sskoup

San Diego is considered one of the toughest approaches because of the steep glide angle from the East. Contributing to the steepness of the glide, if you are on a visual approach you can't even desend below 5000 ft. until you cross south of the MBZ 084 radial because the normal visual approach takes you directly over Montgomery's airspace (KMYF). Well, you don't cross the MBZ 084 radial until you are already in the base leg so you only have about 8 miles to loose 5000 ft.When the visibility does get too low they have to switch around to RNY 9 which does have an ILS. And because of the "Catalina Eddy's" the marine layer frequently gets shoved right into the airport area while the rest of San Diego has clear skys.Also the parking garage is skewed to the right in the MSFS scenery. It's actually right on the centerline and when British Airways used to operate a 747-400 into San Diego the landing gear only missed that parking garage by 200 ft.Sskoup

fzangger,If you really want to experience vertigo on the SDC Bridge ride over on the top deck of an open air English Double Decker bus. I've done it several times and you'd swear you're flying over the bay because you can't see the bridge under the bus.Geofa,I rode on the Coronado Ferry when I was 5 years old in 1957.Cobra,The ferry you rode on was different than the ones Geofa and I rode on. Back then before the bridge they carried automobiles as well as pedestrians.Cliffp,If you remember the 'water taxis' you refer to were called 'nickel snatchers' back then because it cost a nickel to ride over to North Island and you put your nickels in a slot in the gate to open the gate to board the boat.Now I will download the bridge if Robert got it uploaded.Sskoup

Chris,I am running a 1.2 Athlon with 768mb of PC133 and an (is anyone else still using one of these) 3dfx V5 5500 under Win98se.I am not experiencing ANY pauses for scenery loading. I have to ask since it was not mentioned in this thread, did to you do a complete install loading all the scenery off of CD4 onto your hard drive?If not the pauses would be when the system has to go to the CD for scenery. If all the scenery is on the HDD then you probably experiencing some other system overload which more system memory may fix.One way to check this is notice if you HDD activity light is on for the entire length of the pauses which would indicate memory swapping. The other would be to download a memory monitor utility that gives you real time readouts of memory useage.Hope this helps.Sskoup

My system is a 1.2ghz athlon, 768mb, V5 5500 Voodoo video card (is anybody else still using 3dfx?).With the default sliders, 3D clouds and autogen turned off, anti aliasing on, 1024x768x32, 2D panels, I'm getting around 15 fps. If I climb into blue sky it goes up to around 20 fps. On short final into LAX it drops to around 10 fps.Hope this helps you to decide.Sskoup

I have perfect landings almost every time. Here's my secret.1)You must have your approach speed nailed. Too slow and you mush into the ground when you flair, too fast and the airplane still wants to fly when you flair. And due to ground effects and inertia some jets will float forever until you run out of runway.I once heard a British Airways 747 pilot yell at an inexperienced tower operator in San Diego when he told the 747 pilot to hold 180 kts till the FAF, the pilot yelled back, "I can't hold 180 till Reebo, 160 is the best I can give you, I have to land this 'bloody bast--d' you know". This continued on the ground when the same tower operator told the pilot to exit on "bravo 6" taxiway. The pilot yelled back "I can't get off on 'bravo 6' it'll be 7 or 8".An old flight instructor (a guy in his 80's) once told me, "you never land an airplane, you make it stop flying and it will land itself". Most landing accidents where an airplane slides off the runway occur when the landing speed is too high and crosswind gust blows you off the runway.2)Because you can't reproduce a 3 dimensional world on a 2 dimensional screen you can't believe your eyes(use the Force Luke). You have to use the instruments.You must know the runway altitude and when the altimeter indicates about 50 feet above the runway start a sloooow flair maneuver watching the VSI carefully and hold the VSI at one dot below center.This works every time.SSkoup

Thanks for the replies.I'm currently running with a homebuilt.Athlon T-bird 1.2ghzIwill kk266 MB768mb's PC1333dfx V5 5500onboard C-Media soundWin98seThis setup is giving me an average 20 - 30 fps with most of the scenery sliders at max. The only reason I'm looking for a new video card is that the Voodoo card can't handle some of the newer aircraft textures i.e SF260.Sskoup

Fry's Electronics keeps offering the 128mb gforce mx440se for about $60 after rebate. Is this card recommended for Flight Simulators. I've heard that the MX models have a bandwidth/throughput problems. The Hardware review sites don't have a lot of information on this card and they always do benchmarks with "Doom" and "Quake" and never flight simulators.Thanks in advance,Sskoup

For L. Adamsom,I too have the L.A. add-on for Fly 2. Isn't it great. Since I live in Southern California I'm familiar with most of the landmarks i.e. Hollywook Park. While the cloud lovers want realistic clouds I want scenery that I recognize. That's why I have to divide my simming time between Fly 2, FUIII, and FS2002 (also FS98 with my real photographic San Diego scenery add-on). The San Diego add-on was patched to work with FS2002 but not as well as FS98 for which it was designed.With Fry's Electronics offering a 200gb HD for $139 I don't feel that a few gb's for scenery storage would be a great cost. Instead of High Detail areas that approximate the real scenery I think it's time for a few cities done in real photographic scenery.Sskoup

More replies to the replies,First to "Eric",You say my opinion shouldn't count because of my low number of posts to this forum. Well then by your own logic your opinion shouldn't count to those who have thousands of posts to this forum. FYI, I have been simming since FS4 and I have been reading this and other flight sim forums for about three years. I only post when I think I can help someone who has a problem or when "I THINK" I have something to say. I don't care if "YOU THINK" I have nothing relevent the say. This is not your personal forum. And from the Number of "Reads" and "Replies" one would conclude that this is a relevant topic.To Chris Willis and other "Cloud Lovers"I'm glad that you love clouds and I really hope that Microsoft gives you some clouds. But, I live in Southern California (San Diego). We only had 3 1/2 inches of rain in the 2002 season. I don't know what clouds are. What I care about is scenery. Let's face it, the only reason anybody gets the flying bug is because we want to "go up there" to "look down here" and watch the World go by. Great clouds will make your Flight simming experience better. Great ground scenery will make mine better. I want to see the Hollywood Park racetrack disappear under the nose of Geofa's Debonair on short final to LAX not a cartoonish 3D object that's supposed to be the Old Laker Forum surrounded by "Autogen" buildings that aren't really there.Sskoup

To rebut a few of the replies to my original post:1)The hype about how "late and great" FS2004's new airplanes, clouds/weather, and ATC is going to be is that, just a bunch of hype.2)No I don't expect a million new features in FS2004, but to pay another $60 to $70 for a few bug fixes, a couple of new airplanes, no improvement in the carryover airplanes, slight improvements in weather and ATC, and no real photographic scenery I think is a rip-off.3)Do I expect real photographic scenery for the entire planet? No!!!!! But a few cities would be nice. It only cost 75mb's to do San Diego/Imperial Counties for FS98 and 180mb's to do Los Angeles/Riverside/Orange/San Bernardino Counties for Fly 2. 4)No I'm not happy with the scenery detail in FS98 and the scenery in FS2002 is infinitely better. WHAT I SAID IS, I still fly FS98 because I have real photographic scenery of San Diego (which is infinitely better than the high detail areas of FS2002) to fly over. And I'll take any little bit I can get like Washington State in FUIII.5)I don't own the SF260 because Rob Young suggested I shouldn't buy it because I still use a Voodoo video card. But I have flown it on a friends computer and when I do the next upgrade of my system if it's still available then I will buy it because it will still be better than any airplane that Microsoft will have offered in FS2004.6)I don't care for the VC in Geofa's Debonair either. But then I don't usually fly with the VC's anyway. But the rest of the Debonair is the best I've seen. I still point out that no other airplane freeware or payware has sun glare on the instrument panel or an engine cowling visible out the windsheild and the wings and side panels/interior views are "as real as it gets"7)I don't know about the rest of you but FS2002 has been a very stable platform for me. With a 1.2ghz system and an (obsolete) 3dfx V5 5500 Voodoo video card with most of the scenery sliders maxed out I average a very respectable 20 to 30 fps. I have experienced NO lockups, and NO BSOD's in the 8 months since I installed FS2002. The only problem I have experienced running add-ons (again due to my Voodoo card) is POSKY's newest 747-400's.It will be interesting to see this forum in the first 24 hours after FS2004 is released with all of you complaining about all the problems installing and running it (framerate problems, direct X problems, video card driver problems, sound problems, etc...) and all of the complaints about how all the new and improved features don't work as expected (the clouds don't look right, the ATC doesn't work right). I can almost hear some of you saying now, "just deleted FS2004, going back to Fly 2" or "will (this feature) be fixed in FS2006". Sskoup

After reading a few posts in this and other forums and after reading some pre-release reviews here and other places I still do not see why everyone seems to be waiting with bated breath for FS2004.I have yet to see anything to convince me that it will be significant improvement over FS2002. There does not seem to be any major departures from FS2002 as there was from FS98 to FS2000. And I don't see that FS2004 is even going to be a significant 'bug fix' for FS2002 as FS2002 was for FS2000.Isn't it interesting that Microsoft has figured out that they don't need to have 'bug fixes' any more since they have duped us into buying the 'bug fix'. Something they started with the 'Win95sr2' bug fix for 'Win95' which has now migrated into all of Microsoft's applications.Does anybody really think that Microsoft is going to give us any new airplanes that are even close to RealAir Simulation's 'SF260' or their 'C172SP' in flight dynamics? And while the flight model of Geofa's Debonair is not as realistic as the SF260, I haven't seen any freeware or payware that is as detailed as the Debonair's visual model. The instrument panel has sun glare that I haven't seen on any other airplane. It is the only airplane that I know of in any simulator platform that has the engine cowling visible over the instrument panel which for me gives it the 'As Real as it gets' perspective (Sorry if some of the Payware has this feature as I don't own any payware airplanes to compare). The Debonair's wings looking out the windows are as real looking as I've seen (you can count the rivets). Unfortunately I'm too cheap to upgrade my (3dfx V5 5500) video card so the view from the 'Spot View' has blurry aircraft textures (which is also the reason I haven't purchased the SF260 yet).And to have native 'Real Photographic' scenery where you can pick out actual landmarks you still have to go to Flight Unlimited III. You can get a real photographic scenery add-on (the Los Angeles basin only) in a download for Fly 2 and I have a real photographic scenery add-on of San Diego for FS98 (which is usable in FS2002 but doesn't work as well as it does in FS98 which is why I still fly FS98 since I live in San Diego) but that's it. And unless I'm misinformed the 'Landclass' stuff isn't real photographic scenery either. But in any case I don't see Microsoft providing real photographic scenery even though they have satellite photos of the entire world on their 'Terraserver' which could be converted to Flight Sim scenery. I saw better Satellite scenery in the News coverage of the Iraq war than I've seen in any Flight Simulator.The bottom line is with all the great freeware and payware airplanes, scenery, and other add-ons such as the Garmin GPS, FSUIPC, Nav aids, FMC's, airport data, etc....... and a fairly stable platform to run it all on (FS2002), what could Microsoft possibly give us to match?Well I guess a lot of you will be paying your latest tribute to 'William the Conqueror' in few weeks to find out.Sskoup

DBee,In the case of my San Diego scenery there was a patch (provided by the author) to the ".bgl" file and also the use of the "flatten" and "exclude" switches in order to get it to run with FS2002. As far as any other FS98 scenery add-on's I don't know.Sskoup

I still fly FS98 simply because I bought a San Diego satellite scenery add-on that has no equal (well execpt the L.A. scenery add-on for Fly 2). This scenery is so accurate that I can pick out my own house. This scenery will work with FS2002 but not as well as with FS98 for which it was designed. I fly FS2002 most of the time but when I only have time for a few "touch and go's" I bring up FS98 and fly around San Diego.Sskoup

My favorite freeware GA plane is by far "Geofa's" Debonair. The detail textures inside and outside are excellent. It's one of the few planes freeware or payware that has a visible engine cowling out the front windshield. My first real plane ride (at 10 years old) was in a V35. So simflying the Debonair brings back all the memories.My favorite freeware airliner is Mike Stones 727. My first airline flight was on a PSA 727 and my ex-wife's father was a PSA 727 Captian.Sskoup

You might goto http://www.leinensoft.com/ and download a program called Notebook. It is a Notepad lookalike but has a few nice features like a toolbar, macros, and others.SSkoup