I wonder how difficult it would be to have a real tower view, that is, not focussed on a particular (your) plane, but with the ability to look around over the airport, zoom in and out, listen to radio traffic and see weatherradar, tcas and other relevant instruments. I am not aiming at fullfledged controlling but just want to enjoy all the traffic on a big airport (I use UT). I know there is an addon for fs2002 (Mobile Tower), but it was not really up to fs2004 standard.

>I would prefer to see a flight simulator based on the Flight>Unlimited series. I haven't enjoyed MS Flight Simulator since>FS4.>Yes, flying just two cities would be great!

Joking aside, I was referring to an open architecture version of the FU series, which would allow the addition of scenery packs. But then, you already knew that ;-)Chris Low.

I'm sorry but asking Microsoft to design Flight Simulator like Flight Unlimited is just wrong... FS2k4 is light years past that now and we already have scenery we can add to FS... I remember the day when designers had to model the whole city of areas they wanted to drop an airport at. Now all scenery designers have to do is concentrate on the airport in question. Sorry but I don't understand your reasoning here... :-zhelp

Nathan, concerning ATIS and "have it where the user has a chance to obtain ATIS before ATC starts instructing you on your landing clearances" is already feasible in FS2k4...What has gotten people lazy (not saying you are) in FS2k4 is they don't have to manually choose radio frequencies. All one has to do is hit 1,2,or 3. That's wrong to begin with. Nathan if you want to obtain ATIS info on the particular airfield before you land, tune in the frequency by hand. It's that simple... Check your map that you should have for the route your flying (or during preflight you should have wrote down all the info on the destination airfield), look up the ATIS frequency, tune it in and there you go... All that matters is that your within range of the ATIS your trying to reach. You can do this all through the flight if you've done your planning correctly. If your moving from a cold front to a warm front, you'll need to know what the altimeter setting is on the other side of the front. Your flight plane should have all that info...I miss the days of FS98 before GPS when one had to file a flight plane and make note of all the VOR/NDB radio frequencies for the route. As you would fly past them you had to manually adjust the frequency for the next waypoint. Microsoft has made Flight Simulate too easy at this point not requiring people to plane a route properly. You have to have your proper backup information or you run into problems like what Nathan is experiencing (getting to a destination airport and not knowing what the ATIS frequency is)...Nathan it's better and much more realistic to manually enter in your radio and NAV frequencies, welcome to pilot work load... In the real world we don't have "press 1, 2, or 3.", we have to already know many things before we leave the ground... :-wave I agree with everything else your saying (well, except for the "runway to terminal" bit :-roll. Runway usage is based on wind conditions and airport traffic flow, KLGA for example doesn't have much room to work with at peak hours) but remember you can tune in ATIS at most airports from quit a ways out. Once you have your info you can make changes as to how you want to tackle your approach.

The thing is, who really cares about the default aircraft anyway? They are never as good as the better 3rd party versions so most of us just end up replacing them anyway. The only reason they are in there is to help with box art and give the people who will never download an aircraft something to fly. I for one would be happy if they spent less time on stock aircraft and more time on improving aspects of the sim that 3rd party developers can't do anything about.TonyDigital-Flight.com

Nathan looks like I mis-read your post... Seems you know what the ATIS frequency is, your just recieving the info too late into your approach. Like I said above you can manually tune in the frequency from quite a ways out.Sorry for the misunderstanding... I was trying to adjust my post above when time ran out...

Here's a few more that I don't think anyone else has listed:Smoother aircraft movement in multiplayer (goes for AI too)Higher update rates on gaugesOptimize the program for smoother overall performance.Lastly, some sort of "quick build" interface for 3D aircraft models and FM (look at X Plane's Plane Maker application for example). TonyDigital-Flight.com

What I miss in all MSFS versions is a small placard on the instrument panel of each aircraft-type of the FS-fleet, stating the callsign of the aircraft concerned. In real aviation this is quite common and virtual pilots flying on- line would welcome it, I guess. Of course, if you type in your preferred callsign via Menu Settings somewhere, the text on the placard must change accordingly.Paddy.

Whao, there is an improvement!I knew about the first tweak but thanx for the new terrain.cfg file. Now what about those runway lights ...?;-)

DillonI've just tried a manual tuning on Com2 for the ATIS of Cape Town as I was approaching from George (FAGG) and nothing until I was about 40nm inbound. I thought that maybe it's the setting that is wrong. I then took a 2 sec flight from FACT to Munich and started a flight to LOWI and hold and behold ... nothing, all the way down to the runway. Only when I set the ATIS to Com1, could I hear the ATIS.It's so weird and funny, how real it could get!Nowadays you could get an update of the weather via ACARS or from your CENTRE Radio Fx. Long before ATIS starts to rumble crackle and whisper with a hizzz, you just ask the FIR Centre what the update is for your destination and if it is RadioControlled they could tell you in a few seconds.ATIS (if I remember correctly from my CPL days) is mainly used for APRON before your clearance call. After that I could count on my one hand how many times I used ATIS in AFRICA to rely on updated Weather Info. I just called the nearest Radio Controller and that was it.But thanks for the reminder of our remote-control-lazy-attitudes!T

Too bad all those other weather options don't work in Flight Simulator... Your only option for updated weather info in the sim is ATIS... Why don't you try exactly what you did above but tune in ATIS on COMM1 and the ILS frequency on COMM2. I'm not at my computer at home to try this but I know you should be able to get ATIS for a particular airport from a little ways out (exact miles I'm not sure). No one ever said you have to use COMM1 for your ILS frequency all the time, COMM2 works perfectly fine. If there is a problem with what you mentioned above where COMM2 won't get ATIS then there's another problem we hope Microsoft will address in FS2k4... Thanks for the observation...As far as the 'lazy' comment, I stand by what I said...

No problem on the mis reading but yyour still missing what I am doing and saying. First off Ipaid 300 buck for the ACP Compact so I do dial in the freqs and not use the hot keys. Second tis is on IFR flights that it happens. Just load up an IFR flight and see wht I am talking about. It has nothing to do with pilot workload at all its just a matter of in real world flying the pilot gets info and then informs ATC when able or on the next check in of having ATIS. But with FS they start their vectoring to finalas soon as your in range of receiving ATIS which is 40 nm out. This gives you no time to pick an approach and it gets worst if your skimming in and out of controller spaces where ou get handed back to the previous controller becuase you dont get a chance to request anything. Lastly about runway to terminal I mean in this case of lets saying landing in Orlando KMCO or KLAX, KATL where you have parrallels but to stick with KMCO where all runways are north/south headings and your coming in from the west heading east and your gate or terminal is on the east side of the field. Since the runways on the closet part of field to your approach is the west ones then your probably going to get vectored into one of those and have to taxi across the field. FS does allow you to request the east side actives but you have to open up the request, find the runway and approach to request, select to to request from controller, get the request approaved and I think confirm it which is a lot of things to do when your also being handed off or insturcted to change alt or heading and still havent had a chance to hear ATIS to see if you can get a different or better kind of approach. So if MS would allow to select the terminal which you kind of can in a way with the codes of airlines and types with AFCAD then ATC might give you a more prefered runway for landing closer to your terminal. However, if you could just select a terminal or are like Cargo or GA in the flight planning when you are selecting the field of destination then this would avoid a lot work load and dependance of addon applications. Just like in the real world where ATC knows which side of the field many carriers operate from and automatically will try to assign an active to help the flow of ground traffic. Hopefully this clears up wht I was saying prior.

Maybe your getting Comm and Nav mixed up. You would want to keep your Coom 1 radio tuned into the controller your with and Comm2 for other things like company freq or to obtain ATIS. The Nav 1 and or Nav 2 for your ILS. Although in real life you can transmit and recieve or VOR freqs I beleive its not modelled in FS. The reason why one might not her anything on the comm 2 radio might be wrong freq or more or less that the user did not select both radios to montior and making the Comm 1 as the one to transmtt on.

Your totally correct Nathan... I completely forgot to tell Terblanche about the differences between COMM and NAV radios...