Flight1's Ultimate Traffic 2 Released

Posted: Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 22:45
Flight One Software is excited to announce Ultimate Traffic 2 exclusively for FSX. Redeveloped from the ground up, Ultimate Traffic 2 provides FSX users the definitive answer to their AI Traffic needs. The project is a culmination of over three years of research and development, and uses an all new technology developed by Flight1 to create the most realistic skies in FSX. Starting with core real-world airline timetables, Flight1 was determined to leverage their understanding of AI traffic to make something truly amazing. To get to this point, Flight1 worked in cooperation from our friends at Flag Mountain Software, AI Aardvark, The Fruit Stand, and other top developers to build a team to make this all new version possible.

The product features over 550,000 real-world scheduled flights, 1.3 Million general aviation flights, and provides AI traffic at more then 6,000 airports. Over 95 fully compatible DX10 aircraft types recreate unique airport environments. Plus the action is not only at the airports! A key to our new technology is the fact that aircraft follow proper and customizable flight plans, making the skies organized just like in the real world. Aircraft will follow jet routes, and cross waypoints similar to how they do it in real life, bringing you that "highways in the sky" experience. The completely redesigned and fully featured interface contains many options that cannot be found anywhere else to help you leverage many of the Ultimate Traffic 2 features including printable timetables, flight plan assignments, status boards, and a beautiful flight view map that depict the activity of the 550,000 flights that Ultimate Traffic 2 uses.

Ultimate Traffic 2 is also designed with the virtual airline in mind, with special features included to allow Virtual Airline fans the ability to have custom schedules and aircraft displayed in FSX with just a couple of mouse clicks. For screenshots, video downloads, product information , and to purchase Ultimate Traffic 2, please visit their dedicated website.

SimFlight3D Releases 1958 C172 For FS9

Posted: Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 22:32
SimFlight3D launches the FS 2004 version of the 1958 C172 (straight tail) in four paint schemes, complete with real manual flaps, fully operational cockpit and panels. Other features include: chart for map screen use, mike button for ATC window, animated pilot (head turn), oil check door and dipstick.

The C172 is a four-seat, single-engine, high-wing airplane, capable of cruising at 131 knots. Original models shipped with 0-300, 145 horsepower, 6-cylinder engines. The Skyhawk is considered the most popular flight training airplane in the world and is still being produced today. More than 35,000 aircraft have been built.

With over 15 years of 3D modeling, graphic design/conceptualization and animation in the video game industry plus actual flying experience, SimFlight3D was created to promote sophisticated, accurate aircraft models.

757 Captain V4.3 (FSX) Released

Posted: Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 22:21
Captain Sim announces their latest release to the "757 Captain" series. If you purchased 757 Captain Pro prior to 18 May or 757-300 or 757 Freighter prior to 20 May, then you'll want to get this upgrade. The list of new features, fixes and enhancements are numerous, so check them out at Capt Sim's "757 Captain" website.

KSJC San Jose For FSX

Posted: Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 22:10
Imaginesim's KSJC San Jose is now available for FSX. SJC is the most populous city in the San Francisco Bay Area, famous for Silicon Valley, a wonderful laidback Californian lifestyle, and offers scheduled services to around 11 million passengers annually. The airport is situated as a 'downtown airport' and gives pilots an opportunity to land almost within the city center itself, a pleasant change from those mega-hubs located miles out into the countryside.

This scenery add-on features custom made ground textures and runways, terminal, cargo and hangar buildings rendered to 5cm per pixel scale, an interactive docking system to park you right on your mark, taxiways with highly realistic concrete textures, full airport taxiway and runway signage, 3D approach lighting and full ILS navigation. Also included are hundreds of airport vehicles and ground personnel, aircraft can be found parked at custom textured parking positions, all hangars, cargo and airport auxiliary buildings are modeled. KSJC requires the SP2 update for FSX. For a look at the screenshots and to download the demo, vector to the ImagineSim website.

AVSIM Starts Recovery Processs

Posted: Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 21:00
As you can see, AVSIM is starting the road to recovery. Today we were able to bring the main www.avsim.com site back online, which followed bringing the forums system back on Tuesday. We are pleased to report that we believe that we can recover roughly 90% of the file library system consisting of add-on's going as far back as FS98. We have all of the FSX and FS9 files intact. All in all, very good news for the community. Tom Allensworth has published a first in a series of narratives on what has transpired over the last 16 days, and we encourage you to have a read of it. You can access the narrative on his blog, which you can access here. We invite you to have a read of this first chapter of the AVSIM Hack story.

AVSIM Begins Recovery

Posted: Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 19:41
Please bear with us as we bring more of the page online. Right now library is OFFLINE, and some links will not work, but we are working to restore as we speak!

--Technical Team

J3 Cub from Flight Replicas/Sky Unlimited

Posted: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 3:56
Senior staff reviewer Bert Pieke takes to the air in a familiar aircraft to most simmers, but this time it's Flight Replicas' version of the Piper Cub. "Well, after spending some time with this recently released add-on, I must say: �This one beats the default, hands down.�"

"My first impression was that the yellow Cub was pretty much like the FSX Cub, until I started to examine the details. More importantly, inside the cockpit you notice the high resolution panel and gauges, the moving brake pedals, complete with cables and pushrods, and the impression that everything that is present in the real airplane is modeled, and in full detail."

"The plane handles really well with a great �seat of the pants� feeling. You�ve got lots of time to find the airport and adjust your landing approach since you are descending at 50 mph when coming in on final. After a few take-offs, the plane begins to feel very comfortable. It goes where you want it to, and it has this wonderful lighter than air feel which makes it all a lot of fun."

"The Flight Replicas J-3 Cub is a nice package. Moreover, the view from the back seat is spot on and it really feels like flying! Although FSX comes with a nice Cub as part of the default hangar, this one is clearly superior in every way."

New Just Trains Videos

Posted: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 - 1:19
For those of you who have discovered Train Simming and for those who may be curious about this genre. Five new videos of Just Trains recent Rail Simulator expansions have been released. A picture may well be worth a thousand words, but a moving picture is even better! Just Trains has recently put together five all-new videos of some of their recent add-ons for Rail Simulator, and all of them should serve to give you a good view of the many features and unique atmosphere of each of these popular expansions: Rail Simulator Official Expansion Pack, Cargowaggon Flat IGA PlusPak, Rascal & Cottonwood, Isle of Wight, and Voyager.

The complete selection of Just Trains videos can be found on our Videos page, or you'll find the links for each video at the bottom of the individual product pages. All the videos can be viewed directly from this website, or you can download high- and low-resolution Zipped files to view at your leisure.

If you own Rail Simulator, check out the demo freight wagons from Train Sim's popular Cargowaggon PlusPak add-ons for Rail Simulator that are available now. Cargowaggon IWB demo (9.35Mb) and Cargowaggon Flat IGA demo (9.44Mb). Both cargowaggon add-ons include plenty more wagons with various loads as well as a selection of new scenarios to use them in - you'll find full details and screenshots on the product pages.

Manhattan X from Aerosoft

Posted: Sunday, May 10, 2009 - 23:02
Staff reviewer Jon Murchison visits the "Big Apple" with Aerosoft's Manhattan X. "New York or specifically Manhattan Island and its surrounding smaller Islands are a global icon. It has some of the highest buildings in the world and it�s a major movie and television set. It�s been sung about, written about and is also the location of what can be considered the very best and worst in human behavior with the 9/11 attacks and more recent successful ditching of the U.S Airways A321 in the Hudson. From this perspective Aerosoft had quite a bit to live up to."

"Aerosoft have spent time discovering where the sweet spot is in the FSX settings, so if you learn from my initial mistake and follow those guidelines you will, my friends, have smooth flying performance across the city. Yes that�s right, you didn�t read it wrong, smooth flying with frame rates that fluctuate between 15 and 35 FPS. Aerosoft, I congratulate you for what you have achieved here. I was genuinely surprised by how well Manhattan X ran once I configured my settings and as long as I loaded them prior to spawning, everything was fine."

"Manhattan X sits on a layer of photo real scenery which adds to the authenticity and all of the landmarks you would expect, such as the Empire State Building, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. All of the buildings and scenery objects are constructed to a high degree of realism with some including animation. The developer Andras Kozma has achieved in Manhattan X something quite extraordinary with the level of detail to be discovered, particularly at some of the heliports which made me look twice because I thought I was seeing things for the first time."

"Manhattan and the four smaller islands all have very effective night lighting and I was particularly impressed with what has been done on Liberty and Ellis Islands. Manhattan itself looks very impressive lit up, and if you move your water effects up a few notches the reflective effect is fantastic. One of the cool additions in Manhattan X is the inclusion of sounds with the scenery. Manhattan X has atmospheric sounds and levels of detail that take city scenery design to a new level in FSX."

"If it seems like I am gushing praise it�s because I am, Manhattan X is something special. The level of detail that has been achieved is nothing short of amazing and with the little touches, such as sounds and the mission, Aerosoft has provided us with a complete experience of one of the world�s greatest cities."

Latest IVAO Virtual Sky Magazine

Posted: Sunday, May 10, 2009 - 18:16
The fifth edition of the IVAO Virtual Sky Magazine has been released. You will find this 41 page edition an action packed one with a number of great articles ranging from training to future of flight simulation. Charles Wood and Fran�ois A. 'Navman' Dumas are just a few of the authors in this edition, they are renowned names in the flight simulation community. You can download your FREE copy of the IVAO-Virtual Sky website.

New SSM 2007 Mission Released

Posted: Sunday, May 10, 2009 - 18:10
Exciting Simulations has released today a new Service/Mission Pack for the Space Shuttle Mission 2007 simulator. The download includes the 104th Space Shuttle mission - STS-100 - during which the Endeavour crew installed Canadarm2 - the International Space Station Robotic Arm (SSRMS). The download also adds new approach and landing communications.

Carried out by Endeavour on April 16 2001, STS-100 was a complex mission which tested the skill and patience of both the ISS and the Shuttle crews - the EVA team, Mission Specialists Chris Hadfield and Scott Parazynski, which unfolded and installed the SSRMS and the SSRMS and RMS operators. During STS-100, Chris Hadfield became the first Canadian to perform an EVA.

In the best SSM2007 tradition, budding astronauts will experience first-hand the liftoff, On-Orbit ops including rendezvous and docking with the ISS, EVA in Zero-G, RMS operations, Deorbit, Reentry and manually Landing the Shuttle at Edwards AFB. The Space Shuttle Mission 2007� is available for online purchase in downloadable format at the SSM2007 website. The latest Demo can also be downloaded freely at the same website.

Bell 206 Jetranger For FSX

Posted: Sunday, May 10, 2009 - 18:01
Dodosim has replaced the default FSX hover and flight behaviour with their own dynamics, engine and systems management, complete with optional damage, repair and maintenance features. All this realism isn't easy to master for a novice pilot so they have introduced several modes including auto-start and tutorial mode. The helicopter can speed through the start up and shut down sequences on its own or the pilot can follow on-screen prompts through the start up/shut down sequences as the helicopter highlights each function on the 2D panels as they are required.

Aircraft systems will fail according to misuse. This may take several flights to occur as wear information is accrued and recorded. The pilot is able to clear persistent wear and damage using a virtual �Service Workshop� or switch off wear and damage completely. Your aircraft can be equipped with low skids, high skids or floats and there is also a high skid utility version with a working cargo hook. Each version can be selected with or without doors too but remember that this will significantly affect the aircraft's performance. Complete details on this and the FS9 model can be found at the Dodosim website.

Tahiti X from Aerosoft

Posted: Saturday, May 9, 2009 - 21:26
Contributing senior reviewer Alexis Esguerra goes on a trip to paradise with Aerosoft's Tahiti X. "Tahiti X makes alterations and enhancements to fourteen different islands, as well as the nine airports that service the majority of them."

"On the more heavily populated islands, marinas, docks, resorts and the occasional beach side umbrella are found everywhere. Quieter islands that are still visited by tourists may have them as well, just on a smaller scale, and have the bonus of some rather interesting items (like an airport-side campground, for example). And let me not forget about the cabanas strung out over the water from the shore."

"If there is one thing I found interesting about the airports in and around Tahiti, it�s that they�re different from the standard norm. NTAA, the largest of the group contained within, is at least traditional in its size and scope. Just as it should beings its the primary gateway in to and out of the region. It nonetheless has a certain tropical flair about it, evident at the terminal�s entrance and the scenery that surrounds it. Those factors well set the stage for the other eight airfields that it services."

"People are also present at the airfields, sometimes with movements that work out (example, someone chatting on their cell phone), and sometimes not (walking in place, really to nowhere in particular). An extremely nice bonus to the standard FSX movement realm that I�ve slowly become accustomed to, has to be dolphins."

"So who would I recommend this package to? Those with Tahiti on their mind? Fledgling bush pilots? Island hoppers? Yes, yes, and yes. Tahiti X has a lot of appealing elements that break up the routine - interesting landscapes and sceneries, charming atmosphere, and unique airfields that can provide a challenge."

PMDG FS2004 MD-11 Released

Posted: Saturday, May 9, 2009 - 13:59
MD-11 & MD-11F COMBO for FSX/FS2004 now available from PMDG. The product features Dynamic Virtual Cockpit - Designed and animated using the same proprietary techniques developed for PMDG's award-winning 747-400 product line, Virtual Cockpit users will truly enjoy the sensation of "being there" when flying this simulator from the fully animated 3D virtual cockpit.Having emerged as one of the most popular large freighters, an additional model representing the cargo version is also included complete with animated main deck cargo door. FS2004 Pilots are invited down to the PMDG Hanger for a closer inspection.

FS2Crew Airbus Updates

Posted: Saturday, May 9, 2009 - 13:36
FS2Crew has released two significant updates for its two Airbus products: The Airbus Special Edition and the A320 Edition. Based on real Airbus SOPs, FS2Crew adds a full flight, cabin and ground crew to the Wilco feelThere Airbus. The Updates include bug fixes, and add new functionality to the FS2Crew Airbus products. Users can now put FS2Crew Airbus into a "Circuits/Pattern Work" mode, which allows the user to do touch and go landings for training flights. Airbus drivers are cleared via direct to the FS2Crew Homepage for details and download

Malpensa To Schiphol Mission

Posted: Friday, May 8, 2009 - 13:22
Perfect Flight releases a new addition to its "Flight Service" series of missions with Malpensa to Schiphol, you will experience a real gate-to-gate sceduled flight from Milan Malpensa, located in Italy, to Amsterdam Schiphol, the Netherlands. A classical daily real life flight covered by KLM on a Boeing 737-800. The "Flight Service" missions have been created to give you more realistic flight experience recreating a real word ambience with complete AI/ATC interaction, speed restriction, cabin announcement, check lists procedures (pre-start, taxi, before t/o, after t/o, descend, landing, parking), speeds call, 80 Knt,V1, Vr, V2, flaps, gear, GP WS, radar altimeter. So, feel free to test your flying skills!. Visit Perfect Flight for complete details.

GMap Chart Manager 1.1

Posted: Friday, May 8, 2009 - 13:12
FSWidgets has updated their free calibration utility for making GMap-compatible charts. The new version adds Vista UAC compatibility, improved memory handling and a new step-by-step, easy-to-follow tutorial on how to create a calibrated chart. The Chart Manager has built-in tools to view and overlay charts onto Google Maps in real time from within the application, easing the process of calibration. This utility is included in all editions of the freeware moving map system GMap for FSX. To download GMap for FSX please visit their Homepage.

Sky Blue Radio 2nd Birthday Party

Posted: Friday, May 8, 2009 - 13:10
Sky Blue Radio is 2 years old , live shows back to back starting at 17.00z on Friday May 8th continue until Monday morning at 07.00z. A truly marathon session totaling 62 hours of live content and prizes to be won from companies such as Captain Sim, CH Products, Flight 1, Just Flight, Topgunsim.com, Vroute and World Flight Scotland. Join them in the cockpit or online, full details can be found at their Website.

A2A Simulations P-47 with Accu-Sim

Posted: Friday, May 8, 2009 - 1:01
Senior staff reviewer David Wilson-Okamura looks at a WWII warbird with A2A Simulations' P-47 with a feature called Accu-Sim. "This is the second time that A2A has modeled a P-47 Thunderbolt. Stocky, a slow climber, and with limited range, the �Jug� seems like an also-ran compared with the sleeker and more glamorous P-51 Mustang."

"The ovoid shape of the noise is well captured, and there are three different propeller types. In addition to the usual animations, there are several cooler flaps (which, if you fly with Accu-Sim, you will actually need to open and close). But what gets and holds our attention, I think, is not the lines of the model so much as the textures, which are tack-sharp, and hold their sharpness even up close."

"The quality of the best virtual cockpits (VCs) is now very high indeed. The Thunderbolt�s VC is in the same class. A 2D mini-panel is available but, like most newer models, the Thunderbolt is meant to be flown from the VC. There are, however, several 2D panels that make flying easier and, if you purchase Accu-Sim, enable you to perform engine maintenance."

"In flight, the Thunderbolt feels as a heavy as it looks. Like many fighters from this era, it has a long engine cowling that obscures the pilot�s forward vision in climbs and on final. You can roll the Thunderbolt, but it�s a slow climber, so I wouldn�t want to loop it. With one notch of flaps, drag is high enough that you have to worry about keeping the engine cool -- and that, in my book, is really cool."

"A2A Simulations' P-47 is what the jewelers call a diamond of the first water. Without Accu-Sim, it�s cheaper but still not cheap; and while you still have exquisite textures, bump mapping, and a good-looking virtual cockpit, you don�t get in-depth engine and drag modeling, or the extra sounds that go with them. In my view, these are what set this product apart from all of the prop fighter models that have come before."

C172N Skyhawk II SKI For FSX.

Posted: Thursday, May 7, 2009 - 14:33
Carenado has released a standalone C172N package (This isn't an extension pack for their previously released C172N. This product was developed only for FSX taking advantages of all the FSX and DX10 features like cast shadows on VC, external dynamic cast shadows, normal mapping, specular mapping and bloom lights, resulting in a high quality aircraft. More information visit the Carenado website.