Tony H

Hi Sam. I was comparing it to ASN that I used to use. I bought it for X Plane as a vague alternative to ASN. I've used FS Global Real Weather with FSX now and usually just use the static weather. Back in 2013, a review on avsim concluded, "This is quite simply the ultimate simulation of atmospheric conditions, period" http://www.avsim.com/index.php/_/reviews/fs-global-real-weather-for-fs9fsxp3d-r1631 Of course, that's just one opinion.

I use FS Global Real Weather. I bought it to use with X Plane but I use it with FSX and have used it with P3D. Its got several options for weather updating. One is the obvious update every 5 minutes or so but there's another option to download the weather once. I like this because it avoids sudden updates but also avoids the sim becoming unresponsive while the new weather is applied.

If I thought she'd play often.... Just thought though, there's a minimum age on Steam accounts.

Thanks ca_metal, I like that answer better :wink: I was aware of authorising someone to use your games but didn't realise it worked in that context or that the achievements were individual. That's fantastic. My daughter will hardly play anyway but at least this way she could do.

It does feel a bit like there have only been 3 questions and they were all rhetorical. Dave/Dtrjones, I realise how Steam normally works and I'm the only one who uses my Steam account. But I was trying to encourage my 6 year old daughter to have a go on FSX earlier without saying, "Crash!" I was thinking, "Do I really want to buy another license on the off-chance that my daughter might play it occasionally?"

That picture does make me smile. It may be a little over-saturated but I like it that way. I like the paintwork on the plane as well. I wonder if we'll get Cherokees with that paint scheme as well or if its strictly Cubs over here, Cherokees over there. I noticed the video from the Insomnia event has the flight school named "South East Flight School, England (EGLM)". I hope that name was only temporary and Waltham Flying Club is the one they're going with. edit: checked back on the video from Insomnia, the plane there has the same paint scheme so presumably that's a proper thing. I like it. The paint scheme and the the dirt on the bodywork helps the authenticity for my little brain.

Thanks for that explanation Jim :smile: I had a quick google for Steve's DX10 Fixer earlier and saw that Mutley's Hangar rated it "Outstanding". I feel bad for not knowing about it But nevertheless, it looks like DX10 allows cockpit shadows, and iirc Flight School will use DX11.

Sorry, you're right Glynn. But I think that just means I should have said, "Isn't shadowing in the airplane just a DirectX10 thing?" I don't know much about Steve's DX10 Fixer, but doesn't it 'fix' FSX as I understand it (so it runs with DX10) rather than fixing DX10?

Isn't shadowing in the airplane just a DirectX11 thing?

turner112, to not answer your question I don't know if they were asked (or answered) that question. But I'd been thinking about it before and I doubted they'd give much of a discount because there would probably be a large crossover in the customer base. It would be nice if we get something for it. I thought maybe it would make sense for them to get high quality OrbX scenery for the areas around the flight schools. If that's the case (and its pure speculation on my part) then that scenery could carry over to the full simulator as a "here's something for buying both simulators" present.

"Waltham Flying Club". Nice.

Hi Martin As this is on Steam, how would it work if there was more than 1 user on the PC? Should they buy a copy each on a separate Steam account? Will their progress be tracked separately? Thanks.

TheFlightSimGuy, I believe that its a false split between entertainment and education anyway, was purely to allow LM to buy a license. I bought P3D. Anyone else here buy it? Did you use it in a far more sensible and intellectual way than you used to use FSX? I know mine wasn't. Look at the knots that PMDG ended up in with their entertainment-only license with Boeing compared to P3D's not-for-entertainment license. I've no idea how many people use Prepar3d in the same way as I did (what proportion of their customers), buying either the Academic or Professional license as a way to get prettier graphics and a few bug fixes. There's room in the world for DFS and P3D, but I just wonder how many people are going to buy the Academic or Professional license for Prepar3d if they can get a similar experience with DFS. All speculation now of course.

The only thing that made me doubt it was that the cockpit in the video from Insomnia almost seemed to be a 2D cockpit. I love TrackIR and it completely changed FSX for me. Do we know what license Dovetail have with FSX (and Flight?). Do they have an "entertainment only" license? (Flight School makes it sound slightly education so maybe its wider than that) Is it theirs now or could Microsoft withdraw the license if they felt like it? Does the license prevent Dovetail from stepping on LM's toes or is it all fair game now? Just wondered.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of people who have bought Flight School so far, and who will buy it over the next year already own FSX SE. I had a theory that Flight School also gives developers a bit of breathing room to experiment and move their add-ons over to the new environment. I even wondered if there will be a secret SDK that add-on developers will get that works with Flight School. Probably not but just a thought :smile:

I'm looking forward to the 3D charts that they previewed in the trailer Seeing the emphasis they've put on LAPL and PPL (in the interviews, if not in the trailer video) it will be disappointing I think if we don't get a bit more indepth than your description there I think Paraffin. But then again they won't want to scare people off so there's probably not much groundschool in there other than a few videos to watch. (pure speculation on my part but then that's mostly all we have at the moment)

Although this isn't one of them, some April Fool's jokes strike me as reasonably clever and creative (such as some of Google's previous efforts). But I think there's few that are that funny. Any examples? The joke is normally in my experience trying to catch someone out, to make them feel a bit silly when they realise that it wasn't real. This was never expected to be taken seriously so presumably fails the funny test. Which is my point, April Fool's jokes aren't usually funny. But I like 'em.

Ahh come on, is this a private April Fool's joke where everyone pretends to not see what the joke is? Its just a silly "Imagine if" joke. Like if avsim was to release a statement saying how it was now nothing to do with flight simulation and was going to cover tips on making yourself look and sound like (I don't know, maybe) Avril Lavigne (cos her name starts with 'av' and you'd be simulating her, right?) Now that would be extremely silly and perhaps wouldn't have people rolling about in the aisles due to its hilarity. There may well be some people on avsim who like Avril Lavigne. It doesn't matter. Its just a bit of fun and won't suit everyone. But its not like they were talking about drowning small puppies.

It does sound like that's the only teaching of navigation we'll get in Flight School. I would prefer a lot more obviously. However, Flight School apparently covers LAPL, PPL and Night Flying. None of those as I understand it need instrument navigation or more than a basic understanding of how VOR and ADF work. From what Stephen Hood has said, its possible we'll get DLC for DFS which has further Flight School type stuff in it, and I'd look forward to that. edit: I wrote this before seeing the video of Kyle Rogers. Ironically, he seemed to be saying that PPL does have more nav radio stuff in it than I thought. But he also seemed to think that all training in Flight School will be in a UK based flight school, which I don't think is the case. Interesting thoughts thanks for posting it.

I upgraded yesterday, Initially it wouldn't do the shutdown at the start. I unplugged my flight sim usb stuff and tried again and it went fairly smoothly. I've given FSX-SE a quick go and it seems to work fine. My PC kept crashing today (not with FSX, just generally) But one difference is it seems to give you the driver that caused the issue when you get a BSOD. I upgraded the network driver to the latest version and its not crashed since. I upgraded in case DFS uses DirectX 12.

In a recent video Stephen Hood gave on youtube he said he uses the kind of stuff that you list on his desk at work for Flight School (yoke, pedals, trim wheel, quadrant etc.) TrackIR is the one I'm wondering about. I hope Martin's still around but he doesn't seem to have been on the thread recently. (Martin, will TrackIR be supported? And please confirm that yokes, pedals etc. will be, thanks)

I was just thinking about "Unleash the pilot within" and phrases that you could use to finish that sentence such as: Unleash the pilot within about 3 months Unleash the pilot within reason Unleash the pilot withinclementweather (that last one might have to be flown under IMC) I need more information, it's too long to wait!!

I hope you're right about their intention actually. I'd assumed that they were trying to show to the uninitiated how exciting flight simming can be, which seemed a bit silly to me, to be doing it in that manner. I've pre-ordered as well, despite the video. I'm optimistic about the future of flight simming. (I hope that Flight School is a good product and that people don't expect too much from it. I hope that Dovetail have and will talk to add-on developers saying, "What is it about FSX that most gets in your way?" and that they improve FSX as the add-on developers would like. I also think that add-on developers will need to follow the business over to DFS and that people such as me who bought P3D in the past will also jump onboard DFS). edit: Just watched it again. The pilot seemed to solve the problem by calmly pressing the engine start button, increasing the throttle and climbing above the clouds. Still don't quite understand that video. :smile:

I wondered why that thread kept getting shorter

Okay, Heimi I thought I had been asking questions, but here goes. Question to Martin: Can you tell us anything about the flight school airfields used in Flight School? The video with you in it seems to suggest that the UK flight school airfield is EGLM. Can you confirm this? Any chance of knowing which airfield will be the US one for the flight school there? Either way, are you able to expand on anything about the airfields used for the flight school bases? Have they been enhanced over other airfields? Will they have specific VFR VRPs added or does the scenery have enough in it anyway? Thanks very much.