I used to fly about in the virtual skies, visiting new places and practising my approaches. I marvelled at the FS weather. It was great. I only ever flew the PMDG 737 and the Real Air SF260 - well, after those two do you need any more? Only problem - the skies were too empty, so I downloaded UT (Dial-up!)and suddenly I wasn't flying anymore. No, I was sitting on the tarmac in the default C172 ('cos it's the quickest to load) just watching the little AI aeroplanes. And that's all I've been doing lately - plane-spotting in a virtual world. How sad is that? My wife thinks I'm crazy - she can understand the flying bit (well, says she can), but just watching...?? I spent a whole weekend tweaking the aircraft assignments and downloading new paint schemes, just so that an obscure turbo-prop operated by an obscure regional airline actually appeared at my favourite obscure airport, and then took off at the right time...Last night, for a change, I loaded up the 737 and actually flew somewhere. When I landed I just got out and walked away, and tried not to be distracted by all those little aeroplanes...Ultimate Traffic - best add-on ever, I think..Ian

how is it straight out of the box with GA traffic at the smaller airfields (with no user tweaking or adjusting)?I heard it shines with commercial traffic at the large airports but comes up lacking with the former...is this true?These days i do alot of ga vfr type flying (tired of nearly 20 years of pushing autopilot buttons in the big iron) but i have no interest in having to fiddle around with a multitude of settings to obtain alot of ga traffic at smaller local airports.Dave

>I spent a whole weekend tweaking the aircraft>assignments and downloading new paint schemes, just so that an>obscure turbo-prop operated by an obscure regional airline>actually appeared at my favourite obscure airport, and then>took off at the right time...hah! I spent six months hunting and downloading hundreds of fspainter repaints from obscure japanese websites and manually assigning them to flightplans. Now how sad is THAT?- Oyvind

Evolution of Flight Sim at work here .... know the feeling - (above). :-hahRecently supported some various payware, mesh, and picked up MyTraffic in the process. Along with some new panels I've been working on, and tweaking aircraft.cfg's......... seems all I'm doing is adjusting AFCAD's, flight schedules, aircraft models & panels...... and then, rarely, I'll actually climb in and crank up an engine !! LOL ! Long time simmer - but rather beginner / intermediate level on tweaking - just an eyeopener on how complex and involved FS actually is, and how talented the software authors really are !!Great fun, but my log book is getting dusty..... Ron

DaveTo tell you the truth I haven't really noticed the GA traffic, which probably answers your question. You get a few GA types parked up and buzzing about but no packed airfields on summer weekends, that's for sure. Personally I like the smaller regional airports - Southampton looks good with Gary Summons' excellent scenery and UT BAe146s, Dash 8s and CRJs. I added ERJs, Do338s and Jetstreams from the PAI site to complete the mix. Out of the box UT is brilliant - the big airports are spectacular, but if you get it you'll soon start tweaking, if only to replace those aircraft painted in 'default' schemes. It just lures you in. All good fun.Ian

Dave,If its GA traffic you want I would recommend 2 different ones (both freeware).First there is the Project AI one that is basically the default GA only with national registrations.The second is a wopping 12 MB download by Nickolas Peros. Its actually bigger then my current airline flightplan file with all MRAI plans in them lol. About 40.000 flighplans are included :-eekIt too is with national registrations for all the planes so it feels very realistic and there is ALOT. Have yet to find an airport without traffic with this :)You can get it here: http://www.fsfreeware.com/dcd/FS2004/Adven...ns/index-2.html(scroll down a bit and its near the bottom).

I give a thumbs up to Nickolas Peros' traffic package as well. However, he made available a second version, and in it he fixed a few minor issues and reduced the size of the download to around 5.5 MB without an appreciable decrease in traffic (to my casual observation, that is). It fills my skies with GA planes (default models) quite effectively without overdoing it. Good work, Nickolas. Version 2 is available at Flightsim.com as filename gatrfic2.zip.Hope this helps,KevinP.S. Many, if not all, default GA traffic plans are included in his file as well, so you need to take steps to avoid duplicate flights. Here's how I presently have configured my AI in FS2004:1) Rename traffic030528.bgl, taking default GA, default vintage, and default commercial traffic away,2) Install all of Project AI's official commercial and cargo traffic packages,3) Use PAI's installer to restore vintage traffic only (installed to Traffic_PAI.bgl, by the way),4) Install Nickolas' GA traffic package (version 2), though I renamed it Traffic_NP.bgl instead of Traffic030528.bgl as he did in the upload (my preference), and5) Quit spending endless hours tweaking AI like I did in FS2002 and just fly!Sorry, long P.S.

Thanks Ian. I was touched by that. I share your passion.Keep flying,

Yes, welcome to UT anonymous :-) I'll pick an airport, figure out if any airlines have just a default scheme, then go on the hunt for needed models or repaints. Then go spotting. A hobby within a hobby.Todd

The GA traffic pack is decent but it doesn't include aircraft doing touch and go's which is quite unrealistic. I'd love to have a pattern full of C172's, C152's and Cherokee's :) Guess I'll just have to add that manually...

I don't have UT, but I do have most of the freeware from project ai. I like to drag out the old 4 prop heavies from time to time. so, yesteday I took out the connie from a flight out of jfk to ord. It was late in the afternoon, and after filing my flight plan, I was directed by ground control to rwy 31L. I sat behind a line of more contemporary passanger jets with contemporary liveries. We were all delayed from TO by a succession of incoming flights cleared by ATC. Finally, one by one, our line began moving up until I was holding short waiting for my clearance. Rather than growing impatient, I was really enjoying the whole show. At the same time, I kept hoping I could get off before my wife called me for dinner. I have enough difficulty explaining the fascination of simming. How could I explain virtual plane spotting...:-)Shermbtw, I've got the scenario in saved flights and expect to resume it later today when I get home from work...:-)

On behalf of ProjectAI, we appreciate your support! Both PAI and Flight1 put lots of time and effort into it. Well worth it we belive, I am delighted you think so too! :-wavehttp://fsgateway.com/frank/fs9paibeta.jpg

Ian,I am with you dude. I have UT with my AI traffic set at 100%. When I flew my PMDG 737 to London Heathrow from Boston, I sat on the tarmac for about an hour just amazed at what I saw, I even had decent frame rates to boot. Then I flew to Frankfurt in a snow storm and again sat at the end of the runway with ground telling me to hurry up and taxi (LOL), watching all the Lufthansa Airbus and 747 taxing away. Then when I got back to the States and landed at Chicago Ohare, there were more airlines from many countries at the Ohare International Terminal. When I left Chicago for Dallas, I was number 15 for takeoff. If you have ever flown to KORD, you know that is about as real as it gets.I sat with Tom Main at the AVSIM Conference prior to the release of UT and he told me over some good beer how good this program was going to be. Knowing Tom, I laughed and said Yea right, as he bought me another beer. Well Tom you got one terrific program UT is just awesome, hands down. When it is coupled with some exciting stuff we are doing with Radar Contact, you ain't seen nothing yet.As someone else on the forum says in their signature, this hobby just keeps getting better and better.My family has given up on me, I just love this stuffBob

Ian, you use slew or fast speed for that? That's what scares me sometimes, argh, 8 hours over the atlantic, I know dam right that I'll be drunk and/or have 4 women calling for more money.billg