scianoir

Good to know they have returned to earth at last! Bill

His C-47 is a real gem but his other aircraft including the C-97, L1049G and L1649 Starliner are all pretty good too. Brave man!! I usually try to keep in mind the wise phrase "Blood is thicker than water" when I am about to open my mouth and say something like that, unless a glass of something has loosened my inhibitions and then I could easily land myself in the deep stuff!! Bill

For any fans of large piston-engine aircraft, a group lead by Manfred Jahn have just released a very nice freeware version of the Blackburn Beverley. This rather unique aircraft was a double-decker, high-winged four-engine military transport developed for and (as far as I know) only operated by the RAF during the 50s and 60s. It could carry over 100 troops or bulky freight loaded through huge clamshell rear doors and was designed to operate in and out of unprepared rough strips. It was quite ungainly looking and if a Shorts 330 can be described as a flying shed this has at least got to be a barn! This freeware aircraft (for FSX and P3D) is beautifully modelled externally with realistic looking textures and, as you would expect from Manfred, it has a nice and very functional virtual cockpit. It also comes with the extremely useful 2D 'monitor' window with which users of his great C-47 will be familiar. Although I have never heard a Beverley in action (the only one I have ever seen was outside a museum), the internal and external sounds are superb and are what I would expect from four Bristol Centaurus radial engines. Its flight dynamics seem appropriate although its rate of descent with full flaps and power off was perhaps a little less than I would expect although this may be related to its large wing. It has a low stall speed and a great short field performance, aided by its reversible props which are fully replicated, and I was even able to operate a lightly loaded Beverley into and out of a short strip just over 1000ft long. As such it may be a fun aircraft to try using as a large bush transport into some rough strips in somewhere like Alaska. So once again, many thanks to Manfred Jahn and his talented team for yet another great piece of freeware. It is fair to say that this, like his C-47, is equal to if not better than some payware aircraft. We are very lucky to have such generous and skilled freeware developers out there. Bill

It’s unusual to lose both engines at once so, when I initially read this, the first thing that came to mind, given the phase of flight, was the BA 777 accident at Heathrow some years ago. RIP to all those who lost their lives. Bill

Hi, Although it is not clear what caused your scenery library entries to disappear, you should be able to restore your scenery library from an old scenery.cfg which you should be able to find in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\FSX Hope this helps, Bill

If that is the case, I just wonder whether the freezing might be while FSX loads AI traffic. Are your AI aircraft traffic sliders set at a very high level? It might be worth uninstalling or deactivating Ultimate Traffic Live to see if that resolves the issue? Bill

There are certainly some great freeware aircraft addons to be found when you trawl through Avsim and other libraries and, depending on your expectations, these can give you many hours of flying pleasure. I always feel very grateful those who clearly have put so much time into the development of so many freeware addons. Bill

If you are unable to get help here, both HiFi (Active Sky) and Rex provide excellent support and it may be worth checking their forums or getting in contact with their support team. Hopefully they should be able to resolve this for you. Bill

My experience of Just Flight support has been consistently good. I would be very surprised if they don’t resolve your issue soon. Bill

I really enjoy the challenge of navigating without the help of modern avionics such as GPS and FMC and some of the classic era jetliners are excellent for that. Going back to an even earlier era, it is also very interesting to fly the Atlantic in winter in the A2A Constellation navigating by dead reckoning using the forecasted winds aloft to plot your course and only NDB bearings from a couple of Ocean Stations (using the nice Ocean Station freeware utility) to provide any kind of cross check on your position over the water. Highly recommended if you like a challenge! It also takes a little patience (or the use of accelerated time!) as Ray would most likely have done about three return trips across the Atlantic in Concorde in the time taken for the venerable Connie to just do it in one direction! What progress in a little over two decades although after 2003 progress took a step backwards again - sadly a case of two steps forward and then one step backwards! Bill

Active Sky 16 is just a weather engine and does not include cloud textures but utilises whatever cloud textures are active in FSX. As such it should work with Rex Soft Clouds, default clouds or any other 'cloud' addon that is installed into FSX. I currently use AS16 with ASCA cloud textures (and Envtex) but in the past I used AS16 with Rex cloud textures and didn't encounter any issues. One thing that might be worth trying Furkan, if you have not already done so, is go to Options in AS16 and then open Visual fix options and check that the Cloud pop fix option is enabled. Hope this helps, Bill

Well that doesn't sound right! I use the Premier 1A in FSX on a computer that is only a little more powerful than yours and I have no problems with poor frame rates. I would suggest uninstall and reinstalling it just in case the installation was corrupt and if that fails try a fresh download and reinstall in case the download became corrupted in some way. The only potential issue using the Premier 1A with FSX (and other 32-bit sims) is its VAS footprint which is pretty high and can cause a problem with Out of Memory errors if combined with VAS intensive scenery. Bill

The One-Eleven developed by Aeroplane Heaven and published by Just Flight, albeit a few years ago, left a bit to be desired systemwise and even their more recent C46 with its much more basic systems fell a little short of the mark. This is slightly worrying when you consider that the system complexity in these aircraft pales in comparison to that of the Concorde To be fair however, having recently read a couple of wartime novels where the Hawker Hurricane featured, I purchased the newly released Aeroplane Heaven version of this aircraft, having first looked at the reviews some and I have to say it is superb! Although I accept that it is not valid to compare the systems on a fighter developed in the 1930s with those on an aircraft which arguably was the pinnacle of airliner development, perhaps Aeroplane Heaven have managed to up their game of late. However I think I will still be waiting for some trusted reviews before giving AH my money for something as complex as Concorde! Bill

As new addon aircraft for FSX are, not unexpectedly, starting to dry up a little now, some previously unavailable aircraft types would certainly be welcome for that platform. Depending on what they chose to develop, I would most likely buy some of these but, as with most ‘Lite’ products, how much I would use it after the first flush of enthusiasm is debatable! The Pucara however is a bit of a niche aircraft as a first release for a new brand and, as such, may not attract a large amount of buyers but it will be interesting to see what else emerges from AH under this line assuming Ctrl-Ezy survives. Bill