SimTube Partners with AVSIM

Posted: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 13:24
One of the many benefits of the AVSIM FANCON gathering is the ability of vendors, developers and community members to meet and discuss the community and how to improve it. That is exactly what took place between AVSIM and SimTube, the Flight Simulation Community's video showcase. Discussions took place between SimTube and AVSIM management and it was agreed that the benefits of having a single video repository for the flight simulation community was not only important, but one which AVSIM would happily support. We are happy to announce that SimTube and AVSIM have partnered to bring you a single showcase online presence for all things flight simulation video related. We hope you enjoy the service and we look forward to tying in more and more videos to AVSIM's daily offering as well as within the forums. To see SimTube in action, go here or click on the link above.

XB-70 Valkyrie from AlphaSim

Posted: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 3:47
Staff reviewer Marc Radford closes in on Mach 3 as he reviews AlphaSim's XB-70 Valkyrie. "The North American XB-70 Valkyrie was designed to be a super fast, Mach 3 nuclear bomber for the United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command in the 1950s."

"What a beautiful looking airplane the XB-70 Valkyrie is and very unique to any other airplane. The landing gear folds down like normal in the first phase, then the whole bottom wheels turn 90 degrees straight; this over complicated landing gear caused quite a few problems during flight testing."

"The 2D Cockpit looks great, a large number of old style instruments fill the panel. The throttle panel is ok, and the engine shut off switches operate as expected, however, with the more simplified procedure list you will not be using them. The autopilot also matches closer to the design of the plane. The VC Cockpit quality looks really good and is quite clear."

"The most important thing to note in this review, "this plane is not for everyone". After putting in a handful of hours with the Valkyrie, I was really starting to love this plane. Aside from the engine start checklist not being used, the rest of the checklist is very important to be followed or else you will wind up taking many unexpected sky diving adventures. So what is so hands on about it? The throttle, as warned in the documentation, can easily get ahead of you and this plane does not have an airbrake, so slowing down quickly can be difficult resulting in an over speed crash."

Marc sums up the Valkyrie with "the XB-70 is really a great plane to fly, I was very impressed with the amount of hands on this plane requires. My personal opinion is that this plane does align to AlphaSim’s streamlined procedure list, but there is also quite a bit of plane here to fly."

Voting Open for FANCON 2008 Location!

Posted: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - 21:14
FANCON 2007 is just two short days behind us, but the AVSIM Staff are already hard at work putting together FANCON 2008. We have some ideas of course as to where the 2008 event should be held, and in fact, we took an informal poll of the attendees of our Saturday night Awards Banquet at this last weekend's event. But, only 300 attendees were there out of over 50,000 readers a day of AVSIM's front page. So, we would like to also hear from the rest of you! Place your vote here for the FANCON 2008 location!

Scholarships Awarded At FanCon

Posted: Sunday, November 11, 2007 - 18:24
Embry Riddle Aeronautical University (Prescott Campus) conducted the annual "Fly Off" competition at this year's AVSIM Conference and Exhibition. They utilized the Carrier scenario from Microsoft's Acceleration package.

Using new software to measure and rank the contestant's performance, winners were identified and awarded a variety of scholarships to the University. The scholarship winners were:

5th place - Ryan Halmich (youngest participant) - $5000
4th place - Dan Winstanley - $2500
3rd place - Ben Graham - $3000
2nd place - Joseph Panford - $4000 (towards his Master's Degree) and a nVidia graphics card
1st place - Andrew Caldarone - $5000, nVidia graphics card and a Go-Flight radio stack.

Thanks to all of the participants in the competition. This was one of the busiest displays during the Exhibition.

Live From Seattle...The Winners Are....

Posted: Sunday, November 11, 2007 - 17:36
Last night at the Annual Awards Banquet the winners of the prestigious "Bravo Zulu" awards and the Reader's Choice Awards were presented.

The BZ recipients, as chosen by the AVSIM Staff, were:

Commercial Aircraft - Level-D 767 by Level-D;
GA Aircraft - Taildragger Collection by RealAir Simulations;
Scenery - German Airports 2-Munster-Osnabruck by Aerosoft;
Utility - Active Sky X by HiFi Simulations;
Freeware - Simshed;
Hardware (Tie) - Track IR 4 Pro by Natural Point Technologies Inc and Digital TripleHead2Go by Matrox Graphics; and
Special Achievement - FSUIPC by Peter Dowson.

Your choices for recognition of excellence were:

Freeware Original Aircraft - 747-400 by IFly;
Freeware Scenery - Glacier Bay V2 by Holger Sandmann's team;
Freeware Utility - GDI & Radar Gauge by Eric Marciano;
Freeware "Other" - The History of Flight Simulator by Jos Grupping;
Commercial Aircraft - 747-400 by PMDG;
Commercial Utility - Radar Contact V4-3 by JDT LLC; and
Commercial Scenery - St Maarten by Fly Tampa.

The house was full, with most of the award recipients present to receive their hardware and the accolades of their fans and peers. AVSIM thanks the vendors for their continued support in providing new product for the AVSIM team to review, and you, our readers, for your continued support to the AVSIM Library.

FanCon 2007 First Photos!

Posted: Saturday, November 10, 2007 - 21:37
It's been a fantastic day so far! All vendors are enjoying the fans coming through, seeing each other face to face, and finally putting faces to names! Enjoy the early photos from the show, and you still have time to make it and see your favorites! Register at the door for the whole weekend! Enjoy the photos here!

PMDG Shows MD-11 At FANCON

Posted: Saturday, November 10, 2007 - 19:35
The PMDG team today during a presentation session showed their upcoming MD-11 release. With over 100 in attendance, the audience was treated to a full view of PMDG's extremely high fidelity rendering of this aircraft. This afternoon and tomorrow, PMDG will be allowing the attending public to fly the aircraft. If you are in the Seattle area, you are encouraged to attend and give this next PMDG aircraft a twirl around the circuit.

Airport Enhancement Services 1.92 Released

Posted: Saturday, November 10, 2007 - 17:57
Aerosoft has released more important additions for users of AES.

Their web site states: "In this version the smaller airports of the Aerosoft GAP series are included and also the new airport of Dortmund, which will be released soon. The FSDreamteam's new Zuerich Airport is now supported and from ImagineSim the new releases of Kansas City and San Juan in Puerto Rico are also covered. Tropical Sim also released a new Airport Scenery of Sao Paulo ansd AES covers that as well. Johannes (Gianni) Kimla will release his new freeware Airport of Klagenfurt in the next weeks and you can find the AES Support here in the pack. As before you can download the main product for free and a lot of airports do not require any payment!"

Taxi across the ramp to Aerosoft to make sure you get the latest version.

FANCON Opening Night A Bash!

Posted: Saturday, November 10, 2007 - 14:34
The AVSIM FANCON kicked off last night with the traditional Simmer's Social. What an event it was! The luminaries of the flight simulation world were in attendance at this popular event and included attendees from Intel, Nvidia, Microsoft, PMDG, Flight1, Abacus, Embry Riddle, Saitek and many others and, of course, dedicated flight sim enthusiasts from around the world. Total attendance exceeded past Socials by a wide margin with well over 200 enjoying the food, drink and companionship of their fellow fans. The event was sponsored by AEROSOFT of Germany and judging from the smiling faces and contented looks, the Social was a success! Today's Exhibition kicks off at 9:00 a.m. PST, and that is just a short 3 hours away.

New For Home Cockpit Builders

Posted: Saturday, November 10, 2007 - 13:24
FsXPand/FsClient v5.4 is now available from Flyware Simulation Software. This custom toolbox for cockpit building over the network has got a new set of gauges and enhanced graphics. It allows you to make up your own panel by selecting and customizing your gauges. This program allows you to connect one or more PC's to one Flight Sim PC over a network and display custom panel gauges on each PC. For more information visit Flyware today.

AMD And Intel Exhibiting At FANCON 2007

Posted: Friday, November 9, 2007 - 22:57
NEWS FROM FANCON 2007...

Both Intel and AMD are exhibiting this weekend at the FANCON 2007 event in Bellevue (Seattle), Washington. Both will be strutting their stuff showcasing the latest in processor power and providing multiple stations for attendees to put the hardware through its paces. We will be reporting from the event daily, if not hourly, throughout the event, bringing the latest news from this year's largest simulation gathering. Stay tuned for the latest news from FANCON 2007! If you live in the North West, it is not too late. You can pay at the door for access to the convention on Saturday and Sunday.

TweakFS Releases Menu Mate

Posted: Friday, November 9, 2007 - 14:30
TweakFS Releases Menu Mate for FSX (Freeware) TweakFS has recently added to its inventory of handy freeware utilities with a new release called Menu Mate for FSX. It is designed to give quicker access to most FSX menu items without the need to "drill down" into various menu/sub-menu layers (over 60 menu items supported). This can be handy if - as a developer, beta tester or power user - you need to repeatedly select a particular FSX menu item for any reason. You can assign up to 20 different menu items as button short-cuts.

To download a copy go to the "Freeware Tools" banner at TweakFS

Try Rescue Pilot Mission Demo

Posted: Thursday, November 8, 2007 - 23:50
Rescue Pilot – Mission Pack is the first in a series of mission expansions from Just Flight and the company is giving pilots an opportunity for some free training with a fully functional demo release. Pilots are also encouraged to enter a screenshot competition with the demo for a chance to win a free copy of the final product upon release.

The demo features an entire mission from Rescue Pilot and is available free to download from Just Flight's website.

Rescue Pilot is designed to take full advantage of the Flight Simulator X missions feature. You are a pilot in an air rescue medical service and your job is to respond to any emergency calls that are received at your home base. A typical day for a Just Flight Rescue Pilot could include airlifting an injured person from a car accident, picking up a stranded mountaineer or flying a life-or-death dash with a vital medical cargo.

For further details, please visit the Just Flight website or download the demo here.

FS2Crew FSX PMDG 747 Contest

Posted: Thursday, November 8, 2007 - 21:04
The FS2Crew: PMDG 747 FSX Edition contest is officially underway. PMDG FSX 747 drivers can enter their chance to win by answering five skills testing questions. FS2Crew is going to award ten lucky winners who will receive a free copy of FS2Crew for the FSX PMDG 747. Winners will be announced on the day of release, November 16th.

747 Captains can taxi to the FS2Crew to enter the contest.

BluePrint Releases KMSP Scenery

Posted: Thursday, November 8, 2007 - 16:48
BluePrint Scenery Simulations has released their Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (KMSP)scenery for FS9 and FSX.

Their web site states: "MSP has two terminals, the older Lindbergh terminal with its seven concourses, and the newer Humphrey terminal. The two terminals have been modeled with the highest level of detail allowed by the Flight Simulator. Special attention was paid to the accuracy of the airport layout, including runways, taxiways and ramps as well as the configuration and location of all airline gates. The FAA control tower, fire stations, general aviation, aircraft maintenance, cargo and military facilities have been depicted. The highest degree of detail was also applied to all major buildings in those areas. As a bonus, a model of the Mall of America (the US largest) is included to increase realism during approach to runway 35."

For many other features and to get your copy, head over to the BluePrint KMSP product page now!

The Gathering Has Begun!

Posted: Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - 23:58
The gathering for the AVSIM FANCON has begun! Today was the successful kick off of the Microsoft Developer's Conference and it is in full swing. The DEVCON goes through Friday at noon. After the concluding DEVCON events, registration will start for the AVSIM FANCON that kicks off that evening with the AVSIM Social! AVSIM Staffers have been on the ground in Bellevue, Washington since Saturday, preparing for both the DEVCON and FANCON events. And the hours are winging by! We are awaiting hundreds of registrants and looking forward to seeing you here! If you have not pre-registered, do so and save yourself time at the door!

Cockpitsonic Opens US Store

Posted: Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - 17:35
Cockpitsonic USA, "the exclusive representative of Cockpitsonic GmbH in United States, have started selling its high quality products to the Flight Simulator Community. Cockpitsonic USA is the only manufacturing offering plug and play solutions thanks to our exclusive Tempest Technology. The Tempest Technology allows people with no knowledge in electronics to make this parts work very quickly. For the cockpit builder, Cockpitsonic USA also offers the largest number of parts for a single aircraft type (B737) under one shop; therefore you will not spend more time looking around the world. Cockpitsonic USA also is the only manufacturer with a short lead time for part and components what translates into high customer satisfaction." If you want to stop dreaming and start flying visit Cockpitsonic USA.

FS Earth Version 5.1

Posted: Tuesday, November 6, 2007 - 19:11
That's right, FS Earth version 5.1 is now available. This unique program creates a real-time connection between Flight Simulator and Google Earth. It can be used to get a complete and detailed moving map based on the satellite images displayed in Google Earth. The latest release has a much more smooth output and several other improvements. For complete details, please visit their homepage.

Imaginesim TJSJ For FSX

Posted: Tuesday, November 6, 2007 - 16:04
IMAGINESIM announced today the release of their newest product, TJSJ San Juan for FSX. Featuring custom made runways, terminal buildings rendered to 5cm per pixel scale, operating jetways, and realistic concrete taxiways. There are also hundreds of airport vehicles and groud personnel for your enjoyment. To download the demo or for purchasing information visit them HERE.

Russian AI Traffic Available

Posted: Tuesday, November 6, 2007 - 11:04
Alexander Petrenko announced today the release of new russian traffic packages from Russian AI Traffic System. These packages include such airlines as KMV, Atlant-Soyuz, Aerobratsk and many more unique to the russian airwaves. To find out more, please visit their forums HERE.