Christopher Low

I cannot argue that the multitude of impressive screenshots that I have seen of this game/simulator has made me think about the possibility of flying around the world in a small plane for the first time in a long time. I am very fussy where graphics are concerned these days, and the basic requirements for me to undertake such a challenge would be a good quality aircraft, terrain graphics of the quality seen in those screenshots that span the entire globe, and enough detailed airports/airfields to allow me to make the trip without having to land at a rubbish default version. That latter scenario would kill it stone dead for me.

You must have been a relatively new arrival to that area when I was on holiday in Florida in October 1995, Gerald. I was extremely lucky to be present for the seventh (and successful) launch attempt of STS-73 Columbia. It was a breathtaking and very special experience to watch the launch of a Space Shuttle live from the KSC (I was six miles away at the visitor observation point), and the view through my binoculars was awesome. I was particularly struck by how bright the orange flame was from the SRBs as the Shuttle cleared the tower. Much brighter than it looks on the TV.

Simulation is about replicating the real world as accurately as possible. That's why the flight physics in Grand Theft Auto V are, er......not quite study level 😉 Of course, most flight simmers (yep, even the P3D users) are having fun 🙂

It will be released long before we see E3 again.

I have seen ISS many times. I also saw the Mir space station many times, including once when the Space Shuttle Atlantis was heading home after a visit. Both objects were only around 30 seconds apart, so I saw them at the same time. That was the only time that I ever saw a Space Shuttle in orbit.

I assumed that the specification that the OP listed is the PC that he is intending to buy, not the system that he has at the moment!

There is nothing "painful" about 30fps in a flight simulator. That is more than smooth enough.

For the record, why do I need to make a profile for P3D? Surely it should use the Global profile if I do not change anything?

I experience big stutters in specific locations around the UK, and it has never made any sense. I can fly over massively detailed locations like the FlyTampa Amsterdam Schiphol/ORBx TrueEarth Netherlands combo (with everything in the latter enabled, and at maximum scenery complexity and autogen density) with hardly a flutter, and yet I get a big pause in the middle of nowhere flying over the mountains in Scotland! I get a big stutter near EGGP Liverpool, turning left after departure from runway 33 at EGBB Birmingham, just south of EGNX East Midlands, and a straight out departure from runway 20 at EGCN Doncaster Sheffield....and yet I can take off from Aerosoft London Heathrow Professional with ORBx TrueEarth GB South running at maximum scenery complexity and autogen density, do a circuit (whilst looking down the barrel of central London), and then land without getting anything close to the same level of stuttering. Frankly, it is baffling.

Not that it matters to me, of course. I don't even look at default airports, never mind land at them 🤣

The magnitude is how bright it will be. For the record, a magnitude of -2.3 is similar to the apparent brightness of the planet Jupiter (the second brightest planet), and significantly brighter than the brightest star (Sirius). In layman's terms, it will be hard to miss!

I used to actively search for satellites two decades ago. This all started in March 1997 when I was on a remote hill observing Comet Hale Bopp (still the only really decent comet that I have ever seen), and I noticed a bright light moving across the sky. I suspected that it was the Russian Mir space station (because very few orbiting objects were that bright at the time), and a quick check on my PC when I got home (courtesy of a great piece of software called Micro Orbiter 3.0) confirmed it. After that day, I started looking for satellites on a regular basis, and ended up spotting over eight hundred of them (not just satellites, but also the final stage booster rockets that got them there). That list included all eighty eight satellites in the Iridium constellation at the time (which could occasionally flash very brightly indeed), some spooky looking triplets in formation (these were some of the NOSS or Naval Ocean Surveillance System satellites), and a wide range of interesting and well known scientific satellites. I stopped observing satellites a long time ago, but I have fond memories of those days 😎

The orbital inclination of the International Space Station is roughly 51.5 degrees, which means that anyone north of that latitude will only ever see it in the southern half of the sky. Being in the Midlands, that includes you, Martin 🙂

Personally, I would call Airport Design Editor an indispensable utility. I have modified literally hundreds of AFD files over the years (both to adjust taxi paths/designations to my satisfaction, add/delete parking spots, adjust airline codes, add/delete associated models where possible etc), and I will probably continue to do so for many years to come. I have the PRO version installed, because I want to be able to use the full range of features available (including the handy GP Editor, which I have used recently to add ground markings to a couple of airports that I desperately wanted to upgrade). I have never had a problem setting it up after installation, so that it can recognise the location of the BGL compiler/main Prepar3D folder etc. Once that has been done, everything becomes almost automatic once the basics have been learned.

Why are there fewer gates at default airports in Prepar3D v5?