The festive season has given me a lot time to play with all the junkies that I have collected impulsively over the years. I found that the following goodies have given me the highest satisfaction in the lsat couple of days of flying. As you can see from the combination, I am not the type who cares much about the sequence of buttons and swithes to press in order to start the engines or getting the right temperature in the cabin. I am a VFR person - slow and low - and simply enjoy the space, the sky and the mountains. 1. Megascenery - I have all the 3 volumes and the scenery is realistic and pleasant to the eyes. I also VFR Photographic Scenery Vol 2, Misty Fjords and Switzerland 4 (what a horrible mistake!), but Megascenery is the best of the four. It is relaxing, smooth and highly realistic. It should get better with Megacity in volume 4, I hope.2. ActiveSky 2004 - This is a perfect companion to good scenery - good realsitic weather. In the last couple of days, I have encountered many weather conditions that I havn't encontered before. What good experiences it has added.3. FSNavigator - I will be a headless chook if I dont have a map of the area I am flying. FSVanigator provides the map, terrain, airports and the very handy 'fly to here' feature. All I have to do is control the altitude. But, I still managed to crash into many hills becasue the terrain is an approximation and doesn't indicate the highest peak along the route I am flying. 4. ATR 72 - You can fly with the Cessana, but I find it too slow to go anywhere. The ATR is powerful, smooth and easy to control. I always fly with AP. It's a good way to control altitude.Well, this is a summary of the joy I have over the last couple of days. Have a good year and enjoy the hobby. And if you can - spare a thought for the tsunami victims.Best RegardsMichael TanYSCBP4 [email protected] + 1G memory + ATI 9600XT

>- spare a thought for the tsunami victims.>>Best Regards>Michael Tan>YSCB>P4 [email protected] + 1G memory + ATI 9600XT Or, you can log into many of the websites for various charities, like The Salvation Army to make a donation or help the Tsunami victims.

The best overall VFR experience for me is the England and Wales VFR Scenery, VFR Terrain, some custom Autogen packages and the UK2000 airports. The airports are not quite Georender quality but they look very nice and blend with the photographic textures. So you can take off from realistic airfields, fly over continious photoreal terrain with the most accurate mesh and coastlines of any FS scenery and land at another airfield far, far from your departure airport.Saw a few shots of Switzerland 4 and wasn't that impressed. Switzerland Pro by Flylogic still looks better and features by far the more accurate mesh.Megascenery is OK. I did some really scenic flights east of San Diego in the Cub (still one of my fav. FS aircraft) the other day. Shame it gets a little blurry at low altitudes (more so than most other sceneries)."And if you can - spare a thought for the tsunami victims."And try to donate some money if you can.Our prime minister said that it's actually also the biggest catastrophe for our country (Sweden) since many Swedes spend holidays in Thailand. Still I feel most for those who live down there. Many, especially in the poorest regions had almost nothing to begin with and the waves swallowed what little they had.

I've been enjoying the Aussim Piper Warrior package (the same planes I fly in my real world flight training and true to the performance). I recently purchased FS Genesis' American Data Set and Landclass and it has greatly increased my enjoyment of flight sim. I can now use old flight VFR plans of real world flights I have flown and use the checkpoints I have marked (many of them were road intersections, river crossings, and small towns). Landing into Portland-Hillsboro on the sim with the roads, fields, and city boundries more accurately placed brought back fond memmories of my 250nm X-C where I found my self jogging a mile on foot from the airfield for food at the Albertsons down the road. :-lolSo the flight takes 2.5 hours each way from Spokane, but atleast when the 5 cups of coffee hits over Pasco I don't have to hold it for the next hour into Portland like I did in the real plane. :-lol----------------------------------------------------------------John S. MorganReal World: KGEG, UND Aerospace Spokane Satillite, Private 130+ hrs.Virtual: MSFS 2004"There is a feeling about an airport that no other piece of ground can have. No matter what the name of the country on whose land it lies, an airport is a place you can see and touch that leads to a reality that can only be thought and felt." - The Bridge Across Forever: A Love Story by Richard Bach

>The best overall VFR experience for me is the England and>Wales VFR Scenery, VFR Terrain, some custom Autogen packages>and the UK2000 airports. JimG, could you please specify "some custom Autogen packages". I have the same packages and am planning to install them together later this month. Autogen packages are very much interesting for me, because when I first installed VFR Scenery I didn't like that flattened way way it looked for example in London. Then VFR Terrain came out, and I also bought the new London. I have most of UK2000 airports. With autogen it should make a fantastic combination.>"And if you can - spare a thought for the tsunami victims.">>And try to donate some money if you can.I've donated from my amazon.co.uk cabinet. Works perfect.Thanks,Dirk.