The FlightSim Hangar

Business has finally started to slow down with the off season and so I have started getting back into FS9 and joined a VA called MetroAir. I really like the livery they have created and their fleet are models that I enjoy flying. So far it seems like a pretty good bunch of guys in general.

I feel like I’ve taken my flight simming as far as I can without making the jump onto VATSIM and their live ATC. I don’t just want to jump on and do VFR flights, I do not really need controllers to simulate VFR flying and in real life I’m comfortable with VFR through C and D airspace anyway. What I want is to start doing some live work out of, through, and into Class B airspace and airports.

To prepare myself for this though I need to get familiar and competent using SIDs and STARs and know how to set up my flights before I ever connect. I found four tutorials that are great resources and have been successfully flying accurate IFR procedures offline with Radar Contact 4 for a week now. I’m going to pick one route that I can do practically from memory and take the plunge onto VATSIM shortly.

Ted Flight Simulation, MetroAir, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004/FSX/Acceleration, VATSIM

Some exciting news. Some former members of the Aces team at Microsoft, the developers of FSX, have formed their own development company that will focus on simulations.

Here is their press release

Cascade Game Foundry Forges Ahead, Opens New Simulation Game Development Studio

Cascade Game Foundry, LLC is hard at work on the design and demo for their first project.

What is also interesting is that the team members also have extensive experience in game development beyond flight sims. Some of their credits include Fable, Halo, NFL Fever, and the PGR series. Here’s wishing them the best of luck.

Cascade Game Foundry

Ted Flight Simulation

My 360 is in the hospital (some repair shop in Texas) being fixed by Microsoft for free. It got the “Red Ring of Death” after two years of hard service. Real life business is slowing down with the end of the summer and shoulder seasons and without the 360 I’ve been doing some flight simming again and running some Mohawk routes of the late 60’s/early 70’s. I decided to scrap the “Mohawk Tour” and just build different routes to fly where I want to fly with the only stipulation being it has to be to a destination that was really served by Mohawk.

The BAC 1-11 model by David Maltby is really complex and really fun to fly so that is an easy choice to use. However, I can’t find a good model of the FH227 and even if I could I don’t think I’d want to use it. So I’m going to fudge a little and if I do some short hops in a turbo prop I’m going to substitute in one of my all time favorite freeware aircraft, Rick Piper’s Hawker Siddeley 748.

I also found a way to add some financial data which can be viewed through a link at the bottom of the Mohawk page.

Ted Flight Simulation, Virtual Airlines

Rise of Flight, the WWI sim by developer neoqb, will release in North America on 6/17. Jake and I already have our preorders in from Gogamer.com and have been anticipating this title for a little while now. I haven’t been able to get into a WWI sim since the excellent Red Baron by Dynamix, released way back in 1990 on the Amiga. That title also had some RPG career aspects that I enjoyed besides the flight simming.

Here are a couple of videos of RoF courtesy of youtube. It’s looking really good, with complex damage and physics modeling, including weather and atmosphere. The recommended system requirements are pretty steep and I wonder if I should install it on my XP or Vista partitions.

Ted Flight Simulation, Rise of Flight

Just Flight has announced a released date of April 3 for the boxed version of AirHauler and states that “we’re planning on getting the download version on sale before that.”

Ted Flight Simulation, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004/FSX/Acceleration

Click image for full size.

As I pull around for look I see the result of good placement of fragmentation bombs by Oyster 12, following a good pass by Oyster Lead. You can see Trout 12, my wingman, in the distance at my six o’clock, his exhaust trail silouettted against the cumulus.

The Quang Khe Ferry mission is successful and once back on the boat I can report of the P-4 Patrol Boat I destroyed with my 4 HE rocket launches. Then chief will want me to explain why there are a dozen or so 14.7mm holes in his plane.

Zerocinco told me not to open fire late and low, but I still haven’t mastered that…..yet.

Ted Flight Simulation

It took about 20 tries, but I finally completed practice mission #3, Carrier Quals, this evening. It would have been helpful to know in advance the recommended approach speed and throttle settings for the F8 Crusader instead of having to figure it out by trial and error. There was supposed to be documentation for the practice missions on the YAP2 website, but there isn’t and I don’t know why. And I’m still not sure I have it right, but I got her down. Ugly landing, but nothing came off and I caught the #1 wire which I don’t think is ideal. The visuals are mucho cool though.

To be honest I don’t know much about the F8 Crusader, but she seems like a beast and I’ve heard she is a pure dogfighter and MiG killer. I guess I’ll find out in some upcoming missions.

Over the deck.

View from the paddles.

Coming aboard.

Panoramic

Here’s a clip of the trap courtesy of blip.tv

Next up is night quals………. *shudder*

Ted Flight Simulation

My copy of YAP2 arrived yesterday and I got around to installing it. I haven’t had much time with it, but a few annoying quirks jumped out at me right out of the gate. Added to that the communication and coordination of the release by the developers has been below average to downright poor in execution. At $24.95 for what is essentially a big mod I expect better. However, so far, I’m pleased to have it and have the chance to dive deeper. So far I have only flown the first mission which is a training mission at Gila Bend in an F100 Super Sabre. The mission teaches me how to fly formation, refuel in air behind a KC135 (simulated), and do some ground attack at the bombing range. I completed all of the above and landed safely at home, although I would rate my success as barely passing.

Here’s a clip of the landing courtesy of blip.tv.

Ted Flight Simulation

The developers of Yankee Air Pirate, the critically acclaimed payware add-on for Wings Over Vietnam, have released Yankee Air Pirate 2.

YAP2 is available only on disk at this time with two purchase options available. If you already own Wings Over Vietnam $24.95 gets you the first 10 missions plus all the necessary objects (2GB worth). For $29.95 you can get both the YAP2 and WOV disks.

Ted Flight Simulation

One of the things I enjoy when I’m not flying FS9 is to build scenery for it. With excellent and user friendly programs like the freeware Afcad2 and the paywares Airport Facilitator X and Instant Scenery, FS9 and FSX have become a sort of modern day version of the intricate train sets that hobbyists used to (and still do) build in their basements. I was always fascinated by the world creation/replication aspect of model railroading, but didn’t have that heavy an interest in trains let alone the space needed for a set.

A few months ago I purchased Instant Scenery as I was dissatisfied with the lack of detail at most of the general aviation airports in FS9. After playing around with it for a few days I decided to get serious and attempt my first build at the FBO I own in FSE, W22.

This is what the default W22 looks like in FS9. Actually it looks worse than this picture since this is with FSGenesis mesh and Ultimate Terrain as well.

This is what I was able to build with Instant Scenery and Airport Facilitator X.

I didn’t build any of the 3D models or texture them. They are all freely available in libraries on flight sim sites.

Ted Flight Simulation