FS - A Century of Flight

[JimmiG 244]

What do you all think of this after reading the previews?I think they have really improved the visuals of the weather. However, I'm a bit worried about the other aspects of weather simulation like the way the air moves around mountains, turbulence etc. FS2002 was very lacking in this area. I just love how you can "feel" the wind in FU3. In FS2002 you get some random bumps at best.Will FU3 still remain the sim of choice for all of you or will you be moving to MS when the new sim comes out?

[Christopher Low 5,341]

I don't think it takes the mind of a genius to work out what I will be doing :-)Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Guest twsimfan]

Jimmi,A lot of versions of FS have come since FU3 arrived... I have bought them all... liked some... hated others... FS2K was lousy... FS02 is pretty good... I'll buy this one too... from the previews it looks pretty good... at least they lost the standard/pro version nonsense... I intend to like it... it wont replace FU3. ;-)I like the fact that they have apparently updated the Mooney & Lear. :) (Better late than never.) I don't like that they have apparently dropped the 182-RG & Camel. :-( I guess it is better to drop them than to keep them without updating them. But I still haven't forgiven them for dropping the Concorde. :-mad Once they are in the "family" they should remain! :-grrI like the "new" old planes! Ansgar's DC-3 is prettier! But this is a nice selection of historic planes. I don't understand why they failed to include a Goose... I suspect that one of the Vegas might be on floats... but they need a boat hulled amphib! :'(Good to have a new helo... wonder if they will have one of those on floats? :-rotor

[Guest Staggerwing]

Whew... glad to hear it Chris :-lolSay, did you guys notice the screenshot of the Mooney on the MS page ?It's flying in the rain BUT, the rain is falling straight down.. hope they've done better than that for "dynamic" items :-)I'll wait and see as usual...

[Guest qvdg]

Hmmm... it would appear that we where 2 years ahead of them with respect to the quality (and it would appear choice- see Vimmy pic) of the scenery. Thier clouds are much better though. However, with UK south scenery, new AI and new upcoming flyables I think don't think I will be too jealous.QvdG

[Guest Quaxo]

Uhm. I don't like that they force you to install DX9.And seeing the glider screenshot, I noticed the textures... that's the main MSFS problem for me: I never feel the desire to go ahead to discover what's over that mountain or hill... because I always know exactly what it will look like. It will look everywhere the same... I really hope that MS starts adding big photographic areas (at least as big as San Francisco in FU3, and with similar resolution)...Cristian

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Dream, dream, dream............Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Lars Peter 0]

Well, no matter.If microsoft does nothing better on flightperformance/feeling of flight,I will also stick to FU3/and even FU2.That said MS. did very big steps foreward with scenery/ATC.-3D-modeling, but I still miss the feeling of flying.Landing an ms. aicraft with turbulence and crosswind, is for me not very real .(reminds me of early cheap games for Win.95)If the developers could make this mutch better,it will be a great sim.I hope they could do so.I really miss the seaplane feeling from FU2/FU3.Lars Peter.

[Guest Ansgar]

Hello Tom,excuse my late reaction to your positive compliment to the DC-3 of our FU3-team, but it

[JimmiG 244]

What MS could do is add more of each texture. Right now they have for example one forest texture, one fields texture, some different textures for different sizes of cities etc.Instead, the should have maybe 10-20 different forest textures and randomly place them in the scenery. Doesn't have to be accurate, but it would add to the variety of the scenery.The best solution is obiously a big photographic area, but that would require huge amounts of disk space and they would have to figure out how to put the sim on less than 10 DVDs...

[Guest Quaxo]

Jimmi, I don't agree with the last part of your post... While it would indeed be nice to have a whole nation in photographic detail, we don't need that. LG proved that you can put a large photographic area in a CD; and MS could put 3-4 of these areas, in 3-4 CD's or in 1 DVD. That wouldn't be impossible; and this way, even those who (like me) "need" photographic scenery would be happy... The problem is that 90% of MSFS users only fly the "heavies", and so don't care at all about terrain textures. They want nice cockpits and nice airports, and that's what MS gives them...Cristian

[Guest glidernut]

Its known threw out the sim wild that FU3 has the most detaildseenary out there.And now with the UK-South the detaild its even beter.Wat with all new models and aircraft and everything els its practikaly FU4.But for me that's just a bonus that alous me to tack off in myglider by simply rolling down a hill in to wind. Any hill ifyour skils are up to it.What is not widely known is that FLIGHT UNLIMITED 111 hasslope lift attached to every slope in the game, with its lift in direct proportion to the steepness of the slope.And an equal and oposit downdraft on the leeward side of the slope.This slope lift is all so in proportion to the speed and directionof the wind. Which is dynamic and changes with time and altitude.The terrane has ground terbulans on all but the flattest of terrane.Thermals attached to clouds with the strength of the up draft beingin proportion to the size of the cloud and how close you arevertically beneath them.The thermals and clouds also drift with the wind.And have terbulans asosheeated with them.And has cloud suck on entering and exiting thermals.Sum times the lift extends right up into the clouds where you canon ocaion be subjected to rain or hail.This sim also has wave lift that lick all of the above, so perfectly marches my real life expereryanses of gliding that every crosscuntery flight is a tactical chalange, that I can feel every step of the way.Mastering the flying skils needed for this seet of the pants typeof interaction with the envierenment, only servs to open morposabilitis.No other flight sim cums close to having any of the abov.MS (cof spit) carnt even be botherd to give gliders the sound of the wind in any of its outside vews.Thats like a puwered aircraft with no engein sound.Im staying put.glidernut.

[Guest hoohah]

When I want to spend 20 minutes getting a craft started and warmed up to taxi, I choose Fly!2 (I'm being serious, I like that "reality" sometimes...). When I want to do some good point to point IFR navigation with a low vis approach, I fire up FS2k2. When I want to have fun flying VFR, to "feel" like I'm flying, it's FU3 all the way. I doubt that order will change much with COF, with the exception of the fact some great add-ons for MSFS are closing the gap with Fly! somewhat.Every thing that MS does to bring FS closer to what we've had with FU3, makes me a little happier. But I'm afraid that my ideal for the perfect flight sim is still a few tens of Giga-Hz, and a couple of hundred Giga-Bytes away :)-hooBTW - there's a nice new free Concorde for MSFS...huge resource hog, has some issues to be worked out, but beautiful (c'est magnifique).

[Guest Stearman]

Hi Ansgar, I must admit visual appeal is slowly but steadily dragging me from FU3 towards FS2002 as time passes.The overall feel I get when flying one of the available wonderful Tiger Moths (for example) in the snowy Alaska mountains is nothing I can get from FU3 anymore.On that basis, I feel the upcoming "FS: A Century of Flight" with its improved weather, might well be the final push.The only thing (and I mean the ONLY one) that could really prevent me from that would be a new flyable FU3 aircraft from you.Let alone if it was (at last!) a light aircraft...and let alone if it was a biplane...and let alone if it was a...

[Hans_Petter 1]

Responding to all of the above:I'm split 50:50 between FU3 and FS2002. Whether "A century of flight" will be a winner or not depends on the core of sim (weather engine etc), not on its aircraft. The aircraft will be provided by the freeware community anyway.As FU3 is concerned it appeals to me due to its focus on general aviation, weather engine (including slope lift) and that hard-to-define atmosphere. Personally I'm not too enthusiastic about getting the Wright brothers' first aircraft since I consider it to be a "yaw kite" rather than a true aircraft. Like Tom Wunder I don't prefer to go further back than the "golden age" aircraft of the 40s, 50s and 60s. In FU3 the "Red Baron" is an aircraft that I rarely select. Neither do I care much for heavy jets but I'll make an exception for Ansgar's B747. The DC3 is right on. I'm not into biplanes (sorry Staggerwing :-)) and I'm not really a fan of heavy metal. In FS2002 I prefer fairly modern GA aircraft, single engine piston aircraft and turboprops. I guess the Beech Baron pretty much caters to my taste, regardless of which sim I'm dealing with. I'm a fairly modern, wannabee GA pilot :-)Hans Petter