jeff1155

Having read the interview ('they' in my quote above refers to sim-firms in general, or actually all those that seemed happy Flight was dying, my point being it wasn't good for any of us) it seems he was a lot more positive than I'd been led to believe by previous posts in this thread. It transpires that he liked Flight, although thought it lacked features (ie brain dead'), and MS were a nightmare. No arguments from me with any of that. 3PDs were always going to be needed to keep Flight alive, MS should have known that before it was released, I think actually they did if you remember even Joshua Howard conceding it was on the cards albeit 1-2 years away, and certainly it now appears that was brought forward if they were talking in early July. I just hope someone somewhere is at least trying to talk MS into resurrecting it.

How else would a free 'core' sim be developed and supported if not financed by a %age of the DLC sales? Why should MS put up the dev costs of a core and get no share of some of the commercial fruits of their labours? I never had a problem with this approach - 3PDs would undoubtedly have increased sales. There would be issues to resolve - should MS produce their own content or just manage the marketplace, how close should the editorial control be, should MS have any say on pricing - but fundamentally I saw nothing wrong. For me as a consumer Apple's AppStore is fine, and while their ate naysayers it seems a popular outlet for devs too. When ACES was closed Aerosoft looked into creating their own core sim, but it was too expensive. There might also have been issues had other publishers found themselves shut out of an Aerosft core, either explicit or implied. I'd love to see one of the larger 'sim' firms or a co-operative group talking to MS to get Flight up and running as a free or even subscription core, possibly feeding royalties to MS in return. With Flight's core a going concern and only support (currently an MS cost with little income) required, upfront cost could now be less of an issue. Updates and development could come after a market and income had been established. Based on the general tone though perhaps they would prefer to shoot themselves in the foot? FSX won't last for ever, and if Flight could be kept alive we would all have a more certain future. Here's hoping. If you think Lockheed Martin has any interest in consumer-level/home flight simulation, I wish you a pleasant wait! Doesn't their license preclude that anyway?

I was amazed, since releases and product direction must have been planned, that they never thought of adding more missions? Who thought one SAR mission and the wedding party for the Icon was a good idea? Surely if they wanted to entice games players, that more to do would have been high on the priority list? It seems so weird that a big company like MS would go about the management of the thing in such an amateurish fashion, with DLC launches not thought through, and then the whole thing canned after 4 months. How much did MS lose in developing then canning Flight, and that after closing ACES? Hopefully someone will persuade MS there's still a market for DLC, get consent to create some more content, and the core will get updated; hopefully!

Must be a new random duration features - might be five nanoseconds, might be five days, but hey! It's sure makes 'cache collecting fun....

There's an Icon A5 that I left under one of the drilling platforms outside Anchorage too :-)

What time did they post that up? I've been checking the website daily, twice daily to see whether the cache had changed from Haena, and it hadn't. Fantastic, another cache I've missed because now its on Elmendorf.... MS' communication skills really hack me off!

Very similar here, flight time 25:41', mostly in the Stearman, with a bit in the Icon and Maule. I've tried the free P51 once, and don't get in with the RV. I'm on level 16 with 273,600 odd XP - I wonder what the lowest XP is that isn't 0? That could be a challenge in itself! Travelled 2368 miles, but as I say I'm normally in the Stearman, and lately I've got into AOTDs as a way of boosting my XP with my limited time in Flight, it's rare I got more than an hour at any one time. Flew backwards for 0:0:6", must have been a crash - flying under oil rigs is all well and good until you see the cables! Highest altitude 21007 in the Stearman to boot, I'm actually quite pleased with that, but could go higher if I really tried - I was trying for high flying glider, you can see it from there - then I found out it was another 13,000 odd feet! 100% satisfaction rating... total passengers 7!

I take it the iPhone version of iGMap doesn't work with Flight?

There are some that have reported the near doubling of speed sometimes seen with SLI/Xfire, but personally I tried it, didn't notice any difference except it crashed 50% of the time running Flight, on the load screen to boot! My hardware is older, I was trying this on a P35 board with an E8200 and dual 5850 Xtremes, so more capable hardware might be different, but there is a view that rather than hoping for it to work you should just sell you old graphics card and get the best single GPU card you can afford. With the OPs setup both processor and GPU are mid range these days, the first gen i5s were slower than the i7-920 IIRC, and the GTX560 is good but nowhere near top of the tree anymore. I think I'd check my CPU and GPU loads and replace whichever was fullest, might get a good deal on an i5-2500k as stock clears if it's the CPU, while the GTX660 is imminent and the latest driver update for the 7970 has radically improved performance I hear. If you want 60fps and MAX settings though, be prepared to pay for it!

I tried the Kamohio Bay one last night in the Stearman and it wasn't there, tried daytime, dusk, still on joy, flew around the entire coast! Quit and restarted flight and there it was. I've noticed aerocaches hunts starting from the runway before but never had a problem. It's weird how loads of us had an issue first time that was fixed on the second, server problem perhaps.

The Saitek TPM axes work, really good with the Maule in fact, but none of the switches do. ProFlight yoke, pedals and throttle quadrants work fine, but I haven't tested the throttle switches.

Download links is not the way it's worked to date, with the locked liveries clearly visible in the hangar along with a note on how to unlock them.

I would say that I was a bit disappointed in Alaska, principally because there's nothing new to do, no new missions, no new planes (don't mention the war!) just the same jobs and a HUGE expanse of scenery. I would say that, but for $15... I can't. When I eventually finish Hawaii, I'll be able to tool about up north instead. I too am concerned about resourcing and 'the plan', I don't see the point in getting another two sceneries out before Christmas if they all have the same jobs, no new planes, no new missions. They'd be better off putting a bit of 'life' into Flight, not necessarily AI but some interactivity, some new and interesting mission types, maybe some co-op play, some grouping criteria for multiplayer (what's the point of joining a multiplayer game with someone who's 2400 miles away?). There's a clamour for new planes, but how long is a 747 with AP going to keep most people happy for?

Just exit Free Flight, refuel in the hangar and then go back into Free Flight to pick up where you left off with a full tank of fuel! Might be a bit boring though!

I seem to recall that someone enquired with Saitek and was told that the combat and Cessna pedals are identical under the skin, it's only looks that distinguish them from one another, so pick the ones you like the look of or the cheapest! They are supposed to be an improvement on the standard ProFlight pedals though, more metal I believe, and a stronger self centring action, which is something I would find useful with my ProFlights.

Aeros yes, it's clearly stated in their release notes. Missions? Dunno, I hope so!

Aero caches they mention on the release on the Flight website, so they will be along in a few days no doubt, but if they had a problem with missions would it kill them to say 'coming soon'?

1200MS is a decent price for a huge new area, but no missions, no lost campers, no spot the wildlife, nothing? Really? Is landing challenges and an aero cache hunt all we'll get? I hope MS corrects this!

If only there was more use of its amphibian abilities in Flight! Oh, and maybe the IFR pack enabled for some challenging over water missions!

Glad to see you've all seen the light! The Stearman is my favourite plane, and the improvement in visibility provided by TrackIR has transformed flying (and particularly landing) it, as well as my appreciation of the scenery. Site seeing, barn storming, cache collecting, ace!

TIR is fantastic with the Stearman, it's completely changed Flight for me. I always liked the scenery, but it's much more 'real' using TIR. I wonder if MS can track who's using TIR to see how many people they've made happy? It's completely separate to Flight, but the sheer amount of panning in the cockpit would give it away if they're tracking that much detail.

So that's why I crashed into the mountain.... :-) I've noticed a bug that moves the viewpoint when using TrackIR when increasing the mixture with a mapped button - every time I hit the button the view jumped about! It seemed to be connected with the text chat window but would carry on after it was closed, then the problem would resolve itself only to occur again the next time theft chat was opened.

TrackIR helps a lot! It's transformed Flight for me, especially in the Stearman!

I know, TrackIR will come FOC in the update accompanying the server downtime... probably!