FScene Night Texture Patch

Posted: Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 13:54
FScene Releases 2nd Free Night Texture Patch, the update with 262 revised textures covering South America is available to current users as free download.

Important Reminder

Posted: Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 13:48
The new forum system requires that you SIGN IN WITH YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS, not your name. This means that the EMAIL ADDRESS YOU SIGNED UP TO THE FORUMS WITH IS USED IN THE NEW FORUM SYSTEM. Your PASSWORD WILL BE THE SAME AS YOU ARE CURRENTLY USING.
The transition to the new forum system was brought online in advance of the new AVSIM web site , once the site is ready your Email address login will be the only user name used site wide, in both the file library and forums , be ready ! , the transition is nearly complete.

An AVSIM Friend Passes

Posted: Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 1:23
This morning, Clay Dopke, also known here as B52drivr, passed away.

Air Force Major (ret.) Clayton Dopke flew B52s in Vietnam and later went on to fly B727s for the U.S. Government. Clay was also an avid car buff and owned a Porsche repair shop and loved fixing them as he loved racing them. Clay eventually settled down in Mississippi where he owned a horse farm and raised and sold horses. He lived a quiet life and was in the process of writing a novel "No Sympathy for the Devil."

Clay loved flight simming and being a part of this community where he was very active on these forums and as a subject matter expert to multiple 3rd party developers. He was seldom seen around lately due to his ill health. Clay passed away this morning after a long battle with lung disease. His wife Kathy informed his close friends that he boarded his last flight that took him on a flight plan that we cannot follow. He is survived by his wife and loving children. His funeral arrangements are not yet made but if you wish to pass on condolences to his family please email Michael Toussaint.

Clay, you are cleared for takeoff, direct at pilot's descretion, no speed restrictions, winds calm. Good Day. We will miss you.

Fieseler Fi 156 Storch Released

Posted: Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 1:16
PRE-Flight RC Simulator is pleased to announce the release of the PRE-Flight Fieseler Fi 156 Storch for free download.

The Fieseler Fi 156 Storch (stork) is a German liason plane that was used before and throughout WWII. The Storch STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) design was so successful, it was adopted by many countries and still flies today. It was able to take off vertically in a 16mph head wind and was able to land almost anywhere due to its unique landing gear. In addition, the wings can be folded and the aicraft stored or towed.

The Storch is famous for its role in Operation Eiche, the rescue of deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. The Storch was also flown by famous test pilot Hanna Reitsch into and out of besieged Berlin and still believed by some to have spirited Hitler to safety.

Mega Airport Munich Now Available

Posted: Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 1:11
Aerosoft have released yet another product in their Mega Airport Series, Mega Airport Munich. Being Lufthansa´s second hub in Germany, besides Frankfurt, it is still growing in passenger numbers and in importance and it is good to have this major airport in such detail for FS once more.

The airport (recently named as Europe's best airport by the World Airport Awards) is recreated for Flight Simulator right down to the smallest of details. This initial release is for FS2004 but the FSX version will follow soon and will be free for the owners of this version. A boxed version is scheduled for November 2010.

FSX Booster Updated

Posted: Thursday, September 23, 2010 - 1:04
Flight Simulator Platform Solutions (FSPS) is pleased to announce an update version of FSX Booster. The new version 1.2.9.0 corrects all bugs of the initial release of the product. Complete details are available at the FSPS website.

Lauda Joins World Air Routes

Posted: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - 0:47
Lauda becomes the 225th Airline to join Just Planes' popular Flight in the Cockpit series "World Air Routes". Lauda is now part of Austrian, already with 4 programs in the series, and this program features the Boeing 737-600, 700 and 800 series.

This nearly 4 hour long program takes viewers on 9 flights in the Cockpit from Vienna to exciting destinations including Bucharest (ROMANIA), our 1st visit to Belgrade (SERBIA) as well as Kefallinia, Santorini and Zakinthos (GREECE). As always the pilots give frequent presentations about the aircraft, the flight, route, briefings and much more.

Attention SimWords Users

Posted: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - 0:33
Due to an administrative requirement, we have shut down SimWords effective immediately. Those using this advertising system will soon receive a refund for unused ad monies. We regret this inconvenience.

FeelThere titles in the Avsim store

Posted: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 - 16:47
The Avsim store is pleased to provide a full line of FSX and FS9 titles from FeelThere. You will find of course the famous Embraer ERJ series from FeelThere. The ERJ Series include the ERJ 135, ERJ 145 and ERJ 145 XR. This highly detailed rendition of the ERJ works in both FS9 and FSX.
Visit the Avsim store today.

Philadelphia International Airport (KPHL)

Posted: Monday, September 20, 2010 - 14:34
SunSkyJet announces the release of their long awaited Philadelphia International Airport (KPHL) for FS9. This freeware scenery features: Customized ground and runways rendered in high resolution; Custom ground vehicles; High resolution building textures; Many newer buildings for the Philadelphia skyline and realistic modeling of surrounding landmarks.

This release is for FS9 but the FSX version of this scenery is next in development and will be available in the near future. The scenery is available at the SunSkyJet website and a support forum is available. The scenery will also be available here at AVSIM in the next few days.

Real Environment Xtreme for X-Plane

Posted: Sunday, September 19, 2010 - 18:47
Staff reviewer Allen Lavigne looks at a product previous reviewed for MSFS and is now available for X-Plane, Real Environment Xtreme. "Most of you are probably familiar with the REX products made for FSX and FS2004 by Real Environment Xtreme. As its manual states: "REX is an environmental add-on, and manipulation program which includes a robust selection of beautiful user-selectable sky and cloud themes, an advanced weather spotter search feature, archived data weather, enhanced METAR smoothing/probing features, real-time weather reporting & updating and weather avoidance features."

"REXPlane comes with six themes. These are made up of 4 sets of cloud textures and one set of sky textures. Personal creations from combinations of the 5 sets can be chosen to suit your own weather needs or tastes. A randomizer button is available for the daring."

"Typing in the ICAO code for your airport will display its current weather or a chosen date from the pull-down ARCHIVE WEATHER at the bottom of that page. Within the weather page is a weather avoidance system page accessed from the purple button on the lower part of this page. It is powered by the familiar Google Maps which is a sliding map with a zoom in/out bar, and adds areas of weather interest."

"What REX-Plane is, is a choice of texture sets, not a weather engine. It can deliver a metar sheet to X-Plane, but once inside X-Plane's weather engine it has no influence on layers etc..., only textures that are pre-loaded. Regardless, REX-Plane delivers the meat to the bare bones that X-Plane alone gives you."

OpenVFR Begins Global Operations

Posted: Sunday, September 19, 2010 - 15:22
OpenVFR has begun distributing its VFR scenery addons for Microsoft Flight Simulator X worldwide , based on geodata taken from Openstreetmap OpenVFR sets new standards for VFR flight navigation in FSX. Furthermore the user can improve the quality of the upcoming openVFR versions by registering as an editor at Openstreetmap. Additionally the OpenVFR mesh represents a significant improvement from previous SRTM3 meshes, allowing a 75m grid resolution with a vertical error of less than 16m for Europe.

Summer Sim 2010 Show A Success

Posted: Saturday, September 18, 2010 - 15:23
Astrasim Expo Summer Sim 2010 was recently held at the Royal Air Force Museum Cosford, UK. Their first show at this world class venue lived up to everything they expected and more. More than 3,500 people attended over the weekend making it a great success for all!

Now you can revisit the event or see what you missed with the release of their Summer Sim 2010 Show Review Magazine. Full of articles and pictures from the show including full exhibitor information and more. They hope to see more flight sim fans in attendance next year.

Attention ATC3 Fans

Posted: Saturday, September 18, 2010 - 15:15
Since the introduction of the Japanese ATC sim, "I am an Air Traffic Controller 3 - Tokyo Big Wing" in 2008, users have been anxiously awaiting a "sandbox" mode. Thankfully a fan of the sim has created a freeware application to provide endless random stages for Tokyo Big Wing! Now you can have the power to create stages on-the-fly providing many more hours of pleasure from this beautifully rendered ATC sim. Links and instructions can be found at the official ATCsimulator2 support page.

FS2Crew PMDG J41 "Button Control" Contest

Posted: Saturday, September 18, 2010 - 15:12
FS2Crew is giving away 5 licenses for its soon-to-be released PMDG J-41 "Button Control" Edition! This product is an advanced airline crew simulation custom designed to work with the PMDG Jetstream. The major difference between the "Button Control" version and the currently available "Voice Control" version (AVSIM review)is that with "Button Control," the users do not need a microphone, nor do they need to be able to set their Speech Recognizer to English. This makes the product much more accessible to the flight simulator community, and in particular to European and non-English speaking simmers.

To enter the contest, please taxi to the FS2Crew website. Winners will be announced on release day, September 24th.

Swedflight PRO released as freeware

Posted: Saturday, September 18, 2010 - 13:26
The authors at Swedflight have released their collection of swedish scenerys as freeware. They have selected the Swedish website RB Design as the host of these scenerys. RB Design specializes in Swedish scenerys and addons.

Stinson Jr from Golden Age Simulations

Posted: Saturday, September 18, 2010 - 5:48
New staff reviewer Harold Zimmer takes a look at flying from yesterday with Golden Age Simulations' Stinson Model "S" Jr. "The Stinson Aircraft Company was formed back in 1920. Stinson started the company in Dayton Ohio, and then moved his operations to Detroit, Michigan in 1925. With the support of a local group of businessmen, the Detroit Board of Commerce's Aviation Committee, Stinson was provided with $25,000 to begin work on a new monoplane. A total of ten SM-1 Detroiter’s were sold in 1926, which led to the development of the Model S “Junior”, the SM-2, and the SM-8."

"There are two versions of this product, one for FS9 and one for FSX, each is sold separately. Three models of Stinson aircraft are bundled up in this package, the Stinson Model “S” Junior, the SM-2, and the SM-8, along with a nice supply of liveries depicting some of the early roles the Stinson took part in. Although the models are similar, there are differences. These are mainly in engine type and interior layout. Nice modeling and great textures all make for interiors that are very appealing and easy to fly from. Good frame rates and a “nostalgic” look make for a smooth, old fashioned ride."

"The panels are accurate for the time frame, and are very simple when it comes to the avionics that are provided. You will find only the basics when it comes to instrumentation. Everything you see should be familiar to you, and if not, it’s easy enough to figure out! All gauges and switches operated in a smooth and normal fashion. My opinion of the panel is a good one, giving you a real challenge in flying the “old-fashioned way”!"

"This is definitely a “hands-on” aircraft to operate. There is no rudder trim on the panels, but you can use a joystick hat or switch programmed for this. Otherwise, do it the old fashioned way and keep your feet on the pedals for those corrections. The models trim out to a reasonable state, but you still have to keep the hands on the yoke or stick for minor altitude corrections."

"I really enjoyed this Stinson model, and will continue to enjoy flying it. I highly suggest this model for newcomers to the hobby of flight sim, as it is simple to operate, yet because of its “simplicity”, there is also a bit of a challenge for those of you who have been using VOR’s and GPS’s too much! This is a fine model to get your feet back into the basics of old time flying!"

On The Horizon

Posted: Saturday, September 18, 2010 - 0:24
The latest FSX add-on "Spitfire Mk V - Legends of Flight" has been developed for Just Flight by Aeroplane Heaven, and it features a total of 13 different paint schemes across four variants: the Mk Va, Mk Vb, Mk Vb (tropical filter) and Mk Vc (clipped wing) - screenshots and full details on the Spitfire Mk V page.

Multi-Crew Experience Updated to V2.3

Posted: Saturday, September 18, 2010 - 0:14
The FS++ team is pleased to announce the release of V2.3 of their voice control add-on to FSX & FS9 known as Multi Crew Experience.

With this release, the user interface goes Multi-lingual (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese).Also in this release is an improved interaction with Ariane B737 aircraft and improved auto-start with MSFS. MCE is a speech recognition add-on with multiple facets.

You can interact with virtual co-pilot through voice commands. Go through the checklist with first officer reading, and you replying interactively. You can talk to native FSX or FS9 ATC controllers, as well as Radar Contact controllers. You will never fly the heavies alone again.

FSLogger Released

Posted: Friday, September 17, 2010 - 14:42
Aerospace Computations LTD is pleased to announce release of FsLogger.com - an on-line logbook service. This innovative product offers the following features: customizable logbook, configurable reports, fast and easy logging, custom and dynamic statistics, printouts, screenshots uploads, public logbook, logbook-linked graphics signature and exporting.