Another member (Anvil) of the VFS in action
Note: click on any image for full-size view
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With rain pouring down and the wind howling, Dutch flightsim fans, young and old, gathered at the aviation museum Aviodome again for yet another exciting simulation focused event! This time the theme for the two days was 'Old Aircraft', the idea being to show pre-1960 aircraft in the simulations. Not all participants were able to show the old propliners, though. The major novelty at this weekend's show being a very interesting and well-orchestrated demonstration by VFS Campground, a group of people flying Falcon 4.0 in a LAN. Obviously, flying the F-16 in modern combat missions has nothing to do with old airliners, but nobody was complaining. Jan 'Ice' Hilt acted as the show director, being responsible for switching the views for the spectators on two big screens, while Bob 'Borock' Iken acted as the speaker, explaining what happened for everybody to see. Bob used to do this with the DFSO, but has left the civilian aviation world and joined this combat simulation team. Bob, with the help of some of the team members, is also writing 'lessons' for people that are interested in learning to use the Falcon simulator.
One of the homebuilt F-16 cockpits of the VFS
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The VFS debriefing after the first-ever public display
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Another new booth at this fall's show was the one of FSMagazine. This is a newly to be launched, printed in Dutch magazine, totally dedicated to the flight simulation hobby, founded and energetically run by Matthew Niederberger. The stand showed some interesting hardware, kindly provided by some sponsors that obviously believe in supporting this fledgling publication. Matthew has gathered a team of very well known Dutch FS enthusiasts and specialist to help fill the first issue with a wealth of interesting articles. FSMagazine is scheduled to appear in February 2003.
And there was more. A big group of HCC simmers (Hobby Computer Club) flying in a network, again with a good presentation and a speaker explaining what the audience was actually looking at. They looked very professional, all dressed in red shirts with 'flightcrew' written on the back. And they seemed to have a lot of fun doing the presentation—and that's what it should be all about!
The NL2000 team was present as usual, and Arno Gerretsen showed me some of the new things they are working on. One of the new designs is Schiphol Airport made with Gmax, and it looked really nice already. They also were showing some new textures, but these were still in beta. With the theme in mind, Arno and the other team members were piloting old Stearmans and other such aircraft over the Dutch landscape. No release date is scheduled yet for NL2000 V3.
A Belgian 'company' was showing their homebuilt yoke and 737 throttle assembly. They also told me they are giving 'lessons' in their cockpit (not shown at the show) to interested simmers.
The TCA (Tradewind Caribbean Airlines) was present again, some showing the Islands of the West Indies by Flight One/Chris Wilkes. And Rainer Labie, the president of this relaxed and friendly Virtual Airline, made the trip over again from Germany for the occasion.
Ton vd Laar's Fokker... and the AVSIM logo in the corner (ahem)
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Another interesting and much anticipated demonstration was that of the new Fokker 100/70 by Ton van der Laar, an AVSIM Partner since a few months. Ton has a new website coming on, a new (Gmax) version of the Fokker, and is also working on completing a very comprehensive manual to accompany the aircraft. Watch this space (and his website) for information about availability of the aircraft in a few …. Months?
The Team from TRC (The Real Cockpit) was present again, now for the third time, showing their ever growing Real Cockpit. They are building a modular system consisting of specially made gauges and dials, powered by little servos and connected to FS2002 by one single USB cable. Their offering is basically aimed at flight schools and other (semi-)professional users, but very much based on 'our' simple PC based simulator.
There were many more exhibitors, like IVAO, with a good presence, Fly United, a VA from Brabant with a bigger exhibition this time (I hope the aircraft models remained on the tables !! ;-) ), the Luchtvaart Hobbyshop, one of the major suppliers for simming products, and others.
Ron Norp, the organizing mind behind this weekend's show.
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Last but not least, Ron Norp had his home made GA panel up and running again. He told me he actually just liked building it from en engineering point of view, and doesn't do a lot of simulated flying. He prefers flying the real aircraft and organizing the FS Weekends, which he does very well now, this being his second time!
The above is only the story of one day, and oh boy, are my feet hurting! I am out of shape :-| On average the people I talked to today were all still glad they could attend, and happy with the setup and support of the Aviodome. Obviously, there are always improvements possible and already a team of people is looking into the topic of how to improve (and perhaps change) the concept of the FS Weekends. Looking at the fair number of visitors and their comments, this is still one of the major events on flight simming in Europe and I think the Dutch simming community can be very proud to have such an event in their little country.
It is now almost 2 a.m. and I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Have fun and see you next time perhaps?
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