AlphaSim's F4D Skyray Reviewed

Posted: Monday, May 29, 2006 - 1:58
The United States Marine Corp received their first delivery of the newly designed Douglas F4D SKYRAY in 1957, Sr Staff reviewer Gene Davis received his home computer version from AlphaSim in 2006. Now we can see how they compare.

"The ALPHASIM A4D SKYRAY is a journey back in time, it represents an era of jet aviation that was merely a glimpse of things to come. The visual model of this aircraft is where this product is worth its weight in gold. Each aircraft is highly detailed and matches that of real world US Squadrons from that time period."

"Jumping into the cockpit and taking this plane up for a quick spin is a lot of fun as it is highly maneuverable and fast. Surprisingly, the plane is extremely easy to land even with a large amount of fuel on board. The panel, though pretty basic, does make a nice representation of what the actual cockpit of the Skyray looked like. The virtual cockpit is rendered nicely and does match that of its real world counterpart."

Gene sums up his review of this aircraft from a bygone era with, "I found that I enjoyed flying the F4D as it was something different and a real blast from the past."

Ratcheting up the Excitement!

Posted: Sunday, May 28, 2006 - 20:29
Ratcheting up the excitement, Microsoft announces a few more surprises for the 2006 AVSIM Convention. AVSIM is pleased to announce that the Microsoft FS team will be giving away a collection of goodies at the AVSIM Convention and here are the details... Microsoft will be giving away a high end video card (four to be exact) at the convention. Two on Friday night at the social, one at the Saturday awards dinner and one at the Microsoft Flight Simulator day on Sunday. How about some more hardware? The MS team will be giving away 12, no you didn't read that wrong, 12 (twelve) USB native Xbox 360 controllers - can you say "cross platform compatibility"??? Or, better yet, can you say "Gamepad"??? Be there! The event of the year is rapidly approaching and you could be the proud owner of a copy of FS-X, simply by registering! Do so today and get in on the excitement and the imminent release of the next generation of Flight Simulator, and possibly be the proud owner of a high end vid card and / or a Xbox 360 controller! Register here today!

AlphaSim EFA Typhoon Package Out Now

Posted: Sunday, May 28, 2006 - 16:34
The Alphasim EFA Typhoon package has it all : 10 unique models including the 2-seater, various loadouts (clean, AAM and AGM) and a high-FPS multiplayer version, highly-detailed textures depict the RAF, German, Italian and Spanish variants. The model comes with a new and unique working radar system which has clickable targets with 4-parameter display and 3 radar modes, sounds recorded from the real Typhoon, a photoreal panel with 3 high-FPS MFD displays (incl.a moving map and animated weapons displays), a zoomable HUD, a first-class virtual cockpit with every single switch and knob authentically reproduced (rear cockpit v-c incl. on 2-strs), authentic animations for all control surfaces, drag chute, refuel probe, exhaust petals, pilots and more, a highly realistic flight model with illustrated checklist as well as custom afterburner fx. Texture source files are provided for repainters. For FS2004 only. Filesize 29MB and 12MB. Price approx. $26 USD, £13.95. Screenshots can be viewed on our home page Here

AVSIM 2006 Conference - Call For Presentations

Posted: Sunday, May 28, 2006 - 14:24
We are now soliciting presentations for the 5th annual Aviation Simulation (AVSIM) Conference, to take place in Washington, DC on September 15th thru 17th. Our venue will be the Hyatt Dulles Hotel, close to Washington Dulles International Airport and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, part of the National Air and Space Museum.

We welcome presentations from any person or organization with an interest in aviation simulation, with content covering either the real-world or simulated experience. Particular areas of interest which have proven popular in the past are the application of aviation simulation technology to real-world situations, presentations from companies offering forthcoming flight simulation products, and individuals sharing their experience and expertise in their chosen field. The typical range covers anything from the sheer enjoyment of flying, to the technical nuts and bolts of adding to the simulation experience.

Presentations will be allocated between 30 and 45 minutes, allowing time for questions at the end of each. Compared to previous years, there is likely to be a reduction in the number of available presentation slots; in the case of high demand presentation abstracts may be subject to a review process before firm acceptance is made. Please note that most presentations will be scheduled on Saturday, September 16th, with only two or three scheduled on Sunday.

Please submit your name, proposed presentation title, abstract (maximum 350 words) and biographical information of the presenter(s) (maximum 350 words) to our Conference Co-Ordinator Matt Johnson before Saturday, June 24th. Likewise, if you would like more information about the Conference, Matt will be able to assist.

We look forward to hearing from you, and scheduling a top-flight set of presentations in Washington!

Vista Australis ( VOZ ) 1.2 Freeware Scenery Released

Posted: Sunday, May 28, 2006 - 13:51
The VOZ Team is pleased to announce the release of version 1.2 of Vista Australis, the hotly anticipated next installment of the hugely successful VOZ freeware project, which has cumulatively been downloaded over 100,000 times since the 0.99 release last December. VOZ 1.2 will add a further 80 airports, four of them major overhauls of international terminals such as YSSY, YMML, YBBN and YSCB. For the first time, users will be able to enjoy all four seasons in the SE Region to see autumn, winter and spring come alive in Victoria and Tasmania. This release also brings hundred upon hundreds of new textures, sceneries, tweaks and bug fixes to 1.1, and for the first time adds photoreal areas covering an entire city centre, with photoreal Adelaide being the first area fully integrating photoreal with VOZ textures. VOZ 1.2 is freeware and is available to download from the Vista Australis website

Lionheart Creations Super Viking Released

Posted: Sunday, May 28, 2006 - 2:46
Lionheart Creations Ltd. has announced their newest release, the Bellanca Super Viking. This is the sleek four passenger, 200 MPH 'sports car' of general aviation. With 300 HP under its cowling, slippery rivetless composite wings, and a clean styled fuselage, this high performance aircraft cruises at 175 Knots with 75% power at 2,000 feet Altitude and yet coasts in with full flaps over the threshold at just 60 knots. Some of the features of this new offering are:
-Instrumentation and avionics sporting 'workable' realism whe compared to the actual Super Vikings.
-A unique Century II Altimatic Auto-Pilot system.
-Fully animated controls.
-Actual adjustable air vents
-A pop-out Hewlet Packard PDA GPS that floats out of its map box cubby and attaches onto the instrument panel.
-New exclusive 'Soft Glow Lighting' in the VC when doing night flights, and a seperate Dome light feature that produces a blue-white glow when brighter light is needed.
-Onboard oxygen system: If you click on the valve knob, an oxygen mask appears on the pilot.
-Many other unique features.

Lionheart is also offering a 25% rebate discount for past Bellanca purchasers. For more information, go to the Viking product page.

The AVSIM FS-X Release Date Lottery!

Posted: Saturday, May 27, 2006 - 22:47
Oh what fun! Speculation is running true to form, rumors are circulating community wide, and someone, everyone, or no one really knows the answer to the question of the day! When will Microsoft's next generation of Flight Simulator be released? Well, we don't know, or at least can't tell you! But, we can do the next best thing! You can enter a lottery, and take a chance in predicting the release date of FS-X (FS-10), and be the hero on your block for getting it right! AVSIM is pleased to announce the opening of its FS-X release date lottery! Be the first to vote and take your chances. When will FS-X appear on a store shelf somewhere in the world? Place your bets in our FS-X Release Date Lottery and if nothing else, earn the respect and adulation of those that really know!

Do you want the next release of FS for free?

Posted: Saturday, May 27, 2006 - 2:36
That's right, FREE! Be one of the first 400 registrants at the AVSIM Convention and Exhibition to be held in September, and you could be the proud owner of the next release of Microsoft's Flight Simulator, FS-X. At the AVSIM Convention Microsoft will be giving away to the first 400 registrants of AVSIM attendees a boxed copy of the upcoming FS-X title (see below - given the timing, product will be shipped after the event). For a simple and low $25 registration fee, you could take home a copy of FS-X and more. The AVSIM Convention, to be held on the weekend of September 15th, 16th and 17th, will be located at the Washington Dulles Hyatt Hotel, and will feature a large presence of MS FS team members, exhibiting and presenting papers on FS-X Sunday the 17th - FIVE HOURS WORTH! Your single entry fee of $25 gets you a chance for a free copy of FS-X and entry to the papers presented on Saturday as well as the MS Team's FS-X sessions on Sunday. In order to be eligable for a copy of FS-X, you must register with PayPal via our Registration Page, and be in attendance. Registrations on Saturday or Sunday of the event will NOT be eligable for the free copy! Let us state that again... You must be in attendance and be one of the first 400 registrants via PayPal to receive your free copy of FS-X. Due to the timing of the release of FS-X, you will be sent the product from the AVSIM Fulfillment Center upon release after the AVSIM Convention. The timing will be dependent upon the MS release schedule and will be fulfilled as soon as MS releases the product! But in any case, as one of the first 400 registrants, you will receive a boxed copy of the next generation of FS! So, sign up today, make your Hyatt reservations, and be sure to be there! This will be the Flight Simulation event of the year and you could walk home with the next generation for free! See our forum for news and updates on the event. AVSIM's 2006 Convention is the only FS event that MS is planning to do this for, so be there and get your free copy of FS-X!

Simulating Art Phoenix Scenery Vol 2 Released

Posted: Thursday, May 25, 2006 - 22:15
Simulating Art is proud to present Version 2.0 of their Phoenix Photo Scenery. This release nearly doubles the area of the intial release and adds a huge amount of autogen buildings and vegetation, custom low-poly buildings, roads, and landmarks, and numerous animations including working traffic lights and moving vehicles. Night textures are now included. Come to Simulating Art for detailed information, screenshots, and support forums.

Another Review - Aerosoft's Casablanca

Posted: Thursday, May 25, 2006 - 4:04
Another new staff reviewer submits his first review. David Wilson-Okamura "plays it again" with Aerosoft's Casablanca.

"Outside of Egypt, though, the cities of Africa are not well served by Flight Simulator. Casablanca is a good place to start, because it’s in Morocco, on Africa’s northern coast, which makes it accessible to Europe. The scenery includes a terrain mesh, but the land here is so flat, there’s not much of topographical interest. What the package concentrates on, therefore, is the man-made elements of the urban environment."

"Mohammed V airport (GMMN) is the hub of Morocco’s national airline, Royal Air Maroc. Casablanca has one other airport, Anfa (GMMC), which is in the western part of Casablanca itself. The flight between Anfa and Mohammed V is only 12 nm. The city of Casablanca is reconstructed using several elements. The coastline has been carved out, so it follows a curvier and more realistic line which includes the harbor. Custom buildings have been added everywhere. In addition, there is very dense custom autogen. Finally, all of this is on top of photoreal textures derived from satellite photography."

David concludes his look at Casablanca with, "Although the area covered is small, you get a lot for your money."

FS Earth 2.0 is Available for Download

Posted: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - 22:10
FS Earth acts as an interface between Flight Simulator 2004 and Google Earth, allowing you to follow a flight in real time over the satellite images generated by Google Earth. Version 2.0 adds support for AI Traffic and multiplayer aircrafts, now displayed together with your own aircraft, into Google Earth. Many options are available to fine tune the performance and to change the map's style depending on own preferences. May work on a single computer running FS2004 and Google Earth all together, or, for even best experience, can be used on two networked computers running respectively FS2004 (master) and Google Earth (slave). For additional details, please visit the FS Earth official website.

Do You Want a New Splashscreen?

Posted: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - 13:21
Are you bored with the same splash screen at the start of Flight Sim? If you are look no further and visit splashscreens.co.uk, here you will find many different splash screens all put together or made by Chris Sykes. A randomiser is also available so you can have all of your favorite splash screens at random. If you want a big package then download their first military splash screen pack. No need for a randomiser theres one included!! If none take your fancy then pop over into their forum and make a request!

FScene Celebrates Anniversary

Posted: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - 18:15
For the past 10 years Ruud Faber has been painting replacement ground textures for Microsoft's Flight Simulators. In order to celebrate this, he now invites everybody to join his little party by accepting this present from him: Download the beautiful FScene 2004 – Africa Spring Season File completely free of charge. The free files are updated 2006, including adjusted autogen, and more free spring files will follow. If this has any interest, visit the FScene website where Ruud also publishes an interesting personal Flight Simulator history.

VATSIM Memorial Fly-In, May 28th

Posted: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - 18:06
There are moments when one begins to wonder what can Vatsim and the flight sim community really mean to us and what can we share flying and controlling online. For our friend Pawko, who was fighting Cystic Fibrosis with courage and dignity, it really meant a lot. He unfortunately lost his fight and departed for an eternal flight, but left us something priceless; understanding and his beautiful spirit we can share all over the virtual skies. We invite you to read his original story and fellow worldwide Vatsim members comments at His Webpage.

On the first anniversary of Pawko's departure, VATSIM PL-VACC controllers invite all the users of Vatsim to participate in the Pawel 'Pawko' Grzadkowski Memorial Fly-In to be held in EPWW FIR on 28th of May, 16-22 UTC. And there is again something special about Pawko; with the consent of VATGOV we are going to raise (purely voluntary basis) funds to fight Cystic Fibrosis, as we see it the most appropriate way to remember our late friend. You neither have to offer or donate anything to participate but every flight counts and helps – please read the Fly-In rules and join us to share the true spirit of Vatsim.

Important Traffic 2005 Announcement

Posted: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - 18:02
Just Flight has asked us to bring the following important announcement regarding the Traffic 2005 aircraft liveries:

It’s always difficult to tread the fine line between encouraging our customers to get involved and feel part of the development of a product and ensuring that you have total control over the content. During the development of our Traffic 2005 program we invited users to upload their own liveries for inclusion in the finished software. We insisted they sign a disclaimer to confirm that the liveries they were uploading to our sites were all their own work.

However, it has now been brought to our attention that some of these liveries had elements of textures that had been created by the Ai Aardvark and Project Ai teams. As soon as we had confirmed that this was indeed the case we withdrew Traffic 2005 and Traffic PlusPak 1 from sale. We have explained the circumstances to Ai Aardvark and Project Ai and we are very grateful for their understanding of the situation and their help and assistance in getting it speedily resolved.

We’d like to take this opportunity to publicly apologise to the original creators of these textures for this situation and also apologise to our customers for the inconvenience that it has caused.

We are currently preparing an update for Traffic 2005 and Traffic PlusPak 1 that will replace all of the affected textures with new ones that we have commissioned ourselves. The resulting new liveries will be of a higher detail level than the originals and we estimate this update should be available in around 8-10 weeks time.

Unfortunately, to prevent anything similar from happening in the future, we will no longer be able to accept any liveries from users for inclusion in the Traffic series or any other Just Flight products.

We have reached mutually agreed solutions with both Ai Aardvark and Project Ai. By way of some recompense Just Flight will also be making a substantial donation to charity as an apology to our customers and friends.

We all at Just Flight wish to say a very big thank-you to everyone involved who has been very considerate and understanding under the circumstances. We have always been firmly committed to helping in eradicating every aspect of software piracy, no matter how it’s carried out, and this will continue to be a cornerstone of our commitment to the community.

Ivao Finland Opened

Posted: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - 13:59
A new Finnish division to online flying network IVAO has been officially opened. The goal of Ivao Finland is to promote simulated flying in the Finnish and Nordic region and to enhance the online air traffic control services for simulator pilots.
Ivao is currently the leading and most active online flying network in European region, based on online hour statistics. Our regular online day is every Monday.

Visit the respective homepages for more about IVAO Finland and IVAO.

Building Your Own Cockpit

Posted: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - 12:44
The add-ons for Flight Simulator are increasingly becoming more and more complex as well as closer and closer to the real thing. However, even installing the most sophisticated aircraft, sceneries, and utilities on the marked might still provide an experience that is well short of even resembling being a pilot. In other words: it is not enough that the plane behaves like the real thing, if you are trying to fly it with a simple joystick and the keyboard.

Thus, it is becoming increasingly more popular to venture into the art of cockpit building. By using multiple monitors and buying dedicated hardware to simulate switches, autopilot, throttles, yokes, pedals, etc. it is possible to bring the illusion to a completely different level.

If you would like to take a closer look at the possibilities there are several resources available. First of all you can look at our review index which also contains reviews of hardware. Secondly, some of those who has build or are in the process of building their own cockpit have made a web page describing their experiences (see e.g. AVSIM's page on Home Cockpit links). Finally you can always try to find additional informations on the Internet – the AVSIM Forum is a good place to start.

More Reality XP Gauges Reviewed

Posted: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - 2:04
Sr Staff reviewer Brian "Cap'n" Fletcher takes a look at two of Reality XP’s award winning products that are sure to enhance any Flight Sim enthusiast's home cockpit. The Wx500 Weather Radar and ST3400 TAWS/RMI.

"The Wx500 Weather Radar gives you ample notice of dangerous weather systems that should be avoided. The ST3400 acts as a terrain awareness warning system, radio magnetic indicator, traffic collision avoidance system, and ground proximity warning system all in one."

Brian goes into great detail about the installation, set-up and use of these two pieces of equipment. Such detail, that you must read the complete review to get a true feeling as to what these add-on gauges can accomplish.

He concludes his analysis with, "I am extremely satisfied that both the Wx500 and ST3400 do everything that they claim and more. I find the displays to be crystal clear, the information is relative and accurate, and they can be resized to fit into just about any cockpit. I really enjoy using both of these products, I continue to do so, and I will likely continue using both of them for a long time to come."

Feel There to Introduce The Landing Series

Posted: Monday, May 22, 2006 - 13:41
This new series has the goal to re-create realistic approaches and landings within Microsoft Flight Simulator. By using hundreds of square miles of aerial and satellite images color corrected and blended into the default FS scenery and using custom autogen around the airports we tried to reproduce the feeling that we experience in real life during landing. In the very near vicinity of the major airports we even introduced moving traffic with over 100 variants of automobiles, buses and trucks. These vehicles emit lights at night creating the usual flood headlight and red glowing tail light effect without any serious framerate hit.

The first in the series will introduce the South Eastern Florida region covering KMIA, KFLL, KHST, KOPF, etc. covering 15 airports followed by Las Vegas later this summer. For early screenshots and more information please visit FeelThere.

A New Review of the South Atlantic Area

Posted: Monday, May 22, 2006 - 2:55
Sr reviewer Gene Davis takes us way south of the equator, with a look at the Falkland Islands with Prolific Software's South Atlantic Series 1.

"One of the many things I enjoy doing with MSFS is finding out of the normal places to fly," comment Gene, "this scenery package covers the Falkland Islands and Ascension Island thus giving the Flight Sim user accurate representations of 3 major airports in those particular regions in the South Atlantic."

"Flying over the Falkland Islands is a visual treat, as it has been given a virtual facelift and there are over 50 different airstrips all over these islands to journey to. As you explore the airport and surrounding military base you will see that a lot of care went into the placement of these objects to make them as accurate as possible to that of their real world counterparts. I found Ascension Island to be the most impressive, as it uses custom land textures and gives a very real representation of what the island looks like. The add-on does include custom AFCADS for each airport, so if you don’t have a program like My Traffic 2006 or the military traffic package by the same people, you might find it a little lonely at these out of the way places."

Gene concludes his review by saying, "Though some of the scenery objects are a little dated in this package, it does offer some much needed scenery to this particular region of the world. I really do enjoy flying in out the way places and this was a different type of flying for me as it re-introduced me to military flying."