FScene Total Pack Available

Posted: Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 16:06
FScene has been twelve and a half years of continuous work by Ruud Faber. FScene is valued worldwide by many flight simulation enthusiasts and has won many Flight Simulations Awards. Ruud – being a professional aquarelle painter – started the project in 1996 with his first set of replacement ground textures for Europe, and soon other continents followed. All these years, development never stopped following the exciting developments in the FS world, every new version of Flight Simulator requiring adapted and new texture versions. FScene has provided thousands and thousands of replacements for Flight Simulator`s default ground textures, for all over the world and for every season. The program is replacing most ground-textures with new texture files, which are specially designed to match the characteristics of the landscape on the different continents even better than the default ones do. Additionally, a special drawing technique applied to the textures gives them almost the impression of being three-dimensional. No matter if you fly over cities, springtime meadows, snowy Alps, summer islands, or rainforests, they will turn every flight into an optical experience of enhanced realism. The complete work for FS9 / FSX is now available in a combined package, the FScene - Total Pack.

Orbx releases More Freeware

Posted: Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 12:43
Precision designer Mango brings us the born-again instant classic that is Redcliffe airport. You will be astounded at the amount of detail which has been added to this GA airport, right down to signage taken from actual photos at the airport, to perfect AI traffic support with accurate parking and push-back support. This is one freeware addon not to be missed, and you should proceed directly to Orbx

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress By PRE-Flight RC Simulator.

Posted: Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 1:17
Although the Boeing B-17 was not the most capable bomber in terms of bomb load and performance, it was the darling of the bomber air crews due to its legendary resistance to battle damage. The B-17 bristled with defensive guns - much to the crews' delight - earning it the title "Flying Fortress". From its first flight in 1935, despite a streak of tragic luck, the B-17 eventually became the greatest bomber of the war - dropping more bombs than any other aircraft.

This super scale PRE-Flight model of the B-17G has moveable control surfaces and retractable landing gear, as well as bomber and pilot views. To download this and other models and to download the PRE-Flight Demo, visit PRE-Flight RC Flight Simulator.

TweakFS Releases ScreenShot ToolBox

Posted: Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 1:11
TweakFS has released the second member of its ToolBox Series of utilities. The TweakFS ScreenShot ToolBox is a Flight Simulator-specific screenshot utility (supports both FSX and FS2004) and with it you can easily create, display, edit, upload, download and email your FS screenshot masterpieces.

A major feature is the dazzling Apple iTunes "Coverflow" style 3D screenshot display system which uses cutting-edge DirectX technology. The ToolBox is packed with a number of handy integrated utilities which makes emailing, uploading and downloading screenshots from within the utility a real snap. The built-in ScreenShot Creator supports automatically adding logos, banners and anti-aliased text when the snapshot is taken which saves a lot of post-editing time, or they can be added later. The banner/logo adding feature supports images with transparent backgrounds and layered objects with shadows such as (PNG - Portable Network Graphics) and (PSD - Adobe Photoshop) files.

BAe Hawk T1 from SkySim

Posted: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 2:37
Staff reviewer Laurie Aston goes aerobatic with SkySim's BAe Hawk T1. "The British Aerospace Hawk T Mk1 is a British all-metal, low wing, tandem seat, flight training and weapon training aircraft. The Red Arrows Royal Air Force Aerobatic team took delivery of the BAe Hawk T1 in the winter of 1979/1980."

"The aircraft looks excellent; with maintenance steps and chocks, pins and blanks fitted in all the right places all the way around the plane. It is finished in the 2007 RAF paint scheme allocated to the team, and from the front or “sharp” end of the plane, right to the back end, it looks exactly right in every detail, and this includes the landing gear, doors, panels, smoke emitters and tail pipe."

"Having studied the real Red Arrow Hawk interior, I have to say that this simulation is first class, with every dial, switch and button faithfully re-produced. I couldn’t fault it, although it is true that some of the “eye candy” is just that. However, all the instruments that are required for flight do just what they are supposed to, and the CWS (Central Warning System) panel reads correctly and tests too. The Radios are functional and there is enough information to keep most people happy most of the time. And this goes for the front cockpit and the rear cockpit too."

"The Rolls Royce Turbomeca Adour Mk.861 Turbofan has been re-produced very effectively, starts realistically, and idles correctly so it stands to reason that feeding power in is also going to sound great, and it does!"

"This model has it all, and it has been very carefully created to be as near to a real Hawk as I can imagine it. The aircraft looks very nice, flies perfectly and reacts well to its environment. As this is an aerobatic jet trainer and team performer, I give it full marks for all of that. The SkySim Hawk has the honor of being my favorite package and may well be for years to come. This BAe Hawk T1 “RED ARROW” by SkySim is a true winner."

SimScape HUD Update

Posted: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 0:55
The SimScape team is happy to announce an update of its F-16 and Mirage Head-Up Displays. If you wanted to try the SimScape HUDs, you may have noticed they were expired as soon as they were installed... This is now fixed. You now have a 15 days evaluation period after installation to test the product, "try before you buy". For more information, vector to the SimScape site.

Abacus - 30 years later

Posted: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 0:53
Arnie Lee, Founder and President of Abacus quotes, "When we first opened our doors in 1978, there were only a handful of companies that had dared to venture out into the nascient personal computer industry. Our aim was to produce fun and useful software for computers from such names as DEC, Altair, Radio Shack, Apple and Commdore to name a few. How many of those names are still around? Most everyone knows of the brutal personal computer wars that have wrecked havoc on many of the industry's participants leaving many dead and others wounded and scarred.

For some unknown reason we've managed to stay around for these past three decades and will celebrate our 30th anniversay on September 12th. Along the way we've published more than a thousand different titles. We've delivered millions of software packages and millions of computer and technical books to personal computer users throughout the US and Canada. We've also worked closely with our long-time international partners overseas bring these goods to worldwide markets.

To endure such a long run, I'd like to offer a deep thank you to both Jim Oldfield and Scott Slaughter who have been with us for ages. Their respective expertise helps us stay competitive. Thanks to others on our staff - Adam, Brett, Sharon, Rachel, Mike, Paul and Isiah. I'd also like to thank these individuals and developers (by first name - they know who they are): Bill D, Chuck, Julie, Konstantin, Laemming, Louis, Peter, Rob and Roy." Stop by the Abacus website and see what's "new" and check out their blog.

Rescue Pilot – Mission Pack,

Posted: Tuesday, September 9, 2008 - 19:32
EMERGENCY DEMO! Test your flying skills under pressure with a free mission from Rescue Pilot's Mission Pack, the first in a series of exciting mission expansions for simmers who want to take their FSX experience to a new level and try out their flying skills in an emergency. If you want to see what all the excitement is about, Just Flight is about to provide a complete Rescue Pilot mission for you to try. The free mission will be available to download exclusively by subscribers to Just Flight’s monthly newsletter. You can sign up for the newsletter from Just Flight and test your skills.

Free Upgrade Eaglesoft FSX Cirrus SR20G2

Posted: Tuesday, September 9, 2008 - 11:20
Eaglesoft FSX Cirrus SR20G2 to Full FSX/SP2/DX10 Compliance. This Upgrade adds 16:9 Ratio Widescreen Panels along with View and VC Window Tint toggle .DDS Textures, DX10 certified and optimized for performance in FSX! Now completed and released this FSX SR20 Upgrade is provided at NO COST to current owners of our original FSX Cirrus SR20! Current owners should remove their current installation and simply redownload and reinstall using their original Key and Password.
For complete details and download visit the Eaglesoft hanger

Carenado, The Next Generation

Posted: Tuesday, September 9, 2008 - 1:32
Fernando Herrera explains: ”FSX has opened a whole new world of technological possibilities to push up even more our high quality standards. In this new era we have adopted the latest in modeling techniques: (NURBS modeling) and improved the development techniques of high resolution textures resulting in a photorealistic representation with very friendly FPS performance. All of this plus new FSX effects such as normal mapping, specular mapping, freshnel effects among others.

Carenado has achieved a new quality standard that was impossible to reach until now which we are absolutely convinced will delight our fans and customers. With this, we enforce our promise to our customers to give them high quality products which truly representations of the reality in terms of visual and behavior parameters. We invite all the community to take a look to our projects and titles developed under this new technology."

Intel Ships Solid-State Drives

Posted: Monday, September 8, 2008 - 17:24
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 8, 2008 - Intel Corporation announced today it has begun shipping Intel® X18-M and X25-M Mainstream SATA Solid-State Drives (SSDs) based on multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash technology for laptop and desktop computers. "...The new high-performing data storage devices give computer buyers a new level of system responsiveness in a lightweight, rugged, low-power package that can replace traditional hard disk drives..."

"...validated for Intel-based computers, the X18-M is a 1.8-inch drive and the X25-M a 2.5-inch drive, offering several advantages over hard drives including faster overall system response, boot and resume times. With no moving parts, SSDs run cooler and quieter and are a more reliable option than hard drives. In addition, SSDs remove performance bottlenecks associated with hard disk drives that help maximize the efficiency of Intel processors, such as the company’s Core™ family of products. Whether this technology will be of benefit to flight simmmers remains to be seen. For further details, the full press release can be accessed here.

Cielosim Studios Launched

Posted: Monday, September 8, 2008 - 11:24
Cielosim Studios are pleased to announce their launch. The popular addon maker is now designing detailed textures for flight simulator aircraft, offering fully customized paint jobs, together with rivets, shine, scratches, dis-colored panels, dirt, wear, paint chips and tiny details that are barely visible but add that 'extra touch'. For further details visit their official website.

AVSIM Opens the Flight Simulation Wiki!

Posted: Sunday, September 7, 2008 - 21:03
AVSIM is pleased to announce the opening of the AVSIM Flight Simulation Wiki. The FSWiki has been brought online to provide the community with a place to store the history of flight simulation, provide a repository for all things related to flight simulation, and more. Check out the FSWiki, and start contributing your knowledge of our hobby today!

Fastest 3D Cards Go Head-To-Head

Posted: Saturday, September 6, 2008 - 20:04
Tom's Hardware Guide has followed-up on its "Best Cards for the Money - August 2008" feature, with an in-depth test of a range of high-performance video cards. One of the many games covered is Flight Simulator X with SP2 and the results are very interesting. In typical style, the article looks at all the most recent cards and how they perform at different resolutions, their power consumption and 'bang-for-buck'. Not to be missed whether you're a tech-head or simply looking for a little guidance through an area that could reasonably be referred to as...a labyrinth!

The article can be accessed directly via this link. Remember to always do your research - using a number of sources - before committing yourself to a purchase.

VFR London Released For FSX

Posted: Saturday, September 6, 2008 - 15:22
Horizon Simulations is pleased to announce the release of VFR London X for Microsoft FSX (download version). Developed by Horizon Simulations and published by Aerosoft GmbH, the highly-detailed 3D model of the city of London is designed to enhance VFR Generation X.

"...Having been built using an aerial photographic template, it is such an accurate and faithful representation that it is already being used by $multi-billion defense contractors for counter-terrorism and contingency planning for the London 2012 Olympics (among other things). If you want to bring that extra level of realism to your simulation experience, VFR London should, without doubt, be top of your list of FSX add-ons. It has been fully optimized and we've had reports from beta-testers and others, that they get 25fps even set on full density! (Performance will vary depending on your system specification)..."

A download version of this product is now available to purchase and a boxed version will follow shortly. For more information and pricing visit either the Horizon site or the publishers site at Aerosoft GmbH.

Space Shuttle Mission Released

Posted: Friday, September 5, 2008 - 21:17
SSM 2007 has released: The Space Shuttle Mission 2007™. In the best SSM2007 tradition, budding astronauts can experience first-hand: the historical lift-off; in-orbit ops - including the SYNCOM deployment; rendezvous, capture and berthing of LDEF; re-entry; and of course, manually landing the Shuttle at Edwards AFB.

STS-32 was a complex and unusually long mission for the time. It started with Columbia's launch on January 9th, 1990 with a payload including SYNCOM IV-F5 – a DoD Communications Satellite. After the DoD mission, Columbia's crew have to capture, berth and bring back to Earth, the LDEF NASA satellite which was deployed during STS-41C six years earlier (STS-41C is also available in SSM 2007). For further details or to download the latest demo visit the SSM 2007 official website.

CLS 747-200/-300 Service Pack Two Available

Posted: Thursday, September 4, 2008 - 20:50
Commercial Level Simulations is extremely proud to announce the release of Service Pack 2 for our Boeing 747-200/300 product. This Service pack includes several fixes as well as the additional of the INS (next to the LITE FMC).

Also available now is the free expansion package with the cargo models! This will add up to 9 extra models to your package for endless fun. We will start adding liveries for the cargo models today and they all should be online shortly. We would like to thank all our customers for their patience and please enjoy the greatly improved product!

This product will also be available on DVD with printed manual by publisher Just Flight.

FTX AU BLUE Free Demo Version

Posted: Thursday, September 4, 2008 - 20:48
Orbx has today released a free demo version of its acclaimed FTX AU BLUE terrain addon, covering the entire state of Tasmania in Australia's south. This area covers 16,000 square kilometres (larger than Northern Ireland) and is fully functional without any time limits, so anyone can explore this picturesque island at their leisure. The season is locked to spring only, but everything else including the 3D lights, coastlines, traffic, roads, rivers, vertical obstruction - all the FTX features are completely activated so you can experience it for yourself. Orbx has also included their YMLT Launceston airport in the installer, which is a payware quality photoreal scenery addon that makes an ideal base to explore the "Apple Isle". You can download the FTX demo for free from Orbx

AVSIM Unofficial Saturday Night Social

Posted: Thursday, September 4, 2008 - 1:39
The AVSIM Board of Directors will be meeting in Washington DC this weekend. If you happen to be in the area and would like to stop by to say hello and share in a social libation, you can meet the Senior Team at the Hilton in Herndon, VA (13869 Park Center Rd).

We look forward to seeing those that wish to share stories, toss bouquets or throw pies. (Figuratively, of course). While the hurricanes are pounding the proposed conference site in Florida, hopefully we will only see minor rain in DC.

We hope to see some familiar faces Saturday Sept 6, 6:30 pm at the Herndon Hilton.

Boeing B-52 Stratofortress For PRE-Flight

Posted: Wednesday, September 3, 2008 - 12:40
PRE-Flight have announced the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress for PRE-Flight RC Simulator is now available. The "Stratofortress" or BUFF (Big Ugly Fat Fellow) as its called by the Air Force, first entered operations in 1955 and is projected to become the longest operational aircraft of all time due to the Air Force's intention to keep the B-52 in service until 2040. Designed to "exceed all expectations" of its initial conception, the BUFF broke many records of endurance, speed and altitude in the first few decades of its life. Its ultra-high reliability has earned it an 80% mission-capable rate - the highest of any aircraft on record. This super scale PRE-Flight model of the B-52 has moveable control surfaces and unique retractable landing gear, which, like the real aircraft, can pivot 20 degrees outward. To download this and other models visit PRE-Flight