FlightLevel180

Some controllers seem to hear me okay, but several have commented in how static/broken my comms sound when flying online. Any suggestions on a really god headset/mic? I prefer 1 ear or at the least 1/8" mini jack. Thoughts?

Huge thanks to both Geoff (whose opinion I've watched and appreciated for years) and to Mountain man. I agree fully with all that was said except I need to download and try the demo for night time since that's when I fly most.

I personnaly feel that if he said one right thing, it was the way the aircraft behave. I think they're inferior to FS9 (vs FSX). The default LJ45 is definitely different from the FS9 version. Everything else; taken with a grain of salt.

All of this situation is so silly (not pointing to this particular post/thread but the situation as a whole). We've known a hard release date for so many other titles for months and months now. MS have offered so little real hard info on this title and that along with being quiet on everything going on over the past several months make it very suspect and fuels the contention and rumors.

Thanks a million John- $9 is more than generous.

Praying for a Learjet 45 (as a ful scale LJ45 simbuilder/supplier) and just hoping for a C172/182, a Connie or Dc3, a 737 for all the pit builders, a jet fighter-trainer, glider, and a nice helicopter.Eric T.FlightLevel180.net

No, it's been *proven* that the whole blade element theory is bunk, and that it's really no better than the look up tables that FS uses. I can prove it to you any day of the week on any pc that runs plane. If the 747 that ships with XP is modeled like a 747 then according to BET, then it will. But alas, it flies about like the supplied C172.

Once you get this done, I'd be very interested in seeing it!

Hi! Well, I would prefer to say it's "not cheap". However, you must take into account that it's comparable to all the other packages for avionics that are used nearly exclusively for full size home flight decks. As such, its a niche market with fewer sales compared to desktop-only packages that require some way to justify the hundreds of ours of R&D that we do througout the development and support cycle for these types of products. Not to mention, when you spend upwards of $10k-$20k on a full size, fully interfaced flight deck, the asking price for these avionics packages are not a very large part of the total costs, especially considering that without acurately working avionics software, the entire project becomes a very elaborat museum piece :-)

Was just going to add that JET45 now is available in parts, so you dont have to buy the entire suite at once. See www.flightdecksoft.com .

Ive actually got a GF TQ module handling the interface for my real set of LJ45 throttles. Very nice unit that works well each and every time.

AWESOME shot!

Im a 34.5 Year old from South Georgia, USA and have been into proper simming since 1998, and using FS98 although I was introduced to FS in 1992/FS3 I believe. Loved it so much I changed my major from Audio Engineering (yes, another guitar player here among all the others) over to Aviation Operations and Admin, going to FCCJ in Jacksonville, FL. I followed with great interest all the full size home built sims and finally with great determination I was able to begin working on my project on 7-8-7, the day the B787 was rolled out at Boeing. Except, my project is a full size Learjet 45 sim. I am the admin for Hangar45, a site dedicated to building LJ45 sims and basically the internet "mecca" on the subject of home built LJ45 sims. I have recently gotten back into playing guitar again and enjoy mostly contemporary Christian praise and worship plus traditional Irish music (and actually play those tunes on guitar, wooden flute, whistle, mandolin, low whistle). Ive been able to do a little real world flying with friends, but my real interest lie in simulation and sim building/flying for so many reasons. I also like MilSimming (airsoft) and was Sr. Team Ldr for our group here that hosts no less than 1-2 medium sized MilSim events a year.

...another interesting point is that I remember aircraft in FS98 could do a powerback, but then it was as if it had been disabled in FS2000+.

This was a great question. As a LJ45 sim builder, I try to keep my flights into airports that would recieve business jets, and as Geoff said GA aircraft typically will avoid the major airports if at all possible. This is why I love the two series produced by Flight Scenery so much- they offer a truly spectacular product in their smaller airports. Too bad they never stayed around. Back to the question and answer though- I try to fly into the satelite/reliever airports for my flights. Example, Midway for Chicago, Peachtree or Charlie Brown for Atlanta, Ft. Lauderdale vs. Miami, etc.

Okay, thanks for the insight. I knew that there was a lot to it, however I thought that the basics may be covered in an SDK, etc. For the record, I did not expect someone from a commercial entity to give up trade secrets or code or anything that would violate their NDA, copyrights, etc. That's definately understandable.

Thanks. That's awesome. Seriously.

Is there some documentation or a resource that goes into detail on how to create a seperate autopilot system (much like how PMDG, etc. does?)?

Im looking forward to what the findings are with this- I too have an AMD x64 3.2 Ghz machine (dual core) 4 gigs of RAM as well as a 9800GTX and saw that now there's a 3.4 quad core selling at a decent price. Im a die hard FS9 user although I do have FSX and it runs okay, but still not as good as FS9. Please post your results.Im looking forward to what the findings are with this- I too have an AMD x64 3.2 Ghz machine (dual core) 4 gigs of RAM as well as a 9800GTX and saw that now there's a 3.4 quad core selling at a decent price. Im a die hard FS9 user although I do have FSX and it runs okay, but still not as good as FS9. Please post your results.

Very good discussion here- thanks to all who have contributed so far!

Not as far as I know regarding Learjet. MSFS used it with Bombardier's blessing, so that's one huge step forward compared to Gulfstream, which has never liked the idea and has made it very clear that it's a no-go. Oh, how I'd kil...oops, I mean love to have a Learjet 45 developed by PMDG or any high quality company for that matter (Im a full scale LJ45 flight deck builder using highly modded default aircraft).

Hey MichaelThe ARMA II map is 250 square kilometers and has way more detail than ORBX. Naturally, because this is primarily a ground tactical simulation, the focus was on terrain, folliage, etc. We dont need this in a flight simulation, but if it could be there and not affect performance, then why not have the ability to implement it? I am a flight simulator user, not a gamer. I like other simulations as well, and although I have no need for this level of ground detail to walk amongst in-game (simulation) due to the fact that I have a 1:1 full scale LJ45 simulator, I still think that there are many folks who would love the ability to have a true flight simulator with a very high level of ground detail too. Naturally, you wouldnt want this with any performance hits. Im simply showing here that this game engine, IMHO from using it in the demo that anyone can d/l, has fully impressed me with the level of detail it can show with tons of AI and moving about simultaneously. Your comments about PMDG quality aircraft, etc. is certainly true- way more complicated than the A-10 shown in one of the videos. However again, my point was not to put down anything (ORBX, FS, etc.) , but to show that it's possible to run lots of very complicated terrain and maintain high FPS when all the MSFS developers were saying over and over again it's not possible to get both, when someone here clearly has. That's all. If you can run FSX and ORBX perfectly fluid, then consider downloading the free ARMA II demo one day when you are bored just to see the detail and performance Im talking about.

Thanks guys for the participation- Mel you are right in your assesment. Thanks again to all who commented. I just want to point out that the purpose of my post was that if the engine is developed right, then high detail (like ORBX or better) can be implemented into a FS without it killing performance on a modern machine. Oh, and I went and researched Virtual Battlespace 2- that looks pretty good, in fact just like ARMA ;-) thanks again,

Well, there's no buble bursting for me my friend- I posted for the benefit of others to see it. Thanks for the opinion but what Im pointing out is from personal experience and the videos and it's clear to me that you can have both detail and fluid frame rate (at least for me). Now, when you say resource hog what are you referring to? That it requires lots of memory and a higher end machine? Memory leaks? The way it works on my machine is great and I see no issues with performance at all. Bugs is an entirely different story. I am not refering to bugs, but simply that this game/simulation engine seems well equipped to handle high detail and fluid performance. Of course, what I am experiencing first hand and via videos captured by other players could be the exception, but I dont see how considering that some of the hard core ARAM II guys play missions well over 2-3 hours, with it being sometimes more than a 5 hour mission. If there's performance issues I cannot see how they can play a continuous mission for that long. Anyhow, I didnt put this up for any reason other than Im excited to see a simulation that involves flight with tremendous detail and fluid graphics on my measly 2 core machine. Other's will have differing opinions, but that's okay too.

(This was posted by myself at the Aerosoft forum for the discussion of the new Aerosoft simulator currently under consideration)I have discovered something I was totally unaware of- I would like to point out a tactical war simulator that I only learned about nearly 2 weeks ago. As I am sometimes interested in military simulation in addition to flying my full scale Lear Jet 45 sim, I downloaded the demo for ARMA 2 after seeing some of the below videos online. I can no longer accept the long time excuse that a flight simulator has too many calculations to make to keep the flight aspect smooth while having incredible detail on the ground. PLEASE, just look at the videos and see for yourself. This proves that massive detail can be placed into a simulation environment and retain high FPS as well as smooth action all around. My system Im running the demo on is an AMD 6400 (3.2 dual core) w/ 9800 GTX 512MB and 4 gigs of RAM on Windows XP Home and when trying the helo flight myself I have great performance (as well as the other tasks in this sotware too).I should point out that the grass looks like grass, pavement looks like pavement, and trees look like trees. The detail is MASSIVE. Also, the map for this simulator is 250 Sqaure Kilometers, so it's not just some simple little map like what is found on console first person shooters. This title has actually been used by militaries for tactical demonstration. (Especially between 1:05-1:35)Notice the author's face in the character in the TrackIR demo-Also, you can see that the ground detail blows away anything ever concieved for FS while the pilot is flying the helo- all with incredible frame rate. Here you see an A-10 mission with tons of low level flight There are countless other ARMA 2 videos online that will demonstrate what Im raving about, but in short my point here is that,1) It is possible to have all the detail we've ever wanted and still have good performance on the newer machines (like i7). This detail is all present even when you have dozens of AI soldiers, equipment, aircraft, and even animals (rabbit, dear, insects) moving about the map at all times. The sounds are incredible too.2) This company (Bohemia Interactive) has created an incredible simulation that I had never heard of until by mistake one day 2 weeks ago. Maybe Aerosoft can investigate their gaming engine???