstadt will be extremely detailed whereas airports such as Frankfurt, London, Paris and Madrid
will receive a make up to a highly detailed standard with customized buildings.

X-Plane 10 is based on a completely new graphics engine for the platforms Windows, Mac and Linux.
Data of more than 80 GB make it one of the most comprehensive simulation games ever.

With the release of the simulator the PC pilot can already choose between hundreds of freeware and payware add-ons.
In addition Aerosoft will soon make their well known add-ons for the Microsoft Flight Simulator available for use in X-Plane 10.
Still in the first half of this year Aerosoft will release the add-ons Airport Amsterdam, Madeira, CRJ-200 and ATR 72-500.