Sorry, I am on day 3 of food poisoning, so I am a little fuzzy, but now is as good as ever. 1st, I admit fully that I fly FS9, yes, I mainly use the PMDG7376-7-- I bought years ago. I use it because i can maintain the AIREC files. I also use it because i have nearly every single free download that came out for FS9. With all the modifications it looks nice and flies good. Only big issue is a while ago FS9 STOPPED auto logging my flights, I tried the fixes I found but now luck so I manuals made a log books and fill it out by hand.

NOW I did run out and buy FSX, then sold it off, and then later bought FSX GOLD with SP2, still it was disappointing, yet I continued to collect and add items to it of my new machine. HOWEVER I rarely fly it as the stutter and reloads of 5 to 8 seconds make it no fun. My "NEW System is a WIn7 Home Premium 64 Bit SP1AMD 4100 Quad core at 3.60 GHz 8.00 Gig Ram NVidea GTS450 - ya an antique, All I could afford and I am disabled and on fixed income. Oh well. I also have Xplane 10, but admit at my age I cant figure out how to add it all up and make it work.

SO I know the fix is a new top of the line computer, but that is not the real issue i write about here. No it is about the state of flight sims period. USED to be, every day there was something new to download. NOW, I see so much for Xplane and so much for P3d, I simple do not have time for  that, wish I did. but what mainly has me miffed, I besides hardly anything for FS9, or even FSX. I see most nearly nothing but repaints, repaint,repaints, repaints. Not a lot of new airfields. and that is a real shame. It seems in today's world it is not BUT everything you want, I don't have money to BUY  BUY BUY.

So the question is why are no new airports or aircraft being made for FREE anymore. Sooner or later people will grow sick of paying $40 t0 $70 bucks for an add-on, Sooner or later we will grow tired of repaints.
I used to run the TRAINZ game, that had a nice download station then failed to keep thing in proper order thus eventually you could not easily find what you wanted and simply gave up.

SO the base question her e is can we somehow get back to basics, free airports and new free aircraft. Ans stuff other then P3d which I know nothing of, or Xplane which seems very much a test bed.

 

Or maybe someone can put out detailed manuals on just how to set up and add items to P3d, Xplane etc, also DCS, I have the original DCS A10 love it, but know nothing of how to add the battlefields or new aircraft or how to get into games0I have written to all of them and got ZERO answers. So I guess this is a bit of a statement form someone who has flown sing the ole C064 day and Chuck Yeagers Air combat.. HELP;

I blame PMDG for this one. Ever since they released the NGX, the plane itself raised the bar for realism, the airports were suddenly not good enough anymore. That meant addon airports for me - something that I never thought about before then. 

The solution is to learn to make your own airport sceneries , FS9 had a number of free airport editors and scenery tools available , they were fun to use and could operate in real time to modify or create any airport desired, Included on the FS9 Disks was GMAX in case you want to make some replicas of the buildings or try your hand at an aircraft.

Yes it will take time and practice but I assure you its satisfying to see your creations onscreen , and uploading these to the Avsim library is most gratifying as well .

Also , there are tens of thousands of FS 9 library files still available free , looking over the selections your bound to find something you have not installed yet.

 

Best CJ

 

 

I am an FSX flier, but I have exactly 1 payware airport.  I learned how to use Airport Design Editor (freeware), downloaded and installed a lot of freeware scenery and freeware scenery objects.  Since my airports are for my use and I will not be releasing them for others to use, I will "borrow" hangars and suitable objects from other freeware sceneries and place them in my modified airports.  I even modified my one payware airport using Airport Design Editor!

So, it is possible for you to have freeware, upgraded, highly improved airports in FS9 or FSX and it can easily be a DIY project.

3 hours ago, CaptDennison said:

With all the modifications it looks nice and flies good. Only big issue is a while ago FS9 STOPPED auto logging my flights

According to your very own words that I quote, there is no stink to bring up. Since you cannot afford to keep up with the advancements and you claim to be happy, just enjoy FS9. 

Yes, the community in large numbers are moving on from 32 bit simulators, and we should have done that 15 years ago!

As far a detail manuals go, you seem to be quite intelligent; Lockheed Martin has made it quite easy to get started using P3D, and instructions are as complete as they need to be. But there is no doubt if you run into a specific issue installing/running anything, you can get lots of help here. To make a broad statement that you simply cannot figure stuff out, is you selling your own intelligence short....your old enough to know better than that....give yourself some credit.

However, if you cannot get a newer more advanced PC, don't even bother with P3D, ignore the latest news, so you don't see what you are missing. You must have more add-ons than just about everybody if you have just about all the free add-ons available for FS9 - must be thousands by now.

6 hours ago, CaptDennison said:

So the question is why are no new airports or aircraft being made for FREE anymore. Sooner or later people will grow sick of paying $40 t0 $70 bucks for an add-on, Sooner or later we will grow tired of repaints.

I used to run the TRAINZ game, that had a nice download station then failed to keep thing in proper order thus eventually you could not easily find what you wanted and simply gave up.

SO the base question her e is can we somehow get back to basics, free airports and new free aircraft. Ans stuff other then P3d which I know nothing of, or Xplane which seems very much a test bed. 

In our virtual flight sim world, as in the real world, it's easy to become dependent on free stuff provided by others.

Early-on, there was a robust exchange of freeware--note that I say "exchange," as in many people mutually producing and receiving aircraft and scenery creations, forming something of a free barter market.  There seemed to be a code where receiving the fruits of other peoples' pooled effort was offset by making one's own contributions into the pool.  However, over time there grew an ever-larger cadre of folks that benefitted from the pool without making contributions of their own.  Unfortunately, my observations are that most of the folks lamenting the decline of freeware are not generally found amongst the contributors.

So, to answer the question "can we somehow get back to basics, free airports and new free aircraft?" -- I think the answer lies in the word "we".  If "we" means "I" will join in and contribute at least as much as I hope to receive, then a healthy freeware ecosystem will flourish.  If "we" really means "somebody else" when it comes to contributing to the pool of free aircraft and scenery add-ons, then I would surmise it will not.

Regards

 

I will answer all of you in this method. Some say Free scenery and aircraft, If I enjoyed them so much did I contribute back. Yes, I did several repaints, never figured aircraft design, nor making new scenery. I have in fact modified some stock airports, but never felt the small simple mods I did were anything more than to made it look a little more like they should. I also have modified panels and some AIR files for a Virtual Airline I was in for a while. As far as FS9Freeware-ya, I probably have everything ever put out, in fact when a crash occurred a few years ago I offered to send any needed files to get the library back up.

As far as the S9 version of the PMDG737 goes, I used that as an example as it is one of the few payware's I bought in the way of aircraft that can allow AIREC updates so I can fly VATSIM and do it right. I also have bought many many payware sceneries in the past.
As I said, I have a 64BIT computer, but it is just too slow to handle FSX very well. Until I get a NEW ultra fast toy (Doubtful as I am on fixed income) well, then I am stuck with FS9, which is fine by me in many ways. The problem of flights not logging in not a PMDG issue it is something amiss withinFS9 where it stopped giving me a LOGBOOK at the end of my flights, I searched and trued all the fixes I could find, but it just never worked again. The main problem withFS9 and updated AIRACs & Online flight, is runway and taxiways, being realigned, in FS9 a lot of them are not-so I then must go in and send time fixing them. Trust me the first time you are on VATSIM and given vectors to an ILS landing in near zero vis, and the runway is not where it should be, you begin to think it is time to move to FSX.P3D or X. I did not like X as you can bend the wings of a 747 into a "U" and still fly, and adding items is confusing, P3D was mentioned as it it specific to 64Bit and I was told it would work better than FSX. So any help would do. I guess my main issues is unless it ir Xplane of P3d or FSX nothing new is much out there f0r FS9 and in general, when I look at whats new, it is mostly just repaint, I think sooner or later repaints will not keep the sites alive and thriving just a thought thanks

18 minutes ago, CaptDennison said:

I guess my main issues is unless it ir Xplane of P3d or FSX nothing new is much out there f0r FS9 and in general, when I look at whats new, it is mostly just repaint, I think sooner or later repaints will not keep the sites alive and thriving just a thought thanks

MS Flight Simulator 2004 (FS9) is, as you can easily calculate, 14 years old this year. That is the equivalent of 3.5 software generations. Astounding and certainly a tribute that it has lasted as long as it has. 

It's software lifespan has come and gone. Neither you or I can change that. Bemoaning the lack of FS9 community smacks of empty nostalgia. 

Quite Ok to continue to use, create, and participate in, amazingly, a significant FS9 community. Note so ok to bemoan about how you have chosen, for whatever reason, to remain with 14 year old software.

Might I recommend another website which embraces the older technologies? Try the Sim Outhouse. Fair warning, they don't tolerate whining over there but they have a vibrant F9/CFS development community.

Best of luck and hope you come to embrace your community.

Edited April 27, 20188 yr by Henry Street

Basic economics. If you're good at something, never do it for free. There are still some decent freeware airports out there, but with the flight sim community growing and evolving, most of the people who are designing planes and scenery are doing it as a full-time job and need to be compensated for their work.

Think about how many hundreds of hours goes into making an aircraft that flies and functions well. Or an airport. Or a scenery region. If you're not going to put in the work yourself, it is unrealistic to expect someone else to not ask for compensation for their work. And as simulators become more capable, it takes even more time to create things that take advantage of all that capability.

I'm sure there are probably a few people out there willing to create scenery in their free time and offer it for free. But to many it's a job, and they gotta put food on the table.

16 hours ago, CaptDennison said:

So the question is why are no new airports or aircraft being made for FREE anymore. Sooner or later people will grow sick of paying $40 t0 $70 bucks for an add-on, Sooner or later we will grow tired of repaints.

I think this is false actually. Seems like most people are happy to cough up for airports, planes, and sceneries that they use regularly. I know I am when I can afford it every once in a while. That's why people have started businesses purely around developing for flight sim.

17 hours ago, CaptDennison said:

So the question is why are no new airports or aircraft being made for FREE anymore.

Wouldn't necessarily go out to say that they're not being made for free anymore as much as it is that if people are doing it for free, they most likely have jobs and other things in life that take priority first, in which case, they're only doing this in their spare time. Keep in mind I'm not talking about a simple airport where you pop open Airport Design Editor and start changing things around. I'm talking payware quality airports and high quality planes. Now you're at the level of having to create textures for just about everything rather than a program like Airport Design Editor doing it for you, and that's going to take a lot of time.

Personal experience, I actually did a few liveries a few years back and uploaded them here. Took quite a bit of time to do them, but back then, I had a bit more free time to actually do it. Not long after my stuff went up, I found out a few days later that my stuff had been stolen, modified, re-packaged, and uploaded onto another site without my permission. I actually got e-mails from a few people asking for support because something in the plane wasn't working, and there was nothing I could do since I had nothing to do with any of this. Since then, I lost the motivation to do any more paints since it was obvious that my work wasn't appreciated, and it was only going to get stolen again with people asking me for support over something I had no control over. At that point, I was better off just spending my time flying the planes instead. That was years ago. Now, with work and all, I hardly have time to fly at all, let alone come up with repaints. I'd rather spend whatever free time I had available to fly.

16 hours ago, Jude Bradley said:

I blame PMDG for this one. Ever since they released the NGX, the plane itself raised the bar for realism, the airports were suddenly not good enough anymore. That meant addon airports for me - something that I never thought about before then. 

I suppose that could easily be situation dependent. Back when I was running FS9, I was flying with add-on airports like FSDreamteam JFK, FlyTampa St. Maarten, and such. The plane I was primarily flying at the time? The Project Opensky Boeing 747-400 merged with the iFly Boeing 747-400 panel and a soundset I found from AVSIM. It wasn't until maybe two or three years later that I got the PMDG Boeing 747-400 for FS9.

5 hours ago, Captain Kevin said:

Wouldn't necessarily go out to say that they're not being made for free anymore as much as it is that if people are doing it for free, they most likely have jobs and other things in life that take priority first, in which case, they're only doing this in their spare time. Keep in mind I'm not talking about a simple airport where you pop open Airport Design Editor and start changing things around. I'm talking payware quality airports and high quality planes. Now you're at the level of having to create textures for just about everything rather than a program like Airport Design Editor doing it for you, and that's going to take a lot of time.

Personal experience, I actually did a few liveries a few years back and uploaded them here. Took quite a bit of time to do them, but back then, I had a bit more free time to actually do it. Not long after my stuff went up, I found out a few days later that my stuff had been stolen, modified, re-packaged, and uploaded onto another site without my permission. I actually got e-mails from a few people asking for support because something in the plane wasn't working, and there was nothing I could do since I had nothing to do with any of this. Since then, I lost the motivation to do any more paints since it was obvious that my work wasn't appreciated, and it was only going to get stolen again with people asking me for support over something I had no control over. At that point, I was better off just spending my time flying the planes instead. That was years ago. Now, with work and all, I hardly have time to fly at all, let alone come up with repaints. I'd rather spend whatever free time I had available to fly.

I suppose that could easily be situation dependent. Back when I was running FS9, I was flying with add-on airports like FSDreamteam JFK, FlyTampa St. Maarten, and such. The plane I was primarily flying at the time? The Project Opensky Boeing 747-400 merged with the iFly Boeing 747-400 panel and a soundset I found from AVSIM. It wasn't until maybe two or three years later that I got the PMDG Boeing 747-400 for FS9.

Kevin, while I have sympathy with your feelings at having your work stolen, it would seem that you were not uploading it to share with the community but to keep it within the strict bounds of those who you wanted to give it to.  It would seem it was appreciated because it was used however it sounds as if you were thinking a little like the person who rents a house to someone and then sits in the garden to see what is going on all the time.

Fine for payware but I would question whether that is really sharing with the community.  

3 hours ago, harrry said:

Kevin, while I have sympathy with your feelings at having your work stolen, it would seem that you were not uploading it to share with the community but to keep it within the strict bounds of those who you wanted to give it to.  It would seem it was appreciated because it was used however it sounds as if you were thinking a little like the person who rents a house to someone and then sits in the garden to see what is going on all the time.

Fine for payware but I would question whether that is really sharing with the community.  

If you really want to know, I had uploaded it to both AVSIM and FlightSim. Somebody went ahead and decided to take it, make modifications, and re-upload it to Simviation, which they had no permission to do. When I then start getting e-mails for support about the plane not working properly or something with the virtual cockpit or something, there's absolutely nothing I can do because I had nothing to do with it, all I uploaded was textures. I had nothing to do with any virtual cockpit of any sorts. That's on whoever went ahead and modified the thing.