wims80

I couldn't find a changelog, what's new in this version? Also, is this a free update for existing owners?

The Q400 performs FANTASTIC, I'd say it's one of the best performing planes in FSX. The performance didn't come at the cost of the systems fidelity tho, the systems rival or even surpass the NGX when it comes to realism.

These issues were what drove me away from using computerised ATC solutions. I dropped them and started flying online instead, with real humans doing the ATC. They can react in a dynamic fashion, they understand the rules and regulation and will in general provide a far better service than any of the ATC programs can. Of course, online ATC has its own set of problems, mainly the very steep learning curve and the lack of online coverage. I don't mind the learning curve, I love learning new stuff, thats what got me into simulators in the first place. The coverage can be a bit of a problem, it's fairly rare to get continous ATC coverage when you're flying a random route online, but I much prefer that to using the flawed ATC programs that basically only parrots ATC rather than providing a dynamic and realistic ATC experience

In addition to this pilots very rarely use autoland. Pretty much the only time they use it is when the conditions force them to or they have to do it to stay current on their autoland qualifications (both pilot and airplane)

It's not uncommon to get assigned a visual approach when you fly IFR in real life.

Run in borderless windowed mode?

I seem to remember a long time ago somebody mentioned that Lear does not like sims and that attempt to make simulations of their planes had been shut down by their lawyers. Not sure if that still stands or if it even was true back then

You don't need a STAR when you're in the approach phase, you have already passed the STAR. You simply need to reconfigure your radios for the new approach. I recommend always carrying every chart for both departure and arrival airport. The charts lists the frequencies and radials you need for the various approaches. They do of course list the various stars and their waypoints and just about every other little bit of static information you could possibly want about your departure and arrival airport

Vatsim crushes the market IMO. No atc addon gets close to the realism and immersion you get from Vatsim

The Leonardo Maddog has the best combination of graphics and systems when it comes to the MD80 series in FSX. The graphics are quite underwhelming, luckily the systems are excellent. It's a great, if slightly aged, rendition of the MD80, highly recommended

I'm guessing it has to do with the rules and laws of aviation rather than the technical challenge of implementing such a system. I'm not an expert tho, I'm just a guy who likes to fly sims. I might be completely off target For us as users it doesn't really matter that much, as you would still have to load the DME data then tune radios to be able to align the system. It takes a lot longer time than just entering the present position at the stand.

The INS is not 100% reliable and will drift away from it's alignment over time. DME update realigns the system again by using radio triangulation to determine the current position of the aircraft. This is under normal operations of course. What you are experiencing seems to be a faulty loading process, but if you can fix it by doing DME updating then I guess it's not quite a gamebreaking issue

Does it do non radar environments with position reports? What about oceanic clearances, does it do those?

There are no worthy A340s for FSX

"just" those, I say "just" because the Maddog is awesome. It's very dated tho

Same key. You bought a license to run the software, you didn't buy an installation attempt

VATSIM is crushing all of these ATC addons IMO. In my opinion it's a must have extension for FSX. It massively increased my knowledge, motivation and immersion. I wouldn't fly without it. I recommend it very highly. It does require some effort, but then again, I would think that people that are into flying advanced airliners wouldn't have any issue with putting in an effort to learn their hobby

As for SIDs and STARs, being able to select the procedure in the planes FMC is definitely not enough. You need to be able to read the charts and understand what they are telling you. You need to be able to fly the procedure manually completely without the help of the flight computer. A lot of the time the flight computer is simply not flying the procedure correctly, you need to be able to identify this in your fmc and manually fix it (or just fly the segment manually). You are excepted to be able to fly the plan that you filed, that means being able to hand fly a procedure like a STAR, or at least understand every little aspect about the procedure that you filed. If you don't know how to fly a procedure then don't file it! In Europe you rarely file the procedures, you get assigned them by ATC while in-air. If you don't know how to fly a procedure that you have been assigned then let the controller know about it and he'll find some kind of workaround (vectors for the approach). Don't read back something you don't understand, if you don't understand then tell the controller to clarify.

Absolutely, in fact, if you buy a new computer now you can install all your steam bought software on your new computer AND your old at the same time, completely free of charge. You can only run software on one of the machines at the same time tho. There are no downloading fees like some sim addon developers are charging, none of that unethical business practice. It's a great piece of software really.

Steam is a software distribution platform. In fact, it's by far the biggest software distribution platform ever created

Heat is almost never the reason for a deteriorating OC, electromigration is tho. Overvolting drastically increases electromigration, particularly with modern ultra low production process cpus

The photo real textures makes a very big difference in my opinion

Not really a DC9, but its definitely interesting. I love that modern glass MD cockpit. Hopefully the systems will be top notch

Personally I'm getting better performance in windowed mode, which is a good thing, because 100% of my flights are done in windowed mode. I'm using borderless windows so that it looks like fullscreen while it is windowed

RealAir Decathlon / scout package is AMAZING. It's slow tho