I'm looking at several military jets, and in the process of scanning Youtube for videos of F-111 sims, I just happened to notice that this particular model ("F-111 for FSX") was released only a few weeks ago.

 

Has anyone here had any experience with it?

 

It seems we now have (at least) three F-111 payware add-on choices for FSX.

The exhaust flame effects with this one on Youtube are impressive, and the interior and exterior visual detail seem to be of pretty high quality from the pics and Youtube videos.

But I see very, very few reviews, and I don't want to be find out the hard way whether there are a lot of unresolved issues.

The GKS F-111 is probably the best external model and with the best textures/textures effects available...although only 2048x2048 in size. The effects files are causing a huge fps drop on my system and I have read about others with the same problem. I have removed the afterburner effects files from the effects folder until they hopefully fixes it. When removing the effects for the afterburner you will still get a modeled afterburner on the aircraft so its not a huge lose. You can also remove the vapor effects as they cause a fps drop as well.

 

The aircraft always load fully fueled so its pretty heavy and it struggles to gain airspeed, so empty some of the tanks first and she flies great. They have released a patch already to fix a few errors, but there are still a few areas that needs attention. But there are no show stoppers for me, only the fps hit the effects files create, but those are manageable as described in the above paragraph. I bought the collectors edition by the way.

Check out the Virtavia website for their F-111 .

It's flight model is spot on and the take off acceleration is on the mark, the cockpit VC is the best of the lot ,

and there are about 5 different cockpit layouts , also the EF-111 is included.

Their website contains 2 videos , 1 external , the other a great video of the various cockpits , it also has reviews.

In my opinion you cannot better the flight characteristics of the Virtavia F-111 , I prefer the good flight model over the

eye candy of the flex wing.

 

Cheers

Karol

The GKS F-111 is probably the best external model and with the best textures/textures effects available...although only 2048x2048 in size. The effects files are causing a huge fps drop on my system and I have read about others with the same problem. I have removed the afterburner effects files from the effects folder until they hopefully fixes it. When removing the effects for the afterburner you will still get a modeled afterburner on the aircraft so its not a huge lose. You can also remove the vapor effects as they cause a fps drop as well.

 

The aircraft always load fully fueled so its pretty heavy and it struggles to gain airspeed, so empty some of the tanks first and she flies great. They have released a patch already to fix a few errors, but there are still a few areas that needs attention. But there are no show stoppers for me, only the fps hit the effects files create, but those are manageable as described in the above paragraph. I bought the collectors edition by the way.

 

Agreed. I too own the GKS offering and enjoy it very much. I also have the aircraft from Virtavia and it too is quite good. Overall though, I prefer the GKS offering.

Check out the Virtavia website for their F-111 .

It's flight model is spot on and the take off acceleration is on the mark, the cockpit VC is the best of the lot ,

and there are about 5 different cockpit layouts , also the EF-111 is included.

Their website contains 2 videos , 1 external , the other a great video of the various cockpits , it also has reviews.

In my opinion you cannot better the flight characteristics of the Virtavia F-111 , I prefer the good flight model over the

eye candy of the flex wing.

 

Cheers

Karol

 

I agree. Are you sure about the acceleration though? The other day, I took off and in about 20 seconds the thing had passed 400 knots.

Check out the Virtavia website for their F-111 .

It's flight model is spot on and the take off acceleration is on the mark, the cockpit VC is the best of the lot ,

and there are about 5 different cockpit layouts , also the EF-111 is included.

Their website contains 2 videos , 1 external , the other a great video of the various cockpits , it also has reviews.

In my opinion you cannot better the flight characteristics of the Virtavia F-111 , I prefer the good flight model over the

eye candy of the flex wing.

 

Cheers

Karol

 

Karol, have you tried the GKS model yet?

Tatave

 

Yes the acceleration is correct , on take off nose pitch to 10 degrees , accelerate to 350 knots , and pull

the power back.

The F-111 is a powerful brute , and a real speed demon , the only aircraft that is faster in a practical sense is

the SR-71 Blackbird , most are unaware of it's speed capabilities , it's faster than the F-15 !

One problem that stems from it's acceleration is that during the " Dump and Burn " display at airshows

the pilot has to be very careful to avoid going supersonic , it's very easy to do , they usually make it

draggy by extending gear and forward wing sweep , or turning hard and pulling G's or by going uphill.

However precise speed control is easy using both the throttle and wing sweep position , also that speed brake

is rated to 2.2M , personally I would not be comfortable pulling the speed brake at 2.2M .

I use the Scott Printz HUD in my F-111, it has a acceleration caret which enables the speed to be set

to within 1-2 knots of of any number desired.

Additionally it's nose pointing precision is the best of any aircraft that I have tried in FSX , I regularly

get down to 20-50' agl and conduct slaloms between the trees , often turning at bank angles of 70 degrees

or more , you cannot ask for more than that from a flight model.

 

Cheers

Karol

Thanks a lot. Yeah, I always wondered why it did the dump and burn with full thrust+ afterburners and it never really went too fast. So that answers a lot of questions.

 

Thanks again.

Sorry to hi-jack this thread, but are there any differences between the Standard and Collector's Edition? I mean except for what it says in the product description, i.e.:

Collector’s Edition Features

• Additional collectible liveries and paint schemes
  
• The expanded functionality of weapon control system (in the Standard Edition weapons can be installed by presets only)
  
• Paint kit – (PSD files) allow you to create your own variations of paint schemes.
  
• Wallpapers – set of 10 HD images that will decorate your desktop.
  
• Four High Resolution Poster
  

And what does "expanded functionality of weapon control system" mean?

Regards,

Flo

Sorry to hi-jack this thread, but are there any differences between the Standard and Collector's Edition? I mean except for what it says in the product description, i.e.:

 

And what does "expanded functionality of weapon control system" mean?

Regards,

Flo

Good questions. I've been wondering the same.

 

Given the price difference, I would be inclined to just try the standard since I'm not really interested in lots of liveries and paint schemes. (Although I might be interested in the different weapon control functions difference, depending on what that is exactly. If it just means that you have to load weapons before running the sim in the standard vs being able to choose a different set of weapons while the sim is running, that's not worth the price difference.)

I suppose we could post a question to their forum if nobody here knows.

Found the GKS on sale, LOVE IT!  I noticed in prepar3dv2 the afterburner flame can get a bit off center, probably just my machine lagging.  The wing flex textures seem to reload alot, but all together its amazing! I really like the textures and it has sonic booms!