Hurricane Fighters of WWII by Sky Unlimited

Posted: Saturday, July 21, 2007 - 20:08
Senior staff reviewer David Wilson-Okamura contributes a thrid review of WWII era aircraft. This time it's Sky Unlimited's Hurricane Fighters of WWII. "In the Battle of Britain, there were three Hurricanes for every two Spitfires. They fought the Germans in northern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East; they fought the Italians in Greece; and they fought the Japanese in the Far East, over Burma, India, and Singapore. And that is just the RAF Hurricanes. Russians also flew Hurricanes against the Germans, and Finns flew Hurries against the Russians."

"From the side and in the cockpit, the Hurricane looks a lot like the Spitfire, only more compact. Lots of attention has been lavished on the control surfaces, and you can look up in the wheel wells too and see the hydraulics. When you’re on the ground, you can remove the engine cowling to see the motor underneath, and there is even an animated step-ladder for the pilot. The pilot looks pretty good, too. Surface textures are detailed too. The very smallest writing, on fuselage and elevator, is not quite legible but you can certainly count the rivets if you are so inclined. These are combat planes, so they look weathered, but the colors are rich and there are many paint schemes to choose from."

"The 2D cockpit is well laid out. The virtual cockpit (VC) has a lot of eye candy, including a lot of animation. What would spoil our day is fuzzy gauges, which you don’t find here. I did notice myself leaning in slightly to read the airspeed. There are pop-up windows with modern avionics, including GPS and even autopilot, so you can fly cross-country. Compared with other World War II-era fighters I have reviewed, the Hurricane cockpit is more detailed, with more moving parts, than either the Shockwave Spitfire or the Flight Replicas Me 109."

"Hurricane Fighters of WWII is now compatible with FSX. The scenery hasn’t been converted, but the planes fly and there are some new views. Compared with the Spitfire and Me 109, the Hurricane is less powerful, so it’s slower in climbs and straight-aways. On the other hand, it’s less prone to stalls and spins. I don’t consider myself a crack pilot, but I’ve found that I can fly the Hurricane very aggressively, even at low altitudes."

Putting Hurricane Fighters of WWII back on the ground, David says, "Hurricane Fighters of WWII sells for $26 (US). There’s little here that is not well done. In a model with lots of moving parts, you'd expect a slowdown. I didn’t experience that on my main system and on my laptop (which is several years old now) the fighter was still fun to fly."

TweakFS Utility Collection Released

Posted: Saturday, July 21, 2007 - 17:58
TweakFS has released the TweakFS Utility Collection on CD-ROM (FSX Edition) which bundles all five of the unique TweakFS applications. Between them, this suite of FSX tweaking utilities can handle hundreds of different settings and variables, making the fine-tuning your FSX.CFG, Aircraft.CFG and saved Flight files a breeze. All the tools are designed with one important principle in mind - a one-click restore function. This means adjustments can be applied with complete impunity and there is always the "bailout" option if there are any "funnies", the one justifiable concern that holds many back from tweaking their FS setup. The full set of utilities on CD-ROM includes the following: - TweakFlight for FSX – Flight File Editor - TweakFPS for FSX – Scenery Mode Editor - TweakAircraft for FSX – Aircraft Config File Editor - TweakLoad for FSX – Aircraft Loading Editor - TweakFS Explorer (FSX Edition) – File Manager based around FSX. More information and free demos of all five products, visit the TweakFS website.

FMC-CDU PACK1 FOR FS9 AND FSX

Posted: Friday, July 20, 2007 - 23:26
FriendlyPanels FMC's PACK1: A jetliner FMC style navigation system collection. This FMC pack contains seven FMC gauges, all of them working in a very similar way imitating the look of Boeing or Airbus FMCs. Four of them are intended to be used with B737-400, B777-300, B747-400 and A321 aircraft. The other four gauges are general purpose FMC gauges and they don’t contain specific aircraft data pages as APPROACH, IDENT, TAKE OFF... so they can be used with ANY aircraft. The purpose of these gauges is to implement the FMC style you can find in many of modern jetliners or business jets, using the flight plans created with Microsoft Flight Simulator FS9 or FSX, or any add-on which can export flight plans in the FS format.

Some features of these gauges are: -Follow a flight plan. -Flight direct to a FLP waypoint (by passing some of them) and continue from there. -Choose any waypoint in Microsoft database to flight direct to without a flight plan loaded. -Select an Arrival procedure for destination airport. -Follow the vertical navigation desired, speeds and altitudes. -Display a lot of different information concerning airports and navaids. -Display information concerning fuel and winds. -Pass VOR, ADF and COM frequencies from navaids or airports to aircraft radios. -Etc...

The user manual explains things in more detail and you can find this product at the FriendlyPanels website.

La Guardia KLGA by ImagineSim

Posted: Friday, July 20, 2007 - 3:54
Staff reviewer Juan Llobera tours one of New York's busiest airports, La Guardia (KLGA) by ImagineSim. "KLGA New York La Guardia is the smallest of three airports serving New York.

"One of the first things I do when I check out a new scenery is to go to the top-down view and compare the scenery with the real airport diagram. This is really useful because it will rapidly give you an idea of what level of realism you are going to find. Because I'm afraid nobody actually cares about how well done the runway textures are if runway 22 is heading 320, or how many details the taxiways have if some taxiways are missing. The good news is that every single taxiway seems to be present. The airport’s layout is exactly the same as in real life."

"Buildings look incredible real, and the glass textures are just fabulous. Every single terminal has been reproduced as well as the fire station, hangars and maintenance and base facilities. You’ll find every single gate with their number, jetway and everything. Another feature you’ll get is the Automatic Docking System, which is nothing more than moving jetways. This is really cool and it's a detail that I feel should be a standard feature in every single payware scenery. Probably one of the things that I love about this scenery are the night textures."

"Considering you have the chance of actually testing this add-on before buying it, I’ll just say that overall it runs great on my PC. LaGuardia is an over-crowded airport, and when I say over-crowded I mean waiting in line for half an hour in order to get your take off clearance. Now that's "as real as it gets!".

Wrapping up ImagineSim's La Guardia, Juan comments, "is ImagineSim’s KLGA worth the money? I'd definitely say it is. It has every single building, light, taxiway and detail you’ll find at the real LaGuardia. Plus, the high density of vehicles and cargo containers really gives you the feeling that you are “there”. If you love to see a real crowded airport or simply love challenging approaches and adrenaline-charged take off’s, then I would recommend this one to you."

Avionics Expansion for the CLS DC-10

Posted: Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 22:26
Albert Bouwman from Commercial Level Simulations announced today that a free avionics expansion is now available for their DC-10 product. It adds an Inertial Navigation System (INS), allowing for a more complex simulation of the aircraft's navigation equipment.

For more information regarding this update, visit the CLS website.

ATC Demo Available

Posted: Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 1:13
A demo version of ATCsimulator2 is now available for download at the ATCsimulator product website. This demo version will run for 2 weeks and includes four control areas for exploration, DFW, JFK, LAX and ORD. This full functioning demo is designed for those interested in air traffic control simulation, but have not yet made a purchase decision.

Boeing 787 Dreamliner Rollout

Posted: Thursday, July 19, 2007 - 0:58
Boeing designed and ramped up production of the new 787 Dreamliner in record time. Although it's not scheduled to enter service until next year, the first public appearance happened on July 8, 2007 (think 7-8-7). Writer Scott Slaughter looks at the history, development and finally the public rollout of this next generation aircraft in his latest article that can be found on the Abacus website under the FS Free Press section. If you're interested in the heavy metal, you'll want to read about the 787. Afterall, it will be coming to a Flight Sim near you.

November's AVSIM Conference

Posted: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 - 2:35
AVSIM Online and the Microsoft Flight Simulator Team are co-sponsoring what may well be this year's largest Flight Simulation gathering!

"The goal of our partnership is to provide a venue that will host an unprecedented number of Flight Sim add-on and hardware vendors," says Brett Schnepf, Community and Partner Development Manager for the Microsoft ACES Studio. "We want to give FANCON attendees the widest possible range of add-ons and hardware to check out. In other words: many shiny objects to play with!"

"The Bellevue Hilton is excited to be hosting this event for us this year," says AVSIM's Conference Manager, Robert Whitwell, "we have a huge amount of space for the vendors this year and with FSX being centre stage again there should be plenty of hands-on activities for our fans."

The AVSIM Flight Simulation Fan Convention and Exhibition (FANCON 2007) will start Friday afternoon November 9th with the traditional informal AVSIM FANCON social. The event will continue on Saturday with exhibitions, white paper sessions, and the Saturday night Awards Banquet. The Awards Banquet will include a special key note speaker, as well as the traditional AVSIM Bravo Zulu and Reader's Choice award presentations. Sunday will see more exhibitions and white papers.

Flight simulation enthusiasts from around the world will be in attendance, so here's your chance to finally meet the people behind all those voices and forum posts, as well as the AVSIM staff and members of the Microsoft ACES studio. While the FANCON is just under 4 months away, the registrations of both fans and vendors are coming in. This off-season event should help with your travel plans if you are coming from out of the area. Even if you are coming from the local area, pre-registering will help avoid the line-ups Friday evening or Saturday morning.

FlorenceX Released By Aerosoft

Posted: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 - 2:14
Not only does this release of FlorenceX include a very detailed Peretola Airport, but also the city with all its world famous monuments is included. The whole city is three dimensional and you can spend hours exploring it. Aerosoft is offering you the ability to fully use this airport before having to pay for it. For a limited time, using the Addon Manager system by Virtuali the project is a free download and you can try the fully functional scenery.

German Airports 2 from Aerosoft

Posted: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 - 1:40
Staff reviewer Marc Radford explores the Munster/Osnabruck Airport as part of the Aerosoft German Airports series. "Münster/Osnabrück Airport is currently the 4th largest International commercial airport in the North Rhine-Westphalia area, located 25km from Münster (Westfalen), and 40km from Osnabrück."

"There is little doubt Aerosoft has been successful in recreating the airport and surrounding areas. On final to runway 25, you can see the dynamic scenery cars zooming by on the Autobahn! It is amazing the added sense of realism you get when you are trying to focus on your instruments; you almost get distracted by the variety of cars zooming along the road underneath you."

"On the ground things are quite lively around here with buses, trucks, Exxon Mobile Tractor Trailers, and Lufthansa Service Trucks, just to name a few, which are all busy doing their jobs. When the models are viewed up close they really stand their ground. The same goes for the static aircraft, when zooming in it's surprising the level of detail. I found the night effects to be satisfying, and aligned to the quality of the overall package."

"When the airport first loaded, I was shocked with next to no difference in my FPS from the default scenery. I was surprised to see Münster/Osnabrück did not have any large or heavy gates. I did some checking to see what kind of airplanes usually take off from there, the majority of the jets are Boeing 737’s."

Wrapping up this review of Aerosoft's Münster/Osnabrück Airport, Marc says, "I have tried a handful of add-on airports over the years, they all looked great but killed my FPS. This package started impressing me right from the manual, and followed through like a champ all the way to the end."

Condor Task Database Released

Posted: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - 18:05
Created by Thierry Bodin; the Condor Tasks Database is a one-stop website with various free services for Condor the Competition Simulator enthusiasts. The database contains more than 400 glider tasks of all types (including ridge, thermal and wave) submitted and rated by the members of the community. After flying a task downloaded from the database you can upload your flight record file to be included in the pilots ranking list, where you can gain virtual honors. The website offers several hundred easy-install goodies/addons to improve your sim experience. For more information, visit The Condor Task Database Website.

FS2Crew Level-D 767 Update

Posted: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - 7:52
FS2Crew has just announced that Update 1.0 for the FSX Level-D 767 Edition of FS2Crew is now available. This update makes FS2Crew compatible with the recently released FSX Service Pack 1 from Level-D Simulations.

Also, the FS2Crew Start Center is now available as a public download. The Start Center download will also clean-up and re-arrange your FS2Crew icons and shortcuts. To download these updates, please visit the FS2Crew Website.

Update Release For ProFlight 2000 Emulator

Posted: Monday, July 16, 2007 - 15:46
OnCourse Software announce an update release for PFE (ProFlight 2000 Emulator). As per user requests PFE now includes AI traffic advisories en-route PLUS all new final approach vectoring options, for full details visit the ProFlight 2000 website

FS Stories

Posted: Monday, July 16, 2007 - 12:14
FS Stories has opened it's doors. A site which features short flight sim fictions publish their first story "Aboard the Kuznetsov" about a fighter pilot based on a Russian aircraft carrier. For additional information about this blog based site and to read the story visit FS Stories

FS Open Components Begins Operations

Posted: Monday, July 16, 2007 - 12:02
FS Open Components add-on developers association, announced today that its preliminary web site has gone into operation, and that it is seeking additional developers for products both freeware and payware distributed in open component format under a planned new kind of software publishing license, plans drew sufficient early interest that they were able to go from concept to a staffed and functioning organization in less than two weeks. FSOC developers aren’t employees and they aren’t contractors, they are independent entrepreneurs who have chosen to operate cooperatively under the FSOC business management umbrella, like farmers who belong to an agricultural marketing cooperative. For additional information visit FS Open Components