Bear's Cave The world of Flight Simulators short reviews by Steve "Bear" Cartwright Well, it was another banner week over at the AVSIM library with many different uploads for nearly all the sims last week, there were aircraft, scenery, utilities, updates to prior uploads; you name it, it's there, so here is my short list of 5 file gems you should take a look at! The "Top 5 Picks" for last week are here! 18-Mar-2001 South Africa 2000 by Nico Visagie sa2000lite11.zip uploaded 11-Mar-2001 2,961Kb FS2000 Microsoft's FS2000 has 134 default airports in South Africa, but with the addition of Nico Visagie's "South Africa 2000" you can bring that number up to a much closer to reality of 541 airports; many additional hangers, buildings, and static aircraft have been added, as well as many additional NAVAIDS! There were areas of South Africa that had been also quite neglected by MS, for example, neither of the mountain kingdoms of Lesotho nor Swaziland were included with the FS2000 default, but Nico has corrected that oversight. Nothing extraordinary, just simplicity at its finest and with the inclusion of nearly 4 times as many airports as with the default! Perfect! Installation is automatic with a built-in "set-up" program from Nico; quite painless actually, so give this scenery package a try and you might find yourself flying on the Southern end of the dark continent more often now! ...Bear! 19-Mar-2001 Beluga Lake Floatplane Base by Tom Fica beluga_lk.zip uploaded 11-Mar-2001 1,710Kb FS2000 The number of available bush sceneries for North America are many, though this is the first I've seen from Tom Fica and if it is his first, he sure did a bang-up job and even if it's not, it's still very good regardless. First of all this is not a fictional floatplane base, as I have personally flown out of here on several occasions (every summer my family spends a week fishing out of Homer and have done so for several years now). It also happens that one of the very best photographs I have ever taken was of a floatplane, at sunrise, while it was sitting here on Beluga Lake! I plan on being there again this year (usually during the month of July) and this time I'm going to pay closer attention to all the details and compare them to Tom's excellent work. Based on my aging memory though, Tom has hit it pretty close and I know that I caught myself looking for a couple of things I did remember from real-life, in his scenery, and they were there (the hanger location and dock locations are very very close to what I remember). To all you bush flyers out there, this is a must have scenery add-on, of course I'm somewhat bias, but what the heck! Nice job Tom, keep it up! ...Bear! 19-Mar-2001 Ohio Airports by Ted Kessel and Gary Demos oh20v2.zip uploaded 12-Mar-2001 5,187Kb FS2000 Ted Kessel and Gary Demos started with Ohio98, back a couple of years ago and then they simply upgraded their Ohio98 program to fit into FS2000; but there were a number of issues, so after a bit of work and rework, they've finally finished their Ohio2000 version 2! With their now completed Ohio2000 airport scenery add-on they included 21 additional airports over all prior versions and they have greatly improved all of the other airport's individual scenery as well. All in total they have greatly enhanced the default scenery at 68 of the 542 airports of Ohio—no small feat! The scenery improvements include static aircraft, airport area trees, improved building textures, windsocks, hangers, taxiways, gates, and they have even included the scoreboard at the Ohio Stadium! I haven't found any of Ted & Gary's scenery to have any effect on frame rates, but that's probably more due to their having kept things simple. Now don't misunderstand, they may have kept things simple, but the experience of landing at one of the 68 airports to which they've applied their rework has greatly improved its appearance—well worth the download time! Oh yeah, there are no flatten switches needed, plus they give a website address so that you can download additional enhancements for the Ohio area airports—if your computer is capable of handling them, that is! Take a look, as this scenery is a nice add-on to your FS2000 flight simulator! ...Bear! 19-Mar-2001 Morane Rallye Club Socata MS880B by Van Deuren Herman morane1.0.zip uploaded 12-Mar-2001 2,236Kb FS2000 The Socata is a French built 4-passenger light aircraft—there is information that this aircraft is built in Eastern-Europe by the Koliber Aircraft Company as well—that is very efficient as well as exhibiting its ability to land on very short runways or unimproved air fields. With its 100 hp Rolls Royce engine this little aircraft is capable of achieving a top speed of nearly 150kts—not bad for such a little airplane (kind of ironic that the French cars are like that too)! This FS aircraft includes fully animated parts, detailed cockpit with pilot figure, a steerable nose wheel, and even a custom panel that matches (in appearance) the panel in the real aircraft. Mr. Herman has put together a really nice little plane that's easy and fun to fly; and it does fly as well as it looks. If you collect small aircraft on your hard drive for FS2000, then don't pass up this great looking and flying little plane! ...Bear! 19-Mar-2001 Lockheed P-3 Orion by Adrian Brausch p3us1v3.zip; uploaded 17-Mar-2001 1,120Kb FS2000 This is the 2nd update (the first version was earlier this week) here at AVSIM's library and is listed as version 3... I suppose that the first version wasn't uploaded anywhere? To add a little further to the confusion was that Adrian apparently installed the wrong readme file into the zip, as it explains that this aircraft is a P-3K in the livery of the No5 Squadron of the Royal New Zealand Air Force based at the Whenuapai Airbase in Auckland, New Zealand? In actuality, this livery is in the US Navy colors and the model is a P-3B and not a P-3K—but that's where the confusion ends, as this is a really beautiful aircraft and is easily the best P-3 Orion (no matter what livery it's in) that's ever been made available for Flight Simulator, freeware or otherwise! This upload does not include custom sounds or panel at this time, but Adrian is working on the panel situation and intends on including it with further uploads (read new liveries) here shortly. But, with a quick search I was able to find a suitable Lockheed Electra L188 panel by Kevin Trinkle (this panel was included with a recent upload of a Reeves Airways L188, along with some great sounds, here at AVSIM), and this panel with it's L188 sounds package really rounds out this terrific aircraft! I've noted that the screenshot forum has already been the scene of numerous uploaded screenshots of the this extraordinary aircraft, so don't get left behind and download this aircraft for yourself… really nice Adrian, very very nice indeed! ...Bear! Tell A Friend About these Reviews!   Standard Disclaimer These reviews above are a subjective assessment of the work of the authors. There is no connection between the product author and the reviewer, and we feel this review is unbiased and truly reflects the performance of the product in the simming environment. This disclaimer is posted here in order provide you with background information on the reviewer and connections that may exist between him/her and the contributing party. © 2001 - AVSIM Online All Rights Reserved