TweakFPS for FSX Released

Posted: Friday, December 8, 2006 - 14:21
FS utility developer TweakFS has released a completely revamped version of its popular Scenery Profile Manager - TweakFPS - designed exclusively for Microsoft Flight Simulator X. TweakFPS is an FSX.Cfg editor/manager that allows you to set up and apply 8 different scenery profiles to suit the kind of flying you plan to do (VFR/IFR), or to create profiles to meet different FSX.Cfg setting requirements as recommended by some scenery developers. It can also help you to find that "sweet spot" or right combination of settings that runs FSX best on your particular system.

TweakFPS for FSX is available as a completely functional and free 30-day demo of all features. Registered FS2004 version users qualify for a hefty discount on this new release. For more details please visit TweakFS.

Microsoft Updates FSX SDK

Posted: Friday, December 8, 2006 - 14:18
Microsoft had released a 90 MB update to the FSX Software Developer Kit. According to the FS Insider Site, "This update to the Software Development Kit (SDK) for Flight Simulator X includes improvements to almost all aspects of the SDK shipped in the Deluxe version." For more information, head on over to the FS Insider Developer Section for a full list of items updated.

Stearman Reflections

Posted: Friday, December 8, 2006 - 2:37
AVSIM fan Carl Avari-Cooper submits a short piece that I'm sure other readers can relate to, especially those past aviators who can only fly to lofty heights in the virtual world.

"Dear David and Crew (www.daviator.com):

I wanted to express my sincere thanks for a wonderful experience yesterday. As a kid, aviation fascinated me. Other kids drove pedal cars, I had a pedal bipe. Others dreamed about racing, I only considered flight. Later, I read everything I could get my hands on. Morgan and Baxter became two friends I looked forward to seeing each month. Anyway, I finally got a job as a line boy at our local field. Pumping gas, selling sectionals, the occasional quart of Aeroshell and E6Bs filled my work hours. After work, I washed airplanes, waxed airplanes, pushed airplanes- in short did all I could to bum a ride in anything I could talk my way into. I got my ticket and flew every chance I got.

As it often does, life got in the way and my old Champ flew off into the sunset. Raising two children, working and all the other sundries of life pushed airplanes back into the old dark and damp corner of my life. Every now and then, I hear a round engine and strain skyward until I saw the framework of two wings silhouetted against the light. Flight Simulator, has been my sole solace for years now.

All those years ago, every day I walked to the pumps, I would look out of the corner of my eye and see the prettiest airplane in the world. You see, in a corner hanger, very dusty and quiet, sat a white Stearman. She sat there, all alone, for years. I would walk over and eat a sandwich with her, pat her on a wingtip and imagine what I would be like to fly her. I could only think of Baxter saying, “She flies like a grand piano!” Every once in a while I would look around furtively, usually late in the evening, and if no one was watching, I would slip into the cockpit, grab that ball bat and peer through the grime yelling “clear prop”. I never did find out who owned her and I never did get to fly her. She never was quite forgotten though, and even when mooching time in a King Air, Citation or Aero Commander, I would particularly when breaking into severe clear on top, think of the old girl and long to feel her hold me up in the sky.

Yesterday, I came across your download. I was excited when I saw the visuals and decided to have a bit of fun. I turned the lights down low, adjusted the virtual cockpit just so and turned the sound way, way up. Starting at Vandenberg with everything off, I cranked up, watched the smoke bellow out and lost touch with reality. S turning out to runway 36 I did a run up and then was off. Tapping rudder right left right left then right again, I tracked down the runway, let the tail come up all by itself and then with some pressure she was off. I don’t quite know what your FDE is, but all of a sudden I knew what a grand piano felt like at 90 KIAS. With the radial bellowing, wires singing and a smile plastered all over my face, I turned crosswind and then downwind, coming back on the power to about 1800. I don’t know where a real Stearman smiles, but mine (ok, yours) climbs at full throttle, about 2100 and 85 KIAS, cruises at 1850 and 105 KIAS and descends at 1500 and 85 KIAS- all day long! Never in Flight Simulator, and I have flown this software since Apple IIc days, have I ever been so completely captivated by a PC Simulator (I’m just beginning to know Real Flight and PMDG).

Downwind, I broke out at a 45 and pointed her nose towards the Tampa skyline. She climbs and descends like an old New York elevator and cruises majestically, oblivious to any hurried thought. Watching the world slip by so utterly solidly, yet so unbelievable lightly was a transporting experience. Never has any light aircraft been modeled in FS so quintessentially and so perfectly. I could feel her huge and kite like, yet solid and reassuring, all around me; and with the speakers turned up enough- I could feel her when she grunted and growled as well.

All too soon it was time to announce position on Peter O’Knight’s Unicom, and making a left base to runway 21 I came back to 1500. She slowed to about 80 and I left her a bit high. Turning final with the wind whispering to me softly my eyes were moist and streaming. I came back on the power and nudged her nose a bit over, slipping to lose altitude and keep the asphalt in sight. The fence flashed under me and I held her off until she told me I’d better be done with this flying business, or she would be! With a chirp the mains settled and then I did my tap dance holding her straight. Once we were at a walk, I turned off and taxied to the FBO ramp, making the same familiar turns I did so often when ferrying planes over all those years ago.

With a burst of throttle, I swung her around and parked. Switching off was painful! So was the deafening silence after- amazing! After 20 years of wondering, I know what the old girl feels like- thank-you!

Carl F. Avari-Cooper"

Al Pelletier Donates Round Robins to Community

Posted: Thursday, December 7, 2006 - 23:01
Al Pelletier, one of the best known names in Flight Simulation, sent us an email the other day, and we were flabbergasted at its content, and not to mention extremely excited. Al has offered the flight simulation community every copy of his Round Robin series of flights dating back to 1996! Over five gigabytes of RR's! He will give those to AVSIM and we will package them up and place them in our file library for the entire community to download and explore. Who is Al Pelletier and what are Round Robins? This is a long story, so settle in and have a great read of one of the key contributors in our hobby, and who's story is basically the history of flight simulation.

Who's Al? Al was born in Matane, Quebec, Canada, in 1948. He served 25 years as Aircrew in the Royal Canadian Air Force, in a non-pilot role. His job centered on RADAR, Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) and radio communications. He has flown over 6,000 hours in everything from the Canadair Argus, the Tracker, Sea-King Helicopter, DC-3's and P-3's. One of the highlights, of his flying career, was being on the winning crew of the Fincastle Competition in Adelaide, Australia, in 1981. This competition involves Anti Submarine Airplanes and crews from England, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. He who finds the sub the fastest, wins! He started in Flight Simulation at the very beginning, in the early 80's and operated one of the first ever Flight Sim related web sites, back in 1990.

We asked Al to tell us a bit about himself, his involvement in the hobby and some of the history that he has lived through. Here is what Al had to say; "I started with Flight Sim way back with B.A.O's Flight Sim and progressed through all of the updates and through Microsoft acquiring B.A.O etc.. (B.A.O stood for Bruce Atwick Organization) if I remember well.

Back in the late 80's we were maybe 10 or 12 of us, in the World, active in creating sceneries for Flight Sim. It would take hours and hours of compiling numbers just to create a small hangar. With the help of Alfred Gretch, I compiled a few sceneries of the Greenwood and Comox Air base in Canada. (Some of names from back then: Mike Vidal, Alfred Gretch, Justin Tyme, Eric Mitchell, Bryan White, Konstantine, Miguel Blaufuks ). One key note here is the "releasing of the codes" by Microsoft. The competition back then was ATP (Air Transprot Pilot) by Sub Logic. They would have nothing to do with letting us design our own planes and add our own scenery. But Microsoft, in their great wisdom, let us have the codes and tools to do it. End results: ATP died, and Flight Sim took off (literally).

Being ex aircrew, I took great joy in creating flight plans and flying assigned routes. I hated just flying around with no purpose or mission. Then, the idea came to me to make these flight plans available to other fight simmers, by uploading to bulletin boards (before the Internet). I came up with the name Round Robin, because it was the term used in the RCAF for familiarization or pilot trainers. The training flights would always terminate at your starting point, usually your home base, and basically were to familiarize pilots with other airports, which were frequently used as alternates, in case of bad weather. The Round Robin's became very popular because they gave Flight Simmers a purpose to their flight and removed that "boring" feeling. Simulator pilots soon realized that flying an assigned route and performing instrument approaches turned Flight Sim into a totally different experience. Needing a place to make my articles available resulted in creating a Flight Sim web site: WINGS.ARK.COM. Well, that took off also and it became one of the largest Flight Sim site in the world. (Flightsim.com was just being born around that time and along with the FTP.IUP.EDU was the only other place for the files to be stored).

We were then busy with FS4 and, with Microsoft releasing more codes, we could then create both aircraft and scenery. If I remember well, it wasn't until FS98, in and around 1997, that we could create panels and change the sounds.

Anyway, the files kept coming and I kept writing. Four of us at WINGS.ARK.COM would work 5 or 6 hours a day (beside our day jobs) just to catalogue and store the files and make them available to everyone. WINGS.ARK.COM died in 1998 when we ran out of time and resources to keep it going. I had the choice of making it a full time job or carrying on with the Computer store, that I owned. In hind site, I wish that I would have stayed with the web site.

Around 1995, Microwings magazine (one of the earliest Flight Sim mags) approached me to write the Round Robin adventures for their readership. That was quite the thrill to get published. I wrote for Microwings for 3 years and then after they sacked me (it happens to all of us), Full Throttle magazine came calling and I wrote for them until they sold to Abacus in and around 2001. At that time I continued writing for Flight Simulator World. Abacus then sold Flight Simulator World to PC Aviator (Computer Pilot Magazine) and again I was kept on, and have been there ever since. This is funny because in 2002, PC Aviator had acquired Microwings magazine. So I had just come full circle. Life is funny that way!. All this time I have also been busy writing reviews on different products and addons. I find writing reviews very demanding and I wrote them, in my style, and as if I was talking to a friend sitting across the table, with the same excitement of opening a Xmas gift. I have done about 20 of them over the years.

Flight Simulation as been a great ride for me. Being there, since the beginning, flying the Cessna around Meigs on a 12 in monochrome monitor and using the keyboard arrows to fly the plane, all the way to today's FSX. But my thrill with Flight Sim remains IFR flying. To me, there is no more satisfaction then landing my plane at the published speeds and rate of descent, on a miserable rainy or snowy runway, in the middle of the night, after having followed all of the ATC's published procedures, and not violated any rules, or having put my plane in any dangerous situation. "This is "Flight Sim". Don't get me wrong. I like the "eye candy" water effects of FSX and the shiny airplanes with, finally, round engines. But the flying dynamics, NAVAIDS, runway and terrain accuracies are more important to me.

Where did this all get me? Well a few perks. I still receive a lot of software for reviews, and for use with my articles. I was the guest of Air Canada, in the cockpit of a 767, all the way to Seoul Korea and back and shared a room with the skipper at the Seoul Hilton.

Air Canada gave me 3.5 hours in a true motion simulator of an Airbus A340. They put me through all kinds of testing and I faired fairly well, although I was scared to death!

I have made hundreds of friends around the world through flight sim. But most important, I have had 20 years of great pleasure of flying on my PC and seeing this great hobby grow to what it is today. Most young Simmers have never heard of me but I get a lot of emails form the old "way back then" crowd. It is a always a good feeling when I do get these. I have had friends come and visit from as far as Germany, France, Britain and many Canadians from all over.

My hobbies, beside Flight Simming, are collecting airplane models ( I have over 200 of "50 year" old models made of aluminium and resin. Mainly civil airliners like DC-8 DC-9, B727 etc..). I also play music (guitar) with old buddies. I am a sport fisherman (Cannot live without fishing for Salmon in British Columbia). I have just retired due to health issues and I plan on doing a little travelling around Canada and the USA in my RV, health permitting and I continue to write for Computer Pilot magazine. (one new Round Robin every other month).

I hope that you enjoy my articles. Remember that the older ones are kind of crude when it comes to graphics. The computers, we had then, wouldn't handle large files. Heck! .JPG and *bmp weren't even invented yet!! The graphic file format were *.tif and *.pcx. I will do my best to convert them all to .jpg's. Have a look at them. See how it was in the beginning.

But in the end, flights are the same and will give you lots of ideas on routes and where to go next and for input into more modern flight planning. I know you'll love the charts!

On many occasions, I was advised to put all my articles on a DVD and sell them. But this would be totally wrong. I feel the need to give back to the Flight Sim community. I tip my hat off to all of you that are "Freeware" designers and upload your creations at various sites. I know how dedicated you are, and this is what makes Flight Simming such a great hobby.

Enjoy

(PS: I still fly a Cessna (for real) with a friend of mine around Comox BC Canada)"

AVSIM is proud that Al has selected us to create a repository for and share his great work with the community! In the coming weeks and months, we'll be packaging up his Round Robins and placing them in the library. Look for the first one to appear sometime this weekend. And, Al, thank you for your contributions over the years to the community and especially for this donation of your historic work!

FSX Piper Navajo v2.0

Posted: Thursday, December 7, 2006 - 19:10
FSD has released FSX file sets for Version 2.0 of their very popular Piper Navajo. Version 2 license owners can now install file sets customized for FSX directly into the new simulator. Version 2 of the Navajo includes two models in the software package, the Navajo Panther Colemill model from version 1, and by popular request, a standard Navajo. Version 2.0 incorporates many improvements in terms of visual modeling, virtual cockpit functionality, and frame rate performance. See the FSD Piper Navajo page for more details.

Just Flight Titles for FSX

Posted: Thursday, December 7, 2006 - 18:33
Just Flight is pleased to announce that a number of its most popular titles have now been fully updated to Flight Simulator X compatibility and are shipping out over the next two weeks. Tiger Moth, F-117A Stealth Fighter, Cargo Pilot and Traffic are out now with Airbus Collection and Flying Club X scheduled for next week. A340-500/600 will be airborne in FSX during January.

Richard Slater, heading up the Flight Simulator update project at Just Flight said: “We’ve worked to make sure every title we update is fully compatible with Flight Simulator X. Our installation programs have been re-written for FSX to make sure that users can load the software without any fuss and, of course, existing owners of these titles can update their copies for free via our dedicated update site here.

Tiger Moth Free Demo

Posted: Thursday, December 7, 2006 - 18:31
A free demo of this beautiful biplane is available to download from Just Flight.

Just Flight’s recently-released Tiger Moth is already proving a big hit with virtual pilots who want to feel the wind in their wires. For anyone who wants to try the wood and canvas experience on their PC there is now a great time-limited demo of the Tiger Moth available from here

It’s a fabulous aircraft to fly and the award-winning development team at Aeroplane Heaven have used their skills to give Flight Simulator X and FS2004 pilots the chance to go solo in a Tiger Moth.

The full package includes three different Tiger Moths – RAF and RAAF trainers, civilian aircraft and the glass-canopied D.H.82C from the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. Different variants of these types provide the armchair aviator with a choice of eight different aircraft.

•The aircraft models are near-exact replicas of their real counterparts and have been authenticated by the de Havilland Moth Club and the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum.

•Accuracy extends to replicating changes in individual aircraft specifications such as autoslats, engine cowls or lights.

•Special night lighting effects in Flight Simulator X.

•Highly accurate flight modelling replicates the correct airframe performance, stall moments and flying behaviour.

•The aircraft feature full virtual front and rear cockpits, opening access doors, functioning rear luggage hatch, animated engines behind animated cowling panels, animated blind flying hood, working ‘windy’ airspeed indicator, animated control wires, pilot figures… the list goes on!

•The D.H.82A variant includes a paint kit so that users can repaint their own aircraft using a suitable graphics program.

To get the demo download, click here

FS Earth for FSX Version 4

Posted: Thursday, December 7, 2006 - 11:54
FS Earth for FSX version 4.0 is available. FS Earth acts as an interface between Flight Simulator and Google Earth, letting to follow a flight in real time, over the satellite images generated by Google Earth. Flights can be saved, and many options are available for fine tuning the performance, as well as the map's style (zoom, tilt, orientation). Works on a single computer running Flight Simulator and Google Earth all together, or, for best experience, can be used on two networked computers running respectively Flight Simulator (master) and Google Earth (slave). Supports flight plan, AI traffic and multiplayer aircraft display inside Google Earth, course prediction for own aircraft and AI traffic, and more. Version 4.0 adds spatial three-dimensional representation of aircrafts and paths, and other improvements. A version for Flight Simulator 2004 is available also. For more details please visit FS Earth.

FeelThere Server Back Online

Posted: Wednesday, December 6, 2006 - 14:35
FeelThere's server is back online.
They thank you for your patience and ask that you check out their website for their latest announcements and updates.

Cielo Releases New DVD

Posted: Wednesday, December 6, 2006 - 12:30
William C. Schulz and The Cielo Company, creators of Electra! Queen of the Aleutian Islands, which aviation historian Robert Serling called, “perhaps one of the finest aviation documentaries ever filmed”, are pleased to announce the release of their second DVD-film project: SkySongs: Reflections from the Stratosphere.

SkySongs is meant to capture the reflective wonderment of the Sky--from the Sky. The two-sided DVD contains well over an hour of music video, where the music is John Rich's expansive, meditative and beautiful piano, keyboards and flute; and where the video features stunning photos taken of the sky from passenger airliners worldwide.

How does this project involve flight simming? The DVD contains aviation bonus-features, including a mini-documentary on Rod Magner’s 1929 Travel Air biplane, “Magic One” at Orcas Island, Washington. To enjoy the virtual experience of this biplane, an FSX and an FS9 version of Rod’s Magic One Travel Air, designed by Bill and Lynn Lyons, is available at Avsim as freeware (used with permission).

SkySongs is a soothing and timeless journey of sky and song that will forever change the way you feel about flying—both real and virtual! You can visit www.flyelectra.com for more information or can order directly online at www.flight1.com..

FlightAlpes BasePack Nord from France VFR

Posted: Wednesday, December 6, 2006 - 5:43
Staff reviewer David Wilson-Okamura takes us on an expedition to the French Alps with France VFR's FlightAlpes BasePack Nord. "According to the documentation, BasePack Nord provides 19m terrain mesh and photographic ground textures for approximately 18,000 square kilometers."

"From the border with Italy and Switzerland, the coverage area extends west as far as Grenoble. Looking now from north to south, the scenery starts at St-Claude and leaves off after St-Jean en Royans. In addition to terrain mesh and photographic ground scenery, BasePack Nord also provides basic airport scenery for the region, including 12 airports that do not appear in either the default installation of FS2004 (which has 8 airports in this region) or FSX (which has 10)."

"The mesh that comes with BasePack Nord is LOD 11. This is the most detailed mesh that FS2004 will actually display: one data point every 19 meters. For comparison, the default mesh in FS2004 is LOD 5 (one data point every 1,223 meters). This is a big difference and you’ll notice it right away in the form of craggier mountains, deeper valleys, and more abrupt cliffs. BasePack Nord is made from aerial, not satellite, photos and the results are nothing short of spectacular. Detail is crisp, even from a far distance."

David wraps up his excursion to the Northern French Alps with, "The extra airports are a nice bonus, and the ground textures are smoothly rendered. But what really sets this package apart from other photosceneries—including MegaScenery—is the house-by-house and tree-by-tree placement of custom autogen. The effect is especially convincing at Megève, west of Mont Blanc, where the runway is lined with trees and then you take off over 3D buildings which are themselves, generic, but have been placed and grouped with painstaking care. In the areas where custom autogen is available, the illusion of being there is complete."

FeelThere Server Issues

Posted: Tuesday, December 5, 2006 - 18:43
A representative from Feelthere.com has advised AVSIM that they are having server issues due to a hardware failure. This is affecting their forums, main site, and they are unable to receive emails. No ETA was given but the techs advised they are working around the clock to fix the problem. Further updates will be provided when available.

FSInventions Announces FSFlyingSchool

Posted: Tuesday, December 5, 2006 - 18:29
FSFlyingSchool is a revolutionary new add-on for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 and 2002, with FSX support coming soon.

Virtual pilots will never need to fly alone again, with a team of Flight Instructors ready to ride along on any flight. These folks evaluate just about every aspect of your flying technique, scoring each phase of flight with information you can use to improve your flying, while recording the good and bad points of each flight in a comprehensive log book. What's more, pilots can compete with the rest of the Web to prove their flying skills are the best of the best. FSX support is coming soon at no extra cost to buyers of the current version of FSFlyingSchool.

Visit FSFlyingSchool's website for a complete list of features and check out the two exciting movies showing the product in use with FS2004.

AuTower By Christoph Langguth

Posted: Tuesday, December 5, 2006 - 11:04
We felt that we needed to make the community aware of a wonderful little freeware program called AuTower. What does it do for you? Simple, it replaces the default FS9 towerview with a view that is as true as it possibly can be in FS9. It moves the tower to the airport where you want it to be. it operates in the background without user intervention. Have a look at this utility by visiting the AVSIM viewpage or visit Christoph's homepage.

France VFR Releases Mesh France For FSX

Posted: Tuesday, December 5, 2006 - 9:39
The France Mesh covers the whole French territory with a true 1.5 second arc data elevation model, about 38 meters (LOD10) in Flight Simulator. This data elevation model has been optimized and resampled in a 19 meter resolution in order to be more accurate and ready for the new generation sceneries to come. For the development, the team at FranceVFR have used the IGN BDALTI © data elevation model in an extended Lambert II format with a reprojection into Flight Simulator WGS84 standard format. Some features of this product are as follows:

- High resolution native 38 meters (LOD10) data format
- Optimized and resampled version in 19 meters (LOD11) provided
- Easy to use and configure: 10 areas splitting
- Official French Institut Géographique National BDALTI© data
- Light version 76 meters (LOD9) provided
- Full compatibility with France VFR FlightSeries sceneries
- Ability to mix the mesh with other lower resolution mesh products

For more information you can visit the FranceVFR homepage.

FSDiscover! Updates and Demo

Posted: Monday, December 4, 2006 - 19:29
Flight1's "FSDiscover" version 1.02 is a sightseeing guide, navigation tool, and simple flight planning program for both FS2004 and FSX. Version 1.02 adds map views for VOR's, NDB's, intersections, and runway / ILS information for airports.

A 30 day demo version limited to a rectangular area between New York and Niagara Falls is now available.

Plan a flight, get visual guidance, and discover things you have never noticed before in Flight Simulator no matter where you live.

Visit the FSDiscover! for more details.

FSD Releases Seneca V - Version 2

Posted: Monday, December 4, 2006 - 2:53
FSD International has released the FS X file set for Version 2 of it's popular Seneca V.

FSD reports the new Seneca sports a much more sophisticated virtual cockpit and visual model using advanced cutting edge techniques and design tools that are in use today. This new Seneca features two cockpits, a glass avionics cockpit the way it is being delivered today by Piper and the classic standard "steam driven" cockpit familiar to Seneca pilots.

The Seneca V Version 2 is designed for both FS 2004 and FS X. The FS9 file set has been released today. For more information about the FSX release, visit the FSD International website.