I hope no one minds that I am starting a new thread re: the RealAir Spitfire, but this one is specific to the VC which is a major sub-topic re: the Spit because it HAS no 2D cockpit.First, let me say that I HATE VC cockpits. Plenty of simmers agree with me and plenty don't. My issues are basically guage quality and guage size since, when backed off far enough to see the guages I want to see at one time, they become too small.But listen up all you VC haters. The Spitfire VC is FANTASTIC. They are as smooooth and as sharply rendered as any 2D cockpit and maybe sharper!Plus, there is a "mini panel" pop up and a couple of other pop-ups when you need them. And guess what, you can set your VC guage quality in FS9 to LOW because the way RealAir has created their guages has nothing to do with the the way the standard FS9 VC panel guages are rendered. Zero.To say that this ship has no impact on frame rates would be wrong. It DOES have an impact. It makes them BETTER. Try 75 degree steep turns at 300 kts in any other craft and watch the stutters come to life. But NOT in the Spit. Smoooooth scenery as it whizzes past the windscreen.I am a RW pilot with 50+ spins in my log book...all intentional by the way...and the spin in the Spit is SPOT ON. Stalls too.This machine is quite simply a new level of sophistication in simulator add-on aircraft.The only thing missing as ACTUAL wind when sliding the canopy open. I think I've got that problem solved though. I'm going to plug a room fan into an extention cord with a foot switch on it, twirl a white scarf around the collar of my vintage flight jacket and go scare the hell out of as many AI aircraft as I can find!!!YEAH RealAir!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!PS. I have nothing to do with RA.P4,1.7, 512 GF5600

I'm really curious how they accomplished this, it's really amazing to see.I wonder if somehow the actual gauges are in fact invisible and instead driving the movement of actual polygons built into the VC model for the instruments rather than it being essentially the animated display of a gauge texture as in conventional VCs. It would make sense - look at how smoothly things like the throttle and mixture controls move in a normal VC - if everything (needles etc) was made as a 3D object, with gauge code driving the movements it should be the same smoothness right? Wonder if this could be what's going on...

There are some comments in the documentation about that but I don't think they will be interested in getting into too much detail.If they could patent their technology, they could corner the market on add-on aircraft. It's THAT good.(:

>There are some comments in the documentation about that but I>don't think they will be interested in getting into too much>detail.Thats right, trade secret I'm afraid!CheersTimhttp://members.chello.nl/t.westnutt/realair.gif