I ordered my copy of VFR Photographic Scenery USA over the internet and got it 2 weeks ago.I was not expecting it to be very good. Turns out it is excellent.I have to say that this is the highest quality scenery I have yet seen in a flight simulator. I used to be a fan of the Flight Unlimited series, who were well known for their high quality of terrain scenery. (I have FU1, FU2 and FU3). But this scenery is even better than the FU2 San Francisco scenery.The area covered is San Francisco & Sacramento and surrounding areas. It uses real colour aerial photography layed over a 30m terrain mesh. There is a vast area to fly over covering 18,000 square miles.The result is fantastic photo realistic scenery. One can see clumps of trees all over, with shadows, houses roofs, roads and highways, rivers, dams, schools, golf courses, shopping malls. Every hill and mountain is where it should be. It looks exactly as it would if one were flying there in real life.And one can fly as low as around 1200 ft and still see good scenery (although above 2000 ft is better. I usually fly between 2000 and 3000ft)The software comes on one DVD and is easy to install.I would highly recommend this to anyone who appreciates scenery as real as it gets.Here is the linkhttp://www.horizonsimulation.com/US/html/v...cenery_usa.html(The product in this case IS as good as the hype.)Happy Flying :-) RegardsDavid W.

Been thinking about buying this. However I already have Megascenery Norcal so was flying a lot over the area last fall...I'm almost bored with the geographical area.This scenery does look more detailed though it covers a smaller area.Maybe when I'm done exploring the Seattle Megascenery I'll return to CA.Now if only someone would make a VFR Photographic scenery for Sweden, I'd buy it right away...doubt many others would though :-lol

David,I bought the full CD set for UK VFR with VFR terrain and really enjoy it for sightseeing and navigating, very realistic.Now they have night lighting effects as well.. looks like a must buy!Dan :-)

Looks like they did a very good job on this scenery and I wish them happy $$ returns. But I won't be buying it. Since the advent of FlightScenery's technology I think it is (at least for me) the way to do the scenery. One gets much better transition to FS' stock scenery, all seasons and airport environment (runways) much better blended with the environment. Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/747400.jpg

The FlightScenery area is much smaller however. This is also why they can do custom autogen and generally provide a much more detailed scenery.IMO, the different scenery technologies apply to different types of sceneries...High-res photoreal scenery with custom (manually placed) autogen (aka FlightScenery, FranceVFR) - small regional areas such as one city.(MegaCity falls somewhere inbetween - they do feature high-res imagery and autogen but the autogen is mostly placed by a computer program)Photoreal scenery with computer-placed autogen, or no autogen (Megascenery, VFR Photographic, Siwss Pro) - Semi-large areas, 10,000 to 30,000 sq. milesAreas >30,000 sq. miles (except the UK VFR scenery which is in a class of its own as far as coverage area) - "data" sceneries - vector data, landclass, mesh, custom coastlines and lakesJust as it's impossible to do a 300,000 sq. mile 4.8m photoreal scenery (due to cost and storage), it's equally impractical to purchase super-high res photography and completely manually place autogen objects for an area that covers 30,000 sq. miles...

Michal,I did not realise FlightScenery were the developers of Rhode Island (been out of touch for a while). Just been viewing their screenshots.,Totally agree this scenery looks like a step forward indeed, and no need to stay above 1000 feet either!Cheers Dan

Welcome to Avsim. :-)$34.95 for what I consider a small area. No thanks. I'll pass... I also think calling it VFR Photographic Scenery USA leaves a bit to be desired. Maybe they should have called it:"A Very SMALL Portion of the USA entailing ONLY the areas of San Francisco & Sacramento". I think that is a better description, in my opinion. Grab My FREEWARE Voice recognition Profiles here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=58334]Cessna 172 Voice Profile[/a][a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=60740]FSD Avanti Voice Profile[/a].You will need the main FREEWARE Flight Assistant program to use it, get it here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=genutils&DLID=39661]Flight Assistant 2.2[/a]

Well people do pay up to $40 for just ONE airport so it's not so bad :)

"I did not realise FlightScenery were the developers of RhodeIsland (been out of touch for a while). Just been viewingtheir screenshots.,Totally agree this scenery looks like a step forward indeed,and no need to stay above 1000 feet either!"Dan,this scenery is spectacular and is a big step forward IMO. I hardly ever buy scenery (Georender, Misty Fjords exceptions), since I do it myself, but this was a must have and I am just blown away from it. Hopefully MS will follow suite.Looking forward to their next US release!!! Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/mcdcvabanner.jpgCalVirAir International

>Just as it's impossible to do a 300,000 sq. mile 4.8m>photoreal scenery (due to cost and storage), it's equally>impractical to purchase super-high res photography and>completely manually place autogen objects for an area that>covers 30,000 sq. miles...I agree with everything you said. The problem of 'size' (coverage) is in my opinion the greatest obstacle to scenery development. Therefore long time ago I abandoned the idea of having houndres of thousands of square km of highly realistic scenery. Plus I myself see no need for scenery of equal resolution/detail throughout. My ideal sceneries would be airport-centric with gradually diminishing detail the further away you are from the airport (for the approach's sake - the closer to the ground the higher resolution is needed). FlightScenery's approach is closest to that ideal. Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/747400.jpg

Too bad you won't be buying it.It sounds like you have never had the pleasure of flying in a large photographic scenery area before. Why is it such a thrill? Because everything you see below you is exactly as you would see it from an aircraft in real life. Why? Because it has been created from real photographs taken from an aircraft. One can get a real taste for an area one has never been to before in real life.I enjoy exploring the surrounding hills, valleys, mountains, rivers dams etc. Every road, path, river, clump of trees, farmhouse, field is exactly where it is in real life. Many times I have gone to the site below to look at aerial/satellite photography of the areas over which I fly. And they are an exact match to the real thing.http://terraserver.microsoft.com/Looking down on scenery like this, you simply do not need any modelled scenery, you are already seeing the real thing. Anyway, to model trees, houses etc for and area such as this, covering 18,000 square miles, would take a lifetime. And it still would never be as good. (And one would always need to always fly below 1200ft too see it). So I would say photographic scenery is the way to go.However I agree with you that airports and their immediate surroundings need to be modelled. Looks like FlightScenery have done a fantastic job here, just looking at their web site. And by the way they have also used photographic scenery as well. And I agree that this form of scenery blends in better with the default FS2004 scenery.While I understand that you currently only enjoy airports and their immediate surrounding scenery, there are a vast number of flightSimmers who enjoy eploring entire areas, including the cities and surrounding countryside hills & mountains.An area such as this SFC, can keep you exploring (in a small plane) for several months. And you will still discover areas thereafter not yet explored.I think we are starting to see a growing trend of companies doing photographic scenery for different parts of the world. Megascenery has become better & better and is starting to turn out new areas regularly. (My copy of Megascenery Pacific North West is in the mail). I see there are large areas in France & Germany that have been done. England & wales have been done by Horizon. (DVD's have helped overcome the problem of data storage of photographic scenery).All of these companies are doing a fantastic job of making our flight Simulation world a better & more realist place. We in turn need to support them. And if we do, I believe that we will eventually be able to buy DVD's of photographic scenery from interesting parts all over the world. And that would be really cool.regardsDavid W.

I agree, it's a special feeling to fly over "real" scenery even if it's flat. I enjoy using the Worldwind program and other aerial photography programs but it's great that it can be done in FS in a realistic flight "environment" (flight modelling, sounds, ATC etc.).Just exploring the photographic scenery becomes a big part of the sim experience. There's indeed always something new to discover. There isn't much point in "exploring" most generic scenery because, while the mesh (elevation ie. hills and mountains) appears as in real life, terrain features, roads, cities etc. are just artistic impressions and approximations using a limited set of repeating texture tiles and crude source data. The exception would be Misty Fjord but it's more of a "handcrafted" scenery than a data-based one as many months were spent comparing the scenery against real photos and manually adjusting the landclass, coastlines and roads.Exploring photographic scenery is genuinely rewarding because each sqare mile is truly unique. As long as you fly GA props such as the Bonanza and slower (200 kts and below is good), 18,000 sq. miles, let alone 30,000+ as provided by some products is certainly enough for many months of flying. I still enjoy Swiss Pro over a year after getting it and I have only begun discovering WA using the PNW Megascenery.

>>While I understand that you currently only enjoy airports and>their immediate surrounding scenery, there are a vast number>of flightSimmers who enjoy eploring entire areas, including>the cities and surrounding countryside hills & mountains.>My purpose of real life flight isn't airport to airport either. It's all those mountains, deserts, lakes, rivers, etc. in between.The airport is for just getting fuel and a bathroom stop! :DL.Adamson

Downloaded FlightScenery "Rhode Island" yesterday and love it. Changing the weather and time settings is a real treat (e.g fog/clear/stormed in dusk/morning/dawn etc...) and am looking forward to a flight to landing at KPVD! (lovely graphics) At ground and approach this scenery is great.However, flying above say, 1500 feet with Horizon VFR (IMHO) is still unsurpassed,(haven't got Swiss Pro). My two gripes were night lighting effects and lower altitude flying. The first seems to be taken care of with VFR San Francisco area, (which i will be purchase tomorrow), and hopefully future releases!!??. Low level flying below 800 feet is not ideal with photo-real graphics, and, therefore, still do not think one can compare like with like just yet.Enjoying both programmes just the same... CheersDan