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Hey guys, Sorry to bother you, since I don't really have a question. [To Admin: My apologies in case this thread should be posted in another section.] I just wanted to thank the guys that run this website and the amazing community for all of your tremendous efforts! I've enjoyed FSX for a while now on a quite underpowered notebook, but am planning to get a decent rig and some complex and good-looking addons. Prior to reading through the Avsim forums I only had little knowledge of both hardware and software. Thanks to you guys I do know now, which hardware to get, how to set it up in order for FSX to (hopefully) run smoothly, how to tweak FSX (and not over-do with it), which addons to (not) get and where to look for further tutorials, troubleshooting documentation and so on. I am truly amazed that so many of you guys spend your leisure time writing all kinds of guides, creating tutorials, even programming new software tools, sharing additional content and giving free advice to not-so experienced sim pilots. Without you passing your knowledge and work I'd probably be very much lost in the world of FSX's quirks, spend too much money on a non-optimal PC and be frustrated after purchasing the wrong addons or not-knowing how to use the right ones. Huge thanks to all of you, who help keeping FSX more alive than ever! I appreciate it very much! I also just made my first ever online donation. It went to Avsim, of course. Cheers, Dom

Hey, I just want to say my thanks to the community for all the awesome posts about flight planning, operation etc. The wealth of information on this website is absolutely stunning. Froogle, Jane, PMDG and all those involved with Tony's Fundraiser - Thank You, I had lots of fun with all at the livestream. Personal Thanks goes to Chris Palmer for Angle of Attack Productions - your amazing video on Aviator 90 - Episode 11 (Traffic Pattern) - Saved my life in the air last week. A general aviation aircraft was not following the rules by accident while we were in the Downwind Leg of a untowered airport. You videos made me learn the pattern and its component before hand. I never knew this knowledge would save me, your video taught me all the terms, and I knew where my location on the circuit was, hence I was able to quickly spot the aircraft approaching us. By the way I am not a pilot at all, just a passenger at the moment - that was my first ever general aviation flight. I have posted the entire story in detail with pretty pictures in the Flight Sim & Aviation Section of this forum - here is the link to the massive epic post (Angle of Attack is in Part 1 and Part 4). Chris, if you are ever up in the DC-MD-VA area, round of beer is on me. Can't wait to sign up for the Aviator Pro and learn more. Thank You everyone, I am eternally grateful to this aviation community. Skywolf

Hello everyone, Brace yourself, and please do grab a cup of coffee as this will be very long post. I just hope that my writing doesn't make you lose interest in this real, unique story/life changing event. And, yes, this event does incorporate FSX/P3D, Avsim Forums, Real Flight, Trading (stock markets), and Love of the Skies - (I bet you are already thinking what the $%@! is this guy talking about?) My true goal is make you the reader - experience this amazing day from the perspectives of being in my shoes. Reader beware - I just had few cups of coffee Before I go further - I will give a very brief info about me as it is actually crucial to the event. I am a portfolio manager/trader, an author of a book, and huge dreamer of having few personal airplanes one day. I always wanted to fly, but like the majority of people I ended up putting it in the back burner and started to focus on life's other things. I have been on and off flight siming since childhood. Yes, I remember Microsoft 1st flight sim release, it was cool - but I loved Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer - This was the simulator for me - I could do 3D outside view etc. All I had was a lowly CGA IBM XT with 32MB HDD and I played hours and hours. But then came high school, parties, girls, college, girls, work and more partying (I studied too - that came first, or my parents would have kicked my butt). Let’s just fast forward to the past few months - I use triple screen monitor for trading/studying/research - and I said, I have some time why not try Flight Simming again - hence FSX/P3D and it took me beyond all the flight sims I have played when I was a kid. The technology is amazing (except for outdated FSX code), so much evolution has happened in flight sim world (FS2004 was cool) over the years. What can I say about flight sim tools/addons? - Wow!!! for realism and training (heck, the educational component saved my life...that part is coming....) Part 1 - AVSIM Community Even though my profile on here shows that I joined in Dec 2012, but in reality I have been using this site for a few months, just never posted anything - so I just browsed and found answers. During the searching phase, I ended up learning about ORBX's PNW, Carenado Planes, FSDT Airports etc. and tons of tweaks to optimize FSX like good ole Buffer Pools, LOD size, TBM, etc. - yes, one should write a book and publish it on O'Reilly called "Art of FSX Configuration". If this isn't art then I don’t know what is. Everyone's FSX.cfg is different. I have to personally thank the AVSIM for teaching me about ILS, and lot of the posts in the AVSIM Flight School - this is where I learned about free Angle of Attack Aviator 90 videos (Thank You Chris Palmer for Episode 11). The video about landing pattern is most critical for me at this moment (I will explain in a bit why it is....please bear with me). Part 2 - Hangar I have always wanted to meet people who have airplanes, but I knew no one till last week in my circles. None of my friends have ever been on a general aviation aircraft or business jets. All I knew was YouTube videos, discovery channel, and big passenger aircraft. I have always had a dream about flying, but never thought of it. And then everything changed last week - I met a retired Navy Captain (name will stay anonymous as he is quite a celebrity in EAA world etc. - I will call him Captain Awesome for this post). I just emailed him about to meet for coffee and discuss aviation. He responded back and says skip the coffee - and "let’s fly for lunch". Here, I was just floored - I have never flown just for lunch. I honestly did not know how to react. It is one thing to have Bill Gates mention my book "A Rogue's Guide to Acquisition: Principles from the Final Frontier" on his personal blog, but flying for lunch!!!! This was in league of its own. Granted both the events are special, but this is my first $100 burger....and now I will have to print and frame that email. It may seem trivial for lot of your aviators on here, but for a person who only dreamed about it - this is just mind blowing. I am still speechless about this offer. So last Sunday, I happily (still nervous inside) drove to Captain Awesome's home - and he says you ready for lunch? I am like "looking forward to it". And off we drive to this small regional airport to his hangar. While on our drive to Captain Awesome's hangar, he was filling me in details of some of his amazing adventures in the Navy. I will tell you this - to me his adventures are definitely legendary. I am so proud of the amazing men and women who serve our country (God Bless). His life story needs to be made into a movie (though ironically one Hollywood movie already has some of his adventures in it). He is very committed to Aviation - even after his retirement from the Navy, he actively teaches and improves systems. As I said, he is quite a celebrity in EAA circles. The whole time I felt like I am hanging out with an Astronaut. It is surreal experience. Back on Earth - As we reached the regional airport, and I am looking around - my jaw drops - I see Cessna 172s, 182s, Malibu Piper and Mooneys!!! - These are the airplanes I have been flying in FSX/P3D - especially the Carenado Mooney M20J with ORBX VC and Exterior Upgrades. I love the Mooney - the airplane is work of art in FSX. I have never seen these aircrafts up close in real life. We arrive at his hangar; I help Captain Awesome open his hangar doors and my eyes fixate on his amazing Mooney. Damn, that aircraft is a dream. I am again speechless; I can't help myself from being speechless over and over. Since, Captain Awesome is certified by the FAA to inspect/modify/build planes, one can only imagine how well he takes care of his Mooney. Enjoy those Mooney Pics - by the way I have blurred out all the Plane Numbers to respect Captain Awesome's privacy. Part 3 - Flying & Trading I was super nervous to sit in the Mooney, yet at the same time I was super excited to see the cockpit. I love the mixture of Steam Gauges and Glass. Thanks to AVSIM forums & Angle of Attack, I knew what the Basic 6 instruments were and Garmin GNS 530. Captain Awesome starts does his pre-flight checklist before engines are on. I can't recall how many checklists he did, but it is so cool watching them in action. He is by the book - zero exceptions (even with over 25 years of flying, safety is paramount). As Captain Awesome is starting his engines, I say this inside my head "Ctrl+E...for engines, and laughed, as there is no such thing in real flight", and I believe there is a YouTube cartoon video about this same topic. Before we line up to the runway, I see him perform a pre- pre-take off checklist (I may be off in terminology here) and then it hits me like a ton of bricks. This is exactly like buying stocks - any hedge fund/portfolio guys/gals in here - please contact me!!!! Before I make a trade - I too have a checklist of criteria which has to be satisfied before buying. Once a position is bought - there is a checklist for that, and selling has its own checklist (regardless of loss or profit). Ego kills the trade, and I can tell that over-confidence in trading and flying with ego can be super dangerous. Unbelievable parallel relationship!!!!!!! Now comes the Runway, he is performing a checklist, and then I hear the throttles kick in, and few seconds later I hear Rotate!!! And the plane is airborne. I am feeling like a freaking Astronaut, I have never experienced flight from front of a cockpit, and this a General Aviation Aircraft - All I can see OMG, $%$^^$^!#@$ amazing in my head, and the view is so damn beautiful....The sky is blue with few fluffly clouds, below I see beautiful farms, and little away in the horizon I see the Potomac river - just picture perfect. For a brief moment, I just realized time stood still and this amazing moment is imprinted in my heart, mind and my soul. I will never be able to forget it. Humor never leaves me - it comes happily and I say "I think I am inside Flight sim world, this reminds me of Orbx's PNW scenery, how amazing". Yes, real life has no substitute, but you have to give credit to Orbx team for giving us amazing quality scenery for flight simming. With my jaw down the entire way, we are cruising at 2500 feet!!! And I am absorbing every inch of detail that my brain can process. I do have few small videos. I felt holding the camera was taking me away from the moment. I am nervous, happy, excited, and top of the world!!! Our destination is 45 min away at a small un-towered airport.... Part 4 - $100 Burger & AVSIM / Angle of Attack /Flight Sim Training potentially saves my Life!!!!!!!!!! Destination is getting close, I hear Captain Awesome doing his pre-landing checklist (I don't know the exact name for it yet), and he is stating his position on radio so that other airplanes can hear him. I hear other airplanes too - few ahead of us and few behind. There were total of 3 other airplanes besides us in the sky approaching this airport I knew I had to be quiet at this time, and pay attention - I can hear all the pilots in the area stating their standard traffic pattern location - Crosswind, Downwind, Base and Final. When we were are in downwind position, we also heard third Pilot landing ahead of us, who stated their location as they were approaching the airport but forgot to say in which pattern they were!!!!!! - This WAS the Mistake. Captain Awesome picked it up immediately (Thank God) - he kinda said they didn't state their position. My head is screaming oh F$%$, oh S#%#... but somehow flying circuit pattern that I have read on the forums and in Angle of Attack's Amazing Video and I have practiced proper landing pattern (or whatever I figured out in simulation) - I was able to visualize and I knew that 2 other planes were behind us, and so this third plane had to be somewhere close. Captain Awesome was calm, but super alert - he already had a very good idea on where exactly they were, but one needs confirmation - and we are now few seconds away from approaching left turn to BASE - and I see the airplane coming directly into Base. They never went downwind or called it on the radio - we could have been on intercept vector (I don't know if that is the correct terminology, it is something I picked from sci-fi tv/books) and be in potential collision. All of a sudden, I hear a different voice on the radio which stated that they are on Base - Captain Awesome figured that the original pilot was in training or less experienced than the other pilot (We saw them at lunch) Captain Awesome immediately says on radio we are making swerve (something like that, my eyes were fixated on that aircraft only), and then we get behind them on base and to final and then land. Please see Pic (I am in the Blue Plane) - Now all of this is from my interpretation. Captain Awesome did not really talk about this - he was keeping cool head, and following standard protocol. Once we landed, he did joke and say "Lets Park right next to them". The knowledge that I received on what a standard landing pattern is, and was CRITICAL for me to visualize and be able to look in the right direction to spot the aircraft approaching us. I knew what downwind, base, upwind, and final meant. Pilot errors like these can cause pilots and their passengers to show up on NTSB reports. I do not want to see any one of you in those reports - they are disturbing and depressing. FAA nailed it as they even require pilots to be in sterile cockpit environment during pre-flight, take-off, pre-landing, and landing phases of the flight. It is only during cruise flight where one chat and enjoy a bit (to some degree). Conclusion: Final Thoughts Amazing experience even if it was my first general aviation flight. I cannot wait to go to flight school and hopefully in few years I would save up enough cash to buy an airplane. First thing first, I now have to work harder (and smarter) than before in my trading, educate myself more, and increase sales of my book (and subsequent follow-up books) all to be able to touch the skies again in style. In my wildest imagination, I never thought a simple adventure would turn out to be so powerful. The flight sim community taught me whatever information I could absorb in a short time frame and oddly it just happened to saved my life. I am eternally gratefull to this community for aviators and flight simmers. Appeal for Help for Tony I was waiting to post this amazing adventure event post on Friday 18th and then I read up on huge awesome fundraiser event for Tony hosted by PC Pilot, PMDG, ORBX, Addictive Simulations, Buffalo Virtual Airways, United Virtual, Aerosoft, Just Flight and I realized that this fundraiser takes importance over my story. While I had fun flying in GA aircraft, someone is requesting our help and I knew that I had to help out in whatever way I can. I enjoyed conversing with Froogle and others in the Fundraiser Livestream (the banter between Froogle and Jane was hilarious). I was quite excited to see when the goal of 14K was reached by everyone's contribution. I do not know anyone here on these forums personally (including Tony), but it was an amazing experience to see everyone around the world (including companies) contributing to someone who is requesting help. If you enjoyed my adventure post, I would really appreciate if you all could help Tony reach his goal of 25K. At the moment of writing this post, I to do see that there are over 1000 members logged in, and if everyone of you donate $10 - he will reach his goal as he only has few days left. It would mean the world to me if you would help Tony Here is the link to his request http://www.indiegogo.com/p/119134 You all have an awesome day and Thank You for Reading this massive post Skywolf

I posted the full story on the AVSIM Hack to my blog a week or so ago, and thought I would let everyone here know that it is there for the reading. http://forum.avsim.net/blog/1/entry-50-avsims-15th-a-retrospective-part-2/

Last Wednesday, March 20th, AVSIM met with and engaged an experienced team of IT specialists to aid in growing AVSIM and to maintain its robustness and responsiveness to our community in the future. They bring to our team skill sets that are applicable to our entire range of our present and future architecture and systems. Together, we are creating a road map for our future growth and stability. We will be working on that in the coming weeks and months. We will be adding substantially to the road map as we optimize our current system and prepare it for future additional hardware and software tools. Some of the things will be doing in the future include: Immediate Action Items: Replace three existing hard drives in Forum Server. Add two additional hard drives and configure for full RAID configuration. Near Term Action Items: Remove and replace all File Library drives with 1 TB units. Add two additional 1 TB units. Review MySQL database and optimize. Review hardware; Switch, NAS', Backup Storage system Longer Term: Add G5 as Test Platform Transitioning: When available in 2014, transition forums and library to V4.0 software. Reconfigure architecture to accommodate transition and improve efficiencies further. Of course, all of this assumes we can afford them and be able to keep the connection to the net alive at the same time.

Hello everyone, my name is Matthew Smith and currently I have the opportunity to start up something for the community. This could be a Virtual Airline, flying club, etc... It will be really good as it will have a good and easy to use website, detailed briefing system, detailed tracking and much much more. I need your help to tell me what you would like to see in the community. So far I have come up with a few of my own ideas for what this could be; A virtual British Airways, however it will be different from the others as you will not have to take an entry exam and the minimum age would be 13+ (as of vatsim and IVAO regulations), SWISS virtual, this will be a free one to join and will still offer unique features as stated above, finally a Virgin Atlantic virtual. Please reply to this topic if you like any of the ideas stated above. I am also open to other ideas that you would like to see so if you would like to see something else, please reply to this topic below. Remember: This will be build for and around you because after all your ideas are incredibly important to me and i'd love to hear your thoughts, Thanks.

I saw the Forum section, and I think polling is a great idea! Potential questions: - "Which flight simulators do you use?" (list them) - "Which flight simulators did you stop using and why?" (list them) - "Do you think X-Plane 11 has potential?" (Yes/No/Maybe) - "Do you think Dovetail Games Flight Simulator has potential?" (Yes/No/Maybe) Just thinking.

G'day to everyone, and all of you fantastic flyers out there! I've been considering of what to say about the NGX over months past. This bird, by far, is one of the best FSX/FS9 addons out there. With that being said, I've flown hundreds upon hundreds of hours in the PMDG 737-800NGX and installed almost every livery and flew in them. If we can get enough comments about this, be my guest. I wanted to recommend, since I can't seem to do it ever, to request newer liveries for the PMDG 737800/900 RTM Base package. E.g: Southwest airlines, Airalaska, etc. Maybe Precisionmanulas can add some new liveries such as the following Airfrance [Royla Dutch] Fictional, like the 777-200L/r schemes, Shamu 737-800NGX for Southwest airlines Illinois one for southwest airlines (737-800) Arizona one for southwest airlines (737-800) Salmon scheme for Alaska Airlines Haribo Goldbáren (737-800) Another problem I am having is, I went to DXTBmp and made my own, HUGE project liveries that took days at a time. My reason being said for "days" is, I spent about anywhere from 7-15 hours for 1 week on 1 livery. None of these worked when I saved and compiled them . haribo_737_ngx.BAO.php. I even converted the texture files to .DDS and that still didn't make a difference. Even though the NGX is somewhat old, I would like some new liveries to be put fourth to this bird, for some extra enjoyment. I spent my day using the NGX and tinkering with some new flight plans. I have lots of new flights to be going with on, if these can possibly be added for everyone, or I can get some info on how I can make them, possibly someone to create them for me, I may be able to hire a professional for $24.75 a texture.

Hey, here are some more shots from a Cathay flight I did a couple days ago. Sorry they are not in order of the flight phases! Hope you enjoy!

I had to disable (for now) the ability to paste raw formats into the text editor box. Members were unknowingly copying and pasting DIV, CSS, HTML, and other formatting elements into the message box and it was manipulating the rest of the page. For instance, one person copied an e-mail or a post to their clipboard, and pasted it into the box. The forum treated his post like a copy of the post he just copied and it looked very odd. I really liked the ability to just be able to copy and paste formats, but there was a hidden downside that I'm trying to mitigate. Hopefully we can turn this back on when we figure out a control for it.

So I have the Thrustmaster T.Flight Hotas X for a joystick + throttle. It has a swivel thing on the joystick to pan around the cockpit, external views, etc. Just yesterday, it simply stopped working. The joystick was plugged in, I changed nothing. It just stopped working. I reset the controller and FSX + a restart on my PC. The joystick appeared to be working okay until I tried to pan around my cockpit. It now pans much slower than before. It's super slow! It appears to have extreme lag too. But when I hold shift and pan with the mouse, I have perfect frames! What could be wrong with my controller. Any insight would be great as I'm pretty lost here.

Dear Avsimmers, This is my first post and it's going to be short and to the point. I recently lost my installers for the 777. I was able to recover the zip file for the -300 Extension but I still need the one for the Base Package. I also can't find the e-mail with the Order Number and the PMDG Website says it won't find any of my e-mail addresses stored in their servers. This is weird because I remember buying the product, but it seems as if my order somehow doesn't exist in PMDG's servers.

Hello, i dont know if im in the wrong section or something but i recently tried to start a flight with fs passengers x and i wanted to set my location etc but when i click the buttons in the menu, it does not respond? when i try to click on exit. i can click on it but it does not do anything. the menu just stands there and doesnt react. ps (sorry for my english)

Hi Everyone, I am having a problem with a lot of FSX freeware planes. They all seem to have this flashing board across the captain's PFD, ND, and some part of the EICAS. I am mainly concerned about a recent plane I downloaded from the Avsim Library. It is the [PIA ATR-42-500 by Ahmed Ahsen & Ed Cox]. I have attached an image for your better understanding. Any help will be much appreciated. Thank YOU So much!

Hi there! Apologies for not posting this in the "Library" forum, but I'm currently unable to do so due to being a new member. I don't appear to be able to download any files from the AVSim Library at all. They all become immediately corrupted. I'm running Windows 10 version 1703 build 15063.483, non-Insider. The issue persists across all browsers I've tried so far - IE, Edge, Firefox and Chrome - albeit the case that it manifests itself slightly differently in each: IE (11.483.15063.0) and Edge (40.15063.0.0 with EdgeHTML 15.15063) both ask to download the file, then when I click "Save" immediately say "[filename] couldn't be downloaded". On pressing "Retry", the download completes suspiciously fast, and then produces a corrupted .zip file. Chrome (59.0.3071.115 64-bit) allows the download as usual, but produces the corrupted .zip file. It acts, however, as if the file is perfectly normal. Firefox (Aurora, 55.0b6 32-bit) refuses to even let me click the "Save file" popup, instead offering an error: This issue appears no matter what file I am downloading. Interestingly, it also appears when trying to explore any non-plaintext file in ZipDive! - for instance, PDFs come up with "This PDF document might not be displayed correctly" in Firefox and "PDF unreadable" in Edge - but plaintext ZipDive! files are A-OK. I note that the page talks about FTP, but the linked page is a standard 443 PHP page, not an FTP link - might this be the root of the issue, trying to send FTP data over a SSL connection rather than an FTP one? Appreciate any help. Thanks, Curtis