1st 3rd party commercial addon = Flight Adventure #685 for MS Flight Simulator 4.0 1992

It might not be the first 3rd party addon, but probably one of the 1st 3rd party scenery addon, and quite an exstensive one (a whole country with all its 130 airports...), I made it in 1993, and it marked the start of my company:Scenery Italy for Flight Simulator 4.0Back then, when polygons in 16 colors were the state of the art (no texturing in FS4...), a single person could do a whole country all alone. For the record, is still one of the best selling products I've ever done, it easily outsold our modern FSDT sceneries, but there was not much choice then...

Don't worry about it Zach, it's all in fun. Boy, that's a great find Ben! I didn't think there would be anything for FS3. I'm not sure what's more interesting - the fact that there was an addon for FS3 or the fact that Flightsim.com still had that in their library! 21 years ago Bob Dennin uploaded that. :( 40 downloads, ha! That was probably the entire simming community back then, :( Not sure just what "modes" mean in the file but I am downloading to take a look. I happen to have FS3 so I might have to try 'er out.So if we look at it now:1st MS flightsim addon = Microsoft Flight Simulator Aircraft & Scenery Designer in 1990 for FS41st 3rd party commercial addon = Flight Adventure #685 for MS Flight Simulator 4.0 19921st freeware addon = FS3 Modes by Bob Dennin on 09-26-1989 Who will be knocked off the thrown?(OMG, Tom's been around that long... he's definitely a "life'r")

Yep. Tom Allensworth is among the pioners of flight simming on a PC. Personnally, I'm gratefull for what he did, because I started downloading freeware addons in 1997 from the Indiana University of Penn. site, but I don't remember what was the oldest freeware addon at that site. Myself, I was never very techno savvy (and never was learned in aviation) so without peer support, I would probably be writing on a basket weaving forum right now... I only started posting messages 25 years after I started to play this game, mainly because of David Roch who created Avsim's french forum a few years ago. We're fortunate for his dedication also. ben

Not sure just what "modes" mean in the file but I am downloading to take a look.

"Modes" were the equivalent in FS3/FS4 of the current "Flight" (.FLT) files. They were later named "Situation" files (.STN) in FS95/98. It might be a little bit of a stretch, to define a Mode file as an addon, since they were basically a saved situation at a specific date/time, on a specific location, with a certain weather, etc. FS3 wasn't exploited much with addons. The only addons available were basically the SubLogic scenery disks, which were released much earlier for FS1 and FS2 and not only on the PC, but on the Amiga, Atari ST and the C64. Those could be used in FS3/4, because it was backward compatible with them.It all changed with FS4, specifically after the Aircraft & Scenery Designer was released: this really started the whole 3rd party addons scene which, back then, was particularly active on Compuserve and several BBS.

Umberto, that is truly stunning - such an extensive package for back then (did you even have to worry about support forums back then?, :() What took a simmer one night or two to create a nice little addon now can take a year or two. I especially like the included aircraft. Did you know that when FS2004 came out in the limited edition "tin box" a metal DC-3 model was attached to the box. I saw it and it was about $10 more so I passed up on it, silly me. I luv what FSDT is doing these days. I worked together with Frabrizio for several years when we produced 9Dragons.So I think Scott has found the earliest addon for MSFS in the MS/Sublogic catagoryhere's a shot of the disk:http://www.volny.cz/havlikjosef/covers/sce...set_B_front.jpgIt was a collection of disks (10?) to expand areas (of the USA?) with each added disk. They even had a binder you could purchase for disk collection:http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo12/Al...erydisks1-6.jpgSo now we have:1st MS flightsim addon = subLOGIC Scenery Disks for IBM PC's Flight Simulator 2.0 (haven't found a release date for it, though)1st 3rd party commercial addon = Flight Adventure #685 for MS Flight Simulator 4.0 19921st freeware addon = FS3 Modes by Bob Dennin on 09-26-1989Who will be knocked off the thrown?

Wow.. what's the copyright date on that, Scott?

1985.scott s..

1st 3rd party commercial addon = Flight Adventure #685 for MS Flight Simulator 4.0 1992

Maybe Mallard shouldn't considered "3rd party", because it was basically a publisher for the Bruce Artwick Organization (BAO) so, it's more like "2nd party", since they were the flight sim developers at that time, Microsoft bought BAO only in 1996.In any case, if we count Mallard as well, the first commercial addon might be their SGA (Sound, Graphics & Adventure Update) package, that added 800x600 resolution (and 1024x768 on certain ATI chips) to FS4 and the first 747 and the first Concorde for Flightsim, and this was released in 1991. Having installed SGA was a requiremement for the Flight Adventure #685, because that one allowed scripted "adventures" with spoken ATC support.For a true "3rd party", the first one is probably the SEE (Scenery Enhancement Editor), by Laemming Wheeler (Kikiware), released in 1991 as well.

It might not be the first 3rd party addon, but probably one of the 1st 3rd party scenery addon, and quite an exstensive one (a whole country with all its 130 airports...), I made it in 1993, and it marked the start of my company:Back then, when polygons in 16 colors were the state of the art (no texturing in FS4...), a single person could do a whole country all alone. For the record, is still one of the best selling products I've ever done, it easily outsold our modern FSDT sceneries, but there was not much choice then...

Wow Umberto, I had no idea that you have been in this business for that long.

A fascinating thread.I'd like to see whether my long distorting memories have it right that the first 3rd party addon aircraft for FS was a low wing tandem seater called the "Hungwell Gypsy" by Laemming Wheeler.I believe it was released in 1989/90? for FS4.Later that year I remember someone released a set of amphibious floats for the Gypsy and I thought things couldn't get any better.I also remember, with some amusement, that not long after that I bought a 386 PC "so I would never again have any trouble with frame rates in Flight Simulator"Rick GrantCalgary

Rick, that's great input to the this thread. I did some googling on that name. Apparently this was a topic of discussion back on a thread here at AVSIM in 2004. Here is an interesting statement (note in BOLD) by a simmer and I quote::Bruce Nicholson KMFRAug 21 2004, 04:16 PMGeeze... I'm really going to date myself by saying this, but my first add-on was the first add-on ever for Flight Sim.It was a patch that could be added to FS3 that caused one of the spans on the Oakland Bay bridge to tilt so one end was in the SF Bay. It was triggered by setting the sim to a certain date and time. It was suppose to represent an earthquake. As trivial as the concept seems today, it was mindblowing in its day (1984 I believe). It demonstrated that someone other than BAO (creator of FS Flight Sim) had cracked the BGL files and could not only alter the scenery, but trigger it based on another setting in the simulator.The author was Laemming Wheeler, a true genius and connoisseur of hawaiian shirts...LOL Within a year, Laemming released the first aircraft add-on for FS3, the Hungwell Gypsy Moth. To this day no one is certain if Hungwell was part of the actual name or part of Laemming's famous wit.This was way before the internet, and the only way to find out about this add-on was via compuserve or one of the FS dial-up bulletin board services.In retrospect, that Gypsy Moth aircraft was not only the first add-on aircraft, it was the only add-on for that full year. Today, we see a dozen or more add-ons each day.Bruce"And here is some supporting evidence taken from the Official Microsoft French Website:"Bruce Artwick gave birth to this community by adding to the 2.0 version of Microsoft Flight Simulator airport Meigs Field, which is based on a real airport in the Chicago area, from which users could take off and fly without limits . Laemming Richard Wheeler, then an independent consultant and avid user of Microsoft Flight Simulator, created a tool for the development of add-ons compatible with Microsoft Flight Simulator: software for making decorations called SEE (Scenery Enhancement Editor).First of its kind, SEE was important because it has allowed Richard Wheeler of Quake then create a compatible product innovation that has strikingly demonstrated the interest of add-ons. Indeed, with Quake, users flying over San Francisco during an earthquake ultra realistic, in which the Golden Gate Bridge collapsed into the bay. "This is a fun bit of sleuthing,Clutch

All I remembered was FSX's first ever add-on, and I believe it was a Just Flight product, probably Traffic X.