Kronovan

I'll 2nd the idea of running FS Radio on it. It's what I use with my 10" Android tablet and it's a terrific app. I find just for being able to set the radio COM and NAV radios with my touch screen is worth the $10 price alone.

Unfortunately it seems to no longer be available in the Avsim library. Is there possibly another site that's hosting it?

Yep, after posting I saw you mentioned that it's working correctly with X-Plane 11. I've almost always had inconsistent results if TrackIR is started 1st and have read of others having similar experiences. I'd recommend trying it in that start order at least once, just to be sure you aren't now encountering issues that I and others have.

Thanks for the reply Bill. I had indeed thought about the Dash 7, but I've wondered how well it would work with only a dual throttle quadrant setup? [Edit] Remembered something else...On the flightsim website where I could find a reference to the fan-made Dash 7, it read like it was a conversion from FS2004. That's potentially a no go for me, as I run with DirectX10 graphics and most Fs2004 conversions I've tried don't display with correct textures.

It doesn't sound like the problem is necessarily software related. Does your TrackIR calllibrate and track properly with the TrackIR 5 config applet? [Edit] As well, I'm sure you're aware of this (best not for me to assume anything though) but the TrackIR software needs to be started after FSX is loaded, due to it needing to make the simconect conection with a fully loaded client. The times when I forget that TrackIR is already running before I start FSX, TrackIR usually doesn't connect, but sometimes I get unexpected results due to an unstable connection.

Thanks for the additional aircraft suggestions, I've considered most of those - especially the PBY Catalina, but I couldn't find a source for a quality payware or freebie. I sort of burn out on the DC-3 with FS 2004, for which I put in a lot of stick time in with it. A newer FSX edition is probably worth a consideration though. Indeed I'm leery about Carenado products - my Cessna 206 Stationair by them is 1st rate, but my Bonanza V35 is lacking. I've been eyeing their Shorts 330 and 360, which is no stranger to the skies here in the Pac NW. I think I need to dig up a review or 2 on those Shorts.

Simconnect does indeed get installed by FSX, but FSX is designed to simultaneously host multiple versions of it. I posted a question about that in the Simconnect forum and ddwason confirmed that FSX is designed to support multiple versions - unfortunately I can't successfully link my post for some reason, but you'd find it if you browsed to the 2nd page of that forum. Since TrackIR uses simmconect to connect to FSX, it not working after an uninstall of another FSX addon could be due to the correct version no longer being installed. While the intermittency could be due to TrackIR initially connecting on an incorrect version. That's no doubt a bit of a shot in the dark and no guarantees it'll resolve the issue. Reinstalling TrackIR isn't that difficult though and if it needs a different version of simconnect its installation procedure should install the correct one. If you do reinstall, be sure to back up any TrackIR profiles you've created.

I'd recommend uninstalling the TrackIR software, rebooting your PC and then reinstalling it. That, because FSX supports different versions of Simconnect and I'd be worried that the version TrackIR requires was inadvertently uninstalled.

No problem for me with throttles, mixture, etc - I have a Flight yoke, 2 throttle quadrants and rudder pedals. That's why I'm particularly looking for twin prop aircraft. I've been having a blast recently putting all that gear to use flying the WW II Bristol Beaufighter, Blenheim and Petlyakov PE-2 in the IL-2 series. When I looked at my FSX aircraft for bush piloting though, other than the Twin Otter and an AAA fan-made Grumman Mallard, everything I've bought is single prop. I'm probably going to get the Mitsubishi MU-2B-60 too, but that's more for Air Hauler 2 and the med-long airstrips in the Pac NW.

Great suggestion HighBypass - many thanks. I wouldn't have come up with that aircraft on my own, despite it being well reputed for its STOL capabilities. That's no doubt partly due to me being in western Canada where DHC's Otter and Twin Otter absolutely dominate the STOL market. The BN-2 was available @ PC Aviator for which I have a discount coupon, so I bought it. I haven't got any yoke time with yet, but I've been reading the doc and it looks well written - really like that it has decent procedures detailed from startup to shutdown.

I have the Aerosoft Twin Otter Extended and enjoy flying it. Other than it though, I only have the default FSX:SE twin props and a Piper Aztec I got as a freebie with FSX, which TBH is quite terrible. My $ comfort zone is in the vicinity of what the Milviz add-ons cost. I say STOL, because I mostly fly in the Pac NW with Orbx and RTMM scenery, where a good number of airfields are short. Non-STOL that don't have long take-off requirements would work too. If anyone could recommend some twin props, it'd be much appreciated.

Thanks for the reply robs - that's good info. I've only been referring to saved flights, not saved flight plans, so the names I input when saving only results in 3 different file types; those with a FLT extension, those with a FFSAVE extension and those with a WX extension. I'm not familiar with cumulus X!, but I'm guessing if I had that addon installed I might also have a file with the same name and a CMX extension. I'm surprised about the purpose of the FFSAVE files, as that wiki I linked identified those as something used by Vista Game Explorer. I'm really not familiar with the fsdeveloper.com website though, so I'm not 100% sure about the reliability of that wiki. I'm leery about leaving the WX files, because a few times I've loaded one of my saved Cold & Dark flights, Active Sky Next has crashed. Typically I just switch which 1 of my Cold & Dark flights is auto-loaded at startup, to avoid issues FSX has with caching values/settings from the saved, default flight.

Nevermind; after some better google-fu I found this wiki on flight files. The files with the WX and FSSAVE extensions are optional and as I suspected the WX files save the current weather state. The FSSAVE file is / was for the Vista Game Explorer, which allowed FSX saved flights to display in the Game Gallery. VGE was discontinued with Windows 8. Too bad Dovetail didn't ditch the FSSAVE files with FSX:SE, but with Win 8 being such a bomb I suspect a majority of their initial customers were running Win 7. Anyhow...I won't be adjusting my batch file and I'm moving my WX and FFSAVE files out of my ..\Flight Simulator X Files folder.

I've recently created a batch file that allows me to choose a C&D saved flight from 5 options, which then gets loaded as the default when I start FSX:SE. So far I've been using the files with the FLT file extension for this, but I'm wondering if I also need to include the files with the WX and FSSAVE file extensions in this process. I'm guessing that the WX is the file that records the weather state, but I'm not sure about what the FSSAVE file is for? As well, if I'm correct about the purpose of the WX files, do I even need to bother with them if I'm running Active Sky and always have dynamic weather being used? Any info about the purpose of WX and FSSAVE files are for would be much appreciated.

Do you have DirectX 10 preview enabled, or are you running in DirectX 9? I ask, because a recent Win10 update broke DirectX 9 support for Nvidia GPUs and one of the symptoms is a black screen. IIRC DirectX9 support can be established by downloading and installing a specific release of DirectX9c.

I just did a quick flight out of BIKF where I have UTX Europe 2.0 coverage and FS Global 2010 mesh. The airport was correctly represented and nearby Reykjavik looked good. BIKF isn't an airport that's given any special treatment by UTX Euro 2 and I could see where my HD Airports addon was enhancing the buildings - also looked good.

I can't speak to previous editions of UTX, as V2 is the 1st I've owned. There's certainly much more attention to detail in the Orbx scenery and some of the terrain such as the steep, mountainside forests in Orbx PacNW and Pac Fjords just look that much better. The trade off of course is the cost per size of coverage, for which UTX offers much more at a fraction of the cost. TBH, the UTX v2 coverage for England and Scotland is good enough that I don't feel compelled to buy Orbx England and Scotland tp complete my coverage of that part of the UK. As well, the UTX coverage is far more configurable. Whereas Orbx for the most part just uses the FSX display-scenery settings, UTX has a terrific configuration tool that allows for finite tweaking of the scenery. I'm quite disappointed with the Orbx PacNW Seattle, for which I can't get acceptable frame rates when flying anywhere near the urban core. Whereas with UTX I could turn off small-residentual streets and only have auto traffic on major roads and freeways, resulting a a good frame rate and a city that IMO looked as good as the Orbx edition - Vancouver looked as good too. Orbx Portland with the freebie skyline scenery installed though, is definitely an improvement.

Happy to hear you got it sorted out. UTX is compatible, just as long as it's at a lower priority in the Scenery Library than the Orbx scenery files. The Orbx scenery was apparently designed with a feature that will auto-exclude UTX terrain if it's encountered. That's certainly what I see in the British Isles where I have Orbx Wales and UTX Euro v2 installed. There's some silly things that happen on road joins, like vehicles taking a wee bit of a roller coaster dip into a depression. There's also a discernible seem line, but in some areas it's minor enough that you'd have to be looking for it. It's certainly nothing as bad as the terrible seeming you have between default FSX terrain and Orbx and waterways such as large rivers match up much better. I'd say I'm luke warm with the Lionheart Quest Kodiak. I'm still new to it, but it's flight model seems off and there's some real quirks with it around start ups and water taxiing. On the other hand it's speedy, has an attractive glass cockpit and is fun to fly. So far, the shear fun of flying tops its lack of realism. 🙂 If the Super Viking could be fitted with floats, I'd be all over it - yes I'm that much of bush piloting nerd. 😉 At 40% off in the July PC Aviator sale though, I might just get it anyways

Other than the recent Beta update -has to be manually chosen after install & I recommend NOT to opt for it- there hasn't been a FSX:SE update in years. So once you install FSX there won't be further updates. If you purchase any DLC through Steam though, their installation does appear somewhat like an update with a blue progress bar appearing at the bottom of the Steam client. DLC/addons are handled a bit differently than those that are purchased externally at webstores and the way they were in FSX Gold. Those purchased on Steam are installed under a DLC folder that's specific to FSX:SE. Sometimes those DLC downloads don't occur until the next time you start the Steam client, so if you aren't logged into Steam via the Internet, they won't be installed. It sounds like you've already learned that you can start the Steam client in offline mode and launch FSX without problems. If you've previously logged into FSX-Steam mutliplay though and chose to be automatically logged in, you'll be prompted to login to Steam when FSX starts. I recommend against doing that and just loging into Steam multiplay when you want to join a server. I run the Steam edition with all of the following addons and DLCs without problems: Active Sky Next Accu-feel HD Airports Steve's DX10 Fixer Natural Trees X ORBX Pacific North West, Pacific fjords, Southern Alaska & Wales FS Global 2010 Ultimate Terrain X Canada, Europe & USA FSDreamteam CYVR (w/GSX & GSX2) Scenery Manager Milviz DHC-3 Otter A2A Piper J3 Aerosoft Twin Otter Extended Lionheart Creations Quest Kodiak Carenado 206 Stationair & V35 Bonanza Virtuacol Dash 8 So a stable FSX:SE with a number addons is most definitely doable. [Edit] I HIGHLY recommend installing FSX to a SSD if you will be buying and installing 3rd party scenery. There's a kludge with FSX, where a flight can fail to load past the 6% point if you have lots of scenery installed and the reads from the HDD aren't fast enough. Having it and your scenery installed on a SSD seems to avoid this.

If you have FSX:SE I recommend doing an uninstall and then a reinstall. The reason being, is that there's a steam-specific \DLC (addon) folder for that edition and some addons (e.g. Active Sky Next) are installed in a subfolder within it with their shortcuts available via Steam>Tools as opposed to the Steam>Library. Those are tricky to relocate even if you do an uninstall and reinstall. I can speak from personal experience; after uninstalling and reinstalling to a new drive certain features in ASN error out on my system if it's started from Steam>Tools - resolved by just starting ASNext.exe from a desktop shortcut. Even for the boxed version of FSX, there's a risk that some of the entries written into 2 important files (DLL.XML and EXE.XML, typically located in a C:\users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX folder) will not be correct. Most of what's launched from those have a path that's a FSX subfolder and will work regardless of where your FSX folder is located. Some however, such as the already mentioned Steve's Shader fixer require that a drive letter and path be spec'd, as they can be installed anywhere on your PC. Having the paths correct in those 2 XML files is critical, because errors in them (heck sometime even the order in which they're loaded) can potentially cause FSX.EXE to crash on start up, or crash after starting a flight. I think in the earlier FSX days, 3rd party addons that needed to write to the XML files followed stricter guidelines, but those days are long gone. Hence, I'm skeptical that all owners of the boxed edition could successfully move their installs by just relocating their FSX folder. If your FSX:SE install is relatively plain vanilla, you might get away with just moving the folder. If however you have DLC/Addons purchased from Steam that use the Tools menu, it'll probably be a different story.

Well I bought Tongass X and went through the slow -but well worth it- process of installing all of the RTMM (Return To Misty Moorings) scenery objects and libraries. I then downloaded about 15 sceneries that are within the Tongass coverage and have been very impressed by every dock I've flown to. And taking off from a waterway in Sitka absolutely blew me away - never seen such detail and visual fidelity in anything FSX before! I was also able to install the fictitious Misty's Place airbase, which with the exception of the coastline scenery & docks displays correctly despite my not owning ORBX Pacific Fjords. I'm able to take off from the runway there, but taxing either side of it has me crashing into mysterious boundaries or objects. The one other RTMM scenery I've tried that's outside of my Tongass coverage had visual glitches. I'm happy with my UTX coverage for the lower BC coast, but I've now been able to see where it's lacking in the north - especially Alaska which UTX USA doesn't cover. Juneau looks absolutely dreadful with the state legislature building looking like some alien object standing in a semi-wilderness park. I'm planning on buying ORBX Pacific Fjords and Southern Alaska at months end, which I've noted are the regions where most of the RTMM scenery is located. I'll probably buy ORBX Ketchikan International Airport too, as it seems to be a hub for many of the flights. I'm wondering if any of these RTMM sites can somehow be made to work with Air Hauler 2? I've recently discovered that addon and are enjoying it. I know I was able to add Vancouver Harbor (CYHC) as a destination in it, but haven't tried adding others. Anyways, thanks for the suggestions and thanks for directing me to the RTMM site Bert - I've got plenty of docks to fly to now. 🙂

Yes I had John Patches' Vancouver+ for 2004 and enjoyed it, but sadly I never bought the FSX edition of that scenery before he passed on.

I came to the same conclusion after reading a bit more of the info on the mistymoorings website. My experience of siming in the UK when I only owned Orbx Wales and UTX Euro revealed to me that the seam between terrain boundaries was far less pronounced with UTX than the default FSX terrain. That leads me to believe that addon scenery may be less out of position when used wiith UTX than what mistymoorings states - certainly doesn't hurt to try. The Tongass Fjords store page lists compatibility with UT terrain, so I'll probably purchase that scenery 1st. I'll need to purchase Orbx SAK too, since as I mentioned above, UTX USA does't cover Alaska. I'm just across the water from you in the burbs of Greater Vancouver. I've heard great things about Orbx PNW. I'll have to be content for the time being that my UTX Can fixed some terrible flaws in the GVRD terrain, added some important Vancouer landmarks and made the city center overall look closer to the real thing. I did buy FSDreamteams CYVR, which game me the CAM9 seaport docks and even more important - the Flying Beaver pub! 🙂

Excellent page Bert - thanks for the link. It'll require quite a ca$h layout for me to use what's suggested on that site, as I only have UTX Canada and UTX USA. I was hoping to find seaplane base addons that could work with those, as UTX Can was a prerequisite for my BC seaplane base addon. I have toyed with the idea of acquiring Orbx PNW, PF and SAK. I have Orbx Wales and England and are quite happy with them, albeit they cost a few more fps for me than the UTX terrain. I'll likely start with Orbx SAK as my UTX USA doesn't cover that region and see how a more mountainous Orbx region performs on m PC.

I'm a big fan of bush piloting with seaplanes and amphibs, but I'm almost always taking off and landing on a stretch of water with nothing around. I found a fan-made seaplane base addon for British Columbia Canada which adds docks to to about 40 aerodromes, but I haven't been able to find much else. So...I'm wondering if there's other fan-made collections of seaplane bases that add docks for other parts of the world - especially Alaska and Washington state.