fshrink

Good news. The flight dynamics did need some improvement. Rudder response and effect on flight in particular, in my opinion. I so much would love someone to come up with a better, more intelligent mesh... I came to just hate the MS square mesh with its blurry, underwater-like aspect on slopes and drops. Triangles maybe? Weather-wise, I also hope that someone will try to have cloud decks rendered as mesh rather than as 10 miles wide fluffy areas... I liked Aerofly from the first edition though. Simple, straightforward, light and often immersive. Including on the ground!

Received this today in an email from IPACS: What can you expect for aerofly FS ? Our next major version of aerofly FS for PC and MAC, that is targeted for release at the end of 2014, will at least feature the following things: More aircraft. Expect to see at least the same type of aircraft that are now available in our mobile version, for example Airbus A320, Boeing 747-400, KingAir C90 GTx and Beechcraft Baron 58. Navigation features like VOR and ILS. Increased system depth. Virtual cockpit interaction. Support for a larger area which means switching to a geocentric world model. Some of the aircraft of the upcoming new version are already available as Add-On aircraft from our website www.aeroflyfs.com or as In-App purchases for the MAC version. We published those models, since they can be flown nicely without navigation instruments. The mobile version of aerofly FS will see shorter update cycles. As the development of our desktop version progresses we will add new aircraft and new functionality into our mobile version. I don't mind they take their time. This is a pretty cool sim.

The default location is pretty good for doing patterns. The rwy is very narrow, short, and there is a bunch of trees about 300ft from the the threshold, which makes it good training for stabilized approach in my view. The 3d objects, which I call "manu-gen" because it's obviously put by hand rather than being automated is pretty good as far as buildings. In some villages in the Alps, it's even rather striking. The detailed home-airport makes me feel like parking and getting a beer. Flying around the country at a 2 or 3,000 agl is sometimes very very pleasant.AFS has been out for, what, 2 months and there are 2 updates available. I hope they realize that there is potential here...

All this finally cleans up the market and, I will bet, clears the road for a new simulation combining the best of what exists and more. The Fly! spirit will be reborn. Meanwhile, I'll fly RW until my health betrays me.I am grateful to XP to run on LInux.

My feeling is that it's a relaxing, straightforward, light and very pleasant sim. Everyone is aware of the downside of simplicity as far as aircraft, scenery and such but on the whole, it sometimes provides a very nice sense of immersion. In fact, pretty much every aspect of a sim can (can!) be very convincing at times, including clouds, lighting (absolutely gorgeous at times), 3d buildings and houses (that seem to be rather precisely located and reproduced, particularly around the base airport), trees. As someone else pointed out, having zero fps issues does help and makes you feel, well, calmer.I have no clue what the authors plan to do with it but it certainly is a very good base for a number of things, including what 3C Technology can bring. By modeling a town or a large airport for example. The dash is so nicely made, down to the grain of leather and the traces of dirt on the radios, that I can't believe the authors don't plan to make it functional.The only flight model I can talk about is the 172's, because I have a chunk of hours on small Cessnas. The general behavior is not bad at all, I'd say even better than the X-Plane 172. A little more stable, particularly in the vertical plane: there definitely is a feeling of weight there.I find that the rudder is at the same time too twitchy and does not have enough authority. Inertia is too small on the horizontal plane. When you do a power-off stall the plane snaps to one side too easily; it's very hard to keep it level and experience the stall. On the other hand, when you try a slip the rudder loses to the ailerons way too early. Full rudder is compensated by a meager, maybe 10 to 15 deg bank. That makes for weird crosswind landings. This could be tweaked I'm sure.That's a strong aspect for me because I can't fly with pleasure and make progress if I don't have minimally realistic rudder action.Ailerons are good, with possibly an exaggerated tendency to increase bank (less than X-Plane) and steep turns are pretty good, with the natural tendency to balloon when getting out of them. There is a noticeable adverse-yaw when banking hard.The home base airport is amazingly done. Flags flapping in the wind, tables, rwy textures, details everywhere. Really good. Begging to be populated. It also has a row of trees about 300 ft from the beginning of the 28; makes for a tricky final.If I were them, I'd start by adding a time factor to it (it's always 12:00 pm or so). Then I would add aircraft systems and navs. Someone has pointed out that there's no mixture.This would allow IFR work.Intel i700 6, GF 7500, lots of RAM, CH Full-right settings 60fps solid.

I'll try it. The bloated side of the 2 major sims begins to seriously turn me off. OK, apparently the engine management and nav part are not there, but if the sim is good, that won't be so hard to implement. I'm curious about the flight models mostly. And HH is right, the lighting is outstanding.

I think it's both a control issue and an over-sensitivity issue. Re. controls, I found that calibrating the controls with another app is helpful to get a better center/course, But I'm running Linux so everything is different. Re. over-sensitivity, I found that putting the sliders at about 50% "realism" is in fact more realistic, at least in small Cessnas, on which I have about 100 hours in RL. The plane feels more heavy and stable than with the sliders full-left ("realistic"). That's definitely a tweak to play with.

I agree about the scenery. The plausible/realistic or simulation/reproduction debate was already kicking when Fly! was alive... And the very only new thing since is to be found neither in FSX nor in XP but in Apple's hands... LR made a radical strategic choice for plausible and simulation, thus virtually eliminating reality/reproduction and trading it for high def. One must admit that was gutsy.I will buy XP10 and probably work on IFR stuff, including night flying, which appears very good and not only plausible but also more realistic than what existed before.

As far as I'm concerned an artificial scenery that is "as real as it gets" is this: Short of that, it's hype.Re. dynamic computing vs. tables and with my modest but real experience with small airplanes there is only one model that cuts it and it's the Siai by Real Air. X-Plane has also very serious issues with crosswind, which might be a serious problem with dynamic computing. And that's too bad, because this would be a tremendous way to hone very important stick and rudder skills. This seems to remain true with 10 although I need to experiment a little more.I always wonder why inertial platforms are not used to inform flight models. That would be closer to "as real as it gets."This said, I am truly grateful to X-Plane for allowing me to sim on Linux.

.And that's what a discussion is: jostling of assumptions. Unless, of course, when someone maxes out the ante with universal assumptions (e.g. "good" vs. "evil.")

I ran across a new feature of intellicast.com that allows to display zoomable radar images and does so apparently by downloading tiles as well. Was wondering if TP could be used at some point to display these images in a map or within an embedded screen or within an existing Garmin screen.

These two folders are placed in the default location for me (i.e. C:/Program Files/Microsoft Games.) If I try to move them, TP can't find them and load the tiles.I have exactly the same issue as described above: tiles are there but not loading in FS9. Tried all the things you tried as well, get exactly the same output. It's like TP is not communicating with FS9.Of possible interest: I also have FSX installed on the same drive.

FS was Bill's token geek, cool thingy. It never was about the money but about the image. Self and outward. Him gone, FS is gone; what a coincidence. Guess the others prefer basketball clubs and such.

What is worrying, but so banal in fact, is that the real questions are somewhere else entirely. When one reads through the hundreds of responses (about 40.000 views, and 400 responses) generated by the Aerosoft project (http://www.forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?showforum=109), one sees that the "online future" or what the "gamers" "do", "don't", "like" and such is just not there. All the rest is.