X-Scenery, X-Plane And A Mitsubishi MU-2

Posted: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - 16:09
Cameron Bowerman from X-Scenery.com has written to AVSIM to announce the release of the Mitsubishi MU-2 for X-Plane. The aircraft is modeled entirely in a 3D, outwith X-Plane's Plane Maker utlilty for enhanced detail and comes with an accurate flight dynamics model, as well as detailed animations and liveries. The aircraft includes a virtual cockpit, virtual cabin, and also offers the first X-Plane modeled aircraft to allow a user to fly in virtual cockpit accurately for the entire flight. Thanks to a fully animated 3D cockpit and a revolutionary feature to the community called manipulators, X-Scenery are able to make this possible. Manipulators allow a user to literally get as "real as it gets" without a home cockpit setup, and allow you to do things such as grab the throttle levers with one click and drag the mouse in any cockpit mode view while moving your throttles up or down. The aircraft also features a custom prop animation, radiosity based texturing, 60 custom datarefs for the purpose of simulating as much accuracy as possible, a paint kit, animated fowler flaps, a fully animated gear mechanism, animated extending landing lights, accurate simulation of the autopilot, and much more! If you are a user of X-Plane, this is not to be missed at X-Scenery.com .

P-47D "Thunderbolt from A2A Simulations

Posted: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - 5:06
Staff reviewer Laurie Aston climbs aboard a WWII classic as he looks at A2A Simulations' P-47D "Thunderbolt". "The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, also known as the “Jug” (Juggernaut?) was the largest single engine fighter of its day, thanks largely to the huge Pratt and Whitney Double banked Radial version of the Wasp. Fully armed and loaded, the weight of this aircraft could reach 8 tonnes."

"The aircraft is displayed very nicely with a lot of detail to the exterior. There is only one paint job, with none available on the A2A forums either, but I did find one on the Avsim website. This airplane is not pretty, but the big radial engine at the front end is so neat in its design and display."

"Climbing into the cockpit of this monster and lowering myself into the seat, the first thing I notice is the lack of a forward view. Then I start to look around me, and the wealth of detail comes into view. Instrumentation is very detailed and works perfectly in every respect. Panels to the left and right of the seat give control switches for radios etc, and on the right hand side of the cockpit, partly obscured by the air diluter and demand ducting for oxygen, is the all important tail wheel lock lever."

"After running up and getting lined up, it is time to lock the tail wheel before opening up this huge powerful engine. Using rudder to counteract torque, you feel with the elevator to get the nose down to the horizontal before building up enough speed to ease back and start to climb away. Dive speed and high altitude performance is good, but low altitude performance is not so good, although introducing water injection helps during the rate of climb phase, and the turning rate could be better at low altitude, but the elliptical wing helps with roll control somewhat."

Summing up this rendition of the P-47D Thunderbolt, Laurie says, "A nice big aircraft with lots of attitude. I like it a lot. It looks very good in the air and the detail is something to be seen. Therefore, for the price of this add-on, it is a fair buy."

New Digital Hardware Clock

Posted: Monday, December 29, 2008 - 15:09
Flight illusion is proud to announce the release of the General Aviation Digital Clock. The clock is modeled after the Devtron Digital clock and has the same functionality. It features a button to step through voltage, OAT (Fahrenheit) and OAT (Celsius), another to cycle through Local time (LT) , Flight time (FT), Elapsed time (ET) and Universal time (UT). A third button is used to control the different functions. The clock is based on a square PCB measuring 60 x 60mm and has a diameter of 57 mm that fits through the panel cutout. The digital clock connects through a daisy chain to the central interface (GSA55). A brochure can be downloaded from the Flight illusion website.

PC Aviator Launches MegaSceneryEarth

Posted: Saturday, December 27, 2008 - 5:54
MegaScenery publisher, PC Aviator, in partnership with MegaScenery developer Aerosoft Australia Pty Ltd, today announced the launch of the next evolutionary phase of the MegaScenery brand - MegaSceneryEarth.

MegaSceneryEarth is a product line that involves the massive project of mapping as much of the earth as possible as ready-to-use photoscenery (created from aerial photography) for Microsoft Flight Simulator X. The focus initially will be on the continental USA. End users visit the MegaSceneryEarth website, choose the pre-created areas of photoscenery packaged as tiles varying between 1200 and 2800 square miles and download them instantly after purchase. While the concept of downloaded software is certainly not new, the concept of a megastore of on-demand, ready-to-use photoscenery for Microsoft Flight Simulator available for instant download is as a result of the MegaSceneryEarth model.

Aerial photographs for the MegaSceneryEarth product line are from source data of primarily 1 and (some) 2 meters per pixel resolution and are displayed in Microsoft Flight Simulator at 1.19 meters per pixel. The end result for the user is a very realistic representation of the particular area being flown in Flight Simulator.

This project was made possible as a result of the ever increasing speed of internet connection bandwidth for consumers, however, users who do not have fast connections, the website also offers opportunities to have DVD recreations mailed on demand in lieu of downloading.

The pricing for the scenery tiles is as little as $3.00 per area when consumers take up maximum volume discounts. This is the lowest price per square mile ever offered for Flight Simulator photoscenery. The MegaSceneryEarth website is now live. The current area coverage of the continental USA stands at 215,000 square miles - 6% of the land mass (7 distinct areas) - and the companies endeavor to complete the entire USA phase of this project within 12 months. New areas will be rolled out as completed giving the end user a constant choice of new scenery areas to choose from.

Visit the MegaSceneryEarth website for further information and to order.

SP 1 For Ultimate Airliners - Super 80 Pro

Posted: Saturday, December 27, 2008 - 5:46
Flight One Software and CoolSky have officially released Service Pack 1 for their Ultimate Airliners - Super 80 Professional product. This service pack is recommended for all users, and addresses many areas of the product.

Ultimate Airliners Super 80 Professional is a highly advanced addon product for MS Flight Simulator X that simulates the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 in absolutely amazing detail. All systems in the aircraft are simulated with a very high level of accuracy to make the experience as complete as possible. The product simulates the latest Electronic Flight Deck (EFD) cockpit upgrade given to the MD-80 series. It includes a full EFIS with FMS, TCAS, Systems Display Panel, Engine Display Panel, and many more advanced systems. Real MD-80 pilots will feel right at home and beginners will be able to completely learn the cockpit due to the interactive Integrated Cockpit Training System.

Service Pack 1 includes over 120 modifications and fixes to the product, and is available as a separate download patch for previous purchasers, and for new purchasers, Service Pack 1 is now included as part of the full product.

IYP For Cessna 152 II By Carenado

Posted: Friday, December 26, 2008 - 13:32
The list of It’s Your Plane Supported Aircraft continues to expand and now IYP interfaces with the Carenado Cessna 152 II in both FS2004 and FSX. The C152 II is a great little one-man plane to fly for beginners and IYP allows you to bring a copilot to help with the checklist's during the flight, visit It's Your Plane for a look at their list of supported aircraft.

Coffs Harbour from Orbx

Posted: Thursday, December 25, 2008 - 21:52
Staff reviewer David Rogers continues his adventures "down under" with a look at Coff's Harbour from Orbx. "Coffs Harbour is a small coastal city located on the north coast of New South Wales about 540 km north of Sydney and 440 km south of Brisbane. 70,000 Australians call this place home, although the holiday season raises this to over 100,000. The harbour has a long jetty and is a hub of activity."

"FTX changes everything. It feels a little like having 'FS Eleven' years before anyone else. Everything is improved and of stunning quality; roads, traffic, landclass, textures - it just lifts flight simulation up in terms of immersion and realism by a nautical mile."

"When I first installed Coffs Harbour I was blown away by the visual feast. This is the most stunning scenery area I have ever seen, in any version of the sim to date. As well as the airfield (which is actually quite large for an airfield in it's category, spreading over a significant area), there are the built up areas of the city, and the jaw dropping harbour area."

David says of Coffs Harbour, "It could be easy to miss out on just how stunning this airport and surrounding area scenery is, because the area itself is not well known to the majority of flight simmers. From every angle, this product deserves the highest accolade; quality, attention to detail, performance, value, support. I would not have any hesitation in recommending this product."

VOZ 1.8 Released

Posted: Thursday, December 25, 2008 - 14:40
The team at Vista Australis have announced the release of the latest version of their scenery package "VOZ 1.8 for FS9" , with too many improvements to list here its a fine addition indeed , full details and download can be found at Vista Australis

T34 Mentor - A Comparitive Look

Posted: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 22:56
Avsim staff reviewer Tom D. takes the FSX versions of the T34 Mentor from Carenado and AlphaSim for a head to head comparision. "Here we have a pair of Beechcraft T-34 Mentors, an A / B model from Carenado and a C model from AlphaSim. AVSIM reviews them to let you know what works, what doesn’t and why you probably want both of these aircraft in your virtual hangar."

"Both of these aircraft are FSX models, designed to be flown from a Virtual Cockpit. Fortunately, this works pretty well. Yes, they have 2D cockpits, but using them pretty much negates the reason for buying these new models to begin with."

"Both models of the T34 fly very nicely. Both have well coordinated controls and react as they should for given control displacements. Both fly off, stall and land at correct airspeeds, with the C model being a 10 to 15 knot faster maneuvering airplane due to approximately 1,100 pound higher weight. Both require right rudder with the application or power, most particularly at slower speeds."

Tom goes into great detail as he compares these two similar aircraft from Carenado and AlphaSim. "Both of these models are tremendous values. With either product you are going to want to practice your formation flying. There is an excellent shareware application called FS Recorder which allows you to record a flight and play it back as AI Traffic." Be sure to read the whole review.

FSD Commander 115 TC V2.0 For FSX

Posted: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 21:06
FSD International announce the long awaited release of their Commander 115 TC Version 2 for Flight Simulator X. The Commander has been built from the wheels up specially for FS X SP2. Including a highly detailed model of the Garmin GNS 480, your choice of classic or glass PDF displays, Realism Module, and much more. Full details are available at FSD-International .

Traffic X Video Now Showing

Posted: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 18:51
A new video showing off the great features of Traffic X is now available to download or watch direct from the Just Flight website. There's a high-resolution Zipped file to download (18Mb), a low-resolution version (7Mb), and also a streaming video which you can view immediately.

The video provides a quick tour of some of the numerous Traffic X features, among them military AI traffic, Traffic Radar, Spotty the aircraft spotter, and the driveable follow-me car and pushback truck.

Embraer 170 Flight Tutorial

Posted: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 18:36
Fly Tutorial has released a 95 page tutorial simulating a complete flight from Berlin to Vienna for the Embraer 170 developed by Wilco/feelThere. This is a freeware document and can be downloaded at the Fly Tutorial website.

Tank Sim - Pt 2

Posted: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 - 20:13
Staff reviewer Etienne Martin concludes his two part look at Tank Sims from Lighthouse Interactive. This time it T34 vs Tiger. "In this title, tank combat is recreated between two of the better tanks from World War II; the venerable Russian T34 and the German Tiger."

"The directory structure includes a total of two campaigns with six missions each. Of the four missions I played, they didn’t last more than 15 minutes each to complete. The very first impression after getting into my tank was that the driving controls are fairly simplified, especially as the default settings are go forward, back, left and right with various amounts of speed. This greatly simplifies things in battle as you do not really need to understand any of the complexities of driving a tank. Yet, part of the fun includes maneuvers in a vehicle you don’t drive every day."

"Several shell types are available and should be used against different target types (e.g., use shrapnel for soft targets). Just about every object seems destructible, which can be quite pleasing. Bushes and trees easily break in front of the tanks which makes movement, even in tough terrain, fairly easy."

"The sim has great vehicle detail and decent terrain, except for a couple of points. The ground textures are simple; the terrain itself is composed of flat polygons with almost no variation. While the trees and bushes are well executed, the ground cover seems a bit sparse."

"In this first look, T34 vs Tiger immediately comes across as emphasizing combat strategy over simulation of the vehicles. The visuals are good, although I found the damage model a bit disappointing. The vehicles are meticulously detailed and well rendered from any angle. T34 vs Tiger has potential, yet this preview has left me wanting for a bit more depth for the vehicle and crew simulation."

FsPassengersX Now Available for FSX

Posted: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 - 11:46
FsPassengersX is an add-on that will completely revolutionize the way you fly in Flight Simulator X, and allows you to add passengers to your virtual flights! Finally, you're not alone in the sky. Passengers react to how you fly your plane. Hear them scream if you make drastic mistakes, and get their opinion of your flight in real time and provide in-flight passenger services such as films, music, and drinks. Make money for successful flights; be fined if you do something wrong, manage an airline (make money, manage aircraft fleets, etc) and maintain your aircraft in good condition, otherwise you may experience unique and surprising failures. Create and maintain pilot careers whilst keeping detailed logs and statistics for every flight you make (great for virtual airlines). Fly through dangerous parts of the world, and risk the safety of your plane, crew, or passengers! Attendants, passengers effects such as listening to ATC chatter, music, GPWS, and more. This add-on includes more than 1200 in-flight sounds to immerse you in the ambiance of flight and has 7 new complete voice packs, three flight modes: normal, aerobatic, flight tour and 40 unique failures with visual effects (smoke, fire) and sounds. You can even export your flight for your Virtual Airline.

HiFi Sim Advanced Weather Sim Released!

Posted: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 - 3:53
HiFi’s next major step in advanced weather simulation technology is officially announced and released today! Active Sky Advanced (ASA) features a comprehensive overhaul and upgrade of all underlying weather synthesis, interpolation and depiction systems, which have enabled significant breakthroughs and features never available until now. For the first time ever, the entire engine is DUAL integrated with both FSX and FS9!

A brand-new Graphic Snapshot and state management system provides universal graphics add-on integration with weather-influenced capability, allowing easy control and incredible realism and variation of matched graphics and weather with ANY environment graphics add-on (or combination of add-ons). USA live Sigmets and Airmets, Networked Pireps, enhanced flight planning and wx briefing data, direct wind control and smoothing, visibility graduation and smoothing, and much more is now available!

HiFi is offering upgrade versions at reduced pricing for licensees of ASX and/or ASv6, and the download is available now! For more information, screen shots and resources, please visit HiFi’s website.

AVSIM Opens Reader's Choice Awards Nominations

Posted: Monday, December 22, 2008 - 20:27
AVSIM will once again present the AVSIM Reader's Choice Awards (RCA's) at the FANCON 2009 in Dayton, Ohio in September. In preparation for the voting which will start on March 1st, we have now opened up the nomination process. Nominated products will be added to the vote in their various categories. Both Freeware and Commercial products can be nominated. The vote will be open to all members of the AVSIM Forums, so if you haven't registered for the forums, we suggest you do so today! You can access the nominations here.

Bill Womack's Plum Island

Posted: Monday, December 22, 2008 - 14:08
Bill Womack has released a new scenery add-on for Flight Simulator X. Dubbed "100 Dollar Burger: Plum Island", it is the first of a new series of very highly detailed small sceneries designed especially for the low-and-slow flier. Bill is well known for other commercial sceneries such as Freight Dogs, Dillingham on Hawaii and major parts of Tongass Fjords, and also for some excellent freeware sceneries such as Bear Gulch and RAF West Malling for RealAir and Reading Airport in Pennsylvania made for MAAM-SIM.

Plum Island's small airfield (2B2) is situated near Newburyport, Massachusetts, some 27 miles north of Boston along the Atlantic coast. The FSX version of it conveys the atmosphere of a small local field, often slumbering in the summer heat or laying deserted in the wintery cold. According to the Airnav pages aircraft operations average some 54 per week, so clearly not a busy airport, but instead the ideal companion for your VFR-loving GA aircraft!

This is a 'native FSX' title and tested under Windows XP and Vista, and with FSX SP2 and Acceleration. In addition to Plum Island Aerodrome itself, the scenery includes a wide area around the field including the town of Newburyport, the tidal flats from the river to the Atlantic, the beaches and the many holiday homes along the coast. This entire area is made using high-res aerial photos and painstakingly placed customized autogen houses and other objects. Also included is a dedicated AI traffic file, a nice little manual in pdf format, and a dedicated support forum. All this for $15.

F-16 Fighting Falcon X from Aerosoft

Posted: Sunday, December 21, 2008 - 19:29
Senior staff reviewer David Wilson-Okamura takes to the skies in Aerosoft's F-16 Fighting Falcon X. "The F-16 Fighting Falcon, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, has been in production now for three decades and is expected to remain in service for at least two more. Fast, light-weight, and versatile, it can fire missiles and launch bombs in numerous configurations; this package simulates about twenty of them. Developed by Aerosoft, the visual model is said to be “the most detailed aircraft ever designed for FSX.”"

"According to the product web page, the Falcon ships with 21 different external models and 61 different liveries. This package includes three variants -- the A, AM, and C models -- with two different engines -- General Electric F110-GE-100 and Pratt & Whitney F100-P-220 -- and fourteen different external loads. The two engines differ in weight, fuel consumption, and thrust -- variations that are reflected in the various flight models. But no matter which engine you fly, the engine you hear will be a Pratt & Whitney F100."

"FSX is better at simulating fly-by-wire systems than previous versions of Flight Simulator, but it’s not all the way there. In the Aerosoft Falcon, you need to use more trim than you would in the real F-16, but I put this down to a limitation of the simulator engine, not a defect in the flight model. This model is not for borderline hardware. Another thing I notice is that switching back to cockpit view from one of the external views is very fast: there’s no waiting while the cockpit redraws, as there is (for example) in some higher-fps models."

David concludes Aerosoft's F-16 Fighting Falcon X with, "This aircraft is fun. A lot of the fun is just power: you can climb very fast, dive even faster, roll over on your belly, zip around the deck, and if you get into trouble, just turn up the heat. Detail is high, frame rates are flyable, there’s a wide variety of configurations and liveries, and the heads-up display is more realistic (and therefore more useful) than any we’ve seen before in Flight Simulator. Start-up time is minimal and, with no FMC to program, you can be on your way in about a minute."

AVSIM Announces FANCON 2009!

Posted: Sunday, December 21, 2008 - 17:46
The AVSIM Staff is very pleased to announce FANCON 2009! The 2009 event will be held in Dayton, Ohio at the Wright Patterson (Wright Patt) Air Force Base – home of the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. The museum is one of the most famous and largest of it's kind in the world dedicated to aviation. Dayton is also the home of the Dayton Aviation Heritage Museum and State Park. The DAH is the home of the Wright brothers, and the exhibits provide a history of their efforts in powered flight. The conference will be held on the weekend of September 4th, 5th and will conclude on Sunday, September 6th. The Convention will kick off on Friday night with the AVSIM Social. Exhibitions will open on Saturday morning and run throughout the remainder of the weekend. On Saturday night AVSIM will once again host the AVSIM Awards Banquet where we will recognize contributors to our hobby in the preceding years. We have opened up the FANCON forum for discussion and questions about the event and will be bringing online the new AVSIM RSVP Registration System shortly. Costs and other details will be put online within the next week or two. All of us at AVSIM are excited to be once again presenting our FANCON, and we all look forward to seeing you there.

New Mike Ray Article

Posted: Sunday, December 21, 2008 - 16:29
Tino at FSVisions informs us, "Just in time for Christmas, FSVisions is, together with Computer Pilot and my friend Mike Ray, able to provide all FSVisions visitors again with a free article of Mike Ray. The December article contains a FAQ about the Discontinue in a FMC flightplan."