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Hello All, I'm a long time GA pilot recently scooped up by the local rural schoolboard to teach an Introduction to Aviation class. The school board, God bless them, bought four flight sims (Honeycomb Alpha and Bravo, 3 screens, and top of the line CPUs and graphics cards for P3Dv5 Academic). I bought one years ago for my Multi-IFR tickets and only used it for that purpose (wouldn't have gotten the tickets with out it!). I have five days left of healthy budget and am asking for your advice on what add-ons to purchase. Am feeling quite overwhelmed with all of the options. I understand a lot of your add-on purchases are based on taste. I'm looking for those add-ons that really made a difference to your experience so the kids can feel fully immersed, and the parents and grandparents looking over their shoulders can have an equally immersive experience. Thanx, J

Hi I have purchased all the Q400,B777,EHAM and now the Greek Islands and really impressed. Apart from the last one, commentary is garbled, like underwater; enough to disappoint me that I'm not enjoying it. Reinstalled VLC but no difference and Media Player the same; checked sample of Q400/EHAM and you can hear Josh as clear as a bell The difference is very clear. This is why I pay money, because of their quality; hope I am not alone and Airline2Sim can check this for me.... Thanks Gusbow

My first review, so go easy on me :unsure: Originally I was saving for the Majestic Dash 8 Q400, but being only a few pounds short and with payday a long way away, I picked up the 146 from Flight1, knowing their returns policy. After a bemusing purchasing system involving multiple online activations and many codes, I eventually got the order approved and installed the aircraft. In an effort to keep the file size down they only supplied the Quality Wings 'house colours', with many more available for download, a neat idea so as not to clutter the aircraft selection menu with unwanted liveries. The pack includes the Avro RJ-70, -85 and the -100 series aircraft, with the BAe 146-100, -200 and the -300 series being released later this year. After installing some liveries that looked rather nice, I decided to take her for a flight. This being my first airliner of any type, the flight deck was rather bemusing, after me being used to vintage birds. I spent a good half an hour fiddling with switches and knobs which all had a satisfying 'click' to them, rather nice. I was then searching for some sort of control panel, hitting as many keys as I could think of to no avail, then, accidentally, I clicked on a black lever to the far left of the panel, this brought up the control panel, hallelujah!! Opening up the main door and extending the air-stairs, all lavished with smooth animations, I selected 'QWPAS' having absolutely no clue as to what it does, suddenly, I can hear the passenger announcements!! A very slick and immersive feature if I say so :lol: After the short and logical start procedure, I decided to venture onto the taxiway, holding this beast on the centre line is a challenge in itself, having fixed the ground friction bug, she freely rolls of her own accord, some getting used to! Eventually, after extensive wondering left and right of the centre line, I managed to stumble across the active, setting the flaps with the rotation wheel on my X-52, I discovered my first bug, any movement of the axis activates the noise that should be for when the flap lever is moved position, so it creates a rapid clicking that is really quite annoying, but can be countered with some slight of hand when selecting the flaps. 18* down was the first selection, through to 33*, understandable once we consider the STOL capabilities of the 146, with the short Southampton INTL runway, MTOP was selected and I ran the engines up whilst holding the breaks. Whilst doing this I began to realize how spectacular the sound set is on this aircraft, truly something! Having only skim-read the manual, with a false belief in my own flying ability, I released the brakes and accelerated down the runway, around 110kts I rotated, only to almost stall in the heavy aircraft, as with the real 146, the QW 146 requires liberal amounts of forward trim to keep flying on the straight and level, something that is learned rather quickly with this aircraft. After a quick flight to Jersey, with a cruise at 20,000ft I decided to venture into the autopilot systems. Now, with this being my first modern 'tube-liner' the autopilot was quite puzzling to begin with, but actually turned out to be quite logical, and a very capable system when combined with the FMC. Whilst the FMC has nothing on the 737NGX, it is capable non-the-less, at that point not knowing too much about the operations, I selected the very useful feature that allows you to input the flight plan created by FSX's native flight planner, into the FMC. A rather clever and extremely useful system for us newbies :blush: VNAV and LNAV work as advertised, although altitude hold is utilized more often than VNAV for sheer ease of use. On the second flight I departed Boston to fly to Dulles, Washington. It was on this flight I attempted to use the ILS system. Having only vague guidance from the manual, as I neared I input the frequency into both VHF Nav radios as per the instruction from the manual, followed the default ATCs haphazard instructions and finally established on the localiser. Then hitting APP on the autopilot panel it proceeded to fly an automated, if a little low, approach into runway 19L. Then it stalled out. Unfortunately due to a combo of my incompetence and the less than ideal manual, I had failed to select auto-throttle and we stalled and crashed. Not my finest moment :unsure: Conclusion: A thoroughly enjoyable aircraft that has its own quirks, but once you know them, you can really fall in love. Whilst not having the complexity of Majestic software or PMDG, she has enough to be immersive and still feel like a full simulation. A versatile aircraft within FSX and in real life, she is a real treat to fly, and the enjoyment will increase with the addition of the BAe models, with older technology to make things a bit more challenging. Pros: -Fantastic sound set -Good flight model -Good balance of simplicity and realism to cater for all -Ideal starting platform for aspiring virtual airline pilots -Good range of liveries available for download -Good pricing for what you get -Immersive passenger announcements Cons: -Buggy flap lever sounds (can get quite annoying) -Not as complex as you would like in some areas -Can be a bit of a frame killer Price: $47.99 £31.57 (from Flight1.com) Get it here: http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=qw146

Hello! We are a small team with talent and have a experienced team. Our first Scenery we are making is the Van Nuys Airport(KVNY). It is the worlds most busiest GA airport and there is no Add on Scenery out there for it. So our team is developing KVNY right now and we are expected to be done around Christmas time. Our Forum is here and you can follow our progress http://qualityscener...forumotion.com/ <-- There. It will consist of Very Detailed Photo Real.. Custom 3D Buildings.. Custom Runway Polys and more.... Sign up to our forum to find out more information as we get more in depth into the Project... Remember this is a freeware scenery! Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/QualitySceneryDesigners QSD Team

I've been wanting to do this for a while and today I have a little time, so here it goes. I am constantly bombarded by statements about how reducing image weight reduces the image quality. For the purpose of this discussion, "weight" is determined by the "quality" setting dialogue box when you save a jpeg. First, it is important to understand the difference between image size and file size. Image size is simply the length of the image times the height of the image times the resolution in pixels per inch (ppi). File size is the amount of physical space the entire file of the image (including metadata, etc.) on the hard drive. File size is often dependent on the internal algorithms within the imaging software being used. When you press the V key, MSFS captures the screen image and saves it as a bitmap (bmp) image. Usually, the user will change the image to a jpeg. When saving as a jpeg, a dialogue box will appear with the choice (a slider) to adjust the image quality. Obviously, the higher the setting, the more space the file will take up on your hard drive, or a server. In an effort to reduce the space taken up by forum images on the AVSIM servers, the size limit has been set to 1600 pixels and 400Kb IF you save your image to the AVSIM servers. If you save your image on a third party image hosting site, obviously that space is not used by an AVSIM server, so the limitations are lifted. A monitor screen has a resolution of 72 pixels per inch (ppi). That's the highest resolution it can handle. It doesn't matter if you call up a 100 megabyte image with a resolution of 300 pixels per inch, the monitor will only display that image at 72 pixels per inch. Images with resolutions of 300 ppi are used for printed outputs. My monitor is a 27" ASUS. When I hit the "V" key, the image size is 1920 x 1017 pixels, at 72 ppi. This makes a 100% image approximately 26.7 x 14.125 inches on the screen (if my screen was that large). The algorithms of MSFS and the screen capture vs. monitor size is beyond the scope of this discussion, and my understanding. Suffice to say, the image saved, on my computer, is larger than the actual screen size at 72 ppi. If I save that image as a jpeg without adjusting the size, the result is a 1.43 Megabyte file. If I reduce the image size to 1600 pixels max, and image quality at max (12), the file is 1.07 Megabytes. This is still too large to save on the AVSIM servers. To make the file "legal" you must either reduce the size of the image or the "quality" or both. Below is four images. The first image is the original size saved at the highest quality. (1.43 Mb) The second image is reduced to 1600 pixels at highest quality. (1.07 Mb) Still to large for AVSIM servers. The third image is a 1600 pixel image at quality medium 8. (325 Kb). Quite a change in file size and now we are "legal". The fourth image is the original saved at 1600 pixels and quality setting low 4. The image file size is now only 179 Kb. I challenge you to tell a difference in visual quality. Original screen capture saved as a jpeg, quality max (12). 1.43Mb Original image reduced to 1600 pixels max, image quality max (12), 1.07Mb Original image reduced to 1600 pixels max, quality level medium (8), 325 Kb Original image reduced to 1600 pixels max, image quality low (4), 179Kb I hope this clears up a few concepts about image size, file size, and image quality. Please feel free to comment or ask questions.

I have recently installed the Quality Wings 757 onto my laptop, and it is registered and seems to work fine except for the FMC. The FMC seems to be having a problem displaying certain text. The IDENT Page shows everything correctly as well as my up to date AIRAC Cycle of 1509. However when I proceed to the next page, the REF Airport section is blank and does not let me type anything on that page. The SID's and STAR's also don't appear. But if I click randomly on the SID/STAR Page, they do appear on the RTE, so its like the text is there but invisible. I am wondering if this could be a problem with a certain gauge file that is missing, but really can't seem to find the problem! Any help is appreciated. I am running Windows 10. Thank you! Regards, Chris P.S. If you are interested in seeing what the FMC looks like, reply asking for a picture. Thanks!

Hello. There is a sale on Carenado aircraft as I speak and the deals are pretty dang good. I was just wondering if I would be pleased with a few purchases. I am currently building a sim pit, almost done, and really enjoy the realistic aspect of flight simulation. I own both the A2A Cessna 172 and the Aerosoft Twin Otter and find them extremely satisfying because of the realism and challenges provided by these in-depth aircraft. The A2A is truly amazing. I also plan on buying the Real Air Duke 2.0, Majestic Dash 8 as well as a few PMDG products somewhere down the road soon. Considering that I enjoy these complex aircraft so much, I mostly like flying small general aviation aircraft VFR, but will advance beyond that as my knowledge progresses, do you guys think I would enjoy this list of Carenado aircraft; Cessna 185 bush, Cessna C208B EX HD, Cessna C337H Skymaster? I heard the Carenado G1000 isn't great and that is in the C208B, and it sounds as though Carenado kind of concentrates on beautiful but kind of simple and easy to start and fly aircraft. But I also hear that they make really good simple aircraft like the Cessna 185 with steam gauges. I'm just the kind of person that likes to be able to press every button and flip every switch, and would prefer to have it actually do something. I also like it when an aircraft "punishes" you for messing something up or not flying it correctly, though it doesn't have to be real world perfect. Also looking for a decent flight model and systems modeling, especially fuel flow matching the books as much as possible. Any thoughts on how these aircraft are with these preferences, or should I just stick with the brands and aircraft I have already mentioned earlier? P.S. I will probably get the 337 anyway because it is such a unique aircraft.

In our quest to find that sweet spot for our beloved hobbie, we have to give (loads) and take (less) with the results to get FSX looking and running as best as our machines will handle. We have all tweeked at some point. We have all upgraded at some point and how we are not all bold (no insult meant) by pulling our hair out, is beyond me. Anyway, I found a little trick I'd like to share with you, and I'm guess it's not for most but, if like me you run your computer using a TV and not a dedicated monitor, if you go to the settings on the TV, and set the sharpness to 0, then go to NI and drop what ever you use to reduce jaggies by 1 level, in my case thats SGSS from 8 to 4, it makes my sim look the same but it runs smoother. I cannot tell you about the FPS as I am not really interested about them, its smoothness for me. It works for my setup but I'm not guarenting it will work for you, but it is worth a try. I would also guess it works for FSX-SE and Prepar3D, but I don't have them so I could not guarentee that either. If it does, I'm sure some kind fellow would let us know. Rich