RandallR

Hey Colin - Not many active, (or actively responding) apparently. I've loaded up the dark side (FSX) and am slowly configuring it and adding to it and learning its idiosyncrasies (Also still fly the Space Shuttle and Falcon 4.0). I still run Fly!II every week. As pretty as the environment and aircraft of FSX have become, Fly! still hold a place in my heart and I still fly it more than the others, with aircraft handling and systems still more realistic, in some cases, than their more modern counterparts. It's just fallen behind modern graphics and, of course, the modern glass cockpits. I've slowly updated airports and nav points around the world as I flew and now have hundreds of updates in my files. I still plan to upload then sometime - don't know if anyone will use them, but I'll make them available. I've enjoyed some of your LinkedIn posts BTW.

I will eventually add PMDG aircarft to my FSX installation, but as I still run Fly! most of the time it will probably be a while before I experience the 737 NGX. I can say that my Fly!II PMDG B777 flight manual is 241 pages, so you're probably looking at at least that or more. PMDG procedures are well-written. Yes, you won't be able to just turn the key. Just start at the beginning and go thru each section - it will take time to become proficient but it can be extremely rewarding! I'm looking forward to flying the new PMDG aircraft later this year - I need to invest in a new video card to do this!

Ken, I'll be happy to upload all the DB Updates eventually - it will just take a while, as I would need to put together a lot of notes to include with the files. This will probably take a couple of months, due to my business schedule. The actual DEX files would be ready to install with DEXImport. Do you need TerraModels? I can set up a DropBox delivery if you'd like.

Just thought of one more item - One of the reasons that the 757 and my system may be so out of whack is my video card. Modern cards are so much more powerful than when Fly! was developed. Also, my card is not a "gaming card". I still have my old beautiful gaming card tucked back on a shelf, but I have to use a very special and extremely powerful graphics card that is required for my work environment. This card is for my video, audio, multimedia and photographic work and it's fantastic. But it has issues with some gaming graphics, as it uses a different kind of engine. Most of my sims run great with it. The colors aren't as rich and there would be issues with some modern games, but outside of the 757, it works just fine. Randy

Hey Ken, Always good to hear from you! Something you may be interested in - in the last several years as I've "migrated" into semi-retirement, I've used Fly! to go around the world - literally every part of it. Wherever I found missing navaids, approaches, runway misalignments, etc. I attempted to fix them up. The end result is that a lot of the Fly! world has been updated in my system (not 100% but, let's say about 80%). I didn't add missing airports (except for a few personal ones) and I concentrated on updating items for instrument approaches, mainly. The end result is a pretty decent world. As I fly the 777 more, I have also worked to correct items in larger international airport environments so that I can effectively use that aircraft. There are airports I've left alone (just a few), due to the fact that some have marvelously detailed sceneries and taxiways created by Fly! enthusiasts years ago - and adding and/or moving runways and taxiways actually wrecks the sceneries (objects become misaligned, etc.) However, even with those locations, I've updated them as much as possible (missing approaches, misaligned localizers, improper frequencies, missing navaids, runway numbering, additional waypoints, etc.) I now have a fairly complete DB update library that can be uploaded to AVSIM some day if you or others might be interested. It's just that there;s so much of it, it would probably take about a year to catalog it all (and run my business at the same time). All the best, Randy

Sorry about the long delay in my response! I too had problems with the 757 - it "porpoises" continuously. In my case, it porpoises in all modes climb, level, descent, approach. However, the 777 is fantastic. No porpoising - it's smooth as silk and the FMC/flight management system is amazing! I'll try again with the 757 down the road - I'm going to bypass all VNAV use and go with climb rate, Alt-Hold, etc. to see if the porpoise disappears.

Hello Fly!ers! I still use Fly!II more than any of my other sims. In fact, due to my schedule, I'm just getting around to flying the PMDG 777 & 757 for the first time! I know that seems strange, but I always knew I'd get around to them when the time was right. I'm semi-retired, but as I've started a new business, my flying time is still limited. I've run into some anomalies with both aircraft. I figured some of you might still be flying them. I know that they became very popular - I can't recall that there were a high number of issues, so I'm hoping that my questions might be easily answered. Before I spend time listing the items, I'll wait and see if those of you who put a good deal of time into these aircraft would be willing to respond (or are still around). :smile: With the unbelievable power of our modern computers, especially the one I use, it runs Fly!II and the other aircraft like a hot knife thru butter. Warm regards to all,

Hi Garik, I still have my PMDG 757 & 777 packages. However, I have no intention of letting them go. Maybe someone who no longer uses Fly!II will be willing to give you their copy. You never know - I gave my Fly!2K version away a while back, so it is possible. Did you post on all of the simming sites?

Hi Ian - it's been a long time! I was checking some items in the forum history and saw your post. I'm staying away from Win10 for now as it is absolutely not compatible with several of the professional media production programs I use in my work. However, I am curious about Fly!II and Win10. My wife's new laptop is Win10 - give me a week or 2 - when I have an opening in my schedule I'll drop my Fly!II directory in and see what happens. ATB!

Hi Ken, I've had a major life change in the previous 1 1/2 years so I'm catching up on a lot of things. I can tell you that on my system that if I run under Admin, InfoMetar's metar data is no longer recognized by Fly!II. It's become obvious that I'll need to get all of Fly! out of the Program Files area to shut down the Compatibility Mode issues. I believe that the only way to do this is a clean install with the Fly!II directory in the root. As everything else is working fine for now, I'll leave it alone.

A while back in Fly!'s development a feature was added to allow us to access scenery from other physical drives than what the Fly!II program was installed on. This was very important for me, as my scenery data is quite large (around 16 GB right now). Since I switched to Win7 a while back, this no longer appears to function. As I recall the setting in the fly.ini was: searchOtherDrives=1 There is also this line, which may be an old parameter: serchOtherDrives=0 I've tried every variation of these 2 settings with no success. Is anyone else experiencing this issue? Might it be a "compatibility files" problem?

Hi Ken! Though I haven't been browsing the forums much in the past year, I haven't been sitting on my hands with simming. I still find it a wonderful way to relax from the daily toils and I still find Fly! to be my sim of choice. I have worked occasionnaly on some new scenery (TS & TM) and will post them along with some Nav updates in the future. I've followed with interest the development of Fly! Legacy and the work of ROTW. I have found Win7 to be my favorite OS, though I must say that it's been interesting running Fly!II with it. I am having more success day by day resolving issues. The main difficulties have involved dealing with "compatibility files" and the apparent loss of control with some fly.ini features. On a news note, I should mention that I have received permission from Todd Klaus to repost the TerraScene system. Some portions will not be usable, such as the auto-download of USGS data, but it will still allow users to render scenery from my and others prepackaged TS sceneries, render from manually-loaded Shapefiles, or create new USGS sceneries by manually loading the data files. I would be happy to participate at SimVol from time to time, but I'm not certain as to which of their forums allows for the use of English? All the best!

Problem solved! - found an old post by Fonchy on this scenery.

Hello Flyers! I'm sorry I've been away for so long (career issues). I see things are fairly quiet - I hope someone can point me in the right direction. After installation of a TM airport scenery set for Spain, I now get an error message that dumps Fly!II. This is the old C3d Model Load failure I used to get with some sceneries when a model pack was missing. The missing item is TR-FR30.SMF. Anybody recofnize this file? Is there a model set I can download that contains it? Many thanks!

Ray,TerraScene itself is not a defunct program, but all of the data sites are. The wingswithwires site is no longer active, and the USGS is shutting down the old sites and moving all of the data to a commercial site. If you turn off shading, which used the higher-res elevation files stored on the "wings" site for a 3-D effect, the old USGS sites may still be functioning, allowing you to recreate the tiles, but with a "flatter" appearance.Several of us were lucky enough to obtain copies of the original data on DVD data discs. If you would like to obtain copies, I'm sure we can work something out. Please use the Avsim e-mail system if you would like to set something up.