Hi there,Great news! Rick Piper has released his long awaited Hawker Siddeley HS.748!It's being uploaded to the avsim library but I have not seen it yet (12:40 UTC)but I got it from http://classicbritishfiles.com and the support forum is here:http://cbfsim.org/cbfsimv5/cbfsbb/viewtopic.php?t=5303http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d6/GarryRussell/xw730.jpgGo get it and spread the news!!Rob "Holland&Holland" de Vries http://fool.exler.ru/sm/fly2.gif"To go up, pull the stick back. To go down, pull the stick back harder"

Oh Boy! Oh Boy! This is the one I've been waiting for!I'm a little disappointed that he only included 50 liveries though ;-)Thanks a million Rick and the team. BlairCYOWedit: sorry, there's 52 liveries included.

awesome! downloading now.Looking forward to when the first air sweden comes out with the different model, and those VC rain effects as well!Thanks Rick and team!

Does it have an FMC, Autoland and the ability to fly hands off for long extended periods so I can do my laundry :) ?Just kidding--can't wait to see this one when I get home 2-night! Thanks for the head's up!-John

As far as I can see there isn't a private forum for this, so1) Thanks for most satisfying FS experience for a while, just managed to land the 748 back at Birmingham after port engine failure - no doubt due to failure to read manual and consequent mis-management of fuel. Sounds and visual model are better than anything I ever paid for! Flies beautifully, although attempted to take my arm off initially on one engine only!but2) port engine restarts on reverse thrust - shouldn't do that, or is it just me?

Absolutely beautiful, that's what comes to mind at first! The plane model looks great, the textures are nice and crisp (all 50+ look outstanding), the 2D panel is clean and the VC is a pleasure to work in (although yes, you can see a bit of blurring in the gauges in 1600x1200 - but that's to be expected :) ). Performance is good and you can't beat the price.. what more can you ask for?Well... while all of the above is true, unfortunately I ran into a problem I've encounted a couple of times before :(The last time a Classic British package fitting the above description - David Maltby's excellent BAC 1-11 - was released my joy was somewhat dimished by a problem with my soundcard (known as the "squeal of death"). Basically, whenever a certain sound in the 1-11 package is played my soundcard (Audigy ZS 2) throws a fit, emits a loud squealing / whistling noise and sends the computer into a BSOD and a reboot. David did his absolute best to try and come up with an alternate soundset to steer around the problem and I (among others, I'm sure) helped him test a number of sound packages, none of which unfortunately managed to avoid the problem. It's a shame, but David deserves a big thanks for going the extra mile. I can still fly the 1-11 by removing the offending soundfiles (there are two of them, called inside_SPEY_LOW_SCREECH.wav and outside_SPEY_SCREECH.wav if I'm not mistaken), so it's not a complete loss.So, as I loaded Rick's 748 up I felt a familiar sense of dread build inside me; after all, both the 1-11 and 748 are high-profile, high-quality releases. The pessimistic side of me was half-expecting failure in advance. At first everything went just fine, but just as with the 1-11 as I climbed towards cruising altitude and went to the outside view to admire the plane, I heard the squeal; bam! Reboot city.To quote a comedian who's name I can't remember: "Why, Gus? Why?" :(I guess the one "good" thing to come out of this is that clearly, there is SOMETHING those talented people over at Classic British Flight Sim are doing the same way as far as sounds go: SOME part of their sound editing process is the same between different releases - even between different authors - and that causes some of the sound files to choke an Audigy ZS 2. Knowing this, maybe they'll be able to track down the cause and eliminate it. Aside from the 1-11 and now the 748, only Bill Lyon's Grumman Goose has caused similar problems. None of the numerous other add-on planes I've tried have done it.In the meanwhile I will need to go through the same trial-and-error process of eliminating the naughty soundfiles as I did with the 1-11. Hopefully it'll be just one or two less important files, as aside from it's crash-inducing singing the 748 is a very pretty bird :)Congrats to Rick and everyone else who participated in the project!(I'd post this at the CBFS forum but I'm not registered there)

There's a support thread on the Classic British Flight Sim forum:http://cbfsim.org/cbfsimv5/cbfsbb/viewtopi...der=asc&start=0

my sound problems were fixed when I downloaded the latest drivers for my creative soundcard from www.creative.com

Did you also experience the squeal of death before updating your drivers?I'll check out the update! *fingers crossed* :)

I've got a ZS2 as well and had no problems switching to the external views...really nice package btw. The sounds are super...

OKJust to be clearDidn't take the precaution of reading the manual - who does?Flies beautifully on both enginesFlies like a pig on one (no doubt my fault, but how many freeware or payware aircraft drop an engine when you don't RTFM? And I don't imagine too many planes fly well on on 50% power, all on one side)Magic experience, turning onto final, not knowing if starboard is about to go too, Jetset A320 told to go around in front of me (maybe an accident, but thank you AISmooth if it was you), must about making it down.....What we need now is somebody to do some adventures using this aircraft. Humanitarian aid into some God foresaken airstrip.....

It seems the driver package dated January this year contains the same drivers I already had (installed in December 2005) - it just includes some new utility I don't care for :( So, no change in performance. The 748 still crashes.Back to shifting through the soundfiles.

If you go to Device Manager and double-click on the "Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS (WDM)" device, what is the driver date shown under the "Driver" tab?

the driver date is 2/23/2004 and the version number is 5.12.1.443I didn't have any troubles with the 1-11 either...

Does the HS Argosy also crash or cause the same trouble?If not use the sound files of this bird instead?Rob "Holland&Holland" de Vries http://fool.exler.ru/sm/fly2.gif"To go up, pull the stick back. To go down, pull the stick back harder"