StevenW

Yeah, pretty good isn't it :-)

Me neither. I am very finicky when it comes to software usability so I stop using a lot of products quickly. Neither are the real world weather reports, that is part of the fun of it. You plan as best you can but if you don't have enough fuel then you have to do something about it.For airliners I basically just fill-her-up (everything else I liked doing by the book, jsut not fuel planning) but I don't fly them much any more. The fuel planning for that kind of role was just too tedious for me. For GA aircraft I do real fuel planning and that is _very_ simple.

Glad to see that after a few hours studying you are now an expert... As for some of the posts here, just because someone doesn't agree about the level of damage piracy does does not mean they support it. Anyone using the "economy", "just a student", "they rip us off", etc arguments are using an excuse for crappy behaviour. You do no have a 'right' to something because you want it.As a person that has every ORBX product (paid for) except Hervey Bay I would feel rather put out if this is some stunt.

The know they can get away with it. I have known only a couple of people who were habitual pirates. If the company closed down they could care less, neither of them actually ever used the products that they pirated.A rule of thumb, don't annoy the customer base you DO have by trying to get people who _will not pay_ to pay up. You can only lose.Steven.

There is a BIG problem with it. You need to read the darn manual! :-)It will be interesting to see if the shared cockpit feature becomes well used. If so it will give other aircraft authors an incentive. It certainly looks like a labour of love.

It doesn't happen for me in XP but if I use Windows 7 with the latest drivers it does. I don't think it did it with the earlier drivers but I don't have time to check right now.Steven.

True enough Bob. The GTS 250 is also based on the 9800 GTX. It is actually an old architecture part whereas the 275 is a new architecture.

I felt the same way moving from a 7600GT to an 8800GT. I have been thinking of getting a GTS 275 for my I7 CPU but it is hard to commit the money when it sounds like the newer ones may be actually worse in FSX.Steven.

Oh yes they do. unless the recently decided to be reasonable.

For me it was less than two years ago or so. ~$170AU for around 20 minutes of flying. I pay $180 per hour in real life! (not a 737 obviously :-)) Anyway it was a good review and I do agree that the guy who provides support on the support forum was fantastic, unfortunately the person responding to the email address I was told to contact was decidedly less helpful and there is no way known I will pay for a second activation. Maybe if others give this bird a go when it is finished and tell us they continue to have a positive experience with the aircraft and any activation processes it might change some of our minds. Either way, I suspect there are a few of us that are going let let others be the guinea pig until there is a decent amount of evidence that things have improved as once trust has been destroyed it takes evidence, not simply time to regain it. Steven.

Ah, it's vistas fault.<duck!>

I haven't used 2D for a looong time. I only like 2D panels for things such as CDUs but seeing I don't fly heavies anymore I guess it means I don't use em at all anymore!

I know how you feel. The last time I installed FSX I got told I have activated too many times, so, on the phone I go. I gave that two attempts, the first one died half way through the prompts and the second one said I had to talk to someone and to call during business hours. It cost me nearly an hour an a lot of button pushing.Bugger that. I, er, obtained a fix in less than 5 minutes. It annoys the hell out of my that I spend a fortune on software but have to jump though hoops to use it. I can understand how a developer might feel unprotected by not stuffing us around but the fact is that the people who download this stuff for free don't have out problem. So who is it that suffers!I own at least 130 products that I want installed on my machine during a reload. About 10 of them a seriously painful because of activation limits, the others are just a nuisance with typing in long numbers. I used to upgrade hardware every month or two (for my families 4 PCs), not anymore because if I do I would spend half my life typing in **** codes.If Orbix released scenery for XPlane I would have been long gone.

First we need a definition of 'realistic'. If you mean if it flies the same as the real aircraft then the answer is yes and no. In normal flight modes and light weather I think FS does a great job. Obviously there is no sensations and our monitors are small so in that sense it is not realistic. Another way that it is not realistic is that you know you can stuff up the landing in the sim and you can reset it. If you get a good crosswind gust in the real-world the sensations you experience is wholly different form simming. The corrective action in the real aircraft and the sim might be the same but you would come away thinking that the sim wasn't realistic because the emotional pressure and physical sensations are very different. that is why I say normal flight modes and weather. In normal flight modes and light weather simmers and real pilots don't feel a lot of pressure and have only minor physical sensation differences so the sim is able to match real life better.While I have been training for my pilot certificate I have found that there is a one to one relationship between the mistakes I make in the air and those I make in the sim. Mistakes such as those in radio calls, the approach, maintaining heading and attitude, handling turbulence, navigating, etc. So for me it is very realistic. This is a good thing of course because it means I can practice at home to get it right and I need that because I have always been a slow learner. To sum it up: I reckon the mechanics can be very close but the physical and emotional sensations are very different (for most of us). The visual ques are often different too because of the lack of depth perception and small screen real estate.Steven.

It works very well with my headset though mine isn't a DC. The mic is nice and sensitive so I can talk quietly when using my aviation headset. All my game headsets requir loud speech to be heard properly.The two most expensive parts are the case and the mic socket. The mic sockets are a non-standard size so I had to order mine from overseas. Steven.

Thinking about it I will have to do some different circuit entries over the next couple of weeks as all I have done so far is crosswind joins and I haven't got that far to go before I can do my certification test.In Australia, some airfields use non-standard circuits because of terrain clearance or to stay out of restricted airspace but I haven't seen one yet (I only have ~24 hours so I haven't seen a lot :-)) that specifies a circuit height _lower_ than 1000 feet AGL. Does anyone know of any?There is an idea for a web site. A place where virtual instructors can teach virtual students using shared cockpits... :-)

The organisation I am training under has a web site that is full of material for learning to fly. It is free too. The main page is http://www.auf.asn.au/groundschool/contents.html and the page to do with circuits is at http://www.auf.asn.au/groundschool/umodule12.html.Some of the it might be a little hard to understand if you jump straight into the middle so if you really want to learn how to do it right then the main page at http://www.auf.asn.au/groundschool/contents.html is the place to start.In Australia we aren't allowed to turn crosswind until 500 feet AGL. Part of the reason for this is due to engine failure (another is that if you start a turn at 500 feet and stall you should be able to recover, any lower increases the risk greatly). The aircraft doesn't climb as well when turning and is more prone to stalling so you want to get as much height as fast as possible after takeoff because the higher you are the more options you have for an emergency landing.

Amen, the search function should find our stories easily. The short of it, the product was ok, the main support guy on the forums was good but god help you if you have the audacity to upgrade your PC. One memory stick is all it took for me I couldn't reactivate and was told by the email support people to pay more money! I thik that was what I was told anywhat, the response was read the FAQ. As I told them the FAQs reregistration steps didn't work I assumed they meant the other entry which was that if we upgrade our PCs then new have to pay for reactivations.I flew the bird exactly twice and it isn't exactly cheap.I really wonder why I continue to pay for the stuffing around when pirates don't.

Yeah, the message style is typical of Austin and often rubs people the wrong way, he loves and believes in his product. Good on him, even if it is often annoying. I don't have to love him to see his comments for what they are, attempting to captialise on a business opportunity that his competitor gave him. He didn't cause our current situation and can you really blame him for producing a similar product and daring to advertise it!I couldn't see anything that he said that was bad about Aces and telling a huge number of your potential customers that his products is fantastic and here are some resources to make getting into it easier. I cannot see the problem there either, not many companies survive yelling out that their product sucks and hide when their competitor goes belly up.One thing about Austin, he supports his product with frequent updates and is fairly hands on with the community and always has been. The Aces team I had faith in because, like the X-Plane development community are accessible and love flight simulation. MS I don't trust because we are nothing to them. Until a new Aces forms with accurate flight simulation as a goal we are a little stuck for options in the long term.

Yeah, FSX has a while to live yet given our add-on developers.I have been through two retrenchments. There is zero consideration as to whether the cost cutting is sensible, it is purely to bring down the expense. In both my occasions the only people left on the team was the newest junior with everyone that had any actually knowlege (and paid more) let go. The fact that the section actually made money and could not survive without someone that knew what they were doing really didn't seem to mater. Shareholders can be their own worst enemy.Personally, X-Plane could certainly use the talents of the FS devs. Seeing it has a low third-party development base I would think there would be a fair oportunity there. Still, I can't imaging dumping FSX as my primary sim for a fair while yet.

Everything I hated about Vista seems to be fixed in Windows 7 BETA. I love it. I never thought I would say that about an MS OS again. I sent them feedback and one of my last lines was something like "I feel like I am the customer again". That is instead of the RIAA, MPAA, etc of course.As for FSX. This is the first time I have run a 64bit version of Windows so maybe some of the improvement I am getting is because of that but I get one extra Autogen notch out of it and still, on average, better FPS than I get in Vista or XP. The way FPS fluctuates it can be hard to be very definitive.

1. Have landing flaps set so the nose is lower for the given approach speed2. Fly the published approach speed3. When flaring look at the end of the runway, not the nose of the aircraft or out the side of the aircraft.4. When crossing the threshhold ease the throttle to idle. If you do it to fast you will cause a fast pitching moment that buggers up the lovely glideslope you go into.Do all those things and it should be good.Steven.

I had to do it myself recently. I used to upgrade components every 3 or 4 months. Just imaging having to reregister everything that often. This time I only registered about 18 products. The rest I can't be bothered with the mucking around.A bunch of years ago I downloaded a lot of software I had purchased from warez sites so I wouldn't have to be bothered with all the damn keys. Getting them legitimately often required multiple emails and stuffing around to get new activations or license files. On some occasions they just said "no". It is alright for people who only have a few products but those of us that have computing or gaming as a hobby or have several machines all with their own licenses. grrrr.I still haven't had anyone explain why it has to be the people who purchase that have to suffer but I guess it makes the software authors feel they are doing something active even if it is almost never effective.The FS worlds registrations isn't as bad and the FS authors are usually pretty helpful so it isn't as bad as it can be like some other games though. In order to play Black Shark I had to kill Spore because Spores securrom install didn't like Black Sharks securerom install, other games won't load at all, failing with their 'protection'. I gotta start taking thme back to the store for refunds.

Thanks for the thoughts fellas.I unmapped the throttle, prop and mixture axis in FSX and mapped it through FSUIPC and now they work without view switching.Odd.Steven.

G'day,Hmm. it sounds like those guys had made configuration changes and something screwed up whereas mine is still a default install. I deleted FSUIPC entirely anyway and the problem still occures. The fact that it is caused by the movement on any axis on the saitek throttle is puzzling so it isn't just one axis somehow being mapped to a button press.There was a message saying I could map the axis through FSUIPC and disable them in FSX. I might try that. If that doesn't work I guess I will have to live with it until next time I rebuild where I can test after each install to see what is going on.Steven.