Comet Jetliner For FSX Released

Posted: Saturday, June 4, 2011 - 0:32
The download edition of the new Comet Jetliner for FSX is available now from Just Flight, and you can climb into the cockpit of this icon of British aviation.

Comet Jetliner provides an extremely accurate rendition of the DH106 Comet 4C - the definitive Comet variant - which is presented in nine liveries. The extraordinarily detailed virtual cockpit features include fully equipped pilot and co-pilot panels, a complete engineer's station and a navigator's station incorporating all the equipment needed for authentic navigation operations.
Among the other features which make this the ultimate Comet simulation are highly accurate flight dynamics, full navigation and night lighting, hundreds of accurate external animations and a detailed cabin area with stewardess in attendance - Comet Jetliner brings you the complete and authentic experience of flying British aviation's most iconic jetliner.

Ground Environment X Africa-Middle East Released

Posted: Saturday, June 4, 2011 - 0:29
Flight One Software is proud to present the latest Ground Environment X version: Ground Environment X Africa-Middle East for FSX.

Ground Environment X brings all-new ground textures to FSX, and it boasts an incredible 1 m/pixel texture resolution, using native 1024x1024 pixel images, and includes all seasons, meticulously designed night textures, and the latest techniques in autogen placement and alignment. All this delivers high-fidelity images without using excessive disk space or processor power. Our design allows a simulation pilot to enjoy clearly defined visuals from nearly ground level up to higher altitudes.

The easy-to-use interface will provide for easy installing the new textures, and is designed with Flight1's "keep-it-simple yet powerful" philosophy. Whether you are flying over the savannas of Africa or the oasis-dotted, desert sands of the Middle East, the entire area will now come to life with brighter colors, unique autogen, and so much more. Installation of Africa and the Middle East with GEX North America and/or Europe synchronizes all GEX products. No texture switching is required between any GEX covered region. Simply be sure the installed GEX North America product is v1.09 or above and GEX Europe is v2.0 or above before installing Africa and the Middle East.

Sim-Savvy Adds To Massive Scenery

Posted: Friday, June 3, 2011 - 15:12
Sim Savvy is pleased to announce a new addition to the Massive Scenery collection. Satellite Scenery Europe is now available for sample and purchase. Perfect for high altitude Class A airspace flight this 20 meter scenery encompasses 5 million square miles. This is real scenery for 36 countries stretching from Iceland to Western Russia down to Turkey and over to Portugal.

Although satellite scenery is not as crisp as 1 meter photoreal it is a "real" improvement over the default FSX scenery. As higher resolution scenery becomes available it will be added to the product free of charge. All customers will be able to download these additions making this a continual upgrade to higher resoultions. The first such additions are the Netherlands, Central Austria and partial Germany. A 10,000 mile route sample of the satellite scenery is available for download that covers most of the countries in the coverage area.

The next productions will be the continents of Africa and North America. Additionally, potential customers of Massive Scenery Photoreal America can now request a sample of the state of their choice on a returnable flash drive. The monthly sample will be replaced with a continous sample of the San Juan Mountains in Colorado. And finally, a Group Package Deal is available for 5 users that can cut the cost of the scenery dramatically.

CLS Releases Repaint Manager

Posted: Friday, June 3, 2011 - 15:05
The Repaint Manager is a program that offers quick and easy livery downloads to enhance your FS9 and/or FSX installation! No technical knowledge about FS is required to use our one-click installation for liveries. And be noted, this is not just for CLS aircraft but for any FS aircraft addon! So yes this will also work on your purchased aircraft from other developers.

The database is expanding daily, with many new CLS and non-CLS aircraft. The Repaint Manager (RM) connects to their extensive database of liveries, provides you an easy way of browsing the available liveries, and let you install one by just one click. But thats not all you can do with this program. You can also manage your current aircraft in flight sim, edit their aircraft.cfg entries, or delete them. As bonus they also includes a feature to import liveries for installation. Downloaded a zip file with a livery you always wanted? Drag and drop it onto the RM and it will prepare the livery for installation. Once again, hit the install button and it will be installed for you!

Uploading liveries you made to their database is really easy. They've included a simple, straight-forward uploading tab. All you need to do is to drop the livery zip or folder onto the upload part of the Repaint Manager. Or even better, if you browse to the texture folder of the livery when its installed in your FS, their RM will find the corresponding aircraft.cfg data and prepare the livery for uploading. All you need to do now is verify the data, and hit the upload button.

As a launch offer, the Repaint Manager includes a DC10 livery expansion package (22 liveries) as well as another MD80 livery expansion package (15 liveries). Thats not all, you also get the existing MD80 livery package and the 3 Airbus Package livery expansion for free.

Heinkel He-219 from Aircraft Factory

Posted: Friday, June 3, 2011 - 1:18
Staff reviewer Peter Hayes looks at a WWII aircraft that arrived on the scene near the end of the battle, Airplane Factory's Heinkel He219. "The Heinkel He 219 Uhu aka "Eagle-Owl" was a night fighter of the Luftwaffe. ircraft Factory have included 5 HE 219 variants (6 liveries) representing its progression as it was developed."

"These are all very well modeled as you would expect from A2A. Aircraft Factory state with regard to the modeling that it encompasses, "Native specular and bump mapped high-resolution lighting" and it shows in the beautifully clean lines and superb reflections. AF state that the plane is accurate down to the last rivet, and I believe them!"

"In a refreshing change the AF He219 has both a VC and a 2D model. The VC cockpit is just fantastic, displaying beautiful instruments of the period, great detail in all of the knobs, switches, gauges, levers and dials. All of these are labeled in German and if they are meant to be functional then they are. The instrumentation is representative of instruments that would have been fitted during that period."

"This is a very nice plane to fly; it is fast and responsive and quite agile despite its size. I noted in the manual that acrobatic flying was 'verboten' but I couldn't resist a few 'gentle' manoeuvres including flying upside down and again the He219 responded beautifully."

"The He-219 is an excellent FSX rendering of a vintage WWII plane, and the 5 variants are historically correct and are facsimiles of real world planes. Aircraft Factory is the budget arm of A2A simulations so this plane may not have all of the features that you might see in their top range planes, with or without Accusim, but it is a nicely detailed, reasonably priced add-on that will give hours of pleasure."

New Vehicle Sim Released

Posted: Thursday, June 2, 2011 - 0:25
A powerful new version of Vehicle Simulator has been released making it an excellent flight simulator as well as an excellent naval simulator. In additon to being a fun and accurate flight simulator, the program offers some unique features for creative users for making their own planes and scenery, and simulating elaborate situations for them.

Such features include : Powerful built in airplane and boat design. Powerful built in scenery design. Interactive scripting language for vehicles and scenery. Fun AI for for planes and other types of vehicles, allowing automatic take off and landing, dogfights and more. Fast prototyping tool for creating planes quickly, and learning the influence of each component by
trial and error. The demo of this new version is available for download. More information can be found on the Vehicle Sim webpage.

Corse HD Regional Photoscenery Released (FSX)

Posted: Wednesday, June 1, 2011 - 0:28
France VFR has released the 2nd scenery of its Regional Photo collection : the CORSE photo scenery in high resolution. It covers the entire administrative region by high resolution aerial photos of IGN - within the range of 0.85 m to 1m/ pixel - with the integration of a mesh of real 19m throughout the entire scenery. Lakes and rivers are entirely cut out, faithfully represented and reworked with landable water bodies. Water transparency effects of the coast have been carried out throughout the entire scenery.

This scenery has benefited from the latest "cutting out " technologies allowing an extremely precise cutting of the coast-line without damaging the mesh. An extremely precise geo-referenced texture positioning assures the entire compatibility with future add-ons for this region. Available by download from the France VFR website or as a CD/DVD from the Simmerstore.

VRInsight CDU II Software Module

Posted: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - 14:54
Eric Marciano announces the availability of a new software module designed to improve the usage of the VRInsight CDU II with the Wilco Airbus Series Volume 1 & 2. The goal is to provide a seamless integration that replaces the software provided by VRInsight. With this specific module, there is no need for mouse clicks or key press emulations that can cause problems if the MCDU position or the screen resolution changes. For more information, fly to Eric's website.

Faro X & Kos X from Aerosoft

Posted: Monday, May 30, 2011 - 0:56
Staff reviewer Aidan Sandri heads to the Mediterranean to check out Aerosoft's Faro X (Portugal) and Kos X (Greece). "Faro X and Kos X are both nicely rendered airports. From what I saw at both airports they shared similar libraries (meaning that I saw the same items at both airports), but at the same time both airports are very different. If you have Santorini X, Kos X is only a short flight away in which you can carry a few passengers across in your JS41 or explore the island in depth in a Piper Cub or a similar smaller aircraft. The airports will not be the most detailed you have seen, but they are a major step up from the default airports."

Airline Crew For FSX iFly 737NG

Posted: Friday, May 27, 2011 - 15:04
Do you own the iFly 737NG for FSX? If so, then taxi over to FS2Crew to check out FS2Crew's newly released FSX version of its popular airline crew 'expansion pack' designed just for the iFly 737.

Two versions of FS2Crew for the iFly 737NG are available: Button control and Voice control. A special bundle package is also available that includes both versions. Also, please note that the FS9 versions of FS2Crew for the iFly 737NG have also been updated (V1.1 for Voice control and V1.5 for Button control).

FsFuel 2 Released

Posted: Thursday, May 26, 2011 - 14:46
Aerospace Computations LTD. is proud to announce release of FsFuel 2. New version of FsFuel incorporates support of 15 aircraft (B737-300/400/500/700/800, B767-200ER/300ER, B747-200/300/400, B777-200/200ER/200LR/300ER), live weather data feed, degradation factors and much more.

The whole flight planning engine was completely rewritten to support capability of weather data feed. FsFuel receives world coverage of wind and temperature data and applies it to computations. Not only wind plays part in fuel burn and flight time, but also air temperature has an effect on fuel burn and airspeed. FsFuel uses advanced algorithms of weather overlay, no average figures are used. Weather is applied on waypoint by waypoint basis. FsFuel has become the only flight planning system for virtual aviation which uses live weather data feed for it's computations.

FsFuel is a professional flight planning system designed for virtual flights. FsFuel produces Computerized Flight Plans (CFP) and Loadsheets with wealth of information that cannot be calculated manually. It is the first of it's kind on virtual aviation market and offers very advanced computations which can even be used for real-world flight planning.

JFK International For Tower! 2011 Released

Posted: Thursday, May 26, 2011 - 14:38
This major US international gateway was modeled with great precision. JFK includes one way taxiways and numerous terminals. KJFK is compatible with Tower! 2011 single and multi-player versions as well as Nyerges Design's Real Traffic add-on.

JFK is certified to handle the Airbus A380 (simulated by Nyerges Design's Real Traffic). In 2010 Kennedy saw 398,000 aircraft movements making the airport the 6th busiest in the United States, 14th busiest in the world. Kennedy sees about 1,200 aircraft movements each day.

Airbus Series Evolution CD Version

Posted: Thursday, May 26, 2011 - 13:15
Wilco Publishing releases the CD version of Vol.1 & Vol.2 Airbus simulation for Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Highlights :
· Complete Airbus simulation, from the short A318 to the long-haul A340-600
· Advanced Weather Radar powered by RealityXP
· Head Up Display to land in any visibility conditions
· Major navigation and systems improvements
· For Microsoft Flight Simulator X / 2004

Information, video and pictures are available at the Wilco Publishing Homepage.

World of Subways - The Circle Line Released

Posted: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - 22:57
While we normally try to stay above the ground, how about an underground simming experieince? The "London Underground Simulator" is the long awaited follow-up of the most interesting Subway and Underground routes of the world for the PC. The London "Circle Line" is now available as a download from Aerosoft and Simulations4u.

The new Underground Simulator covers the entire Circle Line in its current operational service which includes the branch to Hammersmith. This line offers a length of 27km with 35 stations, many hours of fun and interesting missions. The custom built physics are based on real values as being used in training simulators. The performance and brake characteristics of the trains are absolutely realistic and will give you the impression as if you are driving a real train on the Underground.

Aegean Airlines DVD from Just Planes

Posted: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - 1:39
Staff reviewer Marlon Carter continues his series on Airline DVD's with Just Planes/World Air Routes Aegean Airlines. "Aegean Airlines is the largest Greek airline by total number of passengers carried. It operates scheduled and charter services from Athens and Thessaloniki to other major Greek destinations as well as to a number of European destinations."

FANCON 2011 Registration Now Open

Posted: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - 0:55
We are pleased to announce the opening of our registration system for the 2011 FANCON that will occur during the weekend of October 14th through Sunday, the 16th. This will be the first national FANCON held since November of 2007, when we held the FANCON in conjunction with Microsoft's Flight Sim Developer's Conference. It has indeed been a long road since then and we are looking forward to this year's event. We have a great venue and program for the weekend, including the Reader's Choice Awards, the AVSIM's own Bravo Zulu Awards, the most prestigious in our hobby. We hope to see you there! The first step is to register, and you can do so at the registration page. Please not that if you only plan to attend the daily exhibitions, you can register and pay at the door. If you plan to attend either the Friday night Social or the Saturday night Awards Banquet,or both, you need to pre-register using our registration system. Registrations for the Social and Banquet will close in September. Please register before then.

We also still need demonstrators for the "white paper sessions." If you have an expertise you'd like to share with the flight sim community, and have 30 minutes to give, please submit your name, short bio, and paper idea to John Binner.

AivlaSoft GmbH Releases Electronic Flight Bag 1.3.1 SP2

Posted: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - 0:53
AivlaSoft GmbH is announcing another update to their award-winning utility Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) for Microsoft FSX. Service Pack 2 for Version 1.3.1 includes several minor bug fixes, support for several native file formats including the new iFly 737NG from Flight1 and the KML format readable by Google Earth™, as well as a new Save function that allows multiple flightplan files to be saved in a single operation.

AivlaSoft continues to support its customers by providing this EFB update free of charge. For those who are not yet customers, EFB 1.3.1 is available by immediate download as a completely functional 30-day trial version that can be converted to a registered version by purchase of a license key. Download it, install it, use it fully for 30 days and you'll be convinced that EFB is one of the best add-ons for FSX.

iFly737NG Boxed Edition For FS2004

Posted: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - 0:34
Flight1 and iFly have produced what is probably the most sophisticated and comprehensive MSFS 737NG add-on aircraft to date.

This extensive package has stunning exterior models of every NG and BBJ variant, flown from the most incredibly realistic simulation of cockpit and systems seen in a 737 flight sim product. Systems and flight dynamics have been tested by real NG pilots to ensure the accuracy of performance and functions to the real aircraft.

Ground support is provided for maintenance, air and electrical utilities, plus pushback and panel features are controlled from the fully-featured FMC to make sure that your are totally immersed in the 'flight deck' experience.

Continental USA PhotoReal scenery by SimSavyy in Avsim Store

Posted: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - 16:18
Photoreal Scenery of the Continental United States of America by SimSavyy
"Photoreal America" is the first completed product in the Sim-Savvy "Massive Scenery Collection". The product contains photoreal scenery of the entire Continental United States for use with Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX).
A new 500Mb USB3 external hard drive ($100 value) is included in the purchase price and will be shipped to you. Photoreal America comprises 400 gigabytes worth of data. The scenery loads directly from this supplied hard drive and does not fill up your local drive. This also leaves room on the supplied drive for future "Massive Scenery" releases and additions.
Unlike the default vector based scenery that comes with FSX, "Photoreal America" allows you to see the real view below. The scenery is generated from USDA NAIP 1 meter aerials that are taken every two years on a rotating basis. Student pilots can use FSX with Photoreal America as a training aid to practice between lessons. Veteran pilots can use FSX with Photoreal America as a flight planning tool. Imagine practicing a takeoff or landing at an unfamiliar airport you are scheduled to fly to. With Photoreal America you can see the real landmarks and runways below.

Visit the Avsim Store today.

UK VFR Airfields Vols 1-3 from UK2000 Scenery

Posted: Monday, May 23, 2011 - 18:53
Staff reviewer Ted Gold flies VFR around his homeland with UK2000 Scenery's VFR Airfields Volumes 1 - 3. "The United Kingdom is a wonderful flight location with something for every virtual pilot to enjoy within the confines of some of the world’s busiest and compact airspace. Airfields abound, ranging from the odd farmer’s strip to historical WWII aerodromes, right on up to the major airports serving millions of passengers annually."

"The UK2000 airfields blend in nicely relieving the generic tan-bordered outlines and blends well with the surroundings. For the VFR pilot this results in a much higher level of immersion and I found it much easier to actually see the airfields from a distance within the cockpit. The level of detail shown on the ground adds to the fun with each airfield displaying individual objects that add a distinct flavor, unique to wherever you choose to fly."

"Pilots that prefer to fly larger aircraft into the big airports will find FSX given a similar makeover with pleasing visual improvements, accurately aligned runways and taxiways, and corrected ILS feathers covering all of the major airfields including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Liverpool; basically all of the majors within the coverage area."

"The UK2000 UK VFR Airfields Volumes 1-3 offer a massive change for the better for any FSX pilot that flies in and around the United Kingdom."