Dogstar23

Probably just getting it plug in ready for third party developer addons.

Of course it is just speculation. However, I don't see any legal issues with it, it would involve standard licenses and contracts that are done everyday at MS (this is my line of work and I'm confident it would not be an issue). They could set up a third-party to do the validation testing, likely paid for by the developer, so again no cost to MS. I would be suprised if there were not 3PD interested, especisally if the former MSF managment team that they had an issue with are gone. This low risk model would be nothing new to MS or the industry and I doublt hard to get green lighted. You have to wonder if 3PD model was the original plan that MS had intended for MSF and whether the MSF team talked high command at MS into taking the approach they launched with and when that failed right out of the gate they all got sacked and now MS will go back to Plan A. One can hope anyway.

My money is that in the next month or two we will hear there is a small staff of MSF whose function is to coordinate development of content by 3PDs for distribution throught Live and Stream. Almost zero downside for MS and a big potential upside.

I doubt MS will simply throw the key away on Flight and not monotize the asset by licensing it out to third-parties. The thing is built for addons and has many features that appear to be baked into the code that are not yet activated. They would be insane not to, but then again they were insane to launch they way they did.

I don't see why they would not monotize the asset by licensing the code out to third parties to continue development.

From what you described you like regarding the entertainment aspects of FSX, I think you will really like Flight as it does a good job with these items. While the graphics and some of the details are a big step up from FSX, in my opinion there is not enough functionality or features modeled (no ATC, not all navaids work, no GPS/auto pilot, AI traffic etc., real world weather etc.) to keep your interest if you are more into simulation. However, Flight appears to have the foundations to eventually be a full fledged simulator, it's just that nobody knows when that might be, possibly years from now.

Give it skies and floats and I might buy it.

I checked the MSF maps and they show DMEs as a small square box with a dot in the middle, VORs as a small square box with a hexigon in the middle. The NDBs are a small circle of dots in a cluster. For some reason they did not bother to use any VOR compass circles.

It's most noticible in the RV-6, but it might just be that the wind noise in the cockpit is so loud that it is drowning out the engine noise so I can't hear the engine throttling back until the wind speed drops enough to be less loud.

While I can hear the sound of the air flowing past the aircraft and the engine noise as two distinct and seperate sounds, for some reason the noise of my engine only changes up or down depending on the airspeed rather than being tied to the RPMs I have throttled. It's almost as if engine speed and air flow sound are tied together when they should be seperatly modeled. If I decrease the throtte at cruise speed there is no coresponding reduction in engine noise until the plane actually slows down. The engine sound should immediately get lower when decreasing throttle/RPMs while the air flow sound should not get lower until the plane slows. Anyone else notice this?

Yah, they nailed some things like lighting and icebergs but on other things went cheap and used old low resolution mesh and textures. Two steps foward, one step back.

Not sure if already mentioned, MSF should model its maps on the public domain VFR Sectionals. Also, they should add a search box where you can search for a specific airport on the map. This would be a huge improvement.

Sometimes what appears to be a VOR is actually only a DME. There are many DMEs in Alaska. VFR Sectional Charts show a DME as having just a box around the singal site and a VOR will have a big compus circle around the box. If it does not have the big compus circle around it but otherwise looks like a VOR, its a DME. It will also say "DME" if it is only DME. MSF should model its maps on the public domain VFR Sectional maps, this would be a huge improvement.

Agreed! That's an accurate quick summary of Alaska.

Sweet! Hopefully soon.

I think what he was saying is that now that we have this huge of a territory with all these airports compared to Hawawii, it would be great if they added an airport search function to find what your looking for quickly.

Has anyone checked to see if the landclass additions for Alasaka, such as urban grid, have any affect on the Hawaii scenery? Also, is there functional equipment on any of the available planes that can track an NDB? The VOR radios work, but I have not been able to tune for NDBs now or previously.

Okay, okay, I'm in.

This post may have just convinced me to buy Alaska right away instead of waiting for MSF to get more sim features.

Ditto. As a real world pilot, I'd like a little more "sim" in MSF to keep it interesting. I'm pretty sure they will take Flight into a full sim direction eventually, but I'm hesitent to invest until I have seen at least some comment from MSF that this is the direction they eventually would like to go or at least make available as an option through DLC for those interested. I have a tricked out FSX system to fly until then, but I would not be opposed to investing in MSF right now as a second system while it grows if MSF would indicate they plan to grow it big. In fact, I'm teetering on the edge, its more of a question of when and not if. Regarding the original question posted, I think people that are holding back are mostly people invested in other flight systems and they view MSF as another "system" not just another game - changing systems can take a bit more justification than just picking up a new game.

Looking at the different LCs listed and taking those together with the tropical LCs I imagine are used for Hawaii, MSF seems to now have the LCs needed to cover a significant part of the world. Maybe they can now start pumping out the regions. :)

LC = Land Class? Is each item for purchase seperately? What's the pricing?

Maybe with Alaska MSF can take its first crack at some AI traffic DLC, like a $4.99 download of "Carribu Herds, Wild Grizzly, Polar Bear, Killer Whale Pods, Wolf Packs and Seals, with hunter themed mission adventures."

This might not be a big suggestion, but how about a little one - the Yoke mapping only has one assignment for gear up and down. It should have seperate assignments for up and down, like it has for flaps, so that a flip of the swich up will be gear up and flip of switch down for gear down.

Have they said how much Alaska will cost yet?