Boston from Fly Tampa

Posted: Saturday, February 6, 2010 - 0:13
Senior staff reviewer Angelique van Campen comes to America to check out Fly Tampa's Boston. "Boston International is wrong but General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport is correct (IATA: BOS, ICAO: KBOS). It lies in the East Boston neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States (and partly in the Town of Winthrop, Massachusetts), and is one of the 20 busiest airports in the United States with over 26 million passengers a year."

Ángelique first takes us on a tour of the airport grounds to get us acquainted with its layout and features. "We’ve stopped at gate C40. This means we’re standing at the end of terminal C. It seems nothing is forgotten and every tiny detail is there like the mobile heating/cooling (airco) unit, the wires, the jetway skin, the ground light units, the fire extinguisher on the airco unit, and where applicable, the hose between the airco unit and the airplane, of course the stairs."

"Not only are the taxiways looking good, but also all the other things we’re automatically dealing with like the taxi lights, the signs, the text on the signs and taxiways and runways, and the lawns around us. I’m impressed about how it’s made and the eye for details, even here far away from the terminal buildings."

Angelique has added Aerosoft's AES to this airport and describes all the additional items that can be found at this airport when using this utility. "While driving around on the platform, hovering at a normal altitude and seeing how every detail is simulated as well as the coast lines and the water surface around it, it all fits perfectly in its designated place with lots of tiny things added to make it a little more attractive."

"Keeping in mind that Boston Version 3.0 supports Aerosoft’s AES Version 2.05 or is it the other way around ….. and the smooth integration with Flight1 products - Ultimate TerrainX USA, Ground Environment Enhanced USA and Ultimate Traffic II – makes this a great add-on."

Just Flight "Tweets"

Posted: Friday, February 5, 2010 - 23:49
There's a Just Flight Twitter page. If anyone would like to follow their news, they now have another option. They have been including news and updates there and the JF team is promising to post more news for those who just can't get enough FS news.

New from the Avsim Store: C185F Skywagon FSX by Carenado

Posted: Friday, February 5, 2010 - 17:46
The C185F Skywagon is the latest release by Carenado. It comes with 4 liveries, full virtual cockpit and all the features permitted by FSX. You can get the C185F here.
The Avsim store also carries other planes by Carenado.

Visit the Avsim store today.

Connie Service Pack Released

Posted: Friday, February 5, 2010 - 0:55
Simmers have been patiently waiting for Just Flight to supply the Service pack for their Constellation Professional, well good news, it's now available from their website.

The Service Pack (27.5Mb) is now available and provides a number of fixes for the software. Users of both the Download and the Boxed versions should install this Service Pack.

Expansion Packs - There is also a Service Pack (37.3Mb) available for Expansion Pack A and another one (65.5Mb) for Expansion Pack B. All users of the Expansion Packs should install these updates. Visit the Support section of the Just Flight website for a list of all the fixes in the Pack.

Flight 1 Releases Ultimate Alaska X

Posted: Friday, February 5, 2010 - 0:49
Flight One Software, in cooperation with Scenery Solutions, is excited to bring you a brand new type of product for FSX. Ultimate Alaska X provides a new era of scenery design that sim pilots can explore and experience in Flight Simulator X.

Alaska is one of the world's most unique scenic locations, and it is an excellent place for flight simmers to enjoy the beauty of VFR flight. With Ultimate Alaska X, you will have the most complete rendering of Alaska to date. It provides a ground up redesign of nearly every scenery aspect in Alaska. This includes more accurate water, roads, railroads, urban modeling, mesh, detailed glaciers, repositioned airports, and more.

Ultimate Alaska X is the first product to take advantage of a new technology designed by Scenery Solutions, which renders entire urban areas accurately without landclass. Normally in FSX, urban areas are displayed using generic landclass textures and autogen. Landclass is very efficient and does a good job of representing urban areas from higher altitudes. However, while city scenery boundaries can be displayed well with landclass, the accuracy of objects within those boundaries are placed at random. So instead of using landclass, Ultimate Alaska X displays houses that follow the accurate roads that are provided with this product, with each house oriented towards the nearest road.

Other buildings and objects in Ultimate Alaska X are placed in their real-world locations. Many buildings are of the same size and shape as their real-world counterparts. Over 200+ scenery areas in Alaska have been modeled using this new technology. This includes nearly every city, town, village, and seaport in Alaska.

Library Update

Posted: Thursday, February 4, 2010 - 14:27
The Staff manning our Library would like to thank the authors who have re-uploaded their works , a special thanks goes out to Peter Van der Veen from World of AI who has personally re-uploaded nearly 300 files.

It's Your Plane (Pt 1) from Pacific Feelings Media

Posted: Thursday, February 4, 2010 - 1:33
Staff reviewer Roger Curtiss get's an assist in the cockpit with Pacific Feelings Media's It's Your Plane. "Flight decks can be very busy places during most of the phases of a flight and especially in an IFR environment. There are enough tasks to occupy more than one crewmember, not to mention the niggling detail of having to fly the airplane. In an effort to ease the workload by spreading it around and make the flight sim cockpit environment more realistic, enters Robert Cezar and It’s Your Plane (IYP)."

"IYP consists of a variety of tools and enhancements to enrich the experience. The basic purpose of IYP is to allow the pilot to issue voice commands to a virtual first officer in order to accomplish various tasks. The co-pilot will run checklists, set switches, dial in radio frequencies and even assist in actually flying the airplane all in accordance with the vocal instructions of you, the pilot in command."

"The IYP program is available in a free version (with, of course, some limitations to its abilities) for demonstration purposes and a fully functional registered version that is payware. This is a great program, period. It is worth having just to free you from the necessity of opening up sub-panels to find switches and yet it offers a variety of other features well beyond that."

Editor's Note: There are so many main features included in this package (approx 15), that this will be a multi-part review.

Screenshot Contest from Flight1

Posted: Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - 13:59
Flight1 is holding a screenshot contest for Mustang pilots during the month of February.

Flight1's registered forum users can submit their best screenshot to the Flight1 Cessna Citation Mustang Screenshots and Videos forum here.

Flight1 Software, with support from CH Products, will be offering prizes for three lucky screenshot winners. First Place Winner will receive a new CH Products Flight Sim Yoke USB and a choice of a Flight1 Software CD Title (SRP $185.90). Second Place will get their choice of two Flight1 CD titles (SRP $109.90), and Third Place will receive their choice of one Flight1 CD title (SRP $54.95).

For more information visit Flight1 Contest Forum.

Photoreal scenery for American East Coast

Posted: Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - 13:54
Sim-Savvy announces release of FSX Photoreal scenery for American East Coast. It contains 23 states of Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Vermont and West Virginia. The 23 states have been divided upto 5 sectional areas.

The first section will be shipped from February 15th. As of now, the completed state of Rhode Island is available as a free sample for download.

For more information visit Sim-Savvy's website.

Just Flight Announces 767 Aircraft Add-on

Posted: Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - 13:46
Just Flight has announced the release of 767-200/300 Series, the latest airliner expansion for FSX and FS2004 in its widely acclaimed F-Lite series.

Developed by the award-winning team at CLS, it features the -200 and -300 in passenger and cargo variants with four engine configurations spread across 24 different liveries. Some features are:


1. 2D and 3D interactive cockpits, wingview, pushback truck, doors, thrust reversers… and much, much more!

2. Choice of engines – Pratt & Witney, General Electric and Rolls-Royce variants are included with appropriate sound packs

3. Special effects including tyre/wet runway water effects, engine start and touchdown tyre smoke, wingflex and underbelly spark effects!

4. Layered paint kit to create own liveries.

5. Detailed manual including flight tutorial and all the information virtual pilots will need for transcontinental flight.


For more information visit Just Flight's Product Page.

VATSIM's new Website

Posted: Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - 13:40
VATSIM announces release of its new website. The new look website marks the first of many exhilarating changes and program of growth forecast for VATSIM during 2010.

The new website is built around a content management system, (CMS), providing VATSIM with a stable and secure platform to grow from.

VATSIM has also announced its official Twitter and Facebook groups. @vatsim_news to tweet with them or to VATSIM Comms on Facebook.

For more information visit VATSIM's website.

Back to Flying School for Free!!

Posted: Monday, February 1, 2010 - 11:14
Angle of Attack. productions has announced the start of a 90 day basic virtual flight training course called "Aviator 90". This is a 90 days course with upto 45 lessons and is free to everyone.

For more informaton where and to learn more and watch this training series unfold visit Angle of Attack's Blog.

PMDG Releases PMDG 747-8i/F Model Extension

Posted: Sunday, January 31, 2010 - 8:46
PMDG announces the release of the new PMDG 747-8i/F Model Extension for use with the PMDG 747-400X.

This new product allows users to add new, high resolution 747-8 models to their existing PMDG 747-400X installation, along with a new GEnx engine sound package created just for the 747-8! Created with technical input from Boeing, the PMDG 747-8i/F Model Extension installs easily over-top of your existing PMDG 747-400X and uses the existing simulation to let you give you the opportunity to fly Boeing's latest 747.

Fully 3D engine fan/cores, all new flight controls, transparent passenger windows, visible passenger cabin, hi-resolution textures and updated animations are just some of the features showcased by this new product. Up for a new challenge? With a longer wheelbase, the 747-8 will challenge even seasoned 747-400 pilots on standard sized taxiways!

For more information visit PMDG's website.

YCDA, YCNK, YMAV, YWAV from Orbx FTX

Posted: Saturday, January 30, 2010 - 19:59
Staff reviewer Jason McKee takes us on a tour of 4 airports from the Orbx FTX series. YCDA Caloundra, YCNK Cessock, YMAV Avalon and YWAV Warnervale. "For those of you not familiar with the Orbx products, they comprise of four different areas of Australia and specific airports which are being added all the time. The four specific areas cover the ground texture and autogen for FSX, and the airports focus on the airports and their surrounds."

"Caloundra airport is a small GA field which has a thriving aero motive industry based on the airport. The airport ground texture is rendered in 15/60cm per pixel, also included is a GA traffic file which adds some nice local traffic. And to top it off there is 120kms of photo real ground texture, water mapping and a sound pack."

"Cessnock covers 120sq km of photo real ground work at 60cm/pixel it also includes custom sounds of the township of Cessnock. Avalon is Melbourne’s second major passenger airport. It is also home to Qantas’s secondary training and maintenance base. Avalon air show is held at this airport every two years, and is the major event for Australia; this air show attracts visiting aircraft from around the world. This airport includes 30sq km of photo real ground texture."

"Warnervale airport is locates in native bush land on the central coast of New South Wales and is within a short flight of Aeropelican, Cessnock and Coffs Harbour. The airport includes 57sq km of photo real ground textures sampled at 15/30/60cm/pixel, it also has its own traffic that uses the airport, the local township of Wyong and VFR landmarks to aid navigation in the area. It also has custom night lighting for the airport."

"It is hard to write words to describe scenery products and these airports really do need to have the Orbx base packs installed to get the best out of the entire area. That said, all of these airports have everything well placed and they look accurate. They give you the feeling of really being there."

C185F Skywagon For FSX

Posted: Saturday, January 30, 2010 - 18:11
Carenado announces their release of the C185F Skywagon. This high quality designed aircraft, with a polygon optimized model, friendly FPS and a Control Windows new feature for controlling the "eye candy" (wheel chokes, bag & package, pitot cover, sights prop and tiedown ropes) is now available. There will be an FS9 version released in the future.

The FSX version includes a pop up Skywagon manual with performance charts and normal & emergency procedures, original instruments and original HQ digital stereo sounds (44100 HZ) recorded from the original aircraft. Four different paint schemes and 4 models are included with the release: with and without fairings, side windows on both sides and two & three blades prop PLUS a blank texture.

Atolls of Tuvalu Scenery for FSX

Posted: Saturday, January 30, 2010 - 9:55
Pacific Islands Simulation has released "Atolls of Tuvalu", a FSX Scenery Add-on. Tuvalu is a country located in the southwest Pacific Ocean with a population of around 12,000 people scattered around the nine islands, spread over 10 square miles (27 sq km). Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world and also known as as the fastest sinking country in the world.

This new add-on contains 7 northern islands including photoreal landclass/waterclass, Sequential wave crash effects, customised vegetation typical of the region, Night light effects and more.


For more information visit Pacific Islands Simulation website.

Ultimate Traffic 2's Service Pack 1 Released

Posted: Saturday, January 30, 2010 - 9:44
Flight One Software has released Ultimate Traffic 2 Service Pack 1. The update includes several enhancements to the user interface, feature upgrades, and optimizes how the program behaves in Flight Simulator X. Some of the updates are:

1. Two categories for traffic types (Weekly / Daily).
2. Proper routing for General Aviation flights that are greater then 250 nm.
3. Ability to share user-created add-on schedules using the soon to be released free Ultimate Traffic 2 Power Pack.
4. Flights can be turned off/on to allow user to fly route in place of AI traffic.
5. Exportable flight plans from UT interface to FSX.
6. Traffic density can now have frame rate thresholds.
7. UT2 AI Traffic spawn controls expanded.
8. Majority of AI Models have been updated to increase frame rate performance.


For more information visit Flight One Software website.

The Avsim Store has a great selection of instant download products

Posted: Friday, January 29, 2010 - 17:05
The Avsim Store has a great selection of instant download products.

From Carenado, you can get the latest PA-28 Archer II, the Mooney 20-J , the C172N Skyhawk and others. From Wilco we have the Boeing 777and the CRJ Regional Jet. From Aerosoft, we have recently added My Traffic 2010. It is he latest version of the popular and successful My Traffic series. My Traffic 2010 generates more than 800,000 flight a day, worldwide. For
Team SBD, we have just added UK Cold War Airfields and RAF Scampton, on top of US Airfields 1 and 2.
For those who want to extand their Flight Sim experience, we carry FSFlying school as well as FS2Crew products.
FScene software transforms the default scenery textures of Microsoft's Flight Simulator to something with far greater realism. Mountains, forests, jungles and deserts take on a new 3-dimensional feel; the countryside is subtly transformed and urban areas look more... urbane. The world's continents are improved across the four seasons as the generic ground textures are replaced with more realistic ones.

ATCsimulator 2 is the premier Air Traffic Control simulation on the market for the PC. This is as close to the real thing! as you can get. ! This is a serious simulation but, it can also be fun. ATCsimulator®2 provides you with the most comprehensive set of programs to help boost your air traffic career, or satisfy your thirst for experiencing the real thing! ATCsimulator®2 has it all!

Visit the Avsim store today.

Want to win a FS2Crew Title?

Posted: Friday, January 29, 2010 - 12:10
FS2Crew, a leading developer of Airline Crew Simulations, is giving away five licenses of FS2Crew's exciting new "Voice Commander" Multi-Crew Airline expansion pack for the Leonardo Maddog 2008!!. All you need to do is answer five skill testing questions.

Winners will be announced on February 6, 2010. For more information visit FS2 Crew's website.

DBS Airport GPS Releases Update Version 1.2

Posted: Friday, January 29, 2010 - 12:01
DBS Studio has released update for DBS Airport GPS. This release contains an updated database engine, user interface, improvements in the menu and updated compatibility for some addons sceneries.

For more information visit DBS Studio website.