Republic DC9

Glad to hear I’m not totally crazy, guys! Although your posts already have me thinking - what is this Aces of Thunder about? And interesting to know the A346 runs so smoothly vs default - last week was outside in our front yard (Wisconsin) when a huge but graceful Lufthansa A346 D-AIHZ (one of only 4 left in service?) did a holding pattern above us at about 20K feet inbound to O’Hare from Frankfurt. Even zooming with my phone she looked graceful and LONG. My sighting and your potato have me thinking @UrgentSiesta …. I have a 5 year old potato. 🥔 😂 @jcomm I’m almost 51 so perhaps I still have a ways to go before I lose the intense satisfaction of deleting and uninstalling! We’ll see how long this all-default philosophy lasts, if I can make it 30 days.

For about a week, I’ve been flying only a second, all-default, copy of the XP12 beta. The default 737, the Cessna, the Cirrus, even the A330. Just so I can see how much fun I can have with zero complexity added in via any sort of freeware or payware add ons. The answer is, surprisingly, “a great deal of fun” - and I’ve challenged myself to go a month in the all-default mode. I’m also doing this with my other flight simulator and even my train simulation - sort of a minimalist experiment as an antidote to what I always do to all my sims and frankly everything in life - “Oooh! CPU heavy airliner! Let’s add some ship traffic too!?” Then I get miffy when I’m flying and get a stutter or two. Will I get bored and want to install my 757 and the new 737-200 etc? Probably, but the clean and simple slate feels good for a bit, therapeutic even, as an experiment, and is actually very easy to do. Perhaps memories of my friend @jcomm ‘s past days as “the uninstaller” inspired me, who knows?

I have this Comanche and will need to give it a re-install soon (after my current experiment I will post on separately) and give it a whirl. I have the Comanche in both this and that other flight sim and must say it is about the nicest looking GA aircraft there is (and the Twin Comanche is lovely too).

Bought it - love it so far. Easy to hand fly, no stutters, modeling seems very similar to Just Flight's vintage planes (which I love). Am hoping that soon a livery painter will create the ATA "Runway" blue and gold scheme that my wife and I traveled to and from our honeymoon on back in 1997. 🙂 More flying later - but a great purchase!

Thank you! For us flight sim enthusiasts, retirement seems like a very good thing indeed. I’m going to celebrate with a VFR flight around my entire home state of Wisconsin (and fly the new L-1011, of course!)

As I mentioned on another post this was the plane we took on our honeymoon (ATA gold and blue “runway” scheme as I don’t think the other was invented yet (1997), Milwaukee to Las Vegas and return. Even then I realized it was very old and very cool. And I’m retiring next week so the timing is perfect!

There is also some excellent (and silly) footage of a TWA L-1011 in “The Naked Gun” where Lt. Frank Drebben and Weird Al both deplane 😂. I will be buying this, having ridden on ATA examples on our honeymoon.

I’m sure many of you have seen me mention this before, but Inhad the pleasure around age 13 or 14 of flying on an American F100s second ever revenue flight - the pilot said its first flight ever was from Chicago down to Cincinnati, and now the return that Inwas on was its second leg ever. It smelled like a new car, spotless wings etc. and we flew right over the Chicago downtown. I still have clear (for a 110!) shots that I’ll post if I can figure out how. Based on the registration, my plane ended up flying in Mongolia or Tibet or something. I also remember riding these American F-100s to and from Ottawa, ON very early in my career, so early that Ottawa was still infested by F28s in Canadian liveries. I hope this add on features the occasional black puff of smoke from the APU I witnessed while it was waiting for us to board or a simulation of it absolutely “peeing” fuel all over the taxiway from some sort of vent. Maybe both are normal for all planes but in hundreds of flights in my life I only remember these from the F-100. Today’s Airbii and Maxes and 175s are often very comfortable and reliable, but I feel extremely lucky to have ridden on so many older planes with so much character like the F100. Day 1 purchase - and the L-1011 that I also got to ride on. Being 50 has its privileges from a classic airliner experience standpoint! 😂

2 random thoughts, sort of on topic - 1) It feels like Carenado aircraft are easier on FPS/main thread than some others (but haven’t actually proved this) 2) This 1975 build date flight simmer somehow didn’t realize until this thread that there is a King Air A100?! That screams “old” and “cool” all at once. Found it when seeing what retro schemes for the 200 @ryanbatc might craft.

This would be completely awesome - especially if built with selectable retro AI traffic. I’m the guy who literally reads old OAG schedules and buys every 146, MD-82, 727, etc because I’m Age 50 and actually remember riding on these birds - and always feel a little weird and “anachronistic” about coming down to land at a modern day KBFI in an Alaska 727 - in an old livery, no less. I also study railroad history AND use Trainz 22 where it’s very easy to switch eras - so I DO. Even then it’s a pain to switch all the assets over from a modern KFC to a 1970s KFC with a proper chicken bucket on a pole for its sign…but it CAN be done! Call me someone who lives in the past, but for trains or airliners or music I sort of DO live in the past and would love a bolt on era changer!

That is incredible news! Day one purchase - they’re just so cool. 😎 And seeing Bob Hoover’s on display at the Smithsonian was well worth the trip.

Me neither!! 😂🤦🏻‍♂️ Unless they do their Aerocommander or Turbocommander!! @ryanbatc thanks for the heads up, one look at those steam gauges and I thought “gimme gimme gimme!”. Hopefully you’ll be able to craft some of your awesome repaints for it.

Ok everyone - I bought it on Orbx and it was only $14 for some reason - great! It does what it advertises, and even off the coast of Milwaukee I saw some ships (although also some "double ships" where one vessel was chasing an identical one - I guess I'll pretend those are tugs with barges. Zero performance impact that I can detect. And I'm of course wondering if we can create little traffic files for these ships to follow to add some missing ferry routes etc?

Thanks fellows - I’ll purchase and give it a whirl soon!

Hi Everyone - Has anyone had any kinds of lagging/stutters when using these ships? I can’t find any concerns online and am close to purchasing this as I do really miss seeing ships below me more than I thought I would - even the silly XP12 ships that don’t seem to follow routes add some immersion. But I fear stutters more than seasickness! 😂