I've been enjoying flight simulation since the early 90's. Made a lot of friends over the years in both the FS and combat sim fraternities of our mutual passion.About a month ago, I stumbled across an old, old friend I had not had contact with in some years. Jon Blum. Jon used to be a lead programmer and developer with Graphic Simulations in Dallas. He moved on, I moved on...then one day Jon found me on another board. Anyway, he has a little project that he invited me to be a beta tester of. 3 years in development. Check this out.http://www.vrsimulations.com/product_FA18E.htmThis thing is the MAC DADDY of military aircraft in MSFS. Im not sure what the timing on this thing will be on release, but just check out the screen shots. The VC is a work of art. And yes you can shoot missiles, the radar works in all real modes, and you can drop ordnance within the limits of the FS engine.Eric

WOW that looks mental :) !!!! Cant wait for this to come out! I do hope your friend and his team enable wing-views in their Hornet...I mean you just *gotta* be able to look out at all the bad news hanging off them wings http://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/grinser/...-smiley-001.gif

omg I am in love. :(~~~PLEASE, someone, do the KNBC squadrons for me for it PLEASE? :)Former KNBC controller brat myself, and the last good Hornet I had was a VMFA-312 paint....Checkerboards forever! :)

Spend some time cruising the screenshots of the VC...you wont worry about views.Eric

Is that the F18 to be released by Alphasim?Rob "Holland&Holland" de Vries http://fool.exler.ru/sm/fly2.gif"To go up, pull the stick back. To go down, pull the stick back harder"

Alphasim may be one venue that releases it. Im not really in a position to know all the marketing details, but I think it will be released thru several e-tailers. It will not be an "alphasim" product, but Alphasim may be one distribution channel.Eric

Stick an RCAF paintjob on that puppy and I might just leave my F-104 in the hangar for a week.Gorgeous!

I have been following this since last summer (Northern Hemisphere) over at Alphasim. It looks great, glad they decided to release a FS9 version since I plan to be with FS9 for a long time.

>I've been enjoying flight simulation since the early 90's. >Made a lot of friends over the years in both the FS and combat>sim fraternities of our mutual passion.Your nick sounds familiar to me. Didn't you edit F-16 pits for Falcon4 a long time ago?>About a month ago, I stumbled across an old, old friend I had>not had contact with in some years. Jon Blum. Jon used to be a>lead programmer and developer with Graphic Simulations in>Dallas. He moved on, I moved on...then one day Jon found me>on another board. Anyway, he has a little project that he>invited me to be a beta tester of. 3 years in development. >http://www.vrsimulations.com/product_FA18E.htmThat's amazing. The model and VC look absolutely spectacular.I remember Graphsim quite well. Their F/A-18C sim was pretty good back these days. Still on my shelf, same for the successor (I think it was Hornet Korea) with the updated 3d engine (3dfx only... well, those were the days.. :) ).One more reason to keep FS9 for a long time...

I was involved in quite a few projects with Falcon etc. back in the day :)This particular project is insane. Same level of detail in terms of switchology and procedural requirements as any LDS 767 or PMDG 747 type aircraft. I'll post some screenies in the screen shot forum on just the hud modes and the MFD modes. Eric

WOW !

That does look awesome and all but you are a little tease Eric. I thought this was a non related FS, combat flight simulator at first glance that was going to put my LOMAC to bed. DOH!

Nope it flies in FS9 and FSX (eventually).Check the screenshot forum for some pics of the MFD's and the HUD images. You can fly and navigate this thing just like any complicated airliner for those who love switch work and procedures.

>I was involved in quite a few projects with Falcon etc. back>in the day :)>>This particular project is insane. Same level of detail in>terms of switchology and procedural requirements as any LDS>767 or PMDG 747 type aircraft. I'll post some screenies in>the screen shot forum on just the hud modes and the MFD modes.And finally, it looks like a vector graphics hud. Most HUDs I've seen for MSFS are made with bitmap gauges - which makes them look pixelated and rather ugly...This one looks clear and crisp - and the entire pit looks familiar to me as I was a big fan of Jane's F/A-18E sim (which, in fact, I still fly every now and then on my old PC where it still runs fine).

Im not sure if its vector graphics or just that those shots were made at very high resolutions like 1600x1200. But I can say that its pretty smooth. Best HUD I have ever seen in FS.