Mithras

Installed Ultimate Terrain Europe and it looks great. My first problem was unwanted land out at sea in England where I am running Gen X VFR stuff, but a quick reorder in the scenery file took care of that. However, upon flying from Gibralter I find the Rock and airport are miles inland. Is this just me? Id have thought lining up coastlines was one of the simplest things software could do...as it is UTX is unusable, unless there is a fix. ?????

Thanks, I never thought to check the manuals...

Although I'm pretty new here, and I've not yet even played FSX, I've learnt that it is important to install products in the right order and to reboot between installs. While I wait for my PC to arrive, I've got my software sorted. But what's the best order for it to be installed? FSX Gold Sp 1 Sp 2 (are they even needed?) Ground Environment X Africa Ground Environment X Europe Horizon's VFR Scenery UK vol. 1-3 Horizons VFR Airfields (Northern England) REX Essential Plus Overdrive Ultimate Terrain X Europe I think that's all (apart from a slew of scenery and airport shareware that I may or may not need...) Can anyone give me a running order that would probably be best? Many thanks !.....

I'm not sure virtual airlines are for me, but then who knows where I'll be in a year with this hobby. As of today I've taken the plunge and ordered my essential software for the arrival of the PC. I opted for FSX in the end, probably because it is easy to start up, accessible and ready advice is available in spades, as this thread has shown. I hope I can return the favour in a year or so. I now have FSX Gold, and X-Plane is waiting for me at the post office. For FSX I bought the following: REX, which seems the standard effects, weather and texture 'buff' for the game. For flying VFR in the UK I opted for the Generation X photorealism, I appreaciate Orbix's work, but I've been all over the UK and I will constantly be flying over places I know well, so photorealism seems best, and I really do want to learn the discipline of flying VFR. I picked up all of Wales and England ( a 3 volume set) and if it gets alot of use I may go on to purchase areas for Scotland and Ireland. To provide a bit of realism I've bought Playsims VFR Airfields for Northern England, again, I may expand those, I'll have to see what the defaults are like first. For Europe I bought Ultimate Terrain X: Europe. That should scratch alot of itches snd allow me to learn to fly in a place I know. I have a yoke and throttle set up ready, something I always envied back in the early 90s. After that I think I will take the advice offered and go to shareware for most other things if possible, payware where that isn't. I am a big fan of the Airbus, so if Aerosoft's offer is a package deal, I may buy that when I'm ready to progress from single prop to airliner. And thanks z06z33 for your offer of help on PC tweaks ... I may take you up on that in the future ... I will bookmark this thread just in case ...

I've not heard about VATSIM or Virtual Airlines, B. is the latter anything like a real job with ... commitment! :0 I'm making choices at every post, this thread is incredibly useful and I thank everyone posting for their advice. You are saving an avid aviation fan lots of wasted money and many wasted hours. My two main 'dream' goals are to: 1) Replicate a flight I took with my wife's uncle, from a local airfield out to Flamborough Head on the coast (where I live), and then return. I took the controls for most of this, so its quite an experience. I need really good VFR for that. 2) Fly a short haul BA Airbus A320 flight from Heathrow to Gibraltar. Never been there, but I stayed at the Isle of Wight and saw the Gibraltar planes flying over endlessly. (And the place appeals to me). I've flown out of Heathrow several times. To be honest, 3, 4, 5 etc are all flights I've taken to fantastic airports around the world. I'd love to replicate them,. Dubai, Athens, Fiumicino, Brisbane, Brunei, Singapore ... (EDIT: Sorry, flights I've taken in Real Life)

I'm awaiting a custom made overclocked, Intel Quad Core i7 4770K at 4.2 MHz, with a 2 MB GTX 760 Invidia card and a 1 TB hard drive. I aim not to be disappointed after dismal sim failures many years ago! Its really the thrill of flying 'real' flights I'm after. VFR in England is a must now that I know it exists, but I'm more than happy to scale back the sliders on other places and flights. You must remember, I'm jumping from Infinite Flight for the iPad, which is absolutely amazing for the price of a beer and on such a small package. But flying 737s from Tijuana to LAX, or overnight Royal Mail flights via a DHL 757 from East Midlands to South-hampton just hints at what a big brother sim like FSX or X-PLane can do. The lack of 3D terrain, even airport buildings is a continual gripe on IFs facebook page, but you have to accept what it is. So my expectatations are actually very very modest! Buildings will be awesome! 3D virtual Britain would be a mind-blower...

Prepar3 v2 was not on my radar till yesterday. This is why I came to AVSIM! A new guy, I could join FSX at its maturity (?!) or Prepar3D at its beginning. Its a big difference. The latter is very expensive, but it looks like you could keep the add-ons to a minimum (from the website: http://www.prepar3d.com/product-overview/) If anyone has any useful/insightful links to the game, I'd be more than grateful. The chance of backwards compatibility (I've only seen a brief mention of that) would increase PrepareD's value immeasurably.

As a complete beginner I won't add much at all to begin with and if I choose to go with FSX will very happily follow the flight instruction part of it. I don't want to add too much though. I want to fly not send alot of time tweaking. Never heard of MegaEarth scenery ... there's alot of choice!! I would love to fly old piston engined cargo planes into remote airfields somewhere. Can you do that I wonder???? Thanks for the Traffic advice, I did see World of AI and it looked amazing but a chore, but the way you describe it, it sounds worth the effort.

That's a good point, I get the impression that FSX has rarely been able to be maxed out (until recently).

Thanks for the fast responses! I play Infinite Flight everyday and love the 'pick up and play' aspect of that lovely game. What do I want to do next? 1) I want to fly VFR flights around the UK, from farm strips and navigate using known landmarks. UK airports will get alot of use too. 2) I want to fly lots of short haul liners to the Mediterranean over great scenery (I've flown over it alot). Nice European scenery plus some good airports would be good. 3) Sometimes I will want to fly long haul out to San Fran, Singapore, Dubai. I guess great airport add ons are a must there but not so much scenery on these flights. 4) Now and then I want to sight see, in a small plane in the Australian outback, or finding a dirt strip in the Amazon. Accuracy isn't too important in locations etc, but it has to see real and feel like the real thing.... I compled a list of add ons for FSX I would buy, but I'm not sure if I'm heading for trouble importing all this into the game: FTX Global - For world scenery? Real Environment Extreme (REX) - for more realisticweather effects? What does FS Global 2010 X do that they don't I wonder? Some traffic add on, like Just Flight Traffic 360 (for when I start flying airliners) And/or VFR Real Scenery Generation X for the UK. But I'm not sure how this will interact with the above .....?? With X-Plane being much more recent, I wondered if alot of these types of add ons were already integrated into the software. But from some comments above I guess they aren't, it sounds like they're both good game engines - ripe for expansion. I do like the fact there are a million add ons, many free for FSX. Like my local airfield, and the lighthouse down the road.... Still undecided! BTW: I looked into P3D v2 but Lockheed are adamant they aren't releasing it to the flight sim community... Paul Elliott

Hi, I’m new to Flight Simming, but I’ve wanted to get involved since about 1990. Finally, after several flying lessons, I’ve decided to go for it. I have a high-spec computer arriving soon, and both X-Plane 10 and FSX Gold on order too. Question is, is FSX worth getting into for someone in my position? I’m no tech head, I’m not cracking that computer open ever, and I’m unfamilar with command prompts et al. For a newbie like me, would X-Plane give me the experience of FSX with the add ons? I don’t mind laying out some money, I want to avoid software clashes, bugs, errors and programming!!! I have definate ideas about what I want to do with my sim.

Thats really useful info Aerni, I didn't know that there was such a ground effect on planes during landings.

White ILS triangles show the approach zone, red ones actually have ILS guidance, that red crosshair on your HUD.

Yeah, I created an hour if ATC chatter from the Net to play, but, like you say, it kills the audio :(

Am I alone in making up my own missions? I can't just fly Round, so I pick a plane and make a mission. Here are a few: Scheduled Passenger flight from Palm Springs to LA, or Canberra to Sidney. C-17 flying crashed UFO from NASA Crows Landing or EAFB out to the USN base on San Clemente Island. Nightly Royal Mail flight from East Midlands down to Stanstead. Cessna flight, carrying tourists out to fly three times around Alcatraz Flying the Cessna over the border to Tijuana ferrying drugs, and back again. Pretend the Bombadier is a RAF Sentinel, fly from one RAF base to another, on the way practice a sensor overflight of a civil airfield. There are plenty more if you put your mind to them!

I've had the iPad for about a year and only recently found X Plane and Infinite Flight. And I do love Infinite Flight, many thanks for such a fantastic app! I've been obsessed with aircraft since the age of 10, and my experience of flight sims has been disasterous. Every one I bought failed to successfuly work on my current PC, and I gave up trying fifteen years ago. IF is the flight sim I never thought Id get to play, it has those wonderful details that remind me this is pretty hardcore and not some arcade action game. Alot of people on fb seem to give you lists of things to add, but I know that you cant just add stuff in without a penalty, the iPad is not unlimited in space or computing power. So, my advice is to keep it simple, keep it working. I don't mind inapp purchases, the app was so cheap to buy, I don't mind shelling out for a few planes and especially regions. More of those please!!! If I have a gripe, it is purely the navigation. The beacon waypoints seem scattered randomly, but having them at crucial positions ready to make your turns onto approaches would be good. I never feel that plotting a route is easy. That and flying long haul distances in a big jet. Now that would be absolutely fantastic. I'm thrilledbtw to have the south of England/London airfields, I've been to some of them and its great to fly from them. Hoping one day a north of England region comes out so I can a) fly the scheduled service from Manchester or Newcastle to LHR and so that I can fly from the local airfield I took my flying lesson from. Good work, keep it up, you are creating one hell of a product!! If there were IF Tshirts, I'd buy one!

I too would LOVE a C130 Hercules, and ILS would be awesome, but a quick work around Im thinking of is to fly into the large 'cone' that spreads away from either end of the runway, turn to face the runway then set autopilot bearing to the airport, just control altitude...