dlipsitz

Probably a bit late to chime in on this one, but ... While on the ground most sky objects cannot be seen from urban and other built up areas with massive light pollution, much of that light which is reflected back at you is due to atmospheric pollution, humidity, and the distortion of air currents at the surface due to terrain. When flying miles above the surface, those factors are much less in play. The higher you fly, the less light pollution you will be dealing with. It's one of the principles behind NASA's SOFIA 747. Using the HDR in P3D can help with the realism factor, as well as making adjustments to shadows. Just remember, the moon is a source of light as well, and clouds reflect quite a bit of that light. Just my own observations, for what it's worth. Happy flying!

I just popped this one into P3D v3.2, appears everything works fine. You do need the original ONT2012 installed first, then install the 3.1 update. I haven't checked the jetways, I tend to fly out of this one with cargo that doesn't talk, lol. SE parking for UPS looks as it did last time I was there, no impact on FPS I can measure (and I don't exactly have a top of the line machine).

Each developer's aircraft offers certain advantages above the other's, depending upon what it is you wish to do with it, and just how far you want to take your hobby (especially if interested in building your own cockpit). In the area of technical support, iFly has that mastered. The way they did that is by limiting access to the tech support forums to licensed users only, no hackers, pirates, etc to deal with, and zero trolling/spamming. However, a major problem you will face with iFly occurs with WinX and how it reacts to the Flight1 eCommerce wrapper. The short of it is, it will not function under WinX (I've tested it several times already, all sims). The Flight1 wrapper and aircraft installers simply hang in memory (tested for 30 minutes each attempt/simulator). I ran into the same problem with LVLD, which uses the same eCommerce wrapper. Also, depending on the livery developer, iFly tends to get slightly better frame rates (especially in poor weather). iFly also seems to be the preferred model for home cockpit builders. With the PMDG model, some virtual pilots flying for a virtual airline may notice problems with how the aircraft communicates with the VA's ACARS. I know with mine using DeltaVA, regardless of how many times I confirm my settings are correct, the ACARS spits back errors about the configuration being incorrect. Some at the VA say it's a bug, others say it's my configuration (which it isn't). I've simply determined no one knows what the problem is, and they are simply ignoring it. Other than that, I have not noticed any problem working with the PMDG NGX aircraft. A major difference (to me, given I fly at night and often in poor weather), is the availability of the HUD within the B738 and B739 with PMDG, which is not available in iFly (as of ver 3.0, the latest I've been able to look at and test). iFly only offers a HUD in the BBJ models, which btw PMDG does not have. PMDG does have specific settings available for ETOPS that iFly does not have, yet iFly does have models that have the fuel capacity for oceanic flights. Both aircraft are fairly complex, and come with very extensive documentation (in PDF format). Both appear to be limited only by the imagination of the virtual pilot (save for the things I discovered). I have not seen the latest versions for P3D, but the word is that both work quite well. The PMDG aircraft comes with a 14 day guarantee, while the iFly is 30 days (both last I checked), which is more than enough of an evaluation period to determine if the aircraft will install and operate correctly (or to get it working correctly through each aircraft's tech support, forums, and manuals - read these first).

Perhaps I made a bad call, but I don't believe so. I have no problem with developers restricting technical support, upgrades, service packs, etc to sites they control that restrict access to PAID registered users, I think it's a great idea. iFly just took it a bit too far, crossing the line into libel and defamation of character in more than a few instances I saw. Sorry, but questions that involve a pilot training issue that can apply to ANY developers' same aircraft type (including the Microsoft default aircraft) should not be confined to only iFly's forum. And, yes, I saw that happen a lot in various forums on various sites. We all know the deliberate bugs that indicate a particular user is using a pirated version of some developer's product. More than a few of us chuckle whenever we see questions on how to get around those bugs, and perhaps make note of who that particular user is for future reference. But, if I have a question that only indirectly relates to a product, I should be able to ask that question in any forum I feel most appropriate, without being accused of a federal level felony (which crosses into the areas of libel and defamation). Obviously if I have a question that is specific to a particular product, asking it in that developer's forum is the most appropriate way to find the answer. Even then, however, if they don't have an answer I should be able to ask elsewhere to find said answer. With iFly, that appears to not be possible. Now, should the developers at iFly choose to change that particular policy, I'll be more than happy to add their product to my virtual hangar. I'm hoping they will, though after what I saw I'm not optimistic they will.

A couple of things I found out with CPUs ... More is not necessarily better when it comes to cores. Everything I've seen seems to point to FS9 and FSX being VERY happy with 3 cores. Even two cores is sometimes better (if they are fast enough) than the equivalent quad core. Naturally, this applies only to FS9 and FSX (I haven't checked this with P3D v1.4, and no computer I own will run later versions of P3D so testing that is out until I hit the lottery, lol). If you like to fly online, it might be worthwhile to download FSCopilot and FSInn. There's a little utility that comes with it that allows you to designate how the simulator works with multicore processors (and multiple processors, if applicable). It helps with my AMD quad core, smooths things out a bit and eliminated a few issues with frequent "Not Responding" messages, which can lead to CTDT if you click when the sim is doing that. Just a thought.

I found the box set for the PMDG 737NG 600-900 on Aerosoft's Germany site. Been a while since I read anything in German, lol. It was about $35 USD (I'm in the US, so no VAT, but had to pay the same amount in shipping). It should be here in a couple of weeks. Having a couple of weeks to play with it and make sure it works as claimed (money back guarantee) is more than enough time for me to practice a couple of shakedown flights and a couple of flights for my virtual airline, about all I need to make sure it works. I looked into iFly, and liked everything about it. Then I researched their support. Yes, pirating is a problem, I was put out of business in the late '80's by clients illegally copying and sharing my applications. But, wow, talk about overkill. That's way too much drama for this little old (well, relative to most here) lady in a wheelchair. I've never seen anything like it, and most certainly don't want to take any risks I'll be subjected to the same sort of abuse others were. Too bad, I really did like the iFly product, and was more than willing to pay more for it than what I finally paid for PMDG's. My hobby is both challenging and fun, and I want to keep it that way. Anyway, thanks for the heads-up guys about Aerosoft. I ended up getting a better deal than I thought I would. Look for me online (either VATSIM or IVAO, I'll be testing it on both) doing some, um, interesting flying over KEDW for a few days, just to get the hang of things. Then it's back to transporting the self-loading cargo for DeltaVA, while I search for a NOAA version of the Navy's new P-8 (B738-ERX) for next year's hurricane season, lol.

Not as of today, when I just checked. PMDG no longer supports FS2004(ACOF), aka FS9. Products listed via the link you provided ONLY work with either FSX (SP2 or Accel) or P3D v2.x. It was that way when I checked last year about this time as well.