msfs The little known Humber Horten.

[andy1252 4,006]

Little known, because it doesn't exist. But it sounds like a proper 1960s limo, perhaps a signature version of the Super Snipe maybe.

Anyway, just got an email from IniBuilds that mentioned the Horten Ho299 for sale. Had to rush straight over and grab that one! Always fascinated by some of those German WWII experimental aircraft. Nasty bunch of folk but they seemed to know a bit about engineering and design. At the same time I'd also spotted a payware version of the Secret Studio's Humber Bridge. I have the freeware version (from flightsim.to) and the bridge itself is fairly similar but the immediate landside scenery is new for the payware version, and it was cheap and I like to support this sort of thing.

So a quick blast off from EGNT and up the river to gawp at the scenery. Not much flying, as is often the case with me, but I love the level of detail around this bridge package.

And for me anyway, the Horten is a real thing of beauty.

Dialled in a bit of weather

I'm always impressed by bridges. 'specially bigguns! I'm obviously still well in touch with my inner child.

Now I realise that if you're zooming past this area at FL200 and 300 kts or similar this sort of thing will be lost on you, but this is what makes the sim for me. I just love this sort of detail and am happy to spend ages wandering around with the drone cam exploring down here.

OK, back to the flight

I continue to be amazed, delighted and incredibly impressed by MSFS and the various bits and pieces available for it. The sheer scope of it all is incredible - pretty much the whole world available in this sort of detail. And I know it's all very much an individual thing and everybody has their own preferences etc, but I read (well, glance at) some of the threads in here bemoaning this or that developer and the perceived inadequacies of a particular aircraft or airport and I wonder if I'm using the same sim. We really have never had it so good!

Although my inner cynic will now be waiting for a post from someone claiming how a real Ho229 pilot they know has stated categorically that the flight model of this thing is inadequate, and furthermore the cockpit switches are not making anything remotely like the correct sound when clicked. Hmmm, maybe I'll actually start such a thread and see what happens . . .

[John F 2,457]

Really remarkable. Perhaps your most impressive scenery exploration series to date. Extremely fine close-in shots...and then there's that beautiful sky. 🙂

[pmplayer 9,640]

Great set buddy !

cheers 😉

[jankees 2,086]

so old, and it still looks futuristic!

[P_7878 6,761]

The bottom set of your close-up screenshots are amazing, Andy...so life-like...that's one thing unique to MSFS, in my previous SIMs whenever I would swoop down to the ground level for scenery that looked so nice and inviting from up above, it would turn into a blurry quagmire...🙂...with bridges, roads, and moving vehicles (apparently) entering and exiting the living room windows of homes...🙂...

And, about Experimental German aircraft...it was a quite a focus by the FSX/P3D freeware developers...quite illuminating part of aviation history indeed...A nice and curious one here...

Edited April 14 by P_7878

[andy1252 4,006]

On 4/13/2024 at 3:58 PM, John F said:

Really remarkable. Perhaps your most impressive scenery exploration series to date. Extremely fine close-in shots...and then there's that beautiful sky. 🙂

Cheers John. Don't feel I can really take much credit for these explorations. It's down to the quality of the scenery really. And this package is definitely one of the best I've seen so far. Confused me at first though as the developer has set the LODs so that these fancy shoreline features don't show until you're quite close in. Good idea for performance I guess, but I thought I had a problem initially when I could find that row of cottages at first.

On 4/13/2024 at 5:37 PM, pmplayer said:

Great set buddy !

cheers 😉

Cheers PMP!

On 4/14/2024 at 7:15 AM, jankees said:

so old, and it still looks futuristic!

Thank Jankees, and it really does look very modern, doesn't it. Could have come straight out of the Skunkworks just a few years ago, and wouldn't look out of place in modern clothes with the stars and stripes on the tail (if it had one <grin>)

On 4/14/2024 at 3:49 PM, P_7878 said:

The bottom set of your close-up screenshots are amazing, Andy...so life-like...that's one thing unique to MSFS, in my previous SIMs whenever I would swoop down to the ground level for scenery that looked so nice and inviting from up above, it would turn into a blurry quagmire...🙂...with bridges, roads, and moving vehicles (apparently) entering and exiting the living room windows of homes...🙂...

And, about Experimental German aircraft...it was a quite a focus by the FSX/P3D freeware developers...quite illuminating part of aviation history indeed...A nice and curious one here...

Thanks P_7878!  I agree about this aspect of MSFS. Even with TrueEarth in P3D if you got down low it would be mostly a horror show. XP 11/12 gets pretty close though, and actually exceeds MSFS for me in some aspects - I have actually spent time "driving" around some of the freeway systems in XP and found it well acceptable. But MSFS is usually (not totally, but >90% of the time) a delight to go down to rooftop/treetop height in, even in the default areas (i.e. with no addons for a location). And yes, I had/have a lot of weird and interesting old freeware planes for FSX. Enough to keep making think about setting up an FSX system just to be able to use some of them again. I found some old screenshots from back then recently and where there's not too much in the way of close up scenery (so mostly sky and plane) it looks pretty good. In my wilder moments I even contemplate reinstalling P3D, probably v4, for the same reason - lots of nice planes that still haven't made it to MSFS (and most of which are possibly unlikely too - that's why P3D v4, lots of the good ones never even got updated for v5, let alone v6)

[bernd1151 6,018]

Wow, what a surprise, Andy. A few years ago I watched a video on the US History Channel, where some folks rebuilt the Horten from plans they got from Germany. I don't think it was flyable, but just to look at it was quite something. At that time I thought, how cool it would be to have this in FSX. And now you showed me that inibuilds just launched it. Instant buy! Thank you so much! 

But also your scenery shots are most impressive!

[andiflyit 473]

Great set, perfect setup of the sim, looks very good. And the Humber Horten seems to be something special...🙂

I agree, exploring nice sceneries in the sims is most interesting beside flying...

[ryanbatc 13,050]

Lovely pics.  I love red planes too!

[andy1252 4,006]

On 4/16/2024 at 10:12 PM, bernd1151 said:

Instant buy! Thank you so much! 

Cheers Bernd, and you're welcome. I thought this one might appeal to you. I also grabbed that 'airshow assistant' addon and plan to have a bit of a play with Horten formation flying - that should be fun!

On 4/16/2024 at 10:38 PM, andiflyit said:

Great set, perfect setup of the sim, looks very good. And the Humber Horten seems to be something special...🙂

I agree, exploring nice sceneries in the sims is most interesting beside flying...

Cheers Andreas! Yep, that is definitely something special - really glad it came along.

20 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

Lovely pics.  I love red planes too!

Cheers Ryan! I feel a Homer SImpson moment coming on - "mmmmmm, shiiineeeyyyyy, reddddddddd" (sounds better in my head than it looks written out <grin>)