amoraitis

That's the one, HSP was an excellent team and great guys, it's a pity they closed up shop after FSX became the de-facto simming platform.

Hi Sascha! I do actually but unfortunately in UT for FS9 Greece was not covered, unlike UTX Europe. I do, however, use a freeware base scenery that corrects most coastlines which is pretty much essential for VFR flying. Cheers, Achilleas

Hello everyone! After testing FS9 Evo extensively for the past week I thought it's time for a mini review. First of all, I'd like to thank Sascha for being extremely helpful and for offering his excellent work as a donationware. Before Evo I had been using GEPro, a very good product when it first came out eight years ago. For the past year I had been searching for a replacement for it as I thought it had started showing its age. Here comes FS9 Evo. At first I was sceptical (and, to be honest, a tad disappointed with the thought that there's not much potential left in the FS9 engine), many have promised the "ultimate FS addon" over the years only to disappoint us simmers. Me being me, however, always hopeful I thought I'd try it out, I always keep a backup of my FS installation anyway. Let's see how that turned out... :wink: Departing LGBL, direction North in my trusty Skylane RG! Over the city of Volos Turning towards Larisa Let's follow the highway to Katerini Beautiful fields! Some sightseeing over the city of Katerini before we head North to tackle the busy TMA of Makedonia Airport in Thessaloniki (LGTS) Phew! The adrenaline kicked in but we got in and out of the TMA of LGTS without issues! The island of Thasos is in the background. We've left the town of Komotini behind us, let's do some sightseeing over river Evros before we land at Alexandroupoli (LGAL). It seems the sightseeing will have to wait for another time as we are flying VFR! At least we are very close to the airport, let's join the circuit! In conclusion, thank you Sascha for bringing this whole new world to FS2004! VFR flying is now much more realistic and flying jets you can finally recognize the places you are flying over! If you are still thinking whether FS9 Evo's worth it or not let me tell you this; no matter what you donate it's worth ten times more! Other add-ons used for the screenshots in this review: HSP Base scenery + HSP Mesh REX2004 for the sky, the sun, most water textures and the clouds Carenado Cessna C182RG II HSP LGAL ActiveSky 6.5 and of course the IVAO network Cheers, Achilleas

Hi everyone! While I understand that everyone has their favourite addon maker in this hobby let's try not to turn this thread into a "mine is better than yours" thread. I have great respect for the folks at PMDG, they've given me thousands of hours of fun in their 737 (the original FS2002/2004 product) but in this case I find that the iFly package is realistic enough to keep me occupied for the foreseeable future and I still have some money left to purchase Heraklion X or some other addon, especially seeing that I'm mostly flying the -700 which would mean that I'd end up paying significantly more for the PMDG for features I don't need. This hobby of ours, flight simulation, it's unlike any other. We have fun and relax by making ourselves "work". :wink: It's perfectly normal after the many hours we spend in our "cockpits" that we become obsessed with particular products. That does not, however, mean that what someone else might be using is bad. Let's do what we know how to do best in this community, respect each other, praise the others' virtues and help them overcome their shortcomings. :smile: Speech over! :smile: Cheers, Achilleas

Hi Mark, Thank you very much for the "inside"/RL info there! I suspected this was probably the case, the A320s I've tried in the sim as well as the A320s I've been on as a passenger behave pretty much the same, I guess we've reached a point in designing planes that we've managed to make them so aerodynamic that they need some very cautious calculations to get them down! Thanks again for helping me with my NG dilemma! :smile: Cheers, Achilleas

Just to clarify my previous post every mention of PMDG refers to the original FS2004 product, I just re-read it and I didn't quite clarify that. :smile: Cheers, Achilleas

Hello again! Here I am with the results of my extensive testing of the iFly 737NG package. First of all let me say that I've always had a soft spot for the 737 even though I mostly fly the A320 series nowadays (I think the approximately 7000 hours on VATSIM alone that I had accumulated before on the 737 Classics and NGs are a good testimony of how much I like those planes :wink:). I started my evaluation coming from the original PMDG 737NG as well as the Wilco 737 PIC, both of those planes were quite the in-depth simulations of their time. My expectations were pretty high regarding both the systems' simulation as well as the model itself. I began by installing some repaints and setting them up to my liking. Talk about being spoilt for choice! As a matter of fact it took me a good 15 minutes just to set up those 2 repaints I had downloaded and test the results in FSX so iFly has already earned points in my book on first impressions alone. Then I had a look at the exterior model, mainly the -700 as that's my favourite of the NG line. Pretty detailed, certainly more than both of my previous 737 models and compared to photos I found on the Internet it's pretty spot on. I'm certain Mark and others who fly or have flown those birds for real, having hours of external inspections etc. will find flaws but for my needs it's a very good and accurate representation of the 737NG series. Extra points there for taking the time to actually make different models for the BBJs and not just overlay BBJ repaints over the passenger models! The moment of truth: entering the cockpit! My first impression upon "entering" the cockpit was that it felt much more "realistic" and "being in the real thing" than the PMDG and the Wilco, their use of shadows and colours really manage to make you feel like it's a bit more than a computer screen you're looking at. I proceeded to "awake the beast", to get the plane from parked, cold & dark to ready for takeoff at the holding point. For anyone who has spent some time in either of the two planes I've mentioned it shouldn't be hard to get it done, only a couple of steps are different from the PMDG 737 (due to the iFly being an even better systems' simulator than the PMDG) but overall you should have no issues. Cleared for takeoff, last checks, transponder and TCAS active, landing and strobe lights on, T/O thrust set and we are rolling! I hand flew the departure (which being an Airbus guy lately I don't do much, let the automation work for you is the name of the game there) and it did feel very nice and responsive to my control inputs. Again, I'm not a pilot IRL and I've certainly never flown a 737 (or anything bigger than a kite really and I was not very successful at that, either... ), I'm just judging its handling based on what I've experienced in other 737 addons and what my perception of its handling while being a passenger has been. The climb performance is indeed affected by the model of engines you've chosen to have installed so, overall, good work on that, too, iFly. On descent I was a bit troubled by the fact that the plane was not very easy to slow down but I think that Mark is really the one person who can actually say if it is realistic or not in that aspect. I'm basing my opinion solely on the fact that in the PMDG I rarely needed to deploy the spoilers on descent while I had to with the iFly. Approach and landing are what I have come to expect from the 737. That's that for flying this addon, I'm very happy with it and I think that if the descent performance is indeed realistic then this is as close as you can get to flying the real thing on your home PC. Let's get to the technical part of it! FPS wise this plane is no worse than my Wilco Airbus Evolution planes, I will try to disable the VC and test again. I'm also in the process of tweaking FSX to run as smoothly as it can on my hardware and it is in fact a slow and ongoing process so I'd refrain from saying if it's a light or a heavy addon. For those who'd like some rough figures we're talking around 13 FPS in FlyTampa Athens (online at VATSIM with some traffic and AS6.5 real weather) spot view and panning around, around 20 FPS taxing straight ahead in 2D cockpit and 30 (that's where my limiter is set at) while climbing through clouds (again all of these numbers are on VATSIM with vPilot, some mild traffic and AS6.5 real weather - I do know I need to get a new weather engine or at least one that isn't ten years old). Not bad at all for my specs (for anyone who hasn't followed this thread from the first post that's where you'll find my specs) and I'm hoping I can get 3 or 4 more frames by tweaking FSX a tad more. The only negative thing I have to say for this product is this... iFly please, some of us have some very bad eyesight and laptop monitors so next time try to make those panels a little bigger! I believe I can zoom it in (basically something like the zoom panel the PMDG 737 had) but being new to FSX and all I still havent found how. All in all an excellent addon and a steal for the price, I'm glad I got it and I'm sure that once I iron out some performance issues on my end it will give me lots of hours of happy flying! :smile: I would like to thank everyone for steering me towards this product! Cheers, Achilleas

You can ignore my previous post, turns out that on FSX you can just remove the interior model completely. Cheers, Achilleas

Hi everyone, My payment to Flight1 came through today so I have the iFly package! I'll test it over the next days and see if it fits my needs. Cheers, Achilleas

Hello everyone, I know this is an old post but I'm trying to do this mod to my Airbus Evo Vol.1 and Vol.2 aircraft. The Hex editor can't seem to find the aforementioned value anywhere on either of the mdl files. Could I just remove the interior mdl completely and have the same result? Cheers, Achilleas

Hi everyone, I transitioned to FSX from FS9 three days ago, everything was working fine and suddenly today I had a CTD every time I switched tasks (setting up vPilot or checking my flight plan, even opening the start menu caused it), I tried several things and nothing worked until I tried this particular fix which made my problem disappear, therefore I can report that in my case (laptop core i5, Haswell series) it was indeed needed under Win 10 Home (upgrade from preinstalled Win 8.1 Core). Cheers, Achilleas

Quick update, I did go ahead and order the iFly package, I'm having a slight problem with the payment being allowed (capital controls are in place in Greece since July regarding the flow of money out of the country) but I have high hopes that I'll be able to resolve it by Friday at the most so that should leave me most of the weekend to carry out extensive testing and report back on the performance on my system. Cheers, Achilleas

Guys thank you very much for your help. I have decided to go for the iFly at the moment since if it doesn't meet my needs I can return it whereas I do not have that option with the PMDG product. I will let you know how it goes as soon as possible. Cheers, Achilleas

Hi Mark, Thank you very much for your help! I think the best course of action for me right now would be to get the iFly one, after all if I'm not happy (which I highly doubt but if it does happen) I can return it like you said. Since my FS budget is kinda low I think I'll stick with ASv6.5 now (ancient, I know) and I'll probably go for either the AS Next or the Evolution the first chance I get. Cheers, Achilleas P.S.: How realistic would you say the Wx radar of the iFly is compared to the real thing in terms of operation and functionality? Is it a real Wx radar or is it like the RealityXP gauge that just displays saved bitmaps that are a vague approximation of the weather you're flying in?

Thank you for your replys! I'm afraid I only have more questions, though! Could you please elaborate on the performance enhancements that can be used with the PMDG as well as some actual FPS numbers in comparable situations? I do like the price on the iFly more, I have to say, particularly since I'm probably going to need a new weather engine as well. I have heard great things about P3D but I've also heard that it takes an even beefier computer to run than FSX, doesn't it? Achilleas