Addons that revolutionized our flight sim experience

[twharrell 38]

I was thinking the other day about addons I currently have or used to have that revolutionized my flight simulator experience and thought this would be an interesting topic for discussion.  I realize there are some addons that we all would agree on that completely changed the landscape of flight simulation, and there are some that had a much profounder impact on some over others.  I'm interested in the former. Think about it and enter the discussion:

 

What addons (scenery, aircraft, utility, flight sim version, whatever) do you think revolutionized flight simulator and have had the greatest impact on our hobby as a whole?  Tell us why.  There is no right or wrong, but really think about your answers. You can mention anything over the history of Flight Simulator. Some of the more seasoned folks may even have insight about developments in the 80's.

 

This should be a fun discussion!

 

I'm going to list two:

 

Glacier Bay scenery for FS2004 by Holger Sandmann et. al.  - I think this freeware package completely revolutionized enhanced regional coverage and scenery design.  We really never saw anything like it before. This scenery concept, along with others, turned into what is now one of the most successful development companies in flight simulation - Orbx.

 

Airport Design Editor by John Masterson - This free user-friendly utility is used by every freeware and payware airport developer and has played a role in the development of every airport addon in flight simulator. I would argue that every scenery developer out there like got his/her start using ADE9X and that ADE9X is responsible for planting the seeds that led to the creation of many of the major payware scenery developers active today.

 

Cheers,

 

Todd

 

 

[niyoko 7]

Level-D Simulations: The 767 - I'm not sure what came before it, but Level-D Simulations' 767 was and still remains THEE 767. I feel like it raised a bar for what we expected and wanted in the simulation quality or commercial airliner add-ons that we spend our hard earned money on. After its release we saw amazing add-ons from companies like PMDG and Majestic Software.

 

Project Opensky's Aircraft Collection - When many of us were starting with the Flight Simulator series the aircraft in the Project OpenSky collection were amazing free aircraft. The community, good or bad, around them was a big first experience for me into flight simulator add-ons. I felt like these were such a high visual quality for free aircraft add-ons.

 

Active Sky series by HiFi Technologies - Game changing. I really think the series has been a revolution in how weather is depicted in Flight Simulator. The Active Sky series changed how it felt to fly in FS2004 and FSX.

 

Real Environment Pro - This is a classic. Maybe more nostalgic for myself, but I remember being wow'd at how it changed the look of the game for me. I've continued to hold to a copy of it, even though it has long ago been retired.

[Gregg_Seipp 568]

Orbx - transforming the world.

 

REX - making the sky look so much more realistic

 

Air Traffic Manager - the free tool that optimizes air and boat traffic so that you can fly in a more involved world

 

Real Air - especially the Dukes and Legacy.  Set new realism standards for aircraft.

 

PMDG 737 NGX - pushed the limits of what could be done.

 

EZDoc - Made looking at all this stuff so simple

 

A2A General Aviation - their new offerings are pushing into new domains of realism, making you realize some of the frustrations and responsibilities involved with airplanes.  And the immersion factors with sounds, visuals is high.

 

FSUIPC - makes the hardware/software all work together and fixes a world of issues.

[Rimshot 1,142]

REX - making the sky look so much more realistic

 

I would give this credit to Flight Environment X and its predecessors. These developers were the first to offer texture replacements for MS Flight Simulator.

[davjg 32]

Level-d 767 - Version 2 and forget the rest. Great aircraft no doubt.

 

PMDG - took everything to a new level. NGX and 777. It's a joy to fly.

 

Active Sky - it get better and better. Make my flying a great experience

 

Orbx - I agree, it's a new world

 

David

[vgbaron 3,627]

Good one -

 

for me -

 

ASN - without question

FEX - made clouds real

FSUIPC - what can I say about Pete?

A2A Accusim

TrackIR - can't fly without it

GEX for FSX

ORBX for P3D

 

Vic

[MarkW 1,493]

How about Satco -> Vatsim and their associated pilot and controller clients (Squawkbox and Procontroller).  Revolutionized online flying.

[Kuragiman 227]

ORBX FTX Globa/Vector - For turning the 3 year old with a box of crayons looking sim into a masterpiece of fine art.

 

Active Sky NEXT - For making weather something exciting to fly in rather than making you face plant on your desk in disappointment as the weather pops in like microwaved popcorn.

 

REX - For making my clouds fluffy and huggable and my default airports look like real airports rather than something from an Atari 2600.

 

FSCaptain - For turning my Flight Simulator into an Airline Simulator and giving my flying purpose beyond just sight seeing.  Terrorizing PAX with our mad flying skills is what we all dream of doing right?  

 

Avilasoft EFB - For keeping my organized on the ground and in the air and making taxing around airports a hassle free experience and for making VatSIM a better place to live.

 

EZDOK - For allowing me to be Spielberg and make Flightsim movies and also for making my plane shake, rattle and roll like the real deal.

 

Steve's DX10 Fixer - For making FSX not suck at certain things anymore.   Bless you Steve.  Bless you.

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

- Orbx regions

 

- RealAir airplanes

 

- RXP, and now Flight1, Garmin avionics

 

.. and I might add, faster CPUs and GPUs.  Without them, none of this would be worth anything!

 

Thank you Intel, and Nvidia!

 

B)

[Glynn 405]

Fsuipc

DX10 Scenery fixer

Ezdok

Active Sky, especially ASNext

FScommander

 

Aircraft come and go but I would not be without those five apps

[Jazzfan 57]

  I'm going old school by picking;.

               

         Afcad 2, and Traffic Tools by Lee Swordy

         Activesky 1.x  by Hifi

         Project Ai

         Fanda's Dash 8 Q300.

Those are the ones that got me, hook, line, and sinker.

 

  Cheers, Jazz

[greggerm 312]

FSUIPC.

 

Imagine where we'd be without it. I think the success of FSUIPC is directly responsible for Microsoft's decision to create SimConnect, upon which so many of our addons depend today. Truly a revolutionary piece of code which paved the way for the future and continues to provide indespensible features.

[spilok 1,136]

ALL ORBX addons, Active Sky Next, REX4 textures, and EZdok.  Can't fly without any of them.

 

Stan

[Oracle427 45]

Mallard's Aircraft and Adventure Factory for FS4 got me out of simply tweaking the operating system files and into tweaking my simulator. The more things change...

[figgios 0]

A2A Cherokee, first flight - Hands down the most epic moment in my sim-life. For the first time ever, I got to experience something that actually behaves as something that is real. Bit biased, because that′s the only GA-plane i′ve handled myself. But that feeling was almost scary. In a very good way