Centers for Airway Science Founder Passes

Posted: Saturday, November 1, 2008 - 15:19
It is with great sadness that Senior Staff Reviewer, Dr Zane Gard, reports that his dear friend Robert Strickland, founder of Centers for Airway Science passed away in late September. His work, insight, and dedication to teaching will be sorely missed by everyone involved in the program. A 22 year veteran of the Air Force he served in Vietnam. After retiring in 1976 he worked with the Texas Rehabilitation Commision. His love for flying was also a driving force behind the establishment of the Warren Lee Strickland Centers for Airway Science in Portland, Oregon. The non-profit program, endorsed by General Colin Powell and Tiger Woods, provides an environment where practical math, science, and computer applications are emphasized through computerized flight simulation and model aircraft design and construction, and compliments the traditional educational program. He took hundreds of children having difficulty in school and showed them a practical application for what they were learning and literally turned many lives around. He was one man that made a difference for so many.

A Memorial Service is scheduled for Saturday, November 1st at 2 p.m. The Memorial will be at Pearson Air Museum in Vancouver, Washington. Please join us there if you can. You can send your thoughts about Mr. Strickland's work to rhsmemorial@comcast.net. CAS will be posting contributions to this site on a wall at the Memorial. His family requests that you send contributions to Airway Science, PO Box 4142, Portland, OR 97208 rather than flowers.

Orbis World Flight Charity

Posted: Friday, October 31, 2008 - 21:40
On Monday November 2nd at 2300hrs UTC, seven FBS (fixed based simulators) will depart Sydney Australia (YSSY) on a seven day round the world fund raising flight. The flights are conducted on the VATSIM network and will be handled by the World Flight ATC Centre that will provide ATC for the group and also assist local controllers who are online as we pass through their airspace. The event will conclude on Sunday November 9th at 0900hrs UTC Full details of the participating team’s web addresses, flight plans and route details can be found at World Flight Group.

In addition to the flight, this year World Flight Scotland are holding a charity auction in support of ORBIS and the Flying Eye Hospital, which is also the chosen charity of World Flight USA. The auction is held on eBay and runs for the week of World Flight 2008. With over 40 listings and products from Flight1, Just Flight, Aerosoft, Captain Sim, FS Addon, FScene, FS2Crew, Topgun Simulations and Vroute. Hardware from GoFlight, DVD's from Angle of Attack, ITVV and Just Planes, there is something for everyone. What a great opportunity to get great add-ons from your favorite developer while supporting ORBIS.

A child goes blind every minute. £2 provides the medicines to treat 2 adults and 2 children and prevent unnecessary blindness, a little goes a long way. Full details of the items can be found on the Ebay Listing Site or go to World Flight Scotland’s website for more details. Further information on all the items and the companies supporting the auction can also be found at Sky Blue Radio.

The AVSIM Library's Recent Updates

Posted: Friday, October 31, 2008 - 16:38
The AVSIM File Library would like to introduce our new library managers: Momtchil Dobrev and David Marshall! Along with our new additions to the AVSIM family, we are also proud to announce our stance on protecting copyrights. Chase Kreznor, Library Executive Director, has always been very focused and vigilant on enforcing adherence to any and all types of copyrights. With this focal point an idea was drafted, submitted, and approved by the other directors at AVSIM allowing a new position, EULA Investigator, which has been filled by Tom Knudsen of the AVSIM Library. For those of you not familiar with this term, EULA is the acronym for End-User License Agreement.

The emphasis of this new position is to provide authors a one stop solution to not only eliminating copyright violations, but also to investigate occurrences and track possible trends. This position is also responsible for communicating with vendors (freeware and payware) to update and enforce individual EULA. To contact our Copyright department reference a copyright violation within the AVSIM File Library, you may e-mail copyright@avsim.com.

Perfect Flight - Flight Operation X - British Airways

Posted: Friday, October 31, 2008 - 13:46
Flight Operation X (FOX) is a new series of Missions designed to be used exclusively with Microsoft Flight Simulator X "FOX - British Airways" is the first title for this new product. There are 303 pre-saved flights that you can edit and compile into a single mission to use in Flight Simulator X. The Flight Manager allows you to make your choice of Flight, determine Weather conditions, Season, Departure Date and Time , with Charts and Maps available during the flight. Additional features include Custom Engine Sounds with reworked or custom made (B747, B777 and Lockheed L-1011) stereo sounds. The Missions include a complete Flight Briefing for each flight edited and saved by you and more than 500 Charts and Maps. For complete details visit Perfect Flight

Flight illusion X-Plane Interface Released

Posted: Friday, October 31, 2008 - 13:30
Flight illusion gauges now X-Plane 8&9 compatible, for cockpit builders using X-plane as their simulator program Flight illusion is releasing an X-Plane compatible version of their interface, allowing all the FI gauges to be connected and tweaked. Flight illusion invites X-Plane users to download the interface and take a look at how it's functioning, even if they don't have gauges, that'll show you how easy the software works. Compared to MS-FS the advantage is that no extra "in between" like FSUIPC is needed. Hence it is possible to update the information at almost 50 times per second (FS has a 10/second update rate). This results in even smoother gauge movement. For more information, please visit Flight illusion .

Eaglesoft Cirrus SR-22 G2/G3 Turbo Review

Posted: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 - 21:31
Avsim Staff Reviewer Mark Kolo has been busy reviewing the latest offering to roll off the production line at Eaglesoft. The Eaglesoft Cirrus SR-22 G2/G3 Turbo is a GA aircraft which has seen many evoloutions over the years.

Mark is suitably impressed with the SR-22 and goes on to say: "To say that I enjoyed my time with the Eaglesoft SR-22 would be a huge understatement. I enjoyed nearly every single feature of this aircraft, as it truly re-created its real world counterpart almost perfectly. The high degree of systems accuracy combined with excellent modeling, spectacular factory paint jobs, a decent soundset, and realistic airfile (I think…)make this the perfect selection for any GA fan!"

Click on the above link to read the full review, and also take a minute to visit the Eaglesoft website.

New FSX Videos

Posted: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 - 16:57
Mhimhi has just published two new videos on FSX, one called Breathless and the other one is a video between an A380 vs B747. Both can be seen directly on Volovirtuale.com

Capt Sim 757 Captain v2.1(FS9) Available

Posted: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 - 16:28
Many new features, fixes and enhancements are available for this title. Complete details can be found at the Capt Sim website.

Project Open Sky's Boeing 777-200 v2

Posted: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 21:27
Staff reviewer Laurie Aston takes a look at a great Freeware release from Project Open Sky (Posky), their Boeing 777-200 Version 2.

"Putting this very simply, the exterior models are nothing short of stunning. This applies to the limitations of FS2004 and also the vast graphic capability of FSX, and all of the aircraft liveries I downloaded produced beautiful aircraft with everything where I expected it to be. From the color and finish to the shape and styling, these aircraft look good from any angle."

"The POSKY team has really excelled themselves with the cockpit and panels. You are much better off using the Virtual Cockpit, a separate download, but with a bit of jiggling it can produce a stunning flight deck, just as real as it can get without 3D. It is a brilliant achievement by the designers, and I congratulate them whole heartedly for giving us such a valuable product."

"This aircraft takes off correctly with the airspeed pretty well in tune with the all up weight and trim/C of G calculations. Flaps operate correctly along with the leading edge slotted slats that are fitted to the 777, and they display correct sections, both in number and correct operation, so no fault there. It banks smoothly, dives and climbs smoothly, stalls or attempts to stall as per the program, and even the air brakes pop out when selected in the correct sense and at the right angles. It cruises just as one would expect, and frankly it is difficult to criticize anything from the air file."

Wrapping up this freeware report of Posky's Boeing 777-200, "It is one heck of an airplane, in every respect, so go and download it now. Then find the model you want and you will not be disappointed and will fly the wheels off it, or the wings. If you have to wait a bit because the website is busy, then it only proves what a bargain this B777-200 is. Project Open Sky's dedication to the task has to be recognized."

IVAO Virtual Sky - 3rd Edition

Posted: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 - 1:38
"We are happy to present before you the third edition of our official magazine of "IVAO Virtual Sky". Our first two editions had over 52,000 cumulative downloads for which we owe our sincere thanks to all our avid readers. You can download your copy of the IVAO - Virtual Sky.

Instructor Station V1.25 Now Available

Posted: Monday, October 27, 2008 - 14:21
This utility is meant to assist PC Simmers and Home Cockpit Builders using FS2004 (and FSX). Also many features are available for Project Magenta users (pmSystems, Glass Cockpit, MCDU, FCU). Compatible with all types of aircraft. It is also a great tool for any simmers who want to control the flight simulator externally. The "Instructor Station" allows you to set your aircraft on an approach to a runway of your choice under any weather conditions, start-up and shutdown your network computers (fully customizable), program or set an aircraft systems failure at any moment, calculate the amount of fuel required for your trip and load it to the aircraft, record the performance of your flight (landings, take-offs, etc.) and plot it graphically, and many other things. Their program has proven to be very successful amongst the PC Flight Simulation and Cockpit Building communities.

Carenado Releases Its Next Generation FSX Aircraft.

Posted: Monday, October 27, 2008 - 14:10
It is the C152II, a well known aircraft by most of the pilots because a vast majority of them learned to fly in one of this bird.

This aircraft was developed using: NURBS modeling techniques; high resolution textures resulting in a photorealistic representation with very friendly FPS performance. All the textures have fine tune alpha calibrations of whites for the bloom lights; and a polygon optimized procedure. All of this plus new FSX and DX10 features like cast shadows on VC, external dynamic cast shadows, normal mapping, specular mapping and bloom lights, resulting in a superior representation of this aircraft.

Carenado has achieved a new quality standard that was impossible to reach until now which will delight thier fans and customers.
With this release, they enforce thier commitment to their customers to give them high quality products with true representations of the reality in terms of visual and behavior parameters. More information about the C152II visite the Carenado website.

Section 8 F-86 Sabre Finally Released

Posted: Sunday, October 26, 2008 - 22:19
Afer a short delay, the recently reported F-86 Sabre from Section 8 is now in the Avsim File Library and already drawing quite a number of downloads. This freeware product is described as a "labour of love" and if you look at the list of designers involved, you can be sure its going to be right up there with some of the best payware aircraft on the market today. The F-86 Sabre is now ready for your enjoyment!

For more information, please visit Section 8 Website, and download it from the Avsim File Library.

Heli Traffic X Released

Posted: Sunday, October 26, 2008 - 17:01
FlightSimTools announces the release of their newest product for FsX, Heli Traffic X. This new addon, brings realistic helicopter traffic to life. Helicopter traffic starts and lands at helipads, hover and fly as true helicopter traffic should, adding a whole new level to AI Traffic. For more information, please visit FlightSimTools.

PRE-Flight Adds New Models

Posted: Sunday, October 26, 2008 - 12:41
PRE-Flight RC Flight Simulator announced today that they have added new helicopter models for their popular simulator. The Walkera Edition presents eleven different variations of the Walkera 4#3, 5#10 and the 5G6. For more information and download instructions, visit preflightsim today.

VRoute Announcement

Posted: Sunday, October 26, 2008 - 12:35
VRoute announced today an extension of their vroute premium software. This new update includes over 15,000 real-life charts for more than 3000 airports in the USA and Australia. The charts are organized by airports and chart types for easy access. These new charts are available in PDF format for easy printing. Visit the folks at VRoute today to learn more about these exciting new features.

IVAO Magazine Available

Posted: Sunday, October 26, 2008 - 2:38
IVAO announced today that the third edition of their popular news magazine is available for download. The "IVAO Virtual Sky" features articles on flying, Air Traffic Control, and interviews with notable figures in the flight simulation community. Offering something for any flight enthusiast, visit IVAO to download your free copy today.

Digital Aviations' Fokker 70/100 - Redux

Posted: Saturday, October 25, 2008 - 17:53
Staff reviewer Etienne Martin takes a closer, more in-depth updated (SP1) look at the Fokker 70/100 from Digital Aviation which is available from Flight 1.

"The Digital Aviation Fokker 70/100 package provides an excellent glass cockpit experience in a regional aircraft package. The choice of a Fokker aircraft is intriguing and uncommon. While the VC is missed, the 2D panel system is robust and one of the better implementations on the market today. All major systems are modeled in depth including options like the weather and terrain radar. A multi-crew capability is also included in the package."

"I found that DA’s simulation in its SP1 form, delivers an engaging an immersive experience in manual or automatic flight modes. The Fokker 70/100 continues DA’s reputation for delivering in-depth treatments of the aircraft they model."

FS2Crew Expansion Pack

Posted: Friday, October 24, 2008 - 18:12
FS2Crew has released its new companion product/expansion pack for the PMDG MD-11 aircraft: FS2Crew: PMDG MD-11 Edition. Designed in close consultation with real-world MD-11 First Officer David Bartoli, its new companion product adds a virtual First Officer, Cabin and Ground crew to the PMDG MD-11 Aircraft. FS2Crew for the MD-11 features an updated interface system, and it ships with a US voice set with an international voice set for the ground crew positions. Visit FS2Crew for full details .

Aerosoft Releases F-16 Fighting Falcon X.

Posted: Friday, October 24, 2008 - 1:36
The F-16 Fighting Falcon is a multirole jet fighter build by General Dynamics for the US Air Force. The lightweight fighter became the ubiquities fighter as it was exported to 25 nations and a record breaking production of over 4,400 aircraft. Updated every decade it remains the basic fighter for nations worldwide. Apart from being a very serious fighter it remains about the most enjoyable aircraft to fly with the superb maneuverability and power that allows vertical climbs. Visibility is unparalleled in the frameless bubble canopy. This enjoyment remains fully intact in FSX.

The Aerosoft version includes the most used versions in the highest possible detail. With close to half a million vertices it most likely is the most detailed aircraft ever designed for FSX. The realism of this product is great that parts of the product are sold to professional users and is used in the first stages of training of pilots in 3 countries. Where other internally developed aircraft try to merge all existing models into one 'universal' model, the F-16 was designed with pure realism in mind, down to the smallest detail each of the 21 models is as the real aircraft patrols the skies. In FSX the F-16 is a joy to fly, with the controllability of a light aircraft and capable of altitudes of 50.000 feet and speeds exceeding Mach1. It is extremely agile yet easy to control (it will fly where you point the nose) it allows you to explore the environment of FSX like never before.