fs4fun

My first time messing with flight sim was Sublogic FS II on Atari ST, back around 1987 and also had MSFS 98 but was only a casual user in those days. In 2012 I got FSX and became really serious about learning all the ins and outs, eventually learning to fly the PMDG NGX and J41, but lots of other aircraft along the way. YouTube and communities like this one were an enormous help in learning the ropes. I've was bitten by the development bug some time ago and made some mods for FSX but now I'm spending most of my time developing on Unity3D (but still making airplanes fly, LOL).

POSKY is long gone. I posted some links in this thread: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/533682-models-of-project-open-sky/ I don't use these models so cannot provide any help but the links still seem to be working.

Yes the cherokee is quite good for a short VFR hop. I still use it from time to time. I know there are a few fanatics trying to get more airplanes into FSW but I'm not so keen as that. I've mostly moved on to other things.

You are quite right that Gmax is complicated. 😵 It is a very good and powerful program but it takes quite a bit of time and dedication to become proficient with it and I recommend beginners avoid it since it has become very dated compared to modern 3D tools. Your best bet for help and advice is to visit fsdeveloper.com. There are forums for scenery designs and the different modeling tools. For custom ground textures, the simplest option is to use Airport Design Editor (ADE). It has a built-in ground polygon tool. That might be a good way to get started. Though I have not used Sketchup, you can use it to make ground textures. You need to also get ModelConverterX (MCX) from scenerydesign.org to export your creations to FSX (make sure to download MCX from the Development Releases page so you have the latest version). Another option is Blender as there is a Blender-to-FSX toolkit available. One benefit to learning Blender (or Gmax) is that they can be used to create animations. You can then use SODE (SimObject Display Engine) to trigger animations in your scenery. This is much more advanced stuff but something to keep in mind. It could be that there are some extensions to Sketchup for animations that I'm not aware of. There are quite a few tutorials on YouTube for making ground polygons and other scenery design methods. Have a look at Austin Sass and SoarFly channels for starters (and also the fsdeveloper and fsdevconf channels). I'll also just mention this dated tutorial that is helpful mainly for background understanding (click Download link for the pdf file): https://iblueyonder.com/ground-poly-tutorial/

A2A and Milviz make very realistic addon airplanes. Mostly GA or military types.

I had this and it went away when I changed FSX to run as Administrator (and my FSX is installed in F:\FSX). I think I also changed my ASN to run as admin.

FS Global 2010 does use SRTM but an older release of the data. It's probably fine. You can also search for FreeMeshX, a free product that is based on a new release of SRTM data.

Just guessing but there should be VOR/ADF switches on the EFIS control panel, you might also need to push the CTR button to get the compass rose display. Try a google search for 737 FCOM if the documentation is lacking.

Never heard of it, but there are some links to English manuals in development here: http://www.ftw-sim.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1213

DTG's development approach was to modernize the sim's core engine and then incrementally replace or significantly upgrade each subsystem. FSW was still in very early days of this process and in the meantime large pieces of functionality were disabled, other parts were being redone but incomplete, and other parts practically untouched. What we were left with was a sim that was quite limited in the scenarios we could create, given only piston props, half baked weather system, VFR-only ATC and barely functioning AI, incomplete SDK and so on. The approach was too radical to be considered evolutionary, but without the freedom of starting from a clean slate. Still, it's software -- there are a lot of different approaches you can take but still get to the same end goal. I think the biggest mistake was releasing it too soon, they should have waited until development was further along and in the meantime used a decent size set of external alpha testers to give them feedback. In any case comparing it with P3D is ridiculous, FSW was never useable as a primary sim while P3D clearly is. I think if DTG could have stayed with their plan, eventually FSW would have been nearly unrecognizable as an MSFS based sim, but they didn't have the resources to get there. I suspect they badly underestimated the effort involved.

I believe if you buy the iFly from flight1.com they have a 30 day refund policy. I don't have the iFly but the reviews are very good. In terms of computer requirements I think the iFly and PMDG models are comparable but I don't know of any available refund option for the PMDG in case you don't like it.

I don't know much about the Perfect Flight 737 but from looking at info online it appears to be a very "lite" simulation of the 737. If you're looking for a good fidelity 737 you should either get the PMDG or the iFly, and turn your scenery settings down to avoid performance problems. I'm also guessing you are right about the TOGA pitch being off.

We don't know because DTG killed the product without explanation. Third party development was allowed but few developers had shown any interest, largely due to the immaturity of the product and small user base. FSW was an unfinished product which did not perform well in the marketplace because at the stage of development it had reached it was only of interest to the curious and early adopter crowd, it was not ready to be a replacement for any existing flight sim. FSW had a long way to go in terms of content and functionality before they could have expected to see strong growth in the user base. And that's probably why they killed it now. They realized that development costs would be too high relative to the revenue they would be getting even if they finished it. Their original business plan was to take a large cut of DLC sales but they had to back away from that plan given the strongly negative developer and user reaction. DTG also had to pull developers off the FSW team for other products that were more likely to generate revenues, so the point at which they'd have a critical mass of functionality was moving further and further into the future. Killing FSW probably meant they could save a lot of money on licensing fees.

DTG didn't put a high priority on terrain rendering and had stuck with the old FSX engine seemingly without any modification (other than licensing Orbx landclass textures) but I suppose if they had finished the weather engine and other higher priority subsystems then they would have turned their attention to land and sea. I hope we'll see some sims built with Unity and/or UE4 that include nice graphics like this.

It's good to see some new sims coming online like DeadStick and Flyinside. I guess we're at the end of the line for MSFS. I was hopeful that DTG would rewrite and modernize the old sim and was looking forward to seeing how it turned out, but this evolutionary path turned into a dead end. With these new sims I hope to see fresh approaches to the genre and a product that actually looks and performs like it was made in 2018.