FlyingsCool

And here, I thought the first post was quite apropos, and wasn't a "bash" at all. I happen to agree with his opinion. I kinda like Flight (wish I could get it to work (I can't connet to Live)), but the last thing I'm gonna do is buy a plane without a cockpit. But, in the meantime, I've still got FSX. It would be nice to be able to upgrade to something better, but, guess I'll have to keep waiting. This is not a bash. I'm here because I keep hoping that I'll learn something about how Flight is going to get closer to what I'm looking for, and I keep hoping I'll find a solution to my problem so I can at least get the Stearman.

One more issue. Yes, I've downloaded and installed flight. Unfortunately, there appears to be a problem with my router and MS as I can't login to MS Live, so I can't buy DLC or even get the free extensions. So, if it were there, I would have checked Yes on "Did you have problems installing the software" and No on "Have you been able to resolve the problems yet" I've spent hours researching the problem. My last resort is to call for help, and I assume they will tell me I need a new router from Verizon FIOS. That actually makes perfect sense to me. Obviously, there is still a whole lot of development to do. Why release an SDK when resources are better spent finishing the product? The last thing I would want to do as a developer would be to lock myself in to a path because of some stupid decision I made in the beginning (that at the time made sense), but now I have to support the "bug/feature" going forward because all these products depend on it working a certain way.

Please, please, please, please, please follow this advice. I can't come to this website anymore to read the news. It's impossible to read now.

Ok, I figured it out. In Chrome, I went to the tool on the top right, selected Settings/Under the Hood, clicked on the 'Clear Browsing Data' button, unselected everything and selected Empty Cache. And yes, even after clearing the cache, I get a 404 when I try to go to the website issues tracker using the link in the "Welcome to the New Front Page" article. And when I try to post new threads to the forum, I get a blank page in return. And my new thread doesn't show up till I quit the browser and return.

HOW do I clear cache?

I was hoping to post an issue or two regarding the website layout, but when I try to go the link, I get a 404. I tried using a browser I have never used to visit avsim.com. I always visit through www.avsim.com. It appears the comments still cannot paginate, IOW, I can't see any comments beyond those that I see in the first list? When I click on 2 or next or >>, nothing changes, I can't see any more comments. I really, really, really, really, really, hate the dual column format for the news. I mean, really, most of the news item titles end up being 1 or two words / line, and end up being 6 lines long. Plus, my brain gets all confused because I have to scan down and can't scan across, since each line ends up being multiple lines because there isn't enough space for more than a word or two in the titles. I see absolutely NO purpose in the dual column news format. Please get rid of the light blue borders surrounding the main content. You've packed so much information into the space of the page. Why waste all that space? What purpose do the borders serve? There are no borders in the title block, so don't tell me they are necessary.

Sorry, duplicate post. When I post a new topic, I get a blank page in response. I didn't realize my post had posted. I didn't see the new post till I quit the browser and restarted it and went back to Avsim.com. If I just went back to the forum and refreshed the page, my post(s) did not show up. Time to go back to the old format again till all these issues are addressed? I'm finding it really hard to use the site. I can't read the news (I hate the dual column format). At least maybe ban the use of images in news articles. You can't fit more than a word per line beside an image in a dual column format. That makes the titles nearly impossible to read.

Well, I searched but didn't see anyone else previously posting on this.I went to the microsoft.com/games/flight page and decided to watch their promo video. Well, it's being served from YouTube, which of course, then gives you tiles of related videosI thought it was kind of funny that, on their main promo page, that the "What a really bad dude Thinks of Flight" video ends up getting prominently highlighted after their promo video, lol. Oops! :)You'd think Microsoft would have the resources to post this video in their own space?

OK, more news. I ran the network test on my desktop, and it passed all tests. The desktop is wired to the router.I installed Flight on it; it, too, cannot connect to Live, same error message. So it seems Symantec is not the problem, since it is not on this computer.I deleted all the references to XLive port forwards on my Actiontec router. I tried logging in again. no go from Flight.Note that I can still log in using MSGFW Marketplace app.It did recreate a port forward for XLIve at UDP 19673.BTW, the another port was missing from my list above, Port 443 (TCP)Which brings up a question. I can only create port forwards for a single IP address. I've been using the IP address of the computer that I am trying to connect from. How do I handle this if I have multiple computers which all need to use the same ports, as required by Live?

A little more information:I ran the microsoft Network test. from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/using/tools/igd/results.mspxAll the tests passed except:It couldn't resolve the NAT test - something about "DIdn't receive any Router Advertisement frames from the Teredo server"It didn't run the UPnP testThe detailed report gave the following result - The operating system is Windows Vista get_FirewallEnabled() failed=80070057 IsUPnPDiscoveryEnabled() failed=80070057 Failed to get the UPnP Discovery SettingsHmm, one issue is that the computer is running Windows 7, not Vista.UPnP is definitely supported by the router and on, and I could see multiple open ports that had been automatically created, including a Windows Live port for this computer.

Ok, yes, UPnP is on.It seems the last thing I haven't referenced is the Symantec Endpoint Protection. Any thoughts on settings that I need for this?Guess I'll have to talk to IT tomorrow, since it appears they have turned off my ability to turn off protection.

Oh, the router is a FIOS (Actiontec) mi424wr wireless N router. It is not on the list of supported routers found in a link at Microsoft Support KB977709.Oh, and, yes, I can sign in using the GfW Marketplace App.I tried going to a local library, and I can't log in from MSFlight there either. The GfW Marketplace app can log in there, though.When I get home, I'll check if UPnP is on. But, as I noted the ports are all open.

Ok, I logged into my router and added the following ports to port forwarding for the computer I am using:Port 88 (UDP)Port 3074 (UDP & TCP)Port 53 (UDP & TCP)and Port 80 (TCP)It seemed to update the router automatically, but I rebooted the router anyway.It didn't help at all.BTW, this is my company laptop, and it has Symantec virus stuff installed. Interestingly, I can't figure out how to turn it off. And the interface is so cryptic, I can't figure out how to make changes to the firewall settings nor do I have any clue where to begin.

Hmm,Well, I don't think I have a choice about my router, it came from Verizon FIOS. Are there any settings I can check on the router? Guess I'll have to break out the FIOS router manual to see how to change settings on it.My problem is NOT Windows Live failed to initialize. But I did miss that one little sentence at the bottom of the post about problems associated with connecting to Live. Problem is, when I click on the link, it says "Oops, that shouldn't have happened. Looks like you found a glitch in the system" - but nothing else. Gee, Thanks Microsoft. Guess I'll have to browse the support pages.I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, but no change.BTW, my XBox 360 connects just fine to XBox live through the wireless in the past. XBox is broken at the moment though, so I can't check it today (I need a new DVD).

I tried serching for this problem and didn't find any similar topics, so...I am running on an HP Elitebook 8650w with Windows 7 Pro. I'm connected to the internet over wireless through FIOS. I installed Flight, and it installed ok and runs fine.But when I try to sign in to Windows Live, it tries to download my profile, then I get the following error message:"The Live Service may be unavailable..."I have an existing windows live account. I can log into it fine from IE9.I can't change the password, but it seems to be ok (the same number of *'s as characters). I did install the Windows Live login helper software a while ago. Windows Live Essentials is installed.Any thoughts?

Online groups such as Boston Virtual ATC and West Coast ATC have regular events where they do string controllers along a route. I highly recommend them.

Well, I think it might help us answer you if you defined what you meant by "performed better". Yes, the RealAir freeware works in FSX (though I think I did go through the aircraft.cfg and edited it some with some new FSX stuff). It will "perform better" if what you mean is that it's flight characteristics are closer to reality. But if you are looking to "soup it up" and make it go faster, well, compare the aircraft.cfg to that of the extra and you might get some ideas.

Saw a tweet this morning from Carenado that they will be releasing the 337 "within hours". That was at about 8:00 am EDT. "C337H Skymaster for FSX almost ready. It will be up for sale in the next hours"

I didn't create this thread to be another "I hate the new page" thread. I wanted to understand what the goals of the redesign were. Without knowing that, how can we provide effective criticism or advice to improve it? I know there are many web developers out there in the community, I'm sure they could offer advice and perhaps time to help meet those goals more effectively.Personally, my knowledge of web design is quite primitive, but I can at least help the brass understand how I use their creation.

Actually, I'm thinking having the news on a separate page isn't necessarily a bad idea.What I liked about the old layout was all the news was on one page; in one quick sitting I could go through the days events and news in flight sim, and I could quickly peruse the latest uploads of the day - All in one glance with no clicking unless I want more info. My brain is pretty good at sorting through the data in the way it was layed out. What I don't like about the new layout is that I have to click on anything I want to read. This wastes time. I have to wait for the window to open, read it, then close it and move to the next article. Lot's and lots of physical interaction and distraction from the real purpose of my visit; to read. Talk about inefficiency. My problem is, if I'm going to be saddled with this new layout and having to click on each news item to read them (can you tell I hate that?), not enough information is being shown for each article to help me decide which articles are meaningful to me, so now I have to waste an inordinate amount of time ending up clicking on articles I'm not interested in. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click. Ultimately, I'm just not going to bother any more.If there was a separate page for just the news, then perhaps each subject header could contain more information (like the old days) and it would be easier to use. And then I could bookmark the news page and forget the home page (as it is now).*****************************************I should say something about how I use the page (which is not necessarily how everyone uses the page):I come to Avsim mostly to read/peruse the latest news, see what the latest uploads are, and peruse the forums, in pretty much that order. Occassionally, if I'm interested in a product, I will do a search on the reviews.******************************************So... I notice that some changes are being made. Thank you. (You ARE making these changes just for me, right?)Given how **I** use the page, I'd prefer:1. to see the reviews pushed to the bottom or even to another page i.e. give me a link to the page with the list of reviews, and just put the latest reviews in the news like the old days. I personally think the reviews section is taking away from the utility of the page . They are not something I access daily. Why are they at the top? Why do they take up as much space as the news? What is that jumble of text shown for each review (thereby wasting space)? Ok, maybe just a listing of review topic would be better. But really, ultimately I'm going to search for the review I want. So even a listing of them is pretty much useless to me, and the reviews do not belong at the top of the page. The news, however, I read daily. It should be front top and center, and take up most of the top of the page.2. Put all the latest uploads at the top, showing the uploads of the day on the front page, with a link to the page with past lists (which, as I've said before, is redundant and another innefficiency, since I can easily list the latest uploads for any period I want by going to the file library. Nice thought, but, no thank you, I won't find myself using this new functionality). Why make me click yet again and have to wait for a page so I can see the latest uploads?3. As noted in 1., Put all the news just underneath the latest uploads list. Each news item needs more space so I can figure out if I want to read it before clicking on it.Interesting idea segregating the news by topic, but I actually preferred having it all mixed together in one place. To me, it's relevance is that it is flight sim related, I don't really need any further granularity on my flight sim news when I'm reading it. My brain is smart enough to sort out what I'm reading about. Ultimately, I can live with it segregated, but, again, to me, this is another inefficiency in my use of the page. Sorting the news into different types means that you have to make different sections, and space is needed to separate the different sections. Why do it?Guys, this is the home page. You were(/still are?) a flight sim portal, a place people came to on a daily basis to see what was new on the page. The reviews are relatively static and don't belong on the top. Plus the new design now has a lot of wasted space at the top, forcing users to scroll a long way to access the data that used to be front and center. The main draw of the page in the past was the list of daily uploads, and the news updates. Users access of this data has been made much more difficult. Plus the new design is definitely not optimized for mobile devices. Which still leaves me wondering what the goals of the design were.Here's to hoping all this gets sorted out and the page becomes usable again. I hope the way I use the site is not too different from the way others use it.Thanks for listening.

Hi,As I stated previously, I'm not a fan of the redesign of the site, and am sad I will have to go elsewhere for my flightsim news until the design has been revamped and made user friendly again.In the meantime, I'm wondering what the goals were with the redesign of the front page and the library?What was wrong with the old design and what will you gain with the new design?I can understand having to upgrade the site to make it easier to manage using different coding methods, but why change a layout that worked and was inviting and so easy to use?Thanks,Tom Perry

I've got two planes which cause FSX SP2 to CTD when I try to load them. The SOH A-26 Invader, and Stuart Green's Pfalz DIIIA. I've installed them from scratch using the installer. I assume everything is there. I have installed the replacement textures available for FSX for the Invader that fix some invisible sections in the nose.They crash FSX whether I am trying to start them from the startup panel, or if I start with a default aircraft and then try to switch to them.Nothing special about the CTD. With the Invader, the plane appears in the preview window, draws the textures, sits for a bit, and then crashes. With the Pfalz, sometimes it finishes drawing all the textures, sometimes it doesn't. Note that I never manage to get into FSX itself, it crashes at the select aircraft menu page.How can I get an error log to at least get an idea of where the problem is (i.e. textures, gauges, model, etc.)?Any ideas on what might be going wrong? I believe there are many people successfully using the SOH Invader in SP2. Thanks!

I'm sure there are several more, but two good ones I am aware of are the http://www.a2asimulations.com P-51 and an excellent freeware version by Warwick Carter available here at Avsim http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004ac&DLID=95845. Carter's version got attention and some nice textures from Gary Smith http://www.gjsmith.net/Textures/P-51D.htm, plus lots more from other authors. Flight1 published an apparently good version as well that I haven't used.

We just assumed you had a sense of humor Roger, based on your call sign :-)

...how many years it took before SOME people started using FSX over FS2004. I, like many other people, had completely switched over to FSX within a month or two of its release, despite the fact that it took a while for pure FSX addons to be created for it. In my mind, the immersion I felt with FSX was that much better than FS9 I had no desire to go back.