kiwiflyer45

I add my enthusiastic endorsement to the above comments - this new PHJH scenery is really excellent. You will have to follow the instructions to turn off crash detection - sadly it is an issue that would involve a huge amount of work for him to fix. But it's a small price to pay for an amazing and truly unique freeware addon BTW, I strongly recommend all of Greg's sceneries but especially his CYQR Regina package. I say "package" because it not only is an outstanding airport addon, but also includes the city and an AI package that includes many of the actual aircraft that fly out of that airport.

ALL UK2000 FS9 UK AIRIELDS PARTS 1-8 ARE NOW FREEWARE!....

SkyHighSim have released two airports in Serbia, formerly payware LYBE 4.0 (Belgrade) and LYTV (Tivat) as freeware. Both are excellent though sadly no AES support. (Which surprises me as they are definitely up to Oliver's standard and were payware)...

I just purchased another new release for FS9 - Polish Airports Vol 1 2017 - a completely reworked version of what was already an excellent add-on. Takes things to a whole new level and if you purchased the earlier version from SimMarket, the upgrade is only 10 Euros... This is DEFINITELY worth buying... I am starting to think that FS9 will out-live me!!!! I am still very much an FSX-SE enthusiast too but for me they each offer a different experience and I enjoy both of them equally... And with our good friend Sascha continuing to upgrade EVO, I can't imagine ever giving up on FS9.... Cheers Ian

In addition to those already mentioned, some other developers I can think of that release some of their older products as freeware: a. IRIS b. Virtavia/Alphasim c. FSPS (At least two of their formerly payware utilities are currently available on SimMarket for free) d. Aeroplane Heaven e. Godzone (Released their entire FS9 and most of their FSX collection as freeware - all excellent products!) f. SkyHighSim I truly can't see a downside to this as long as they make it clear that these are "legacy" products that no longer reflect their current standards and no support is offered. The upside is the goodwill and name recognition it creates. The other alternative would be to simply offer them at radically reduced cost with no support offered. When the product is simply removed and is no longer available payware or freeware, for me personally it creates a quite negative view of that developer. It's all a matter of personal opinion of course and a developer has every right to decide what they are going to do. But kudos to the above list and others who are generous in their support of our hobby. I find it generates a sense of respect that more mercenary approaches do not. What I do not respect are those developers who continue to market at full price, really old and mediocre products that sucker people new to the hobby to buy what is essentially crap. I guess I better not name names but one begins with "A" and ends with "S." They continue to market products that were developed for FS2002 and ported over to FS9 and hype them to look like they are worth buying at full price. Not cool!!!! IMHO of course.... Cheers Ian

I was interested in your comment Ed about using FS9 exclusively for military aircraft. I'm doing the same. Though I still have a "civilian" version on my hard drive I haven't used it in some time. I have mine set up for WWII era, Korea, Vietnam (early and late), Cold War (60's, 70's and 80's) and Desert Storm. Though there are superior flyable military aircraft in FSX-SE, I can't get it close to all the options available for AI and airfields in FS9, not to mention the many utilities I have that allow me to tweak scenery and AI in an almost limitless way. Oh, and Helo 2009 which I cannot get to work in FSX-SE.... Great minds think alike mate!!! To anyone who wonders how it all works, I have a single installation but separate folders for aircraft, traffic files, flights and Helo files. Changing from one to the other takes me about 5 minutes and is just a matter of changing the folder names. I just did a quick count - in my combined WWII/Korean War version that I am currently using, I have 168 AI aircraft, ships and vehicles... Many are modified from flyable aircraft but with a few minor changes work just fine. I have 35 flyable period aircraft, 20 of them outstanding quality freeware. My largest collection is the 60's/70's folders and includes flying "intercepts" to check out TU-95 Bears flying off the coast of Norway and Scotland and landing an F4 in monsoon conditions on the USS Enterprise on "Yankee Station," surrounded by escorts and replenishment ships and plentiful AI. No, you can't blow things up! :smile: But I have set up a large variety of "missions" that involve reconnaissance, interceptions, supply missions, carrier ops... As in the real world, the vast majority of military flights do not involve shooting or bombing but training and support. And with some fiddling, I've even managed to arrange for some fairly large formations to appear from time to time including waves of V-1 "Flying bombs" crossing the channel from occupied France or large formations of Lancasters, or B-17s, or B-24s etc. It's just another way of expanding the parameters of the hobby for me and gives me a context in which to fly some of the greatest aircraft in history - not to mention some of the best addons ever created like the RAS Spitfire XIV, Section8 F86, CS F-104 and C-130, IRA's IDF Mirage III etc. Cheers Ian

Sascha also has an imminent EVO update coming. (When he can get his wife to stop watching the Olympics on his PC! LOL) .... I'm not willing to give up on the FS9 title Ed - seems like that's tempting fate! :wink: But FS9.9 seems like it's just around the corner mate!

In case you missed the news, John Young has just released another ground-breaking package for FS9. This new contribution features the Special Operations V22 Ospreys based at RAF Mildenhall. John has been one of the most prolific and talented freeware contributors to FS9 for many years and this new release continues his habit of doing what many would have deemed impossible. Realistic flight dynamics, animations and his usual great looking models with minimal FPS impact. Get it over at MAIW.... Cheers Ian ps. This month marks the tenth anniversary of MAIW and they are promising TEN new releases for the month to celebrate the occasion. This one is the second. Eight more to come...................

I'm still tweaking it but your suggestion was on the money. Thanks for the help...

Thanks mate. I'll give it a try tomorrow and let you know how it works out...

Much of my FS9 time these days is spent flying "war birds." Does anyone know if there's a way I can increase the torque effect to increase yaw when opening up the throttle and also when raising the tail on take-off? Though some do model this (especially the RAS Spitfire, which does so perfectly) many do not and as that is one of the real challenges of flying tail draggers, I would be grateful if anyone has any suggestions Cheers Ian

Lately I have been spending most of my FS time flying "war birds." I wonder if there is a way to tweak the torque so there is significant yaw when opening up the throttle and also when raising the tail on take off? The best example I have is the RAS Spitfire, which models this superbly. (And just about everything else!)... Other than adjusting the aircraft.cfg file, the only other tool I have is AirEd so maybe what I want to do isn't really possible with such limited tools (and skills) but no harm in asking. ps. If the new Flight1 Air Wrench tool can help me do this, that would make it worth buying for me... Any assistance would be greatly appreciated Ian

The Alaska area scenery is brilliant Gregg. And in addition to their payware products like PAJN (itself a multi-facet scenery covering the same area as the old Glacier Bay scenery) Orbyx have several freeware Alaska airports that are payware quality. And then you have several excellent products from Aerosoft that work perfectly with the Alaska area scenery... I highly recommend this. The only other Orbyx area scenery that I rate as highly is the New Zealand product.

I have had a dedicated second disk (D: drive) for about 8 years - in fact, I'm on my second PC that has had this arrangement. The only programs on the D drive are FS9 related. I have had zero problems with it and am quite sure that it has retained excellent performance, at least partly, because of this. And unlike some other simmers who use Windows 7, I've never had a compatibility problem with any addon, including the DF 727 which is my favorite FS9 airliner

I believe it is possible to tweak the distance at which AI will receive landing clearance but it has to be done for each ILS and airfield individually. The biggest hurdle I find is that AI aircraft are cleared to land miles out and you have to sit there and wait for them to arrive - by which time the next one's been cleared and on and on. I think the tweak can be done using ADE9 but as I've never mastered that particular tool, I can't tell you how it's done or how effective it is. What does help, though it's a pretty rough and ready solution, is to use the Traffic Zap key in the registered version of FSUIPC. There's a nice, satisfying "bang" and all the AI traffic around you disappears... LOL If you've been sitting there waiting to take off for 15 minutes, it's actually quite gratifying!!! New traffic will gradually appear again by which time you've taken off and are happily on your way. Your frustration with this aspect of FS has been shared by many of us over the years, and sadly the MS team never responded to requests that they improve the coding that determines how AI is handled. Cheers Ian