A2A Piper J-3 Cub Released

Posted: Monday, September 7, 2009 - 15:30
A2A Release their latest Accu-Sim aircraft the Piper J-3 Cub, the base package includes standard J-3 Cub, Tundra tires, Floats, and Skis with nine liveries.

Released as a base package with optional " Accu Sim " expansion pack, the product ships with a 118 page, full-sized Pilot’s Manual and is fully Sp2 compatible, additional features provided with the expansion include Accu-Sim physics true wing, airframe, engine, ground, water, and internal systems behaviour.

Passenger On BoardTM adds a new dimension of piloting realism with an intelligent passenger that is aware of the surroundings, talks when appropriate, including being able to spot and call out traffic. Accu-Sound now allows for a direct connection to the Accu-Sim and FSX physics engine with airflow through the airframe, window, and door, structural creaks, bumps, jolts etc. with three hundred and ninety sounds in all made with professional recordings from three actual Piper J-3 aircraft.

Ground physics realistically rock your wings and buck your tail. Regular tires, skis, and large tundra tires all have their own distinctive ground handling benefits and limitations. Each aircraft comes with its own sound set which is tied in with the physics of the airframe.

A fully detailed look over the features can be found at the
A2A Simulations Homepage .

Orbx's YSTW Tamworth Airport Released

Posted: Sunday, September 6, 2009 - 15:06
The world's FIRST 7cm/pixel airport! Prepared to be stunned at the detail of the airport aprons, taxiways and surrounds with the first ever FSX airport to be released using incredible 7cm/pixel digital sourced aerial imagery, taken using the very latest direct to disk mounted cameras on aircraft.

Tamworth airport is a busy regional hub and also the home of the Basic Flight Training Skills (BFTS) school, which is the first stop for any "top gun" candidate wanting to fly with the Australian Defence Forces.

The scenery includes both 7cm and 15cm ground imagery close to the airport, completely integrated into the Orbx FTX AU GOLD region. As well as BFTS and the airport, this scenery features over 200km of pristine 60cm/pixel photoreal imagery of the Tamworth township, farms, hills and surrounds and uses a custom 5 metre resolution terrain mesh.

Orbx FTX products homepage have plenty of images and video to look over of this and the previous releases that make up their list of fine scenery enhancements.

Tongass Fjords X from FSAddon

Posted: Saturday, September 5, 2009 - 20:04
Senior staff reviewer David Wilson-Okamura goes "way up north" to take a look at FSAddon's Tongass Fjords X. "The original Tongass Fjords came out a couple months before FSX. It was the third major payware scenery by Holger Sandmann (after Misty Fjords and Vancouver+) and his first full-scale collaboration with Bill Womack, who did the airfields and settlements. The product received several awards, including the AVSIM Gold Star, and in my mind still represents the high-water mark of scenery development for FS2004."

"Tongass brings everything up to 38m standard for the coverage area (which extends into British Columbia) and fixes some anomalies. In general, though, flyers of the default scenery won’t notice a huge difference in this regard. What you will notice right away are (a) richer landclass and (b) more detailed shorelines."

"There are 4 new airfields, bringing the total up to 13, and 11 new forestry cabins, up from 20 in the original. Bring some pontoons, though, because most of the cabins are only accessible on floats. So are most of the product’s 44 seaplane docks, which outnumber the region’s landing fields (listed and unlisted) by a factor of almost 3. There are also 11 helipads (including the emergency Coast Guard pads at Five Finger lighthouse and Cape Decision lighthouse)."

"This product covers a very wide area, and its two main developers, Holger Sandmann and Bill Womack, have been building it up, detail by detail, for at least five years. Hardware aside, there is one big variable and that is weather. Some days are clear, and some days you can’t see anything. In-between, there are days with big cumulus clouds that cut your frame rates in half (and look great in screenshots). If you want to, you can adjust the level of detail with the scenery slider and get higher frame rates; I didn’t find that necessary, but the option is there if you want it. Meanwhile, what works for me is to fly something that places low demand on system resources. I’ve had lots of great flights with the Aerosoft Beaver -- which, of course, is better for STOL and water operations anyway."

"It has been a long time -- maybe since the first Tongass -- that I have reviewed a scenery product where everything was this polished: terrain, harbors, traffic, even charts. What makes Tongass Fjords X stand out is its comprehensiveness: terrain plus traffic (air and water) plus airfields plus settlements. The quality of each element is uniformly high."

PMDG BAe JetStream 4100

Posted: Saturday, September 5, 2009 - 14:40
PMDG Releases BAe JetStream 4100 Turboprop, the airplane has one of the most complex turboprop engine models yet created for FSX and is "typically PMDG" in terms of systems detail and operating complexity, with detailed operating manuals, an introduction and tutorial in the release package.

The JetStream 4100 has served as a development testbed for some new technologies implemented to model virtual cockpits in astounding detail with the minimum FPS hit possible. With this cockpit, you can zoom right in on the finest details such as the black brushes that protect the throttle housings, and you will see virtually no loss in clarity even at high zoom levels.

The PMDG Configuration Manager will help you match the simulation detail to the capabilities of your hardware, and a new feature known as the PMDG RAMP MANAGER to allow you to control non-aircraft animations and items such as engine plugs, chocks and a GPU. In the air, you'll find amazing levels of system modeling, crisp, clear displays, a thorough simulation of the airplane's avionics right down to the Radio Management Units, and of course the engine modeling.

Visit the PMDG Homepage for details on this new release .

Classic Liners: Vol 2 from Aerosim

Posted: Saturday, September 5, 2009 - 3:04
Staff reviewer Benjamin van Soldt continues his look at the Aerosim series of aircraft with Classic Liners: Volume 2. "The volume 1 package included the Boeing 737-200, Boeing 727 series, and the classic Boeing 747 models (100 through 300). The volume 2 package includes the L-1011 Tristar (L-1011-1, L-1011-500 and L-1011 ADV 500), DC-10 (DC-10-30 and -40) and DC-8 (DC-8-53 and -61): another great lineup that the flight simming community has needed for a very long time."

Benjamin goes into a detailed description of the exterior, interior, panels and sounds of the 3 featured aircraft. He then takes each up for a flight and backs his account with a multitude of screenshots. "With this package, you get 9 adventures to play with, 3 for each aircraft. These adventures are fun to do and very helpful. They basically are an extra to the tutorials in the manual that only show you the workings of the FMS and the INS, and nothing about other procedures. The adventures give you the option of learning how to successfully land each of these aircraft, which is extremely helpful, especially for those that have no idea how to do an IFR approach."

"I myself am finding this package a good value for your money ($35, without VAT), much more so than the Volume 1 package was. You get three more detailed aircraft. In the end, you have to make up your own mind on this one. I know I have been greatly enjoying reviewing Classic Liners: Volume 2 and I’ll be recommending it to anybody interested in flying aircraft from the sixties and seventies. The relative simplicity of these aircraft is great in that you can easily manipulate them by adding third party panels and sounds."

Majestic Software Releases Dash 8-Q300 Training Edition

Posted: Friday, September 4, 2009 - 23:30
Majestic Software introduces a new edition of their award-winning Dash8-Q300 aircraft addon for FS2004 and FSX - the TRAINING edition. This package is the most advanced of their Dash8-Q300 series and is intended as a training aid for professional pilots and technicians, as well as for the CBT system familiarization and demonstrations. The training edition is a former AIRLINE edition, which was already in use for some time in the numerous flight schools for the goal pilots and technicians training.

This edition provides the full range of failures in every aircraft system using the included instructor station, as well as their new guide on how to utilize the capabilities of this software to prepare for the recurrent pilot proficiency checks. Apart from that, the training edition is fully hardware cockpit enabled, and can be used to build home cockpits of various complexities from the ground up.

Aerosoft Releases Discus Glider X

Posted: Friday, September 4, 2009 - 23:19
Aerosoft released what they call the first high end glider add-on for FS. Discus Glider X covers three standard class gliders made by Schempp-Hirth. There is a pure glider, a glider with a small 'get home' engine and one with a slightly larger engine that allows it to take-off under its own power. Designed for competition, the gliders come with advanced instrumentation including a C4 Flight Computer. And it's all done to such a level of detail they include the actual real manuals for the gliders and the main instruments. The list of features is long and impressive, from over 100 additional (non standard) sounds for all kinds of events to dozens of special animations. When you see the images you see they did not skimp on polygons designing these aircraft either. Aerosoft comments, "Gliders have evolved into very serious aircraft while we were all looking at Cessna's and Boeings. We thought they did little more than glide silently from A to B but the Discus is capable of performance that makes most GA aircraft weak in the knees!"

Software Module for the CockpitSonic MCDU

Posted: Friday, September 4, 2009 - 23:16
Eric Marciano announces his release of the software module for the CockpitSonic MCDU. It is just perfect for the cockpit builders and for the "armchair pilots" who just have the device on their desk. In addition, this module brings many improvements and new features that increase the quality of the FeelThere/Wilco Airbus Series aircraft.

RG-EBT Combo pack from Pacific Island Simulations now available at the Avsim store

Posted: Friday, September 4, 2009 - 17:02
This combo pack consists of nothing but raw grit: PNG Bushpilot (RG) and Extreme Bush Trekker (EBT) airstrips, giving the simmer 40 airstrips and a combination of over 22 waterports and helicopter pads. The package is based on high altitude rough terrain and sea level short-strip flying. There are two major hubs for medium range aircraft flying domestic, regional and international routes. It is a great package for anyone looking for quality VFR scenery. You can get it here.

The Avsim store already carries other quality sceneries such as SimGiants with Canary Islands or Milan Malpensa. Aerosoft Sceneries with Manhattan X, Lukla X, London or Cape Canaveral.

All theses titles are available via instant download.

Visit the Avsim store today.

Warbirdsim's P-51 Mustang (FSX) Released

Posted: Thursday, September 3, 2009 - 1:43
Take control of your virtual skies with WarBirdSim's new Mustang package. The definitive work of one of world's most thoroughbread fighters is now available for FSX. Already a legend and fast gaining accolades with real P-51 pilots, 10 aircraft and 3 variants are depicted in 1 package; the P-51B, P-51C & the Mustang III along with a section of different colors worn by the actual Mustangs & featuring authentic manuals and checklists, fly the legends that made real flying a legend.

2 new P-51B & P-51C colour schemes reproduced in high detail in the FSX release. Making use of additional features in FSX bump textures add authenticity to an already wonderful model and reflective textures make bare metal shine! Lt. Clarence E Sullivan's P-51-B-10-NA Mustang 'Sleepytime Gal' of the 376th Fighter Squadron, 361st Fighter Group.

P-51C-10-NT 'Dody' from the 2nd Fighter Squadron, 52nd Fighter Group, 15th Air Force, Madna, Italy, 1944. Serial number QP-S (43-23133)flown by Capt. Hans Zachmann. is very accurately recreated for FSX many new and additional items have been added including a gun camera, which saves footage to the movies folder (along with an updated poster in the box version showing all ten aircraft with associated unit badges and crests).

US Cities X: Indianapolis from Aerosoft

Posted: Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - 2:13
Staff reviewer Allen Lavigne heads to Indianapolis, not to go racing but to fly the scenery as presented by Aerosoft. "This scenery for the city center of Indianapolis is geared mainly towards VFR flyers and will interest our copter pilots in particular. There are no custom airports but there are some heliports inside the city that can be fun to use."

"This series "USCitiesX" is a separate endeavor of lesser complexity and size than that of Manhattan X, yet it is still much more than just custom FSX scenery as seen in the many large FSX-customized cities throughout the default FSX world. Aerosoft's products are "wall-to-wall" enhanced custom design without any autogen at all within its borders. There are no airports in this package, and KIND lies outside of the photorealistic tile."

"Again, a master class "work of art" forms our undeniably brilliantly skilled developers at Aerosoft. US Cities X: Indianapolis is a reproduction of the city core and some outlying points of interest such as the Indy 500 Raceway track, along with 9 semi-detailed heliports."

Aerosoft Releases Nice Cote d'Azur

Posted: Wednesday, September 2, 2009 - 1:16
Nice Côte d'Azur Airport (or in French: Aéroport Nice Côte d'Azur) is the third important airport in France and is often seen as the only airport of Monaco. There is a great helicopter service to that little Principality. It has two parallel runways that can be used at the same time and a very busy helicopter section. Located on the Mediterranean coast the weather, with mostly turbulence, can make it a bit daunting at times, something that is not made better by rather complex noise abatement procedures. All in all an airport that is a bit special and that's always nice. The version Aerosoft has released is an FSX version of a professional project done for one of the world's biggest simulator builders. So you get the same quality as Airbus pilots are using for training. It also means the airport is VERY frame rate friendly as it needs to run at 60 FPS on the professional systems without skimping on looks.

Vehicle Simulator V 1.5 Released

Posted: Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - 14:42
After half a year of intensive development Vehicle Simulator V 1.5 has been released, version 1.5 features : create vehicles using components, sailboats are fully functional, and all sailing functions for them are available, improved object collision and detection.

Topographic maps and marine maps added, improved underwater effects and scenery support, improved scenery editing tools, and scenery creation functions, improved vegetation, above and below water.

Vehicle Simulator is based upon Micro Flight and Virtual Sailor, and combines them into one powerful program containing excellent graphics from ground level and up, a naval environment above and below water, and the atmospheric model from ground up to space.


An excellent vehicle simulation for land, naval and flying vehicles with many features that can be fully explored with a visit to the Vehicle Simulator Homepage.

Australia & Western USA from FranceVFR/FSAltitude

Posted: Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - 0:49
Staff reviewer Tim Capps climbs to altitude while exploring Australia then heads across the Pacific to the Western USA to check out 2 titles from France VFR / FSAltitude. "When you gain some altitude, you notice that your realistic world is made up of a limited number of repeating terrain illustrations. Everything is where it is supposed to be, in a general sense, but there isn’t a lot of variation. VFR France’s brilliant idea is to give you your FSX scenery (whether stock or gussied-up) in your immediate vicinity, but -- here’s the trick -- replace it farther away with photorealistic scenery. There will always be a “footprint” (their word is “cone”) of native scenery directly beneath your airplane. This will occupy more or less of your field of vision depending on your altitude, and will usually be tucked discretely out of sight until you need it for take-off and landing."

"To test the concept, I studied Australia in Google Earth and tried to discover a flight that would take me over as much varied terrain as possible. I have never visited Australia much in FSX, perhaps because the standard scenery is so dismal. But when someone gives you a realistic treatment of the whole continent, with New Zealand thrown in, suddenly you’ve got eight million square kilometers of some of the world‘s most interesting terrain to explore. FS Altitude Western USA (which gives you most of Mexico, too, incidentally) works the exact same way."

"Unless there are heights in the distance, FS Altitude is not a factor until after you take off. At altitude, however, you can see that you are flying over the real deal. With some realistic cloud cover and visibility limits, it is darn near as real as it gets. In addition to the two products reviewed here, there are also editions for the Eastern United States (available at a discounted bundle with Western USA as an option) and Western Europe."

"VFR France has devised an elegant solution to the up high-down low scenery dilemma, and one which does not so much cooperate with your other scenery as benignly ignore it. If you like to fly airliners, cruise will become something more than the time you do something else between taking off and landing. It will be an entertainment, an education, and at times a reflection on this beautiful planet of ours. FSAltitude Australia and Western USA are 2 of those products that truly elevate the flight sim experience."

ADE9X - Airport Design Editor for FS9 and FSX

Posted: Sunday, August 30, 2009 - 14:15
ScruffyDuck Software and the ADE Development Team are delighted to announce the release of ADE9X.

This is the first version of Airport Design Editor to support both FS9 and FSX. The new functionality means that FS9 airport developers now have access to most of the functionality that has been available to FSX designers for some time. This includes the Approach Designer and all the other tools that allow users to work with buildings, signs etc. The only area currently not supported for FS9 is terrain elements such as land class, roads and so on.

A lot of time was spent working on making the importation of AFCAD files into ADE as easy as possible. While this version is mostly about providing support for FS9, our FSX users should also update as they will find many fixes and a number of enhancements including much better handling of stock navaids, user defined colors for taxi links and an improved and more stable interface with the Sim. We would like to take this opportunity of thanking all those in our development and beta teams as well as all those users who have tried out the release candidate and given us valuable feedback.

Find out more about ADE9X by visiting the AIRPORT DESIGN EDITOR .

Abacus - Carrier Strike Force

Posted: Sunday, August 30, 2009 - 14:09
Carrier Strike Force continues the excitement of aircraft carrier operations.

You'll take the seat on board aircraft and fly from three aircraft carriers. On board the Charles de Gaulle, the powerful catapult gets your mighty Rafale M airborne in just a few hundred feet. And during recovery, you'll want your tailhook to catch the steel cable to bring your muscular aircraft to a screeching halt. Fly the new F-35 JSF and the Harrier in vertical flight from the HMS Illustrious and USS Bonhomme Richard.

Carrier Strike Force includes cutting-edge technology such as moving carriers, air-to-air combat, missile simulation and more!

Moving carrier, catapult/recovery operations using 3WireX, missions and mini-missions available for FSX only; Static carrier, simplified catapult/recovery operations and 200 pre-saved flights for FS2004.

Check out the Carrier Strike Force .
page for more information and screen shots.

Beechcraft Duchess from Just Flight

Posted: Saturday, August 29, 2009 - 1:46
Contributing reviewer Chris Kiehl goes to his local "Flying Club" to hop into Just Flight's Beechcraft Duchess. "Now here’s an aircraft I’ve wanted in FS for a long time. First flown in 1974 as a prototype developed for economical twin engine flight training, and as competition for the light twin engine market, the Duchess has proved fairly successful. It was developed from the very similar single engine Beechcraft Musketeer, and some of the similarities in the fuselage are clearly noticeable. Production began in 1977, and initial deliveries went to flight schools."

"The 2D panel area of any aircraft package is excellent for the 2D panel fans. Very well represented 2D main panels are included, along with a slew of heavily detailed sub-panels. Every sub-panel actually is functional, and has use. I don’t quite know where to start with the virtual cockpit. I could say it’s one of the best; I could say it’s one of my favorites; I could say you‘re most likely going to really like it. Everything here is seamlessly represented, and you can’t seem to find any mistakes in it."

"I have one word for the external model: Gorgeous. I can’t think of any imaginable detail that the development team missed on this model. We have tons of great stuff like weathering stains, extremely sharp and real lines, great and believable prop textures, and little modeled details like actual fuel caps. Five texture sets are included, and they all look simple yet stunning. I found you can add a custom tail number to these without having to do any paint kid modding. A nice option for those who want to fly their own tail number. I must add that there are some neat FSX-only features on the external model."

"My first impression of the flight dynamics was during taxi. I noticed it was a bit labored during turning, using differential brakes. I thought this was great, as the nose wheel in most of these nose wheel aircraft do not have power steering. It felt like I had to really use those pedals, instead of just gently nudging them. I noticed a similar effect once airborne; all of the controls seemed a bit ‘heavy’. That’s the only word I can use to describe it, but it’s close. Same thing with the rudder input, as you need a good amount of rudder to coordinate the turns. Some might see this as a negative point, but like my flight instructor told me, "Fly the airplane, don’t let it fly you. What I noticed about how the Duchess flies was its seemingly amazing speed."

"Final words on the Beechcraft Duchess? Buy it! I’ve not seen so many bangs for your buck in years. I can’t say I’ve flown such a seamless aircraft in a while; it’s just the light twin I’ve always wanted. There are many high quality add-ons out there and this one sits just right. If you like light GA and twin engine aircraft, or the just Duchess itself, get it. You won’t be disappointed."

FS2Crew Releases 737 Voice Commander

Posted: Friday, August 28, 2009 - 23:50
FS2Crew is proud to announce that its most revolutionary product in its five year history has just been released. Says Bryan York of FS2Crew, "This product is totally different from anything we've done before. The biggest change is that you now use Voice Commands to control your flight crew. This is a radical departure from the way we've done things in the past." Bryan further comments, "We didn't stop there. We ripped everything down and started again fresh. What also emerged out of the ashes is a brand new audio engine, and new Config Manager and a whole host of other new features. So significant in fact were the changes that we decided to rebrand the product under a new label: The FS2Crew 2010 Series".

With the new FS2Crew 2010 737 Voice Commander product, users can now fly the default FSX 737 like a real-airline pilot using SOPs while using their own voice. Bryan concludes with, "FS2Crew's primary goal has always been realism. When you add voice control into the mix, I think it's safe to say that we've set a new bar in terms of realism in the co-pilot/flight crew genre. No one has done what we have done. We're totally unique."

One of the most exciting features of this new product is the international voice sets available for the FO position. Users can select an FO accent from the following countries: United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Ireland, Mexico, Australia, Finland, or the Netherlands. 737 Voice Commander products are cleared via direct to the FS2Crew website for more information and to purchase and download.

Carenado Releases The PA-28-181 ARCHER II (FSX)

Posted: Friday, August 28, 2009 - 14:53
This PA-28-181 Archer II is fully FSX and DX10 compatible with high resolution textures (and very friendly FPS). It was developed with all FSX features plus two new features: volumetric normal mapping and Original HQ digital stereo sounds (44100 HZ) recorded from the original aircraft. This NEW Archer is a completely new development which includes three models (with and without fairings and a mix of both) and four different paints plus a blank texture. The FS2004 version is coming coming off the assembly line right behind it.

FS-eXcel for FS2004 - VERSION 1.2 RELEASED

Posted: Friday, August 28, 2009 - 3:16
Developed by FS-eXceleration Software, FS-eXcel is a visual eXcelerator package for FS2004 that greatly enhances the look of the sim with no adverse frame-rate effects whatsoever. All new custom High-Definition sky, cloud, ground, vegetation, airport and autogen textures make FS2004 spring to life. Check it out at the FS-eXcel Website.