ALASKA RELEASED

[sibtiger 0]

So far I've only found Kodiak having a photoreal ground treatment and details like those Hawaiian airports. ;-( Even Anchorage and Fairbanks have generic polygon layout. It feels like Kodiak was done around Hawaii time, hence the Easter Egg from the video.

[kludger 7]

Cool thanks guys for confirming, sounds like a decent deal at $15 especially now that I have TrackIR support :dance:

[Guest]

It's a lot less repetitive than an endless expanse of ocean waves!

 

LOL VERY TRUE! You got me there...

 

One tip: ZOOM, people, ZOOM!!!

 

It's not like this everywhere (really) but have a look at the middle of the following screenshots. There seem to be no airports there at all.

 

 

Let's zoom in a little. Ah, nice! Seven airports there! That's nice!

 

 

Let's zoom in more. Cool! There are some small airports nearby too! Crowded place that is!

 

 

What...? Zoom in more? I already see the VORs and ILS feathers, so I doubt if there is any use in zooming in more... is there...? O yes, there is. WOW! How cool is that! Amazing.

 

 

So Alaska has a lot of airports hidden everywhere! Cool!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, what did you say? Zoom in more...? Why...?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's why. There are around 100 airports over there...!!!

 

 

So my advice: ZOOM, people, ZOOM!!!

[RoboRay 126]

Zoom zoom? What is this, a Mazda commercial?

 

[Torg Smith 31]

Flying through the inner passage at about 2,000 feet is great.

[Bobsk8 12,853]

Don't forget, this is Alaska, so some of those "airports" are actually water airports for float planes.

[Guest]

Zoom zoom? What is this, a Mazda commercial?

 

LOL

 

One of the great things of Flight. (Sligthly OT but there are Alaska pictures ): trees and shadows. It's an early morning and the low sun is on the right. When you look left you see colorful trees in the sunlight, when you look right you see the same kind of trees but now dark. Just as it should be. This is SUCH an improvement and so important for the 'as real as it gets' experience!!!

 

 

[HiFlyer 9,373]

The problem with so many airports and the whole zooming thing is that when people (newbies especially) in multiplayer type "Hai guys, where are you all at?" and somebody mumbles the appropriate alphabet soup, the other player still has no clue other than a semi-tedious zoom-search.

[sibtiger 0]

I wish the map had higher resolution with more details and labels.

[Guest]

The problem with so many airports and the whole zooming thing is that when people (newbies especially) in multiplayer type "Hai guys, where are you all at?" and somebody mumbles the appropriate alphabet soup, the other player still has no clue other than a semi-tedious zoom-search.

 

Even if he does not mumble but gives you the ICAO code and the name of the place, you still won't be able to find it. It is simply IMPOSSIBLE to find a specific airport because there is no search option. For such a huge region you REALLY need a search option. All you can do now is Google for it and try to find it after that in Flight. Searching the map is absolutely impossible because there are too many airports and you have to zoom in very close to see most of them.

 

I wish the map had higher resolution with more details and labels.

 

Yes, the map is ver 'low res'. I just did a flight to an airport that was on the shore of a lake: the entire lake wasn't visible on the map. This makes finding some places just by looking at landmarks impossible unless you have a real paper map.

[Gibbage 199]

Im really pleased to see a nice scenery pack at a great price! I however wont buy it unless they release a new aircraft with a cockpit. Even if its an extra Carbon Cub cockpit add-on, something. Ill hold off till that happens. If its just more cockpitless aircraft, I wont support this product further.

[HiFlyer 9,373]

Even if he does not mumble but gives you the ICAO code and the name of the place, you still won't be able to find it. It is simply IMPOSSIBLE to find a specific airport because there is no search option. For such a huge region you REALLY need a search option. All you can do now is Google for it and try to find it after that in Flight. Searching the map is absolutely impossible because there are too many airports and you have to zoom in very close to see most of them.

 

 

 

Yes, the map is ver 'low res'. I just did a flight to an airport that was on the shore of a lake: the entire lake wasn't visible on the map. This makes finding some places just by looking at landmarks impossible unless you have a real paper map.

 

Even worse, In multiplayer I cannot see the icons of other players in Alaska. I have almost zero way to find them.

[RoboRay 126]

Map needs more selectable filter controls, for sure. And a Search box.

[HiFlyer 9,373]

One thing I was thinking though, which I now feel even more strongly is that with FSX, companies like Orbx had to basically come in and clean up the whole sandbox: pretty much tossing default FSX terrain into the garbage to put in something better over which to place their own stuff.

 

Should the time ever come when the 3PD's are loosed on Flight, I suspect there will only be a tiny bit of that to do (if any at all)

 

Instead, I could see Orbx, Aerosoft and others falling back to pumping out mass quantities of photo-real towns, cities and airports, with very little worry about the overall terrain.

 

And of course lots and lots of Planes.

 

With MS still holding the leash so the program doesn't get bogged down with all sorts of possibly mutually non-cooperative modules.

 

It would be an interesting future.

[Tsuam 0]

Why do they use a preschool map? I believe FAA sectionals are in the public domain, and even if they don't want to use that (because they can be intimidating) there are many options in between full on sectional and worthless-blobs-of-color. I really enjoy matching maps with the world in real-life, and wince a little every time I load the nearly worthless map in Flight.

 

Oh well. Thanks for all the pictures and information, everyone.