VOLUME 15 ISSUE 2 MARCH/APRIL 2011

USA $7.95 CANADA $9.95 AUSTRALIA $9.85 (INC. GST) A PC AVIATOR PUBLICATION

FS ECONOMY
FLIGHT SIMS BEST KEPT

SECRET?

CPM. V15I2

Imagine.... being able to pick and choose any areas of the world that you want to fly in photo-real detail with Microsoft Flight Simulator X. Imagine.... being able order those parts of the world, here and now, for less than 1 cent per square mile. Imagine.... being able to download that area immediately after purchase, installing it and then flying that scenery within the hour. Imagine.... that technology being available right here and now.... Well, you no longer need to imagine... it is here and now... and its MegaSceneryEarth! Go To The MegaSceneryEarth Website Right Now To Start Choosing Your Favorite Places To Fly In HyperReal Detail!

Choose=>Buy=>Download=>Fly!

www.megasceneryearth.com
2009 PC Aviator Inc. Aerosoft Australia Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

From the EDITOR

WELCOME TO THE MARCH/APRIL ISSUE! Something I get asked quite often from subscribers relates to the use of add-ons in Flight Simulator. Many ask me if they really need all the latest and greatest scenery, aircraft or weather enhancements to really enjoy flying in Flight Simulator? Thats a very good question, and of course there are as many answers as there are individual people. Also, there are, possibly, no right or wrong answers to that very question either. Heres my take on that issue Do you need all those fancy add-ons? Of course you dont! Do you want all those add-ons? Most people seem to! Of course, if the particular enhancement you are pondering about actually adds a good deal to the realism of your flights, then I say go for it. After all, we are trying to simulate real flight as much as possible are we not? And besides, the enjoyment factor of flight simulation does seem to go hand in hand with the realism factor, i.e. the more real it is, generally the more enjoyable it is. That is not always the case, but it seems to be my experience at least, as well as for others whom I regularly talk to. The trick to improving your flight simulator experience is to find that balance between realism, and the point at which it becomes real enough to start causing you problems or issues that make it less enjoyable. A good example is a new simmer not familiar with flight simulation or aviation who has purchased a highly detailed airliner add-on. That airliner takes a lot of work just to get started and perhaps many hours of study too. In the real world it might take two or even three pilots to manage the aircraft. You are on your own in most cases! The simmer will be frustrated to a point where the enjoyment of flight sim takes second place as a result of choosing the wrong add-on product for the users current skill level or knowledge. If, however, you do some study on products or add-ons prior to purchasing, and read reviews from authoritative sources, like reviews and articles you will find in these very pages, you will discover just which products will suit your needs and potentially deliver you the highest enjoyment level. There are some real gems out in the market, and they can increase your enthusiasm and enjoyment of flight simulation ten-fold, some for just a few dollars. There are certainly worse things you could waste your money on and have little or nothing to show for it. Enjoy your flight simulation hobby, in whatever form or level of seriousness or enthusiasm it takes!

Publisher: Robert Ferraro Editor: Dean Bielanowski Editorial Assistant: Roger Curtiss Layout & Design: Tony Liatos of Rectier Graphics Contributors In This Issue: Dean Bielanowski, Roger Curtiss, John Achor, Harold Zimmer, Dr John Lattanzio, Doug Horton, Rob Scott, Mike Ray. Subscription Managers: Australia: Dean Bielanowski USA: Mark Jakubowski Editorial Submissions: Please address editorial matter to The Editor at editor@computerpilot.com or to the ofce closest to you listed at the bottom of this page. Advertising Inquiries: PC Aviator Inc. Phone: 843-716-1616. Email: advertising@computerpilot.com Website: www.computerpilot.com General E-Mail: info@computerpilot.com US Distribution: Ingram Periodicals, International Periodical Distributors, Media Solutions Printed By: The RL Bryan Company (USA). Disclaimer: Any information, advice, maps, charts, tables and other information published in this magazine is exclusively for use with PC ight simulations. The publisher does not accept any liability for any accident or incident arising from any information conveyed or implied in this publication. Copyright: Copyright 2011 The PC Aviator Pty Ltd Incorporating PC Aviator Inc. All rights reserved. None of the information in this magazine may be reproduced in any form or stored via any electronic means without the express permission of the publisher. Cover Price: USA.: $7.95. Australia: $9.85*. Canada: $9.95. Subscriptions: Computer Pilot is published bi-monthly Australian Annual Subscriptions: AUD$39.95 Phone: (07) 3149 3096 US Annual Subscriptions: USD$24.95 Phone: 1-800-664-0033 Other International Subscriptions Asia/Pacic Region: Ph: +61-7-3149-3096 Rest Of The World: Ph: +1-843-716-1616 or visit www.computerpilot.com ISSN: 1324-7336 Published by: PC Aviator The Flight Simulation Company Australian Office: The PC Aviator Pty Ltd PO Box 109 Rochedale South, QLD, 4123 Ph: 07 3149 3096 U.S. Office: PC Aviator Inc 1485 Colts Neck Road, LORIS, SC 29569-6775 Ph: 843-716-1616 Fax: 1-843-716-1619 * Recommended Retail Price only Computer Pilot is an international magazine, proudly published in Australia. Printed in the United States of America.

Dean Bielanowski Editor

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Publications Mail Agreement #: 40720082 Customer #: 7056038 Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to: PC Aviator, inc., PO BOX 296, Loris, SC 29569, U.S.A. Computer Pilot Volume 15 Issue 2, March/April 2011 (ISSN 1324-7336) is published bi-monthly by PC Aviator, inc., 1485 Colts Neck Road, Loris, SC 29569-6775. Periodicals postage is paid at Loris, SC and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to 1485 Colts Neck Road, Loris, SC 29569

V15I2

20

CONCO N TOENNTESNTS C NTE T TS

16
ALL THE LATEST NEWS AND NEW

NEWS AND NEW RELEASES

30 FLIGHT 1S FW190 A-SERIES 36 FLIGHT 1S BN-2 ISLANDER 46 ORBXS FTX PACIFIC FJORDS

MAXI REVIEWS

29 VIRTAVIAS DHC-4 C-7 CARI BOU 41 CARENADOS C208B GRAND CARAVAN 52 AEROSOFTS MEGA AIRPORT AMSTERDAM

MINI REVIEWS

RELEASES SINCE OUR LAST ISSU E.

29

20 FS ECONOMY WHERE FUN IS THE CURRENCY! AS I WRITE THIS PIEC

E I AM SITTING AT 10,000FT ABO VE THE MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN OF EASTERN NEW SOUTH WAL ES IN THE FLIGHT DECK OF A BEEC H 1900D MAKING MY WAY FROM TAMWORTH TO DOC HRA MILITARY AIRFIELD TO THE SSE. MY CARGO WOULD NORMALLY BE JUST ONE THAT S ME, THE PILOT, AND A QUIET AND LONELY CABIN SITS BEHIND THE PILOTS SEAT REMINDING ME THAT FLIGHT SIM CAN SOMETIMES BE A LONESOME HOBBY. BUT TONIGHT S FLIGHT IS DIFFERENT IT HAS A PURPOSE IT HAS FS ECONOMY DRIVING IT!

29 I LEARNED TO FLY FRO M THAT PART VII I RECEIVED MY PILOTS

42 TRACKIR 5 USER GUIDE

WINGS AND MOVED ON TO ADV ANCED FLIGHT TRAINING SCHOOLS. FIRST WAS AT LUKE AIR FORCE BASE JUST NORTHW EST OF PHOENIX, ARIZONA (USA). THE F-84F THUNDERSTREA K, BUILT BY REPUBLIC AIRCRAFT , WAS THE FIRST TRULY SINGLE-ENGINE, SINGLE-SEAT PLANE I FLEW. IT WAS THE LATE ST IN A LONG LINE OF OVERWEIGHT AIRPLANES BEGI NNING WITH THE P-47 THUNDERB OLT OF WWII FAME. THE NEXT ITERATION OF OVER WEIGHT PLANES BY REPUBLIC WOULD BE THE F-105 THUNDERCHIEF USED EXTENSIV ELY DURING THE VIETNAM WAR .

IF YOU EVER CONSIDERED THE HEAD TRACKING DEVICE TRAC KIR5 BUT SHIED AWAY FROM IT FOR ANY REASON, HAV E A READ OF JOHN ACHORS ARTI CLE IN THIS ISSUE WHICH DETAILS HIS EXPERIENCE WITH THE PRODUCT, ALONG WITH TIPS ON HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF IT.

60 TOURING THE UNITED KINGDOM

36

66 BENCHMARKING FSX PERFORMANCE SUMMARY AND RECAP OVER THE PAST TWO

THERE I WAS LOUNGING IN THE LEEDS & BRADFORD AIRPORT STAR AROUND A STEAMING MUG OF BUCKS WITH MY HANDS COFF NOW?, I THOUGHT. ID JUST FLOW EE WHEN MY PHONE STARTED TO RING. WHAT N UP FROM LONDON IN TERRIBLE BOXES IN THE CESSNA 208. ALL WEATHER HAULING I WANTED WAS A CHANCE TO LET MY NERVES RECOVER AFTER THE FLIGHT. THERE WAS GOING TO BE LITTLE CHANCE OF THAT. BEFORE I KNEW IT, I WAS ON A TRIP AROUND THE UK WITH A BUDDY OF MINE, PLAY ING THE VIRTUAL TOUR GUIDE. WHY NOT COME ALON G AND JOIN ME?

74 A DISCUSSION ABOUT I THINK I CAN SAY WITHOUT CON FLAPS WITH MIKE RAY TRADICTIO

YEARS, COMPUTER PILOT HAS PUBLISHED A SERIES OF SIX ARTI ABOUT FSX PERFORMANCE, RELA CLES TED TO GRAPHICS CARDS, MUL TIPLE AND LARGE DISPLAYS, PROCESSORS, THIRD-PARTY CPU COOLERS AND OVERCLOCKING , SIX-CORE PROCESSORS, SOLID STATE DRIVES, UPGRADIN G TO WINDOWS 7, BUDGET COM PUTER BUILDS FOR FSX, AND OTHER TOPICS. NOW WE RECAP SOME FACTS AND EXPL ORE A COUPLE MORE AS WE WRAP UP THIS POPULAR SERIE S.

88

80 PREPARING FOR A GR EAT LANDING THE APPRO PERHAPS THE MOST SCREWED ACH UP

N THAT EVERY MODERN AIRPLANE ANY PERFORMANCE WHATSOE THAT HAS VER WILL EMPLOY A WING CON FIGURATION MECHANISM OF ONE KIND OR ANOTHER. SO, JUST TAKE MY WORD FOR IT AIRPLANES (USUALLY) HAVE FLAPS! UNFORTUNATELY, ALL TOO OFTEN FLIGHT SIMMERS ARE EITH COMPLEXITY OF THE FLAP SYST ER NOT AWARE OF THE EM, OR SIMPLY LACK THE KNO WLEDGE BASE TO OPERATE THEM PROPERLY. WE ARE HERE TO SOLVE THESE ISSUES!

88 AN APPROACH TO THE CAT

III APPROACH! SO YOU WANT TO LAND BUT THE REPORTED CEILING IS NEARLY ZERO TH SO YOU WANT TO LAND BUT THE REPORTED VISIBILITY IS NEARLY ZERO IS IS NOT A PROBLEM. WELL, TO CLARIFY- THESE MAY THIS IS NOT A PROBLEM. NOT BE PROBLEMS. LETS FIND OUT WHY, AND HOW WE CAN WORK AROUND THEM FSX

EVENT IN THE FLIGHT SIMMERS CATALOG OF GOOBERS AND HICKEYS IS THE LAST THRE E INCHES OF THE FLIGHT PROF ILE JUST BEFORE THE WHEELS CONTACT MOTHER EARTH. TOO OFTEN, IT SEEMS PROBLEMATIC WHETHER OR NOT THE AIRPLANE CAN CONSISTENTLY BE MANEUVERED TO THE POIN T WHERE A SMOOTH AND PREDICTABLE LANDING CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED. IT ALL STARTS WITH THE RIGHT APPROACH!

REGULAR FEATURES: 54 HORTONS HINTS FOR

TIPS AND TRICKS TO ENHANCE

59 SUBSCRIBE AND WIN! 97 INBOX

YOUR LETTERS AND COMMEN TS.

YOUR FSX EXPERIENCE.

MORE GREAT PRIZES UP FOR GRA BS.

MICROSOFT FLIGHT THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

There is not a lot to report on the new version of Flight Simulator from Microsoft. We again have very little to tell you since Microsoft is telling everyone else virtually nothing to date. We do have a new screenshot to show here and the development team have released one message on their website, which reads as follows: January 28, 2011 - Play online or offline, the choice is yours. Greetings to all Flight fans! We would like to welcome you to our January News from the Team addition. First off, we hope you like the screen shots. We are happy to be able to share with you another check point in the development process. We are all working hard to bring you a truly exciting experience.

HUEY REVITALIZES FSX CHOPPER SCENE

The FSX chopper scene was experiencing a little bit of a lull, despite the relatively recent release of the Dodosim 206 package, which is an excellent example of helicopter simulation in FS. However, Aerosoft have recently released another high quality chopper for Flight Simulator X pilots in the form of the Huey, one of the most recognizable helicopters in the world. Fifty years after it first flew it is still in production and thats something no other helicopter can claim. The characteristic sound of the two-bladed rotor can be heard over jungles and city centers. Even though it has only one engine it is very reliable and rugged. A workhorse thats not afraid to get dirty and will fly just as happy with a few pounds more than the manual states it can carry. Its loved by the pilots and the crew that maintain the old airframes. Its the Huey. Features: Includes military UH-1H (or German UH-1D) and civilian Bell 205 A-1 models Highly accurate flight model (using a separate module to correct the limited helicopter flight model of FSX) Torque induced yaw added Stabilized rotor head simulation added Control travels in hover and cruise flight corrected Tail rotor effectiveness corrected Retreating blade stall added Control effectiveness depending on hydraulics pressure added Highly detailed systems making a realistic (within FSX limitation) use of all checklists possible Immersive sound set with many additional sound module for virtual cockpit sounds Very detailed external model with many animations All 3D gauges with custom programming Innovative lighting systems (including steerable searchlight)

S EW N

We continue to receive and enjoy all your emails and comments via the Tell Microsoft Flight email alias. Although we cannot reply to each and every one, we do read these and appreciate the comments and suggestions. One topic that has been voiced is the concern over online game play. We understand some people are worried that featuring Microsoft Flight on Games for Windows LIVE will require you to always be connected online to play. Not true. Rest assured that you can play offline if you choose. We hope that you will find the connected experience to be more enjoyable and immersive. But to be clear, the choice will be all yours. Thank you again for following our progress as we pass another waypoint. The Microsoft Flight Development Team Now that PC technology has finally caught up with Flight Simulator X, the current version of the franchise, not a whole lot of people seem terribly interested in the new version at present it seems. Maximising what FSX has to offer here and now seems to be of greater importance, at least until the Microsoft Flight team start to release some real information in detail about what the next version will offer. You can stay up to date with the latest FLIGHT announcements at www.microsoft.com/games/flight

The Download version is available now for around US$33, with the boxed version following soon after and offered at the price of US$36, which is better value, given that you get the product on disc for easier re-installation later on if required. Check your preferred simulation retailer for availability of both boxed and download versions.

WILCO AIRBUS FLEET EVOLVES WITH EVOLUTION SERIES

Wilco publishing have for many years retailed the Wilco Airbus Series 1 and Series 2 boxed add-ons featuring numerous Airbus aircraft. These packages, developed by FeelThere, have been a staple for flight simmers looking for solid Airbus aircraft to fly in Flight Simulator 2004 and X. Now Wilco announces the Evolution series for the Airbus Series 1 and Airbus Series 2 products. Evolution will be available either as an upgrade for existing owners of these packages at a reduced price, or implemented in the full packages of these products soon to be released in the new boxed versions. The list of enhancements is far too long to add here in detail, so here is a very brief list of some of the new upgrades included in the Evolution series range. Note that these are features added on TOP of what is already provided in the standard Airbus Series 1 and 2 packages. WEATHER RADAR : Airbus Series Evolution features a highly advanced Weather Radar developed by RealityXP . HEAD-UP DISPLAY (HUD) : Based on specifications from the real manufacturer, a Head-Up Display has been integrated into the Airbus Series Vol.1 and Vol.2.

INTEL RELEASES SECOND GENERATION CORE PROCESSORS

There is no doubt that Intel is winning the CPU race when it comes to flight simulation. The Core i5 and Corei7 processors have been a hit amongst simmers it would appear. Now Intel are aiming higher with the second generation Intel Core processors formerly codenamed Sandy Bridge. These new processors offer features that Intel claim will boost your visual experience in the PC world, among other claims, and judging by comments from some early adopters of the processors, these claims would seem quite genuine. Along with the processor release, Intel has also developed and released Intel 6 Series chipsets for motherboards to provide the best match of motherboard hardware and processor to deliver maximum performance.

NAVIGATION : * SID/STAR Management * DIR Operation * Holding Patterns * Target Altitude * TOC Real-Time Update * Second ADF * SID/STAR filtering * Flight Plan Edition * Flight Plan Display * Approach Speed * Updated Flight Management System Database SYSTEMS : * Electricity * Alert Clear and Recall * Fly-by-Wire (auto-coordination) * Computed Speeds * Fuel Tank Management * Metric Altitude * Speed Brake Alert * FADEC * Engine and Door Selection * Radio * Hydraulics - Yellow Electric Pump * 32-bits rendering MISCELLANEOUS : * Push-back steering (FSX) * Cold & Dark (FSX) * Multiple Monitor Display * Expert Mode The upgrades start at 16.49 Euros, with the full Evolution Series packages retailing for around 42 Euros (ex tax). Check out www. wilcopub.com for more information or ask your local retailer if they are available. Early performance testing of the second generation high-end Core i7 processor shows it holds up very well against Intels flagship 980X processor from the original Core series, however, the big difference between these two processors is the price. The second generation Core i7 processors are about a third to a quarter of the price of the 980X, which makes them super affordable and extremely attractive to those looking to upgrade their PC in the very near future. Needless to say, the new Core i5 and Core i3 processors will also be very affordable, and no more expensive than the current generation at the time the new models entered the market. This is a great marketing ploy by Intel with the introductory prices of these new processors helping to virtually sell themselves. Better still, they will only go down in price as time goes on too.

We wont go into all the fine technical details of these processors more than to say that yes, these second generation Intel Core processors look to be the ones to grab for all forms of Flight Simulation at the present time. Lets hope AMD can come up with something better in the near future to keep the processor wars going it only makes it better for consumers in the long run! You can find all the fine details of the new Second Generation intel Core processors at the Intel website www.intel.com Your local PC retailer will likely have these processors available right now.

EST T
1 17

Where FUN Is the CURRENCY!

s I write this piece I am sitting at 10,000 ft above the mountainous terrain of eastern New South Wales in the ight deck of a Beech 1900D making my way from Tamworth to Dochra Military Aireld to the SSE. My cargo would normally be just one thats me, the pilot, and a quiet and lonely cabin sits behind the pilots seat reminding me that ight sim can sometimes be a lonesome hobby. But tonights ight is different It has a purpose It has FS Economy driving it! Until a few months ago I will admit that I had never even heard of FS Economy, and it appears I am not alone. Most people I talk to scratch their heads when I mention it. FS Economy is, however, perhaps ight simulations best kept secret!

18

BY DEAN BIELANOWSKI & CAPTAIN DES BROADFIELD

CPM. V15I2

What is FS Economy?
In its basic form, you could describe FS Economy (FSE) as a webbased management program for ight simulation, designed to enhance and replicate the running of a real airline, or the progression of a pilots virtual career. Those that have used add-ons like Air Hauler or Cargo Pilot from Just Flight might have a better idea of the type of system FS Economy employs, but it is arguably more complex, more intuitive and certainly more feature rich in its operation and offerings. The operation of, and the end users participation in FS Economy can be as simple or as complex as the user wants it to be. But best of all, use of the FS Economy system is free to anyone with an active internet connection and either Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 or Flight Simulator X. I always knew the FSE service was going to be difcult to explain in a short article. In theory, you could write a 1000-page manual detailing everything it has to offer and how to operate within the FSE environment but thankfully, as mentioned above, it can be made very simple. And with that in mind, I will start to detail my experience so far with FSE as a virtual pilot for an already established FSE airline (group). Later on I will attempt to describe some of the more advanced features of FSE and what can be done on a higher level for those who like to wear suits and manage virtual money! Let it be known that while my ights mentioned here are being own in Australia, you can use FSE to y virtually anywhere in the FS world!

Primary FSE Tasks

The E in FSE stands for economy, and as such, the system is based around virtual money. It is also designed to be fairly realistic in terms of costing of consumables, aircraft and fuel. There are various ways of making money in FSE. Primarily, money is earned for undertaking ights with chosen assignments from the FSE system. Right now I am ying 10 passengers back to Tamworth on the return leg, earning me roughly $12,000, however, as a line pilot for Air Europe, some of that money goes into the airlines account, and I take a cut of the remainder. Every aircraft in the FSE world has to be purchased with FSE funds, and every aircrafts use history is logged in detail, including ight hours. Once an aircraft reaches 100 hours, it must be serviced and maintained, and yes, you guessed it, this costs money too. How much may depend on how well the aircraft has been treated during its past ights. You even get a service invoice with relevant costs, just in case you need to enter that data into your money management software! Another way you can make money in FSE is to rent out your own privately owned aircraft. Of course, you need to earn enough rst to buy one. But once you have purchased an aircraft you can choose to rent it out to other pilots and earn income that way too. While other pilots are ying your aircraft, you cannot y it. The FSE system tracks the location and status of all its aircraft, so no two pilots can be ying the same aircraft in FSE at the same time. In addition, if an aircraft was just own from San Francisco to Los Angeles for example, that aircraft is now located in Los Angeles. If you need it in New York, you have to y it from Los Angeles to New York rst. You cannot simply move aircraft magically between airports. They must actually be own there, again, just like the real world. If you own your very own airline or small charter company, and have amassed enough money and supplies to purchase or build your own FBO at an airport (assuming FSE has a lot space for it at that airport) you can also sell fuel to other pilots or airlines at your location, assuming you can offer it at a better price than the local market to make it attractive to others. Like real bank accounts, just having money in the bank can earn interest, but of course, a negative balance in the bank also accrues interest to be repaid back to the bank later on. You can buy and sell aircraft and if you have the time, I guess there could be money to be made there too. Buy cheap, and sell at a higher price. You are at the mercy of the market so a little skill, luck and haggling here can make the difference. FSE offers the tools to buy and sell aircraft, as well as to maintain them, including 100-hour inspections and full engine replacements. The FSE client will actually monitor engine use and will know how hard the engine has been run on recent and previous ights. If you forget to lean the engine on a regular basis for example, expect a larger maintenance bill for repair. The buying and selling of FBOs is also another facet of the FS Economy world. If you happen to own an FBO or have dibs on gates at popular airports, these can be sold for better prices, because larger airports generally have the potential to generate more system jobs each day. You can also choose to y the passengers or cargo/supplies of other airlines if you like for extra cash, but then if you are playing hardball you are doing them a favour in terms of helping them resupply their FBOs, some of which you may want to purchase or request to buy from them later. If FBOs are not resupplied regularly by the owners (and you can only resupply them by actually ying in the supplies) then the FBOs become inactive, and eventually will close and will be placed on the FSE market for sale. 19

Things to do first
Before you can begin to use FS Economy, you have to register on the FS Economy website at www.fseconomy.com It is also a good idea to register on the FSE user forums (separate registration) so you can read up on some of the current posts from users or ask questions if you get stuck on a particular issue or feature in the FSE world. My advice for rst-time FSE users is to nd an FSE airline to join that services the part of the FS world in which you want to y. I am ying for Air Europe, but that doesnt mean I have to y in Europe, because this FSE airline has just purchased many FBOs (Fixed Base Operation essentially an ofce at the airport) in Australia so I can y Downunder now too. Joining an existing FSE airline will likely give you access to other members of that airline who can help you out in getting started in the FSE world. Like Virtual Airlines, FSE airlines differ greatly in terms of size, how well set up and run they are, and of course where they prefer to operate, so it is a good idea to nd one that best suits your needs. You can also go solo in the beginning of your FSE career. This is harder to begin with because you will be on your own. You will have to rent other FSE users or airlines aircraft (since you cannot afford your own aircraft in the beginning) and will have to y system generated or public assignments, which are generally lower paying. You have to pay for your own fuel and are limited to the availability of rental aircraft in the area you choose to y. As a solo FSE starter, you will need to do a lot of searching for the most rewarding ight assignments. This might involve setting up multiple leg ights between airports where there are top paying passengers or plenty of cargo or supplies to be moved. Each airport in the FSE world has its own page listing ight assignments available at the current time. Be aware though that the system is dynamic. Another pilot could beat you to that top-paying assignment if you do not lock it in and y it in time. You will have to start off small and work your way up, hopefully to the top of the ladder.

A GREAT SUNSET VIEW ON APPROACH TO ARCHERFIELD AIRPORT (YBAF) IN BRISBANE.

TAXIING OUT FOR THE NEXT FSE-DRIVEN FLIGHT LEG FROM TAMWORTH (YSTW).

HERE IS A LOG OF MY FSE FLIGHTS IN RECENT WEEKS.

THE FS ECONOMY MAIN PAGE

THE AIRPORT DETAIL PAGE IN FSE SHOWING ASSIGNMENTS AVAILABLE FROM TAMWORTH.

HANDY FEATURES OF THE FSE SYSTEM INCLUDE INTEGRATION WITH MAPPING SITES.

THE AIRCRAFT DETAIL PAGE WITH LOGS FOR THE B1900D I HAVE BEEN FLYING.

LOOKING FOR A CESSNA 172? FIND WHATS FOR SALE ON THE AIRCRAFT SALES PAGE.

THE PAYMENT SUMMARY FOR AN AIRLINE GROUP IN FSE.

FBO FOR SALE LIST INCLUDING ACCESSIBLE GLOBAL MAP .

JUST A SMALL SECTION OF THE FSE SUPPORTED AIRCRAFT LIST.

ANOTHER MAPPING INTERFACE SHOWING LOCATION OF FBOS OWNED BY A PARTICULAR FSE GROUP .

SPECIFIC GROUP ASSIGNMENTS PAGE FOR AN FSE GROUP/AIRLINE.

THIS VIEW COMES AS A BONUS AT THE END OF A LONG DAYS FLYING!

Flying with FSE

In these examples I will outline the process of using FSE with some ights, all of which you are riding along on with me as I write this. I just left Tamworth bound for Brisbane, Queensland. On board I have 8 Charter Passengers from the FSE system. Brisbane Intl (YBBN) is not an airport at which Air Europe International Australia currently has any FBO or gates, however, I have looked ahead at the assignments available at YBBN before leaving Tamworth and found almost a full load of passengers going to Oakey, west of Brisbane, at which my airline does have a newly established FBO. On the way to Oakey I have also picked up a few small cargo drops to Amberley military base, and at Amberley there are 2 assignments to Toowoomba, which is also on the way to Oakey. The goal is to maximize the load to make your trips affordable and worthwhile. There is no point ying the B1900 (which is the aircraft I am ying) with only 3 or 4 passengers and no cargo. Bottoms on seats and full cargo bays are the order of the day to be successful in FS Economy. Each airport is listed on the FSE website with all available assignments from that airport at the current time displayed. You simply search through what is available, and if you nd a ight leg that looks worthwhile, select those assignments and lock them in by adding them to your ights page. This reserves those ights for you so they cannot be taken by anyone else, however, you have time limits in which to y them. Fail to do so and the jobs are released back to the system for others to take. Once the ight is locked in, and usually it is a good idea to plan ahead and see what is available at the next airport, or any in between, you select your aircraft (or rent it if need be) and check the fuel status and pax/cargo loading. FSE will not allow you to overload your aircraft with more load that it can handle. It has a database of aircraft that can be used with FSE (the list is large) and has data on each of those aircraft in relation to maximum loads with and without fuel etc. And speaking of fuel, you need to make sure before you depart that you have enough fuel for the trip. If not, refuel by buying fuel from your airlines supplies or the local market, or if neither of those are available, from your opponents fuel supplies, but you will generally pay more for this privilege! Also consider the fuel supplies at your destination. You may be running nearly dry and nd your destination airport has little fuel to get you to your next point. It is possible to get yourself stranded at an airport with no fuel and not enough in your tanks to make it to the next point. In this case, you will need to nd the closest supply of fuel tanks and set up a public assignment and wait for another FSE pilot to transport your fuel to the airport where you are stuck. Consideration must also be given to how much fuel you can carry if you are carrying a full load of pax or cargo. Often you cannot have full tanks plus a full load and be under the max takeoff weight, so check this too and ensure your route is not too long for the max fuel load you can carry given your aircrafts load weight. Once you have ights locked in and your aircraft is rented/reserved and fuelled up sufciently, you can get onto ying! FSE uses a small software client which interfaces between the FSE web database and Microsoft Flight Simulator. This is loaded in the background and sits there monitoring the status of your ight. Before you re up the engines to depart, ensure your FSE client is open and linked to FS, then click the Start Flight option. The client then pulls down the data from the FSE website and displays the assignments for your current ight in its display window. Once these are displayed correctly, proceed with the ight. If for some reason you cannot complete the ight in FS, you must cancel the ight from the FSE web interface. Otherwise, the client continues to monitor your ight

as normal. When you touch down at your destination and you cut your engines, the client recognizes this and logs your ight, along with important data including fuel remaining. If it logs the ight as successful, you are automatically paid your fees for the ight and they are added to your bank account. The data taken from the ight is used to update the aircraft data and assignments data in the FSE world. The system is mostly automated in this regard, and it is a real credit to the FSE developers to get it running so smoothly. An excellent effort indeed! Ok, I am not far away from the tourist mecca of the Gold Coast in Queensland, perhaps the most famous white sand beaches in the world and a surfers paradise. Incidentally, you can also y your ights with VATSIM and other similar online ATC services if you wish. Once I land at Brisbane and ofoad my 8 chartered passengers I will pick up a load of new military passengers and some small packs of cargo ready to take to Amberley Air Force base. When you own an FBO, a number of jobs are generated for that FBO each day. You can actually rename some of the passenger types if you like. I just came across an assignment list that included 1 retired old fart needing a ride to Hervey Bay to the North. Other passengers you may come across include secret service agents, accident victims requiring medevacs and unlucky sherman. I have yet to see the President of the United States or the Prime Minister of Great Britain or Australia, or even the Emperor of Japan, but they may just be in the passenger system somewhere, who knows! There are rules for naming passengers, and any derogatory or offensive names found will result in disciplinary action by the FSE Board of Directors. The FSE website and features are constantly being improved. Recently, a mapping system was implemented to allow the FSE user to see their selected assignments and routes overlayed on quality maps. You can also bring up maps of FBOs owned by yourself or the airline you have joined.

Customization
While FSE users must adhere to the rules of system, you can certainly customize the ight experience to suit your needs. For the aircraft types available, you can generally use most freeware and payware aircraft of that type when ying within the FSE system. If an aircraft is not supported you can request it be added to the list of supported aircraft. Additionally, you can load any scenery for Flight Simulator for the area you prefer to y and this has no effect at all on how FSE operates.

The Final Word

FSE adds a unique dimension to ight simulation. It not only gives purpose to your ights, but the whole backend management of your virtual ights is nally exposed, and encourages you to take into consideration many aspects of aviation you might never have worried or cared about previously. The fun factor is certainly enhanced with FSE and as a bonus, you often get to explore many new airports and areas in Flight Simulator you probably have never been to before. So if the ideas of FSE interest you, and I would certainly encourage all readers to at least give it a try, log on to www.fseconomy.com and register yourself, nd an existing airline to join, or if you really want a challenge, go the solo route (its hard work!). I just wanted to end by personally thanking Captain Des Broadeld from Air Europe (a FSE group) for his assistance and guidance in showing me the ropes and putting up with my endless questions regarding the operation of FSE for this article, thanks! 23

Life After the T-bird

I LEARNED ABOUT FLYING

BY JOHN ACHOR
received my pilots wings and moved on to advanced ight training schools. First was at Luke Air Force Base just northwest of Phoenix, Arizona (USA). The F-84F Thunderstreak, built by Republic Aircraft, was the rst truly single-engine, single-seat plane I ew. It was the latest in a long line of overweight airplanes beginning with the P-47 Thunderbolt of WWII fame. The next iteration of overweight planes by Republic would be the F-105 Thunderchief used extensively during the Vietnam War.
24

VII PART
CPM. V15I2

There was no training version with a seat for an instructor to keep us neophytes out of trouble. The F model of the 84 was the rst in this airplanes history with bent (swept back) wings. Back in the TBird, the ailerons were boosted for better control. Even with warnings from instructors most of us tried to shake the wings off by overcontrolling the roll axis after takeoff. The F-84F not only had boosted ailerons, but also a boosted stabilator. The stabilator was the entire slab that normally would be the horizontal tail ns and the elevators. Again, even with instructor warnings, most of us tried to shake the tail off the poor bird after getting into the air for the rst time. Following some time in ground school learning the planes systems, we got our rst shot at being a single-engine ghter pilot. I felt sorry for the poor instructors. To lend a helping hand, they had to go along on our rst taxi experience. We left the canopy open and the instructors stood on the wing leaning into the cockpit. I learned to recognize stall warnings ying the T-6G Texan and the Lockheed T-33. Good thing! I missed a checklist step and ended up turning nal in the F-84F with zero aps. As I pulled into the turn from base to nal, I got a slight burble a subtle warning that the wing is about to stall. Eight hundred feet above the ground is a terrible place for the bird to quit ying. I immediately added power for a go around as I reduced the bank angle. I ew a closed pattern for another landing attempt and discovered my error while on downwind. Flaps down, second landing attempt was uneventful. Good idea to know your checklists. Woe to the student pilot who caused a mission to abort. With that in mind on this ight, I was going through my cockpit checks prior to engine start. I reached for the fuel-valve selector handle and it was locked in the OFF position. No engine-start possible in that situation. I remembered a ground school instructor telling us what the cause could be. The previous pilot, no doubt a student, turned the selector valve to OFF before the engine had totally spooled down, which caused a suction lock in the fuel line.

Oh, woe is me. We started the F-84Fs engine using an explosive cartridge which caused the turbine to spin fast enough for an engine start. That cartridge was our only chance to start the engine no seconds, no ground start cart. I also remembered something else that ground school instructor told us might cure the suction lock problem. With one hand on the cartridge starter switch and the other on that stuck fuel valve, I ignited the cartridge and hoped for the best. As soon as the cartridge red, I cranked the fuel valve to ON. I had to wait for the spinning engine to release the suction in the fuel line, but not so long that I missed the rest of the engine start process before the cartridge charge stopped spinning the turbine. It worked, and I taxied out with my ight with a grin on my face under my oxygen mask.

25

Ill admit I was never the worlds greatest formation yer. After one particular ride, my instructor gave me a pink (fail) slip for sloppy formation that day. For a recheck I was assigned to another instructor. Before takeoff, I vowed that I would not fail a second formation check ight. I tucked in so close to the instructor I could count the rivets on his plane. I remained glued to him for the entire ight and soaked my ight suit with sweat at the effort. The next day my own instructor told me the second instructor was ready to pink-slip me again for ying too close. My instructor explained the situation to him, and he retracted the pink-slip giving me a passing grade on formation that day. If you set your mind to a job, you can do it. Heres another formation story about the F-84F. I was number 4 in a 4-ship ying in-trail acrobatics. Lead began a loop and all was going well for about three-quarters of the maneuver. I was slightly behind and trying to catch up. As we began the nal part of the loop to come back to level ight, I was pulling harder trying to cut the corner and close on number 3. I learned what they mean when they talk of tunnel-vision. As the G-forces increased, even with my G-suit inating, I began to lose the battle. First I lost peripheral vision. I held the extra Gs and was losing more and more vision until I was staring down a very narrow tunnel. I realized I was not going to win this ght so I released pressure on the stick and the G-forces eased off. As my vision returned, I came out of the bottom of the loop in nearly level ight. Of course by this time, the other three planes in my ight were nowhere in sight. I was forced to let Lead know my uncertain position and he sent me home alone. I was embarrassed, but I did recognize what was happening to me and took the proper steps. I mentioned that the F-84F was a swept wing airplane. That wing conguration should allow the plane to exceed the speed of sound. One minor problem the 84F was designed to take the engine, complete with afterburner, which ended up in the F-100. We didnt have the power, or the afterburner. Nevertheless, our third ight was scheduled as a Supersonic mission. Instructors gave a detailed brieng, and after takeoff we climbed straight ahead keeping the mach as high as possible.

I nursed the plane to about 35,000 feet keeping the mach meter around 7-plus. At altitude, I eased pressure off the stick and allowed the nose to drop, all the time keeping the throttle at maximum power. With the nose coming down, I added forward pressure on the stick and we started down. Hurtling toward the earth around sixty-degrees or more nose down, I watched the mach meter climb: 8 9 9 point 9 and nally 1.01 supersonic, but not by much. I began a pull out by reducing the throttle and easing the stick back to come to level ight. I have to say, my supersonic ride was a disappointment. We may have bounced a sonic boom off the desert oor, but inside the plane my only indication of supersonic speed was that mach meter no boom, no noise at all beyond that of a airplane going fast. Oh, well. Id get the chance to try supersonic ight again, but Ill keep that for my next installment in this series. The End

26

CPM. V15I2

MINI-REVIEW

CARENADOS CESSNA GRAND CARAVAN 208B

DR JOHN LATTANZIO

arenado are justly famous for producing high quality aircraft. One of my favorites is their Piper Arrow. So I jumped at the chance to get into their newest offering, the Grand Caravan. Yes, there is one included in FSX but this one is so much better that there is no comparison. It is part of their new HD series and sports lovely textures, inside and out. Firstly, I was surprised that after installation there was no manual or documentation in my START menu. You have to go to the FSX aircraft folder. In the Carenado Caravan folder you will find 7 pdf files that act as a manual. More on this below. Doing a walk-around of our new plane, you will see that Carenado have included a controller to open and shut all doors and baggage storage, as well as a tow, chocks, etc. There are even two different seat layouts available for the interior. And you can remove the baggage compartment if you want. A separate add-on produces the cargo version (for an additional $10). Inside we get no 2D cockpit, just a VC, but its very good. Also, if you cycle through the cockpit

views you get enough 2D panels to access all the instruments easily so if you prefer 2D panels, you can still fly this plane as if it had 2D panels. If you want VC, you got it. I tend to prefer 2D panels and found that selecting a nice default view for the VC, and not moving it, was perfect when combined with the other cockpit views. So do not let the lack of a 2D cockpit deter you, if you are so inclined. For those who use the VC most of the time (the majority?) you will be very happy as well. In terms of avionics we are better served than the default Caravan, because we get a Garmin GNS430 GPS and a weather radar. I do not fly in reality so I cannot say how the aircraft handles compared to the real thing, but it certainly felt good. The simple autopilot keeps you involved in the flying, and overall the experience of commanding this aircraft was very enjoyable. With its short takeoff and landing capabilities it is ideal for exploring some of the excellent scenery around these days. I will be taking it around the FTX Pacific Fjords quite often, I am sure! It is an excellent aircraft for those adventures.

Do I have a quibble? Of course I do! That is my job here. I think the aircraft needs a simple tutorial. OK, this is not a 747-400 so maybe not a full tutorial. Maybe it just needs a manual with some guidelines. Basically, the manual is a (very complete) set of checklists for various situations. This is fine, but it seems careless from Carenado. For example, the checklists tell you to engage one of the inverters. I searched for ages and could not find any. On the forum I discover that they are not included (and there was some talk that in this model even the real aircraft does not have them). So the checklists are from a different model, perhaps? Careless! I remember now that I had a similar complaint with the Piper Arrow - very little documentation. Lovely plane though in both cases. So in summary, this is part of the new Careando HD series and the aircraft looks great. The VC is beautiful and I had many hours of fun flying the plane. I would prefer they gave some better documentation. If Carenado want us to hand over about $35 for their lovely plane, they should treat it with more respect and give us some nicer documentation. Still. It is joy to fly and a very worthy model.

OUR LOVELY VC

OUTSIDE TEXTURES ARE VERY GOOD INDEED

EVERYTHING THAT OPENS AND SHUTS CAN BE OPEN AND SHUT!

NICE VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS!

27

TRACKIR 5 Users Guide

BY JOHN ACHOR
dont care for the Virtual Cockpit (VC), in the ight simulator because using my thumb on the hat switch to turn my head seems unnatural. For that reason, I rst considered the TrackIR quite a few months ago. I was concerned about wearing glasses with the TrackIR; I use progressive lenses which are the equivalent of tri-focal glasses without the lines. I did some research and traded comments on the DC-3

Airways forum. I delayed my purchase when more than one person indicated problems with glasses. Recently, I reconsidered the TrackIR. You can see by the image of the TrackIR package, I relented. The entire container measures only 7 x 9 and the actual product ts in the small area (outlined in white in Figure 1, Natural Point image), which Ive indicated with the red arrow. After using it, I have to say there is a lot of product here for such a small package.

28

CPM. V15I2

A headset clip is offered as well, but is an additional $35 USD. I havent done much Multi-Player ying recently, so Ill probably stick with the ball cap clip. I did slip my Logitech headset on over the ball cap. It was not uncomfortable and worked ne.

The Basic Components

Lets take a look at the TrackIR 5 from several angles. In Figure 4 we see the front view. The two red spots, one on each side indicate the TrackIR status; two red not active. Two green lets you know the system is active and is reading TrackIR capable software.
FIGURE 1

The back view is shown in Figure 5. The window displays the internal circuits. I dont think the window contributes to the operation of TrackIR, but its interesting.

Buy It Now
I managed to reduce the cost by a few dollars when I ordered the TrackIR from the PC Aviator web site during one of their sales. The normal retail price is about USD$150. Delivery didnt take long and I tore into the packaging to get a closer look at my purchase. There is a small quick-start booklet that points you the proper direction. Those instructions aim you to a web page for the installation software. The idea of not including a CD allows you to ensure you are installing the most recent version of the software. An extensive help manual is available via the interface screen. Ive only had one difculty with the operating software. I upgraded my computers operating system from Vista to Windows 7 and the TrackIR software crashed. A simple uninstall and reinstall took care of the problem. I purchased the basic unit that comes with a clip which mounts on a ball cap. See Figures 2 and 3. The three silver arcs you see in Figure 2 are the reectors the IR camera in the main unit picks up on to measure head movement. In Figure 3 the clip is mounted on my Still Perfect After All These Years ball cap.
FIGURE 4

FIGURE 2

FIGURE 3

FIGURE 5

I am currently running a twenty inch monitor on the left with my newer twenty-four inch monitor in front of me. Both of these are at screen units. In Figure 6, the mounting feet can be seen in the side angle view. The red arrows point out the mounting feet with rubber grippers around each leg. These help the unit grab the top of the monitor. My main monitor is about one and a half inches thick at the top and one of my concerns was how well the product would mount on this monitor. It does a ne job fears allayed. I think there would be a big problem for those still running a CRT monitor. I dont own one now, but as I remember them, the top is far too deep to accommodate the TrackIR. I can imagine, however a piece of plastic installed on top of the CRT that would allow the unit to be mounted on it. 29

Figure 7 shows a side view of the TrackIR. I have noted the slot built in to hold the USB cable and keep it from dragging the lightweight camera out of alignment. The unit is actually two pieces; the mounting feet and the tracking electronics (camera). They are held together with magnets.

FIGURE 9

FIGURE 6

Figure 9 is the top left of the interface. Note the two Tracking Target buttons. Unless you purchased the optional TrackClipPro (clips to a headset), make sure you select the TrackClip button. To the right of these buttons, you can set Motion Control. Ive experimented with the settings and decided to set Speed around 2 and I use 15 for the Smooth setting. At the bottom left of the interface, the Advanced Settings are seen in Figure 10. There are three tabs, Proles, Titles, and Camera. The Camera default settings do a good job for me. On the Titles tab there is an extensive list, somewhere around 100, of software games (titles) that are TrackIR enabled. There are many types of programs beyond ight simulators. I gave TrackIR a try on a shoot-em-up program that is a First Person/Third Person shooter game. I unked that test, so back to ight simulators.

FIGURE 7

Lets Look Inside

Log onto the Natural Point web site, as noted in the brochure that accompanies the hardware, download the latest software version and install it. Installation is smooth. So, lets crank up the program and look at the screen. Figure 8 gives you the overall view of the interface screen which controls the software. Now we can delve into the various specic aspects of this screen.

FIGURE 8

FIGURE 10

30

CPM. V15I2

The Proles tab is by far the most important of these three tabs. Here is where I ran into the biggest problem I found in the software. Three commands, Center, Pause, and Precision are by default controlled by the F12, F9, and F7 keys. Ill assume youve noticed the conict using those keys in FSX. I ew with the default Prole and when I tried to lower aps, I got sporadic results. But not all the time. In the rst airplane I ew, the aps seemed to operate normally. I switched to another plane and they didnt work. Back to the drawing board; I created my own Prole. I assigned the Center, Pause, and Precision commands to the buttons (wheel, right and left) on my mouse. Im not sure this is the best setup and I may reassign those commands later. The default settings in the Motion Adjustment area work ne for me at this point. Refer back to Figure 8 and check the crosshairs near the center. In Figure 11 the centered crosshairs are visible near the bottom left of the image. Right click in the screen area or click the down arrow on the Display command and select Show HUD. That produces the three views of the head seen at the right edge. Slip on your cap with the Clip and move your head around. Note how the three heads follow your movement. Lastly, press on the Center command and note that the circle is centered on Zero-Zero.

Don Your Cap Launch TRACKIR 5 and a Flight Sim

Ill open FSX for this next section. First launch TrackIR and put on your cap with the clip mounted on it. You should get a green light on the left of the camera head (Figure 13) This tells you TrackIR is active. If you press the key you set for Pause, you should get two red lights, see Figure 14. TrackIR is not active. Enter the same command to un-pause and you will be back to a single green light on the left. Now launch FSX. As soon as FSX is up and running, your two green lights will show on the camera (see Figure 15). This indicates that TrackIR is active and it is linked to TrackIR enabled software. With FSX on line, you can pause TrackIR (two red lights, as in Figure 14) using the key you set in your prole. Keep in mind, you are pausing (freezing) TrackIR only you are not pausing the ight simulator.

Put It All To The Test

With the TrackIR software running you can verify it is working. Check the alignment of the TrackIR head atop your monitor and you should see a single green light. Tap your Pause key to get two red lights. I use the Pause because the unit is sensitive and large head movements whip the screen around as I look to the keyboard or other parts of my computer setup. It will take a bit of practice to learn to move your eyes and not the head. I use a Saitek X-52 Pro HOTAS (Hands On Throttle and Stick). That unit gives me a large number of buttons and switches I can assign to ight sim commands. The more you can control ying with hand movements, rather than head movements to look at the keyboard, the better.

FIGURE 11

Next, I moved my head down and to the right. In Figure 12, on the scale I am looking right about a -12 reading and down +15 as indicated in the Display area. Take a look at the HUD. The Left view shows my head tilted down. In the Top view, my head is turned a bit to the right. Finally, the Front view lets you see that my head is down and right.

FIGURE 12

FIGURE 13

31

FIGURE 14 FIGURE 17

FIGURE 15

Click your Center key and minimize TrackIR; launch the ight simulator. You should have two green lights indicating the tracking head camera is working and is linked to software TrackIR recognizes. Well take this white and blue Cessna 172S for a turn around the local area (Figure 16). Waiting for takeoff, check the view from the Virtual Cockpit (VC) F9 key. When I use the VC, I turn on the top of the screen info Coordinates/frame rate (SHIFT + Z, cycles through). Doing this, I can check altitude and airspeed without tilting my head down to view the rest of the instrument panel (Figure 17). When I use the 2D cockpit (F10 key), I nd I must tilt my head down slightly to bring the runway into view (see Figure 18).

FIGURE 18

FIGURE 19

FIGURE 16

FIGURE 20

32

CPM. V15I2

In Figure 19, I turned my head to the left, and in Figure 20 I am looking over my right shoulder and I can see the tail of the aircraft. In both of these cases, I moved my head only 30 to 40 degrees from center to get an outside view shift of 180 degrees. After takeoff, I needed to clear the area to the left of trafc for my turn out . Figures 21 and 22 are what I see as TrackIR rotates my head. From these images, it seems like the same view but there are differences. In the 2D cockpit (Figure 21), the movement is not as smooth as it could be. The pan is smooth up to about 45 degrees of view change, and then it snaps to a 90 degree left view. It seems more like Im using the arrow keys to change the view. In the VC view (Figure 22) it looks the same, but the pan is smooth all the way around. The Coordinates/frame rate data appears at the top of the screen.

A Final Decision
Last cautions. If you are like me, moving my head to look down at the keyboard, do your best to break that habit. One solution is using a joystick with lots of buttons where you can assign your most used commands. The other habit I had to break was using large head movements. Do that and the screen will nearly spin out of control. Keep your eyes on the center of the screen while making small head movements and this problem goes away. Once I got used to the quirky aspects, I enjoy ight simming with the TrackIR. The last decision you have to make is whether to spend USD$150 on this piece of hardware. If you can train yourself to use it; I think you will nd it a worthwhile investment.

FIGURE 21

FIGURE 23

FIGURE 22

Step Outside The Cockpit

Using F11 (Locked Spot View) step outside the cockpit. The hat switch let me set up in the six oclock position to the Cessna and created Figure 23. Here I am holding a southerly heading in a slight climb. I turn my head slightly to the right and get the view in Figure 24. I nd this a bit disconcerting. To clear for a left turn, I must swivel my head to the right its counter-intuitive compared to the views from inside the cockpit. Once you get use to this oddity, ying from the Locked Spot View is straightforward. Having said that, ying from the VC (F9) view is undoubtedly a better choice.

FIGURE 24

33

The Focke Wulf Fw190 A Series

BY HAROLD FARMBOYZIM ZIMMER
lassics Hangar has produced a product representing the Focke Wulf Fw190 A Series of aircraft; the A-3, A-4, A-5, A-8, and A-9 variations. The package has been published by Flight 1 in boxed format and is available for sale from ight sim retailers. Each of these variations will take you through the development of the Fw190 A, with improvements in both the avionics and engines used. The Fw 190 was one of the best radial engine, ghter/ bombers of its time.

Some History
The German Air Ministry (Reichsluftfahrtministerium, aka RLM) had ordered the Focke Wulf factory, located in Bremen, Germany, to develop a backup ghter for the Luftwaffes mainstay ghter, the Messerschmitt Bf109. Kurt Tank was the Head Designer for this project. He wanted to develop this new aircraft to be highly reliable and easy to produce. It would have to operate out of crude airelds with maintenance crews that had little training. Inexperienced pilots needed to be able to quickly learn to y the aircraft without complicated systems.

34

CPM. V15I2

In-line engines were becoming the norm, but shortages involving these engines were of major concern, so the radial was chosen to be the power plant of the Focke Wulf 190. Tank favored the radial anyway, having seen it perform in the Hughes H-1 Racer. Another aircraft that inuenced Tank was the performance of a Russian built ghter, the I-16 Rata, which was used in the Spanish Civil War. The hands-on fellow in charge of the construction was a man by the name of Rudolf Blaser. Blaser was able to get the rst Fw190 prototype into the air just ten months after the ink was dry on the contracts. On June 3, 1939, Hans Sander, Chief Test Pilot for Focke Wulf, took the prototype on its rst ight. The initial aircraft was powered with an 18 cylinder BMW 139 engine, and was able to produce 1500 hp. It was an all-metal, low-wing, cantilever monoplane. Even though the radial engine contributed to a large nose, it blended well into the fuselage. It was difcult to see over the nose while on the ground, but in the air, the newly designed canopy had an excellent all-around view. The wing structure, of a two-spar construction, was mounted to the aircraft fuselage as an entire assembly. One of the spars ran the entire length of the wing, adding strength to it. Within the wings were self-sealing fuel tanks, an invaluable asset. The landing gear retracted inwards, which gave it a wider than average wheel track of 11.5 feet. The wider wheel base offered easier landings for novice pilots. The initial BMW 139 engine, was eventually replaced in the A Series using variations of the BMW 801 engine .

In the early days of development, the Fw 190 had more than its share of problems, most of which centered on the engine. In September of 1941, it proved itself over Dunkirk. It tended to be superior in all aspects to the Spitre, its chief adversary. With a speed of a little over 400 mph service ceiling of 37,000 feet, and a range of almost 600 miles, it dominated the skies for a time on both fronts. Thermal problems with the engine persisted however, and tended to be serious. So much so that missions own were limited to the European coastline. The nal Fw 190 in the A series was the A-9, running the BMW 801 S engine, which had major improvements over the initial engines and delivered considerably more horsepower. Thousands of Fw 190 A Series aircraft were manufactured up until February of 1945, when production of this model nally ended.

AGILE FOR ITS SIZE

BLENDING IN

CLIMBING OUT

35

MANY VARIOUS LIVERIES

YEEEE HAAAA!

There are a few modern day Fw 190s ying at present. There is a German aircraft company that has produced a recreated version designated Fw 190 A-8/N (the N standing for new). The Air Show Stars of Europe tour featured these aircraft for the rst time back in 2009. Classic Hangar, in association with Flight 1 Software, has produced this model of the Fw 190 A Series of aircraft, and have incorporated a few items during development that really make this model stand out as, for lack of a better worda work of art!

Here and Now

The installation of the model from the disk was easy, as usual, but there are a couple of things that are different here that are added while installing. After going through the customary and obligatory clicks, the models are installed in a few minutes. Once the installation is complete, READ the PDF formatted manual and it will instruct you to do a little ddling with the FSX conguration le. Dont be alarmed as the instructions are very clear and easy to understand, and youll learn a bit about the innards of FSX at the same time! What they have you do is change the TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD to 2048, as they have used 2048 x 2048 textures instead of the default size textures, which are normally 1024 x 1024. The use of these larger textures makes a fantastic difference in the amount of detail that can be seen. Follow the instructions and there will be no problem. There are two additional items that are installed, with shortcuts in the start-up menu. There is an aircraft conguration utility called the Just Fly enabler program that allows you to switch between Full Real Mode and Just Fly Mode, which has considerably more forgiving ight dynamics. The other utility, Cockpit Texture Manager, enables you to switch between Virtual Cockpit 2048 x 2048 resolutions, or enhanced 4096x4096 textures. A higher end computer was kept in mind for the larger texture settings, but ran well with my system. I did notice an improvement in what I saw in the VC mode, but the default textures looked great as well. No noticeable frame rate loss was detected between the two settings. After about 10 to 15 minutes (depending on how familiar you are with the FSX les), youll be up and ying one of historys more notable ghter/bomber aircraft. 36

The model itself is made with an eye on detail. Im referring to how the basic model is constructed. From the fuselage to the rudder pedals, the details are abundant, and it would seem that the developers wanted to make sure that every cable, lever, control surface, knob, and the pilot himself, looked as real as possible. They have done an outstanding job in this department! I have dabbled in creating aircraft models with Flight Simulation Design Studio, by Abacus Publications, an excellent program, and I realize after getting my hands dirty, just how much effort goes into creating these models, not to mention the patience one must have! Screenshots as always will attest to the detail to which I refer. The ve models of the Fw 190 A come with 21 historically accurate liveries. The textures support all that technical stuff, such as bump mapping, shadowing and more. I found that as the plane moved along, the shadows were especially realistic in how they looked and moved - added detail for those of you into the Flight Sim Movies! The paint jobs were detailed and again, an artistic touch can be seen in the creation of these liveries. A small, but accurate example of attention to detail would be zooming in on the aircraft and looking at some of the ne print that is on the plane. Youll notice that closeup, you can read it, as they do not become illegible pixel blobs. This is due to the fact of the larger texture sizes used, enabling that added detail to be possible. This detail is noticed in everything from the rivets to the overall paint jobs. All external features, such as control surfaces, work smoothly, but you will notice the absence of trim tabs, which were not a feature on the aircraft. Trim was set on the ground, with an electric motor allowing the pilot to adjust the elevators. CPM. V15I2

The interior of the aircraft is an accurate representation of the real deal, right down to the German writing on the panel instruments and other xtures. Fortunately, for those that do not speak German, a familiarization with basic instruments will get you by, but holding the mouse over the instrument will tell you what it is in English, if you have that option enabled in FSX. I recommend turning this option on and using it, as ying in the Full Real Mode will necessitate a knowledge of just about everything you see in the cockpit. The gauges operated with good refresh rates and were very readable in both High and Low texture resolution modes. They also operated and were easily seen in the various view modes of the cockpit. Everything is in metric system, so remember to convert, i.e.,10,000 meters is equal to 32,808 feet. There is no 2D cockpit provided, but everything functions from all views and is frame rate friendly as well. There are differences that you may not be familiar with, such as the location and usage of various aircraft functions, aps, fuel control, trim control, etc. Reading the manual is an important point here, especially if you are going to be operating the aircraft in Full Real Mode. Trust me when I say you wont get too far if you dont know the basics of this aircraft! One of the things I enjoyed about this package was learning to use older and different avionic systems. There is a modern Bendix radio for use if you wish to use it instead of the authentic radio controls, but thats about it as far as modern systems go. I chose the Bendix as using the knobs, one has to read the frequency setting using the mouse-over tool tip, but when I started to change freqs, the dialog box would disappear after a second or two. Repositioning the mouse over the control knob would redisplay the frequency setting.

As the aircraft developed, so did the cockpit, with updated avionics that allowed pilots to navigate in the blind and in the dark. The use of a basic VOR gauge is used in these later models, and is fairly easy to gure out. The looks are about the same, so you should progress through the types with no problem. The panel lighting represents an authentic type of uorescent white paint that glowed green in the dark. Gauges were easily read at night as well as in the day. The mouse can be used for operating all buttons and levers in the cockpit. Some are used with a combination of left and right clicks, while others work with the mouse wheel, or clicking and pulling or pushing. Some items, such as the fuses in the electrical panels operate with a click, but have no real function in the FSX model. Theres also a working reector gun sight. The Fw-190s unique Kommandogerat (brain box), which was a mechanical computer that automatically controlled mixture, propeller pitch, boost and magneto timing, is modeled as well. I found everything worked without any bugs or hitches.

BET YOU CANT SEE ME!

DAWN PATROL

MAJOR HERMANN GRAFS FW190A-5

37

FW 190 A-4 WITH 500 POUND BOMB LOAD PRESET TRIM TABS

The views from the cockpit are astounding as they are as well detailed as every other part of the aircraft. As you pan around, youll notice wear and tear on the panels and walls of the cockpit. The textures for the canopy offer a very realistic haze so that as you are looking about, you could swear you were looking through a real canopy. A glance out at the wing also reveals a rod that is raised, denoting that the gear is down. It lowers out of view as the gear is raised, providing the pilot with the important knowledge of whether or not his gear is working. The folks at Classic Hangar did their homework when it came to the ight dynamics for the models. A quote from the manual says it all Unique ight physics for each sub variant, highly accurate real world physics based ight modeling provided by AvHistory, created using AvHistory.orgs USAF DATCOM based 1% Aerodynamics, Stability and Control aircraft development software. This basically means that if you are ying Full Real Mode, youre ying a model that is just about as close to the real thing as you can get without sitting in the aircraft itself. The torque of that powerful BMW engine can almost be felt; it can certainly be seen as you do the run up for takeoff. The models handle nicely on the ground with an eye toward the pull of the engine. The aircraft seems to lift off the ground effortlessly, and all models handled gracefully in the air. Tweaking the weights in Fuel and Cargo Settings can congure load outs of either a center fuel pod, 500-pound bomb, or no load at all. Dropping these loads seemed to have an effect on the ight dynamics, but I am not an experienced Fw190 pilot, so this is a personal opinion. 38

BEAUTIFUL MODELING

Landing the aircraft for the rst time was like imitating a large rubber ball, as I bounced down the runway! It calls for a smooth, three point landing. Instead, I came in and touched down on the front wheels, with thoughts of settling the tail down gradually. Nope. Do what they say, as it is not as hard as it may seem. Viewing over the nose may be a slight problem upon touchdown, but practice makes perfect! This plane was made for novice pilots to operate with little experience, so whether you are a long time ight simmer or new to the hobby, these models will offer challenges to both. The sounds that were used for the models provided yet another level of immersion that we simmers so desperately seek! Clicks and switches in the cockpit sound like the real thing, as does the engine sounds for the various models. A very nice blend of sounds can be heard as the engine is put through its paces at various RPMs. There are no obvious looping sounds of the engine as you y the virtual skies. CPM. V15I2

The manual is in PDF format, but you also get a printed version of the Pilots Manual. It is 55 pages long, with excellent history, information, and images that will enable you to easily learn the idiosyncrasies of the Fw 190 A. I gathered most of the background information on the history of the Focke Wulf from the manual itself. It is very interesting and a must read as well if you want to y this aircraft in the correct mannerkeeping it in the air! Here are the features of this product, straight from the manual 5 highly detailed FSX-native exterior and interior models 21 historical exterior liveries in 2048-pixel high resolution Custom engine damage and aircraft system modeling Drop tank and bomb payload Highly detailed and fully-functional virtual 3D cockpit Detailed and accurate set of German 3D gauges Working reector gun sight Custom tailored engine and cockpit sounds

System Requirements MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR X - REQUIRES SP2 or Acceleration

Windows - Windows 7, Vista or XP Processor - 2.2 GHz Dual Core Memory - 2 Gb RAM Hard Drive - 920 Mb Video Card - 256 Mb

Heres what my operating system consists of

HP Pavillion a420n, 160 GB Hard Drive 1GB RAM 2.16 GHz Processor Windows XP nVidia GeForce 7600 w/500 Mb Ram CH Products Yoke and Pedals

As you can see, I dont meet all the system requirements to the letter, but the product still performed admirably for me and my antique computer! The product can be purchased in boxed format for $39.95 USD. Is it worth the price? Denitely! The various models, liveries, and overall craftsmanship in the development make this a worthwhile product. I think youll enjoy this package as much as I did.

NICE WINGTIP EFFECTS

GRACEFUL

REFLECTING ON THE MOMENT

39

BN-2 Islander
BY DEAN BIELANOWSKI

sland hopping has always been a favorite flight sim undertaking of mine, and for any simmers who have similar interests, the Britten-Norman Islander will likely be a familiar aircraft. This 1960s British-made aircraft is a popular short to mid range passenger/cargo carrier used by many charter and small airline operators around the world, and is especially prevalent where short fields are abundant as it has a great knack to get in and out of short runway airports and airfields. Developer, Virtavia, have teamed up with publisher Flight 1, to offer the BN-2 Islander in a boxed version for Flight Simulator X pilots.

The BN-2 Islander is a twin-engine aircraft featuring two Lycoming O-540 260hp engines. It can carry 8 passengers and a co-pilot, or 9 passengers with just a single pilot. The boxed package offers both the BN-2A and BN-2B models of this aircraft, with a variety of real world liveries for each included in the installation. As mentioned above, it is compatible with Flight Simulator X only. A full install will consume roughly 650Mb of hard disk space and a video card with at least 512Mb of memory is recommended. The BN-2 package will consume some flight sim performance when used, but it is not excessively bad and certainly does not chew as much as other commercial packages on the market. Given the detail in the panel and the exterior, I would have expected it to perform much worse actually, but it does run quite smoothly. If you are running a new or recently upgraded system that runs FSX easily, then the BN-2 will not have much effect performance-wise, which is good news!

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The install package runs automatically and you just need to ensure the installer is pointing to your FSX folder correctly. Once installed successfully, the BN-2 models appear, and are selectable via the Aircraft selection menu in FSX.

Both the BN-2A and BN-2B models are represented by this add-on. The primary difference between the two models is the nose profile. The BN-2B model has a slightly longer and pointier nose. It is more streamlined but the overall visual effect remains quite subtle. A total of thirteen liveries are available and these include: Air Hamburg Barrier Aviation British Airways Express British Airways Express (Tartan) FLN Great Barrier X-Press (Kotare) Great Barrier X-Press LFH Milford Sound Sightseeing OLT Nature Air Shetland Islands Council Winair

External model

The fuselage is quite boxy in shape. Not so straight up and down as say the fuselage on a Shorts 360, but quite close nonetheless. The main wing really catches your attention on this aircraft. The reason for this is that it looks like one giant, one-piece wing that is actually flat across its front leading edge and has quite a large wing span (just under 50 feet) considering the size of the aircraft overall. This no doubt helps generate a lot of lift and allows the BN-2 Islander to get into the air quickly over a short distance. With such a large wing, the gliding characteristics of this aircraft would have to be good! The outer edges are turned up slightly to help with drag reduction, and the typical wing shape can be seen when looking side on to the aerofoil. The tail wing (horizontal stabilizer) is also large for the aircraft size, and the vertical stabilizer (tail fin) is huge, reminding me of those found on certain DeHavilland aircraft, like the DHC-4 Caribou and DHC-8 (Dash 8) models. The aircraft sports two Lycoming engines hanging from the main wing and located quite close to the fuselage on each side. These are powerful engines for the aircrafts size and weight and afford the Islander the excellent power to weight ratio it enjoys, enabling S.T.O.L. style operations. You can load about 1.3 tons of fuel, passengers or cargo before you will reach the maximum takeoff weight.

THE BN-2 ALMOST LOOKS LIKE A GLIDER WITH ITS LARGE WING SPAN.

Each livery is well crafted and looks realistic. They all feature a weathered effect which primarily makes the difference (in my opinion) between aircraft that look believable, as do these variants, and those that look like they just come off the storyboard of Walt Disney (cartoon-like and fake). The exterior offers visible features right down to rivet detail. In fact, a close inspection of the outer fuselage and wings shows probably tens of thousands of rivets holding everything together. I wonder how much weight these rivets actually add to the total aircraft weight? Quite a lot I am guessing.

THE 3D PANEL IS ONE OF THE BEST YOU WILL FIND IN A FLIGHT SIMULATOR X ADD-ON.

41

The Islander has fixed main gear and fixed non-retractable nose gear, so aerodynamic efficiency of the aircraft is certainly not great on the whole, but at least you wont have the problem of forgetting to lower the gear on landing. Although only a little of the engine detail can be seen (most of it is covered by the cowlings) what can be seen is detailed and modeled in 3D. The prop nose cones are reflective and the propellers themselves detailed. They will move accordingly too if you attempt to feather them via the levers on the throttle console. All control surfaces move as expected and there is even structural rib detail to be seen when moving these surfaces and with flaps lowered. Lighting is quite standard externally but more than adequate. Numerous doors can be opened and closed, each with a smooth and consistent animation. The pilots door can be opened on the port side, both passenger doors can be opened (one each side) and also the cargo/baggage compartment door in the rear of the aircraft can be opened or closed. You will notice a bunch of passenger bags already sitting in there too. Inside the aircraft, the passenger cabin is fully modeled in 3D, and in good detail. Textures are very crisp and sharp on seats, and the various doors are modeled in 3D to give an authentic appearance and animation when opened and viewed from inside the cabin.

This is where the pilot will fly the aircraft, so it makes sense to put a lot of time and effort into modeling both the visual look of the panel and cabin, as well as the functional aspect of the flight deck. The panel itself and all instruments/controls are rendered in full 3D. Virtually nothing is flat here. Using a TrackIR device, or the combinations of FSX key commands for view panning, you can get right up close to the panel and then pan the view sideways to reveal the 3D nature of the instrument arrays and controls. The depth perception you get from a flight deck modeled in this way is incredible. To say the BN-2 Islanders panel represented here is visually brilliant is almost an understatement. The feel you get when operating in the virtual aircraft is almost like being in the real thing and is the closest you will get visually at this point in time. Once you fly in an aircraft that features one of these full 3D modeled panels, you will cringe when you go back to a flat panel on other aircraft, even if you do use virtual cockpit mode with that flat panel. Most all switches, buttons and controls on the panel can be manipulated and have the correct effect on their accompanying displays or systems. Even the small overhead panel (if you can call it that on this aircraft) is 3D modeled and fully functional excellent! Functional glare screens can also be lowered and raised to help reduce sun glare though Im not so sure they make a noticeable difference in the simulator when actually used. There is a small amount of difference but it wont be the same as putting on a pair of sunglasses like you might do in the real world. Nonetheless, it is the replication of as much of the real world aircraft as possible here that is important, and the virtual BN-2 Islander seems to come with just about everything, including the anti-glare screens.

Interior Visual Model and Panel

PANEL AND INSTRUMENT LIGHTING CAN BE INDIVIDUALLY SWITCHED.

THE RATHER FLAMBOYANT PAINT SCHEME OF NATURE AIR.

THE AIRCRAFT MODEL IS VERY IMPRESSIVE WITH LOADS OF DETAIL.

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CPM. V15I2

Now, onto the panel itself. Visually as we know, it is quite spectacular, and all gauges are very sharp and easy to read. There are many variations of the standard BN-2 Islander panel in service today, each with their own individual fit-outs; some are just your basic analog style instrument setup, and others have been updated to semi-glass style panels! The panel used in this add-on is fairly basic, but with some navigational and radio upgrades. Your standard six primary flight instruments consume the view in front of the left seat, with analog navigation instruments to the right of this, along with engine instruments (RPM, Carb Mixture Temp and Manifold Pressure). Further to the right is the radio stack featuring a Bendix King KX155 Com/Nav module, two Bendix King KR87 ADF modules with timer functions, a Bendix King KN54 DME module, a Bendix King KT76A Transponder, and to top it off a Bendix/King KLN90A GPS unit. The GPS unit is a standard version which provides basic bearing, distance, ETE and groundspeed information and you can manually enter in a route, choose a Direct-To route or simply use it to obtain or confirm your current position. A Century 21 Autopilot is also included to provide basic autopilot functions. The panel is configured for a single pilot with the co-pilots side of the panel housing the communication and navigation equipment, however, the secondary airspeed and altitude gauges are housed on the far right side. The fuse panel is also neatly located down under the co-pilots yoke.

Note that there is no 2D panel included in this add-on, but really, why would you want one after experiencing the 3D flight deck? That would be akin to watching a black and white movie with no sound when you have the same movie in high definition with Dolby Digital sound available! Manipulating instruments and gauges is easy and the click-spots to do so are relatively large and located where you would expect them to be. As you turn them you hear a nice clicking sound with a good amount of deep bass involved to beef up the sound. It certainly is anything but tinny and hollow. This same audio quality extends to the engines. On start-up you hear a very unique engine start-up sound. After a bit of a small bang the engines spring to life, one after the other. You also get a very realistic aircraft shake as each engine fires up. Engine sounds are realistic and crisp and clear. The sound set has been produced by Turbine Sound Studios, a leader in sound creation and publisher of many sound add-ons for specific FS aircraft packages.

FIXED LANDING GEAR ENSURES YOU NEVER FORGET TO RAISE OR LOWER IT AGAIN!

While the flight dynamics are touted as being refined by real-world Islander pilots, the aircraft itself is not terribly difficult to fly. You can simply jump in and go using standard FSX start-up key combinations if you like, or you can also manually go through the checklists to start engines and perform major checklist items. The BN-2 Islander handles relatively nicely. It is a nimble aircraft and has to be for the types of flying you might undertake with it operating in and out of small airfields, bush-flying or island hopping in tight terrain. The view out of the cabin is generally good all around, making this aircraft great for VFR flying or sightseeing. It is very responsive to throttle changes and any change to prop-blade angles via the prop levers has a noticeable and realistic effect.

Flying the BN-2 Islander

GOT RIVETS? THE BN-2 ISLANDER CERTAINLY HAS PLENTY!

43

What is readily noticeable as you fly the BN-2 is the fluidity of the gauges. As you perform a turn, the Direction Indicator rotates around incredibly smoothly and various indicator needles ride around fluidly. I never thought I would say this, but I actually enjoyed watching the flaps gauge wind down to takeoff flap setting (quite slowly) and then the needle speed picks up as the flaps are lowered to landing position. Adjusting elevator and rudder trim are done via the relevant trim wheel or knob and I like the way that you click and drag with the mouse to adjust these, rather than constantly clicking away to modify the setting. The BN-2 has a very low stall speed of just 40 knots in real life. I decided to test this and brought the throttles back to idle and did my best to keep level flight. Sure enough, as soon as I hit the 40 kt mark on the airspeed indicator, the stall horn started ringing and I rapidly lost altitude. I made sure I had enough air underneath and was able to recover quite easily once the speed passed the 45-50 kt mark. It is difficult to reach the aircrafts service ceiling of 13,200 feet without a lot of fiddling with mixture settings. I was able to get to about 12,500 feet but not much higher, so the flight model in this regard too is very accurate. The BN-2 has a handy cruise speed of 160 kts and a range of 874 miles. I cant say I have tested the range out yet, but I have no doubt that this virtual model will operate close to those numbers as well. It is easy to bleed speed off the aircraft in a hurry if needed, and because of the good power/weight ratio, you can gain speed just as quickly too if required. The same ratio can also make the aircraft a little jumpy in its handling, especially during takeoff and landing, so it is best to avoid any large or rapid increases in throttle/power setting, particularly during a final approach as your approach profile can be ruined quickly if you hit the throttles hard with full flaps down. The aircraft will readily balloon and gain altitude quickly. Try to maintain a constant approach speed, and keep that speed all the way to touchdown if possible. Other additions in the package include two airports from the UK2000 scenery series Bembridge and Old Sarum, as well as PDF performance charts and a tutorial on using the KLN 90 GPS that is featured in this BN-2 Islander aircraft add-on.

I have always been a fan of the BN-2 Islander aircraft. I am not really sure why to be 100% honest but perhaps it is simply because of my affinity to the Island Hopping style of flying I used to undertake in older versions of Flight Simulator. The BN-2 Islander is the perfect aircraft for this type of flying. Regardless, this particular model from Virtavia/Flight 1 is packed full of features. There is little not to like about this FSX aircraft add-on. The only area I think could be improved a touch is the night lighting. Although you can independently switch the gauge and panel lighting, it would be good to have a variable brightness control as I feel the lighting is too bright right across the board. You do not get the ambient directional lighting or variation in light intensity or concentration you would find in the real aircraft. But this is really a small issue, and yes I am nit-picking here. But my point is that I dont believe any add-on is perfect, nor can any add-on really be perfect, but this BN-2 Islander package is certainly a standout in the crowd and should be highlighted for that reason. From the 3D panel and gauge technology, to the high quality texturing, to the vast array of animations, and to the excellent sounds, this package is just about complete. It is a joy to fly, and extremely immersive in nature. Once you land at an airport, you dont want to switch to another aircraft. I get that just one more flight feeling each time I shut down the engines of this bird, and that is a great testament to the developers of this package. As a result of my experience with this aircraft, I highly recommend it to any virtual pilot who enjoys island hopping, bush flying, lower level sight-seeing or VFR flying, or for those who prefer low and slow or short-medium range prop-driven flights. I am sure once you use this aircraft add-on you will be as equally enthusiastic about it as I am. The BN-2 Islander package is available in boxed format on CDROM for US$39.95 from PC Aviator www.pcaviator.com (USA) or www.pcaviator.com.au (Australia) and other sim retailers.

Conclusion

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WHAT THE FIRST ROW OF PASSENGERS SEE LOOKING FORWARD.

CPM. V15I2

MINI-REVIEW

VIRTAVIA DEHAVILLAND CARIBOU

BY DEAN BIELANOWSKI

he DeHavilland Caribou is certainly a unique aircraft. Not only does it have one of the largest tail to fuselage size ratios I have ever seen in an aircraft, but its hard to place the aircraft into any other well defined aircraft category. Its design certainly lends itself to STOL operations, and as such, this aircraft has seen most use in the various military forces around the world since the 1950s. The aircraft is slowly being phased out of operation in many parts of the world, but a lot of them have found their way into museums. The Virtavia Caribou model (formerly AlphaSim) is compatible with both FSX and FS2004. Available as a download, the package comes with installers for both versions. I only tested the FSX version however.

turn. Many of the aircraft systems cannot be directly controlled so flying simply involves keeping your eyes on, and managing the systems related to your primary flight instrumentation. This is a shame since the limited views from the flight deck would tend to necessitate a good and functional instrument array to back up what can be seen out of the flight deck in terms of how the aircraft is flying. Interestingly, I couldnt raise or lower the flaps soon after I shut down the engines. I had to fire them back up to get power back to the flaps system. Several variants of the DHC-4 Caribou are included, and these are the C-7, C-7A, CV-2A and YAC-1 variations, each with their own paint scheme. And speaking of which, the paint scheme needs a touch of weathering quite badly. It is suffering the comic strip colour and cleanliness that make it looks unreal, and that is unreal in the literal sense. A good workover on the textures to weather them and remove the gloss would certainly do no harm to the aircrafts appearance for realism purposes. Animations are quite good on the FSX model with flaps extending nicely, as well as gear lowering

smoothly. The back cargo door opens up in two parts and various doors also open. The interior of the aircraft is modelled, but is basic in detail and texturing. The aircraft handles quite well, and exhibits some of the characteristics the Caribou is well-known for, i.e. low speed handling, unique nose down attitude in level flight, and short takeoff and landing capabilities among others. As long as you do not expect the aircraft to be as complete as a PMDG add-on or the BN-2 Islander for example, you can get some enjoyment out of this package. There are very few Caribou models out there in fact, so choices are limited. At around US$23 for the download package, it is admittedly a little steep in my opinion for what you get, but if you are very keen on the Caribou then it might be worth a look. It is only available now from PC Aviator and a few other selected download retailers that offer Virtavia branded products. There are quite a few end-user mods available for this package to be found on the internet, so with a bit of tweaking and a little downloading, this can be a fair add-on. Expect a little fun, more so than realism with this add-on.

Both 2D and 3D flight decks are available with this package. The 2D panel is quite bland, a little blurry and doesnt show much detail, or a lot of instruments. The 3D virtual cockpit is much better and is for the most part, quite well defined and well modelled. It would certainly be the deck of choice with this bird. Functionally, the panels are quite lacking. Only your basic switches and controls are available to flick and

THE 3D FLIGHT DECK LOOKS QUITE GOOD.

STRAP YOURSELF IN SO YOU DONT FALL OUT THE BACK DOOR.

AN IMPOSING AIRCRAFT

BACK END IS BIGGER THAN THE FRONT END!

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Orbxs FTX Pacific Fjords

DR JOHN LATTANZIO
rbx are justly famous for their FTX products, which have now covered all of Australia, and Pacific Fjords (hereafter PFJ) is the latest in their North American offerings. Their first choice for this continent is the Pacific Northwest, one of the most beautiful areas on the planet, covering parts of the USA and Canada.

This is their third product covering the northwest the earlier ones are Pacific Northwest (PNW) and Northern Rocky Mountains (NRM). I have included a figure which shows how these three products together cover a huge area of some of the most beautiful scenery on Earth. Further, PFJ is designed to interface smoothly with FSAddons Tongass Fjords, previously written by many of the same people now involved in PFJ. With all four you can fly over a huge and spectacular area. But for now lets stick to PFJ itself, which covers an impressive 300,000 square kilometers (or over 120,000 square miles).

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Firstly, what is this FTX stuff? Most importantly, it is not photoreal scenery. That takes up huge amounts of disk space. It has the advantage that it is accurate, but it often looks flat or unconvincing. Sometimes it looks great, but not always. I have not been able to work out why some is great and some is lousy. I am guessing its related to how much tweaking is done of the product to make it compatible with FSX. But the idea of FTX is simple: use the FS system landclass, textures, autogen etc but with these designed to be far more accurate for each region. Details can be found on the FTX website at http://fullterrain.com/about.html. In practice, they develop custom landlcass, terrain mesh, autogen, coastlines etc, using vector-graphics for many of these features so that they look good from any distance. For PFJ (and all of the FTX North American offerings) you should use a mesh resolution of 5m, which gives you lovely crisp mountains and undulating hills. FTX also recommends 7cm textures for PFJ to get the best results.

These different features are designed specifically for each region and hence they look just superb. They do take up quite a lot of space the Pacific Fjords installation requires over 3Gb for example. Another advantage is that often you do not need to use autogen at all. The terrain textures have trees with shadows etc included and look very good without autogen, in most cases. I did tests with zero autogen and full autogen and in many places there was very little difference in how realistic it looked but there was up to 50% difference in frame rates! So once its installed, what do we get? Firstly we get FTX Central, which is a program to load textures. It provides access to the FSX default textures when you want them, as well as loading in the FTX products for whichever region you want to fly (currently, Australia or North America). It also provides easy access to all the FTX documentation and control panels (eg for their many beautiful airports). It also comes with two weather themes, the same two as included on the earlier FTX PNW and NRM offerings, but if you did not buy those, you get them here with PFJ. You also get a Google Earth guide which shows you the area included as well as all airports, seaplane bases, and special points of interest, like fjords, glaciers, mines, sawmills, military antenna arrays (!) and more. The US Forest Service maintains many cabins in remote areas, which can be hired for private use. Getting there is half of the fun, literally! And finding them is also quite a lot of fun in the PFJ scenery. Load up an amphibious Beaver and start searching although you can cheat and get the latitude and longitude from the Google map if you have no scruples!

AREAS COVERED IN VARIOUS PRODUCTS.

FTX CENTRAL IS US ED TO SWAP BETWE BETWEEN FTX EN REGIONS AND TH E DEFAULT SECEN ERY

THE MAIN RUNWAY AT STEWART RUNS DOWN THE VALLEY

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LOW AND SLOW IS SPECTACULAR HERE!

MOUNTAINS AND LAKES ARE THE ORDER OF THE DAY

PAKX KETCHIKAN HARBOR - TRY DOCKING YOUR TWOTTER

I renewed my acquaintance with the DeHavilland Canada Beaver, in float, ski, wheel and tundra wheel varieties. Its ideal for this scenery (get the Aerosoft one, not the default). I also spent hours in the Aerosoft Twin Otter, again with wheels and floats and skis. Being larger this one takes more maneuvering in little valleys and is more of a challenge. But it can climb more quickly which is often a nice virtue to have in this region of the planet, where a steep mountain can creep up on you unexpectedly! Some of the airports are at fairly high altitude, and this will test your flying skills. Dont forget to lean your mixture during run-up, and dont load the plane with more fuel and other weight than is really needed! Otherwise you will find yourself wishing you had taken an aircraft with good short field performance (did I mention the Beaver and the Twotter?). There are many things to do in the area. Ferry some people to one of the many ski-lodges in the area, or to a US Forest Service cabin (if you can find it!) Take a ski-plane up to a glacier or try landing with floats in some of the small lakes in the high country. Make sure the lake is big enough for you to take-off again! Fly low down in the valleys and track the rivers but watch for sudden dead-ends. And when you have done all of that, change the season and do it again. The difference between flying low on a hot summer day and traversing the high country in winter is quite enormous. Its a challenge for your flying and engine-management skills. And when you have done all that, why not take a helicopter to some of the many helipads included? Seriously, there are many hundreds of hours of enjoyment included in this scenery. The limit is your imagination.

As you can gather from the introduction, the Pacific Fjords covers a wide variety of scenery. There are fjords and tiny islands, with hand-placed coastlines which make them much more believable than usually seen in FSX. There are of course huge mountains and deep valleys, glaciers and lakes, forests and small towns. You really will get the most out of this scenery if you take something with floats or skis. Apart from the lovely detail in the mountains and the land, there are little details throughout. Just around each corner you might find a small town, rendered in 3D with a port and boats. I saw many birds circling fishing boats, for example. This added a lovely touch to the towns. Landing a float plane and then tying it up to a jetty is more fun than it should be. Exploring the highly detailed harbors is actually a lot of fun. Details abound, and draw you into the adventure. There are lighthouses, flashing buoys in the harbours, water navaids etc. This is a very rich environment and it adds to the immersion. I guarantee you will have a ball flying around PFJ!

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Are there any performance issues? Of course there are some if you turn everything up to maximum and fly a complex aircraft, then you too could be the proud owner of Out Of Memory errors. I downloaded a free program called MaxMem from AnalogX, which monitors the available memory while you are running FSX. When the free memory starts to decrease, just go and decrease your scenery detail. I was able to avoid all problems this way and adjust the scenery detail to give me the maximum I could handle at any given time. As I said earlier, the FTX scenery also looks good with zero autogen, and that can save you a lot of memory also. Some of the pics were taken with zero autogen but you probably cannot tell in the small figures in the magazine. Either way looks good, thanks to the work of FTX. In summary, unless you have a very old and underpowered rig, you should be able to run without serious problems. Orbx give excellent product support, which you will know if you have any of their software. And the manual provides a few pages of advice on how to get the best from your system settings. They have also added a section on compatibility with Ultimate Terrain X, as well as Ground Environment X. In short, they are compatible and superusers can get details from the support forums.

Overall, this is just excellent scenery. If you have either of the other FTX offerings for North America, then this extends your flying area dramatically. It is true to say that there is nothing dramatically new here, and it is similar scenery to FTX PNW and FTX NRM. But it is all done so well, that even the less spectacular regions of the scenery look so realistic that you are drawn into the whole fantasy. Add the large number of detailed regions and the goodies you can go and find, and you will find yourself challenging and extending your flying skills and, above all, enjoying your virtual life in the PFJ world. And isnt that the whole point?

ORT IN THE DISTANCE KETCHIKAN TOWN AND AIRP

LETS JOIN THE HOLDAY MAKERS AT BOB QUINN LAKE

NICE VIEW OF GREAT GLACIER IN WINTER

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FINAL APPROACH TO MORUYA (YMRY), NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA - USING OZX SCENERY.

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MINI-REVIEW MINI-REVIEW

AEROSOFT MEGA AIRPORT AMSTERDAM

BY DOUG HORTON
Mega Airport Amsterdam v1.03 is a recent addition to the list of large, busy airports for which Aerosoft has developed add-on scenery products. Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is the Netherlands main international airport, located 20 minutes southwest of Amsterdam. Its the main operating hub for KLM and a European hub for Delta Air Lines. It is so large physically that its considered an airport city. It was ranked as the 14th busiest in the world for overall passenger volume in 2009 by the Airports Council International.
Product features include: All buildings and other airport structures Dynamic and animated objects High resolution day and night textures Photorealistic textures on buildings, vehicles, and other objects Docking systems Compatible with default AI traffic and add-ons such as MyTraffic X and Ultimate Traffic 2 Taxiways and aprons modeled with realistic textures and hundreds of signs Dynamic vehicle traffic on the airport and surrounding area, based on included AESLite Supports full AES (Airport Enhancement Services) from version 2.06 Concise manual in English and German Includes both FSX and FS2004 versions

APPEARANCE

Comparisons with BING maps birds eye views confirm that this product is quite complete in relation to the real airport. There are many impressive visual features, such as multiple types of jetways, auto traffic entering and leaving road tunnels under one portion of the airport, as well as nearby canals with realistic water, boats, and bridges. The AESLite feature provides a great variety of very realistic airport vehicle traffic, as well as significant vehicle traffic on nearby roads. DX10 preview mode is not fully supported, as night and other textures are partly missing. Airport Enhancement Services (AES) is add-on scenery software that increases realism. A few features are added to Mega Airport Amsterdam by the included AESLite. With the full AES and the purchase of credits for each airport to be activated, many additional features are provided: Pushback with sound, animated objects, and automatic perfect alignment Animated gates that link up perfectly to the doors of the aircraft Follow-me car showing the way to the parking position Sound effects while rolling over the centerline lights on the runway Simulation of water or snow on the runway Realistic docking systems and high detail (3D) marshaller When user aircraft is parked, buses will arrive to transport the passengers, service vehicles will appear (fuel, cleaning etc.), and luggage will be unloaded.

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MINI-REVIEW
One attractive and realistic feature is the variety of unique objects such as double jetways and cantilevered jetways for accessing door over wings, though I was disappointed to not see jetways moving toward parked AI aircraft. This shortcoming is confirmed in the manual with the statement, based on the limitations of the scenery engine, AES has no access to any AI-Traffic data yet. So all features (animated gates, pushback etc.) are only supported for the users aircraft, but not for any AI-Traffic.

PERFORMANCE

You can expect that a huge scenery add-on will degrade framerate performance, and Mega Airport Amsterdam is no exception. In terms of huge, this scenery package includes 640 files in its scenery folder and 1184 files in its texture folder, so theres a lot of processing thats necessary to display the applicable files for the current screen view. Yet, with scenery and AI traffic settings as recommended in the manual, I was able to obtain very flyable framerates. This was still true if I turned up AI traffic from the recommended 1020%, to 100%, for slewing around the airport with a full complement of AI aircraft from Ultimate Traffic 2.

DAYTIME IMAGE OF MEGA AIRPORT AMSTERDAM, WITH AI AIRCRAFT BY ULTIMATE TRAFFIC 2

MULTIPLE AFCAD FILES

Its important to read the manual for this product, as it includes a feature Ive not seen before. Though its customary for airport scenery packages to include an AFCAD file for properly specifying airport and facilities data, such as runways, taxiways, navaids, and other features such as assigning parking, this scenery includes five such files and an AFCAD Tool program to select which of these is active. According to the manual, limitations of Flight Simulator preclude implementing the complex operations of the real Schiphol airport in one AFCAD-file, because the airport has six runways that correspond to twelve landing and takeoff directions. After installation, the AFCAD file AFX_EHAM_02.BGL is active. This and four other included AFCAD files are programmed in Airport Facilitator X with the so-called star-design, for real and virtual runways, and AI-traffic will theoretically use all runways in all directions. However, if you know the wind direction at Schiphol, you can use the furnished AFCAD Tool interface (selectable from Windows Main Menu under Aerosoft, Mega Airport Amsterdam FSX), to activate the North, East, South, or Westoriented AFCAD file and de-activate the AFX_EHAM_02.bgl file. Here are the recommendations in the manual of files to choose for four ranges of wind directions, noting overlaps in direction: If winds coming from... ... north between 280-080 use the NORTH AFCAD ... west between 190-340 use the WEST AFCAD ... south between 100-260 use the SOUTH AFCAD ... east between 010-160 use the EAST AFCAD As an example, I used the following internet link to determine that the real wind for EHAM was from 260 at 12 knots for the last reported hour: http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/current/EHAM.html. Note that this link from U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration can be used for any airport with reported weather if you change the EHAM to the applicable ICAO airport code. I then used the products included AFCAD Tool program to select the West AFCAD before starting FSX. After starting FSX, I selected real weather and noticed that the downloaded weather parameters included wind from 266 at 10 knots. Close enough! Lastly, it should be noted that the art of making FSX AI aircraft conform to runway properties such as Closed for Landing in AFCAD files is uncertain, so dont be surprised if aircraft take off or land on runways not oriented with the North, East, South, or West directions specified in the alternative AFCAD titles.

IMAGE OF MEGA AIRPORT AMSTERDAM AT DUSK, WITH AI AIRCRAFT BY ULTIMATE TRAFFIC 2

JETWAYS INCLUDE UNIQUE DOUBLE-RAMP CANTILEVERED MODELS.

FSX REAL WEATHER INTERFACE, SHOWING WIND FROM 266 AT 10 KNOTS

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HORTONS HINTS for FLIGHTsimX

BY DOUG HORTON
eres another collection of hints for FSX, gathered from various sources, including my own trials and discoveries in ying the program. Hints include a list of features introduced with FSX, as well as descriptions of AI aircraft labels, RunwayFinder website, and Windows resource monitors. Features Introduced in FSX
Though many users have not yet upgraded to FSX, many others have discovered how to tweak FSX settings to achieve acceptable performance and are now enjoying the rich feature set of FSX. Heres an alphabetical list of new and improved features in FSX that Ive compiled from various sources: AI tow plane for glider operations with animated tow rope AI ships and boats that can be set to follow water routes AI animals in regular scenery and missions Animated birds in missions and regular scenery Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) system for many aircraft Automatic cabin pressurization system Cameras and new view system for 2D, virtual cockpit, and exterior views

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 Completely reworked 2D and virtual cockpits for aircraft furnished with FSX Completely reworked aircraft exteriors for aircraft furnished with FSX Drooping ailerons, when aps are extended Droppable objects, such as our bombs in some missions Engine and APU re failure modes, with working re suppression Fixed helicopter auto-rotations and other tuning/bugs Flaperons as part of applicable aircraft models Flight model tuning for some aircraft based on beta tester feedback (such as thrust/drag tuning and bug xing) G1000 glass panel cockpit Improved Virtual Cockpit lighting Improved water surface dynamics Landable platforms that can move, such as trucks, buses, and aircraft carriers Many new and improved gauges Modeling Earths curvature: the sun will rise over the horizon as you increase user aircraft altitude Mouse as yoke reintroduced as controller option Mouse look feature in virtual cockpit view Multiplayer Tower Controller feature, with tower view and associated instruments Negative aps on glider New failure models including: fuel leak, oil leak, oil system failure, fuel pump failure and others New SimConnect API so third parties can more easily access variables Retractable wingtip oats with Grumman Goose aircraft Retractable/extendable skis with Maule aircraft Reworked user interface for settings Runway approach lighting thats weather-dependent Scenery library settings available from in-flight menu, including enabling/disabling scenery while in-sim (parked, flying, slewing, etc.) Theme music option in free ight user interface Vector graphics for some gauge elements Water ballast with glider Wing ex in glider, and perhaps other aircraft Xbox 360 controller compatible Because the forthcoming new version of Flight Simulator, highlighted at www.microsoft.com/game/ight, is expected to be an evolution of FSX, youll be better prepared to operate the new version if you dust off that never-installed copy of FSX and give it a try. Recall from a previous column that you can nd the FSX Gold version online for about US$30, which includes the FSX Deluxe version and the Acceleration Pack, the two of which originally sold for a combined price of about US$90.

AIRCRAFTLABELS.JPG TRAFFIC SETTINGS FROM MAIN MENU OPTIONS, SETTINGS, DISPLAY, TRAFFIC TAB

If you have Trafc Toolbox installed from the FSX SDK, there is another graphical user interface option with a complete list of selectable parameters. With the SDK installed from the FSX menu, select Tools, Trafc Toolbox, Settings and this user interface will be displayed. It includes all possible label selections, including selection of Airline. More precise setting of the display interval is provided, within the range from 100 to 2000 milliseconds, compared to selection of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 seconds with Display, Settings. Also, label color can be selected from an innite color palette, compared to selection of eight listed colors on the Options, Settings, Display, Trafc tab.

AI Aircraft Labels
Alert reader Arthur Moulton recalled that Id previously published information on how to customize AI aircraft information labels and asked for a reminder on how to make the airline name appear in sequence with other label information. What follows below is a complete rewrite and expansion of a previous hint. First, most FSX users know that we can select some of the AI aircraft label information through the main menu Options, Settings, Display user interface by selecting the Trafc tab. However, this interface only allows selection of manufacturer, model, tail number, distance, and altitude. The accompanying interface shows my current selections and we note that selection of airline is not provided on this graphical user interface.

TT-TRAFFICSETTINGS.JPG TRAFFIC SETTINGS USER INTERFACE FROM TRAFFIC TOOLBOX, IF INSTALLED FROM SDK

55

If you dont have the SDK and included Trafc Toolbox installed, another option is manual editing of the [AContain] section of your FSX.cfg le, which can be found in Windows 7 in the following folder: C:\Documents and Settings\(username)\Application Data\ Microsoft\FSX\. Open your FSX.cfg with a text editor and look for the following section: [AContain] ShowLabels=1 ShowUserLabel=0 ShowLabelManufacturer=1 ShowLabelModel=1 ShowLabelTailNumber=0 ShowLabelDistance=1 ShowLabelAltitude=1 ShowLabelAirline=0 ShowLabelAirlineAndFlightNumber=0 ShowLabelFlightPlan=0 ShowLabelContainerId=0 ShowLabelAirspeed=0 ShowLabelHeading=0 LabelDelay=1000 LabelColor=FFFF0000 Note that the same parameters shown on the Trafc Toolbox setting interface are listed, and ShowLabelAirline is the parameter of interest in response to Arthurs question. Changing the =0 to =1 enables display of the related parameter. One other important factor is that the applicable parameter must be available in the respective Aircraft.cfg le for the particular aircraft, such as the following information from the [tsim.1] section of the Aircraft.cfg le of default Boeing 737-800. atc_id=N737X atc_airline=World Travel atc_ight_number= ui_manufacturer=Boeing ui_type=737-800 In this case, if we set ShowLabelAirline=0 to ShowLabelAirline=1, the aircraft label will include sequential display of World Travel along with other selected label parameters.
RF-IFR-LOW.JPG RUNWAYFINDER IFR-LOW CHART DISPLAY SEARCH FOR KFCM RF-SECTIONAL.JPG RUNWAYFINDER SECTIONAL CHART DISPLAY SEARCH FOR KFCM

RunwayFinder Website
Looking for another Internet source for U.S. aviation charts? Try www.runwaynder.com. The interface is quite simple. Enter a four letter airport ICAO code, or if you enter a three letter code, the program will show a selection box with a list of possible matches. In the rst two example images, Ive selected KFCM, for Flying Cloud Airport, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to which I planned a ight in my partnership Cessna 182 a few months ago. The program quickly shows the airport on the correct Sectional Chart, with a pop up display of the currently reported weather. 56

In addition to the sectional chart view, RunwayFinder also provides selection of Map, Satellite, Terrain, IFR Low and IFR High maps or charts. If youd like to see the track for any ight plan, enter in the search box the departure airport, list of waypoints, and destination, separated by semicolons, and the program will display the track on the selected map or chart. Consider a sample track from Sacramento Executive (KSAC) to Lake Tahoe (KTVL), which is selected because of the terrain variation. In the accompanying images, this track is shown in blue on the VFR Sectional chart and the Terrain map. Note that the Terrain map is not an ofcial aviation chart, but its interesting to compare the depiction of elevation changes with the Sectional chart. CPM. V15I2

KSAC-KTVLSECTIONAL.JPG TRACK FROM KSAC EAST-NORTHEASTERLY TO KTVL ON RUNWAYFINDER VFR SECTIONAL CHART

KSAC-KTVLTERRAIN.JPG TRACK FROM KSAC EAST-NORTHEASTERLY TO KTVL ON RUNWAYFINDER TERRAIN MAP

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The orange circle displayed on RunwayFinder charts or maps depicts a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) area, such as the TFR around Beale Air Force Base (KBAB). Double-clicking on the circle initiates a popup that displays times and altitudes for multiple TFRs over Beale AFB. Also shown is a view of Beale AFB on a satellite view. I noticed a small T icon over the base and when I clicked on it, a popup displayed the current weather, encoded in METAR format.

Windows Resource Monitors

Lets say that youre running Flight Simulator, your computer seems to be bogged down, and youre wondering what might be the cause. Most users know that with later versions of Windows you can press Ctrl+Alt+Delete, and from the pop up menu select Task Manager. You can look at the Applications, Processes, Service, and other tabs to see whats happening, an example of which is sorting the operating processes by CPU%. The Performance tab shows a graphical history of both CPU and Memory usage.

BEALETFRS.JPG DOUBLE-CLICKING AN ORANGE CIRCLE ON RUNWAY FINDER CHARTS DISPLAYS TIMES AND ALTITUDES FOR TEMPORARY FLIGHT RESTRICTION AREAS. TASK MANAGER.JPG WINDOWS TASK MANAGER, PERFORMANCE TAB, VIEW DURING FSX LOADING

Maybe youd like more detail? Something thats not well known is that in Vista and Windows 7, on the Performance tab, theres a fairly inconspicuous radio button for Resource Monitor. Again, in this tool, there are multiple tabs with more detailed information, with both lists and real time graphs of various operations. Review of these may help identify problems.

KBABSATELLITE&METAR.JPG SATELLITE PHOTO VIEW OF ORANGE TFR AREA OVER BEALE AFB, WITH POPUP DISPLAYING CURRENT WEATHER IN METAR FORMAT. IN CASE YOURE WONDERING, THE WEATHER REPORT INDICATES...

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KBAB: location 071155Z: date and time UTC 14008: wind from 140 at 8 knots 10SM: visibility of 10 statute miles -RA: light rain OVC036: overcast at 3600 feet above ground level 13/13: temperature 13C and dewpoint 13C A3002: altimeter 30.02 inches RMK: various encoded remarks

RESOURCEMONITOR.JPG WINDOWS RESOURCE MONITOR, OVERVIEW TAB, AS VIEWED DURING PERIOD OF LOW COMPUTER ACTIVITY

CPM. V15I2

59

Touring the

United Kingdom

BY ROB SCOTT

here I was lounging in the Leeds & Bradford Airport Starbucks with my hands around a steaming mug of coffee when my phone started to ring. What Now?, I thought. Id just own up from London in terrible weather hauling boxes in the Cessna 208. All I wanted was a chance to let my nerves recover after the ight.

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Hello? Rob its Troy, I need a favour Troy is an old friend from Australia from when I ew the tubeliners. This is one person I wont mind helping out. Sure what is it? I need your help in getting my friend Rick down to Waterford in Ireland, he wants to buy some crystal bowls for a Christmas present. Weird I know, but you know what hes like; only the best will do. Rick is another friend I had met whilst working in Australia with Troy. He always spoke of coming back to England some day and I was glad for the chance meet up once again. He enjoyed a party and a drink, so I had high hopes of a memorable trip. No worries, when do you need to set off? Its not as simple as that. Rick is over here from Oz and would like to have a quick geography lesson along the way if you can do that too? Oh, and you need to leave ASAP! I stood up and made my way to the viewing platform where I was greeted by a picture postcard scene. Sorry mate, cant go just yet. Were in the middle of the earliest snowstorm in 20 years here in the UK. I just ew up from London in a C208 and it was crazy, the weather looks to have gotten worse, plus there are ights being delayed left, right and center at the moment. You know how it is over here; if you want to bring the country to a stand-still, just bring a snow machine! How about you ask Rick to get himself up here and well depart in the morning if the snow has cleared? I sent Troy an email from my phone with a picture of the scene outside, I didnt think anyone would be going anywhere for a while.
SHERBURN AIRFIELD DEPARTING LEEDS BRADFORD

HEADINGLEY STADIUM

Sure thats ne. Rick is closer than you think, hes actually staying across the car park in the Holiday Inn, room 304. Ill let him know the plan and you can meet tomorrow. Catch you later. I walked back to Starbucks, only to nd that an eager employee had cleared my drink away. I ordered another cup and sat down to plan the ight and book the aircraft we would need. As the weather was pretty bad at the moment and Rick wanted a nice tour of this part of the UK, I thought it would be a good idea to head north along the east coast up to Scotland then head back down to the Lake District, out over the Isle of Man and down the east coast of Ireland to Waterford.

RIVER HUMBER

THE NEXT DAY

It was still very cold the next day with temperatures just above freezing, I phoned Rick at the hotel and said we would depart in the early afternoon. Hopefully, this would give the sun a chance to break through the clouds to give good visibility for our VFR Flight. The route would take us east along the Humber Estuary before turning north up the East Coast and landing in Newcastle for the night. Rick arrived on the ramp just as I was nishing the pre-ight checks. He seemed to like the look of the Beechcraft Duchess 76 that I had rented. He looked rather subdued but I put this down to him staying up all night watching Australia make little headway in the 2nd Ashes test.

WEATHER CLOSING IN AGAIN

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Without too much fuss we were given our taxi and takeoff clearance; our departure runway meant that we would have to make a 180 degree turn to get onto our course. Along the way I pointed out the boating lake near the airport, the helicopter training school and when we were on course, the Headingley Stadium where the Leeds Rhinos and Yorskshire Country Cricket play (and took the opportunity to remind him of the 1981 test here where Australia lost by 18 runs). Rick was more impressed with the scenery though; he comes from a very urban area and he seemed to enjoy the elds and rivers owing through them. As we made our way to the Humber we passed over Sherburn which is a very busy GA aireld. It doesnt have a control tower so is popular with ying schools as they can announce their intentions on the Unicom and depart quickly. After passing Sherburn we held our course and headed directly to Brough, the aireld has long since closed but we could land here in an emergency if needed. It was also just on the edge of the Humber. Rick wanted to see the famous Humber Bridge which is the 5th largest single-span suspension bridge in the world (it was the largest for a long time). It connects East Yorkshire with Lincolnshire and saves motorists almost an hour compared to using the old route of driving the long way around. Once we had own over the bridge we turned north up the East Coast. This stretch of coastline is littered with holiday parks, but is also one of the fastest eroding sections of coastline in the world. The cliffs are made of boulder clay which is not very resistant to the battering it regularly receives from the North Sea. There was an incident several years ago where a landslip caused the Holbeck Hall Hotel to plummet into the sea. The clouds drew in around us not long after leaving Hull, we had to drop down to a lower altitude so that Rick could admire the scenery as we passed over the North York Moors National Park. At one stage it looked as if we might have to divert to an uncontrolled airfield north of Newcastle as I began to think we wouldnt be allowed to land VFR at Newcastle. Fortunately the clouds cleared and visibility improved and we were able to make a nice smooth landing. Where to now Rick? I asked, but I was too late, he had already seen the bar!
LANCAIR READY

WHACKY UNDER-CARRIAGE

NORTHUMBERLAND

DAY 3
After feeling a bit hazy from the night before, we opted to depart mid-afternoon and head up to Inverness passing over the Northumberland National Park, Edinburgh and the Caimgorn National Park. Rick was happy with this and was already waiting at our aircraft, the Lancair IV, when I left the terminal building at Newcastle. He was feeling a little sorry for himself as we stayed up late last night after we returned from the pub to watch England hammer Australia in the 2nd Ashes Test. Once we were in the air the Ashes jokes would begin to ow! The weather today was calm with good visibility, but low temperatures just above freezing point. We were expecting some turbulence along the way, but nothing too severe. I told Rick to make sure his camera was at the ready as we would be over the Northumberland National Park soon after departure. The park covers an area of more than 1,000 square kilometers between the Scottish Border in the north to just south of Hadrians Wall. With all the snow we had a couple of days ago it was a great photo opportunity. 62

GETTTING COLDER

TURNING FINALS AT INVERNESS

CPM. V15I2

Once we had own over the park we settled into cruise and headed to Edinburgh whilst we discussed last nights events. Rick was interested in talking about the night-life of Newcastle, I was more interested in events Downunder. He took it all in good spirit though. As we chewed up the miles Edinburgh soon came into view and we crossed over the Firth-of-Forth. Each year this city attracts thousands of tourists with its various festivals: Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh Military Tattoo, Burns Night and the Hogmanay Street Party to name a few. These festivals and numerous other attractions help make Edinburgh the 2nd most visited tourist destination in the UK. The scenery then began to change from the urban sprawl to the fantastic rural countryside that so many people associate with Scotland. As we approached the Caimgorms National Park all I could hear was Ricks camera clicking away. This is a fairly new National Park having only been established in 2003 and is a protected landscape. After seeing the jaw dropping scenes below us it was easy to see why. The photo opportunities got better as we began our descent into Inverness. This is an approach I have own several times and its one of my favorites for scenery. We had been given approach clearance for Runway 5, which meant a slight left turn from our route to make a right base and y along the shoreline of the Beauly Firth and land at the airport.

BRRRR

SENECA READY AND WAITING

DAY 4
We had a lazy morning and once again opted to take off in the afternoon. Todays route would take us straight over the Lake District and down to Walney, then turning east we would y halfway across the Irish Sea and land at Ronaldsway Airport on the Isle Of Man. I explained to Rick that the best way to see the Lake District is at ground level, but as we were short on time a birds eye view would have to do until his next visit.
TAXIING AT INVERNESS

Id rented a Piper Seneca for this ight; its fairly fast cruise speed should have us at Ronaldsway in just under 2 hours. Wed also picked up a couple of passengers who had missed the regular ight to Ronaldsway. Rick was happy with this as they might want to talk about something other than cricket. We had to wait for 15 minutes before being given takeoff clearance. We decided to leave at the same time everyone else did. I had also seen an aircraft lying around the ramp that gave me an idea for our nal ight. A few phone calls were made and the aircraft would be ready and waiting in Ronaldsway for us. Rick had taken a picture of it but little did he know that it had taken off just before us . To keep things a surprise the other aircraft would y a different route than us and would land well after we did. Our route took us back over the Caimgorms National Park (it looked as though there had been some more snowfall overnight) and then directly to Carlise. We then made a small heading adjustment to take us over the Lake District. The Lake District was formed more than 10,000 years ago and is a direct result of periods of glaciation. The ice-carved valleys have then lled up with water to form the lakes after which the national park is named. It is also home to the highest peaks in England, the tallest being Scafell Pike at 3,210 ft better make sure we have sufcient altitude to clear it!

CAIMGORMS

ARRIVING AT THE LAKE DISTRICT

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We were quickly past the Lake District, but Rick and the passengers had managed to get lots of snaps along the way. I was busy keeping an eye out for low ying jets from the RAF. The lakes themselves seemed dead, but this was because it was winter and unbelievably cold; in the summer months the lakes are a hotbed for water-sports Once we had left the Lake District behind Rick and the passengers passed the ask of coffee around as I prepared for landing into Ronaldsway. The Isle of Man is only a small island (221 square miles) but it is a very popular tourist destination. The main event every year is the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy (TT) Race which is a road racing event for motor bikes; its F1 comparison would be the Monaco GP. The race is run in a timetrial format on the islands public roads and has been held since 1907. My plan for the evening was to take Rick for a drive around the island and take in some of the sights. Landing was straight forward, although I was surprised to see that tomorrows aircraft had somehow arrived before us. Thankfully Rick didnt notice its nose poking out of the hangar.

LAKE DISTRICT

THE FINAL HOP

Rick and I had had a fantastic few days ying together, but today would be the last until he next came over to the UK. I had arranged to meet Rick out on the ramp for a 2pm departure, but I arrived a bit earlier to get the pre-ight checks done. Our aircraft today would be the DC-3, a favorite of Ricks and after I saw it parked at Inverness I thought it would be something that stuck in our memories for many years. The one we were using was being own by a display team during the air show season, but now that the season was over the owners were only too happy to let me take her for a spin. Ricks face as he realized what we were flying in was a picture; he was like a kid in a sweet shop. Before he even got inside he had managed to take over 20 pictures of the exterior, at least it gave me some time to make sure the aircraft was ready A little after 14:00 we taxied out to the runway, its been a long time since I was in a DC-3 and my taxiing showed it! This ight wasnt going to be easy. We were taking off in a blizzard and expected severe turbulence and freezing temperatures the whole way to Waterford. As Dizzie lumbered into the skies I left Rick to admire the scenery whilst I concentrated on keeping the aircraft ying. The ight-plan was simple: leave Ronaldsway and head straight for the east coast of Ireland, then head south until we reached Waterford. Due to the horrendous weather I expected the ight time to be around 90 minutes. There was a brief spell of around 10 minutes where we had calm skies and could relax, but just after passing Dublin the turbulence returned and I concentrated on ying while Rick explored Dizzie. He seemed interested when we passed over Dublin and I told him about the many good nights out I had been on around the city. The twinkle in his eye told me that he would go there at some point. Not long after Dublin we passed over the Wicklow Mountains National Park; this is a very scenic area of Ireland and attracts over one million visitors each year, with the most visited area being Glendalough Valley where the ancient monastic settlement of St Kevin is located. 64
LEAVING WALNEY FOR RONALDSWAY

FINALS RONALDSWAY

PARKED UP FOR THE NIGHT

WELL HELLO THERE!

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Once we had cleared the park we descended down to 4,500 feet and tuned the radios for the ATIS at Waterford. I could tell by Ricks face that he was looking forward to landing and couldnt take much more of this turbulence (or cold). Soon enough we picked up the ATIS, but it wasnt good news; a light aircraft had skidded off the runway shortly after we departed Ronaldsway and the runway was out of action until at least 16:00 another 45 minutes. With nothing to do but hold just outside of the airport airspace I headed towards some higher ground just west of Waterford. A lot of the land surrounding the airport is at and featureless, at least this would give us something to look at. As it turns out, it wasnt a good idea as the winds coming off the hills were worse than we had encountered along the way, but ATC requested that we stay over the area until the runway was open. After hearing that, Ricks face drooped and he staggered off into the back of Dizzie looking a bit glum. A few minutes passed and I head him yelling from the back of the aircraft: cant take this turbulence any more mate, Im getting off here. Thanks for the trip, its been a blast. Well do it again next time Im in the UK I turned around laughing at him, and it suddenly dawned on me that he wasnt kidding. Hed managed to nd a parachute stashed away in the back and was ready to go. With a wave and a wink he bailed out and was gone. If there had been another parachute I might have joined him as this was the worst weather Id own in for a long time, but I had promised to get the DC-3 down in one piece. Another 30 minutes passed and I was given clearance to come in and land. As I had been circling the area I wondered if Rick had made it down safely. I never saw which way he went after he jumped out of Dizzie. Once I had landed and secured the aircraft, I went and had a look around the back of it. Only then did I discover that this particular DC-3 was being used by a parachute display team. It was driving me crazy wondering from where Rick had found the parachute! Knowing him, he will have made a textbook landing in the back yard of a pub. Ill look forward to spending another week with him sometime in the future, I just hope its not too long away.
HOLDING OUTSIDE WATERFORD THIS IS GOING TO GET ROUGH

LUMBERING INTO THE SKY

FINAL APPROACH

ADD ONS USED 1. Just Flight Beechcraft Duchess 76 2. Orbx Lancair IV 3. Carenado Piper Seneca 4. Just Flight DC-3 5. Just Flight VFR Real Scenery Volume 4 6. UK2000 VFR Airfields Volume 3
BUMP!

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RT 7 ING FSX PA RK HMA BENC

FSX Performance Summary
BY DOUG HORTON
ver the past two years, Computer Pilot has published a series of six articles about FSX performance, related to graphics cards, multiple and large displays, processors, thirdparty CPU coolers and overclocking, six-core processors, solid state drives, upgrading to Windows 7, budget computer builds for FSX, and other topics:

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 Part 1, FSX Performance CPU or GPU? A comparison of CPU overclocking and four generations of graphics cards: January 2009 Part 2, Benchmarking FSX Sliders, Large and Multiple Monitors: October/November 2009 Part 3, Benchmarking FSX Upgrading Processors: February/ March 2010 Part 4, Benchmarking FSX Windows 7, Overclocking Processors, and CPU Coolers: June/July 2010 Part 5, Benchmarking FSX Six Core Processor, Solid State Drives, and Selected Core Activity: August/September 2010 Part 6: Benchmarking FSX Budget Computer Builds for FSX: October/November 2010

seems to make no difference in FSX framerate performance, consistent with FSX being developed when 512 MB was the most popular conguration. Multiple tests conrmed that there is no gain in FSX performance from adding parallel graphics cards, such as with NVIDIAs SLI feature, and its likely to be the same result for ATIs Crossre operation, though this was not tested. Motherboard features and chipsets dont seem to be important to FSX operation if they accommodate processors produced in the last few years, such as with AMD socket AM3 and Intel sockets LGA 1156 and 1366. No difference was noted in FSX performance between motherboards with 4 GB or 6 GB DDR3 memory installed, as tested with both Vista and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit operating systems. Processors are extremely important, with many interesting ndings: 1. Framerate performance is highly proportional to processor clock speed, for specic brands or families of processors. 2. The number of cores is important, and four cores is better than two for a given processor clock speed, but four real cores do not provide double the performance of two real cores, because FSX does fully utilize processor capacity during initial startup or during ights even with very high display settings. 3. FSX recognizes and utilizes up to four real or virtual cores. For example, with a two real core processor, such as the Intel Core i5-655K, FSX utilizes four cores -- two real and two virtual cores with Intels hyper-threading feature enabled. On the other hand, FSX does not recognize the fth and sixth real cores of a sample six core processor, and it does not recognize more than four real cores with Intel hyper-threading enabled on four or six core processors. 4. During FSX startup, with a four-core or six-core processor, there is only signicant processor activity on one core while the splash screen is displayed. There is activity on four (real) cores only after the progress bar displayed during scenery, texture, aircraft, and other le loading. 5. Overclocking processors to increase framerate is relatively easy with mainline processors, in my experience, and its particularly easy with Unlocked or Black Edition processors. 6. Overclocking is likely safer for processors, as related to the risk of overheating, if efcient, easily installed third-party processor coolers are used in place of coolers furnished in retail processor packages. In limited testing, a sealed liquid cooler worked better than four different air coolers, and one inexpensive third-party air cooler provided nearly as much cooling as another that was more than 2.5 times more expensive. 7. Newer, faster processors increase FSX performance in relation to processor clock speed, but CPU percentage utilization by FSX is small relative to CPU capacity. It appears that FSX is not well programmed for parallel processing of multiple threads, making purchase of very expensive processors unproductive and unnecessary. (See Final Thoughts at end of article for similar opinion.) 8. Enabling only one, two, or four (real) cores of a four-core processor (through BIOS settings) does not change FSX performance signicantly. Instead, enabling fewer than the total number of (real) cores simply increases core utilization percentages for the enabled cores. 9. Enabling Intels Turbo Boost feature increases FSX framerate in proportion to the ratio of turbo multipliers to basic core multiplier. For unlocked processors, setting higher turbo multipliers is the principal means of overclocking.

BENCHSTART.JPG STARTING SCREEN FOR FSXMARK07 BENCHMARKING PROCEDURE BY DEVELOPER GARY DUNNE

For the previous six articles, I tested FSX framerate performance hundreds of times with many hardware congurations, using FSXMark07 by Gary Dunne and the free FRAPS framerate logging utility for standardized testing with a xed FSX settings conguration and multiple trials of a dened 5-minute ight. From all this testing, its clear that FSX, with Service Pack 2, or the Acceleration Expansion Pack installed, is based on hardware available at those times, and hardware developed more recently may not provide improved performance. That said, below are specic conclusions from benchmarking tests, followed by sample results from each of the six articles that help support these conclusions. Differences in NVIDIA graphics cards dont make much difference in FSX performance if they were produced in the last three or four years say, with the GeForce 8800 GT or later. There are differences in FSX performance with AMD/ATI graphics cards of different GPU families, such as in my tests of Radeon HD 5570, 5750, and 5870 cards. In general, the higher the family number of the AMD/ATI card, the better the performance, though performance differences may not be as great as price differences. Newer graphics cards often provide headroom for running large and multiple monitors, with no change in FSX performance compared to running a single monitor. For example, no differences in FSX performance test results were seen between a 21 monitor operating at 1600 x 1200 resolution, a 30 monitor operating at 2560 x 1600, or both monitors operating from the same graphics card for samples of three generations of NVIDIA-based cards. Whether a graphics card has 512 MB, 768MB, 1 GB, or 2 GB

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 Upgrading two sample computers from Vista Home Premium 64-bit to Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, with nominal 6GB memory and a GTX 280 graphics card, increased FSX framerate performance 19% and 34%, respectively. The greater gain came from the computer with many FSX add-ons installed. One expert has suggested that with Windows 7, FSX ofoads more calculations to the Graphics Processing Unit, which in turn enables faster redraws and framerates. I cannot verify this explanation, but FSX performance was clearly better after my upgrading from Vista to Windows 7. Solid state drives shorten both Operating System boot time and FSX loading time, but the time gained is small in relation to the high cost of SSDs compared to hard drives. With a particular Windows startup, for restarts of the same FSX ight, there was no difference in FSX startup time with an SSD, compared to a nominal SATA 2 hard drive, and there was no change in FSX framerate performance when running FSX from an SSD compared to a typical SATA 2 hard drive. With DX10 preview unchecked in Settings, the rst benchmark run of a given series produced lower framerate results than subsequent runs, apparently because of a scenery caching effect. With DX10 preview checked and enabled, all benchmark results were similar, and FSX ran slightly faster if DX10 Preview was enabled. FSX can be run with much less expensive hardware than users might be inclined to purchase, with framerate performance only slightly lower than with very expensive hardware. Part 6 provided several recommendations for lower cost hardware that in testing provided very acceptable performance for running FSX. Below are highlights of results from the six previous articles.

Standardized testing with the FSXMark07 procedure (download FSXMark07.zip from www.avsim.com) and FRAPS framerate counting utility (available at www.FRAPS.com) conrmed that FSX performance is constrained principally by processor speed, and it hit a wall of about 25 FPS with my beginning hardware conguration, which included an Intel Q6600 four-core processor overclocked from 2.4 GHz to 3.0 GHz. In testing four generations of NVIDIA graphics cards with this hardware, there was improvement in moving from a 7800 GT card to newer cards, but there was little difference in results among the 8800 GT, 9800 GTX+, and GTX 260 cards. Later testing showed no signicant difference in FSX performance between GTX 260 and GTX 280 cards.

Part 2: Operation with Large and Multiple Monitors, plus Display Settings Recommendations
For this part, I tested a 30 monitor at 2560 x 1600 resolution and a 21 monitor at 1600 x 1200, individually and together, with a GTX 260 graphics card; Intel Q6600 processor, overclocked to 3.0 GHz; and 4 GB DDR2 1066 memory. There was no signicant difference in FSX framerate performance, in spite of the larger numbers of pixels drawn per unit time for the 30 monitor and the two monitors together. Monitors Tested 21 30 21 + 30 Resolution 1600 x 1200 2560 x 1600 1600 x 1200 + 2560 x 1600 Total Pixels 1,920,000 4,096,000 6,016,000

Part 1: CPU or GPU Comparison of CPU Overclocking and Four Generations of Graphics Cards

DATA TABLE FROM BENCHMARKING TESTS OF FOUR GRAPHICS CARDS AT THREE PROCESSOR CLOCK SPEEDS

MULTMON.JPG FSX FRAMERATE PERFORMANCE RESULTS OF FOUR GENERATIONS OF NVIDIA GRAPHICS CARDS, WITH FSXMARK07 GLOBAL HIGH SETTINGS AND Q6600 PROCESSOR TWO MONITOR SETUP WITH 21 (4:3) MONITOR FORWARD AND BELOW, AND 30 (16:10) MONITOR REARWARD AND ABOVE

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The challenge of operating FSX with a very large monitor and combination of two monitors conrms that the more recent generations of NVIDIA graphics cards have headroom to provide graphics performance similar to that with a single monitor, or with both monitors connected to the same graphics card, all else the same. Easing Display Settings for Improved Performance. After much experimentation, I was able to obtain fairly consistent framerates of 30+ fps for the hardware mentioned above. Compared to the FSXMark07 Global High conguration used for testing above, my nal conguration includes the following changes for each of the ve Settings/Display tabs: Graphics uncheck Lens are. Aircraft uncheck both Aircraft casts shadows on ground and on itself. Scenery move sliders for Scenery complexity from High to Very High (a personal preference for displaying more scenery objects), Autogen density from Normal to Sparse, and Water effects to Mid 2.x to High 1.x (which also eliminates seeing unrealistic waves and light blue colors on rivers and lakes). Weather move slider for coverage density of Clouds to Medium. Trafc move both sliders for AI trafc density to 50% or lower, and then move both Ships and ferries and Leisure boats density sliders to 15%. I also turned off aircraft labels, though this was a personal choice.

Because it provides a dynamic increase in processor multipliers for each core, the Intel Turbo Boost feature increases framerates in proportion to turbo multiplier to default multiplier settings. The default performance of the i7-975 Extreme and base model i7-920 processors differ in FSX performance by the ratio of their default processor multipliers, 25 to 20 (25%) with Turbo Boost off, or with Turbo Boost on, 26 to 21 (23.8%). Processor Price versus Performance. Though operating FSX with a powerful and expensive processor, including overclocking, can provide improved framerate performance in proportion to processor clock rate, the second article in this series highlighted the fact that changes in FSX scenery, texture, water, AI trafc, and other display settings can also improve performance signicantly. For example, from the FSXMark07 Global High settings used in these tests, I made three changes in the FSX Settings, Scenery tab to compare performance: Scenery complexity, from Dense to Normal Autogen density, from Normal to Sparse Water effects, from Med 2.x to High 1.x When tested with the i7-975 processor default settings, these modest settings changes in FSX settings increased framerate performance by 23.6%, which is close to the 25% multiplier ratio (25:20) of the i7-975 (~$980) to i7-920 (~$284) processors. The signicant conclusion is what can be done with a much greater hardware investment can be alternatively accomplished with slightly reduced FSX settings.

Part 3: FSX Results from Upgrading Processors

There was a signicant framerate performance improvement (about 33%) in moving from the Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor to either of two i7-900 series processors tested for this article at the same processor clock rate. This technology gain is impressive, whether credited to the i7-900 series processor architecture, socket LGA 1366 motherboard efciency, triple channel memory, improved caching, or other features. This is good news for users thinking about upgrading to i7 series processors. Consistent with previous test results, processor clock speed is the principal determinant of FSX framerate performance. A signicant feature of the i7-900 series, enabling Intels hyper-threading feature to provide four virtual cores in addition to four physical cores, providing eight processing threads, did not improve FSX framerate performance.

Part 4: Windows 7, Overclocking Processors, and CPU Coolers

UPGRADING VISTA TO WINDOWS 7 INCREASED FSX FRAMERATE PERFORMANCE SIGNIFICANTLY ON TWO DIFFERENT COMPUTERS.

RETAIL PACKAGE FOR INTEL CORE I7-975 EXTREME PROCESSOR

Windows 7 Improves FSX Performance! Upgrading to Windows 7 signicantly improved FSX performance. I upgraded two systems from Vista Home Premium 64-bit to Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. I realized 19% and 34% increases in FSX framerate performance with the respective systems! In each case, I tested performance for both Vista and Windows 7 with FSXMark07, with the same hardware and settings, on the same day. The greater increase was obtained with the FSX installation with more add-ons installed. 69

In all cases, alternative coolers provided lower processor temperatures than the retail package cooler for computer idling, maximum during an FSXMark07 trials, and maximum during runs of Futuremarks 3DMark Vantage. However, I kept an eye on fan speeds and I noticed no increase during the tests. Either the motherboard fan speed control was not working, or temperatures were not high enough to cause increases in fan speeds. Because I had available two PWM fans and a Scythe S-Flex constant speed fan, I tried all three alternative coolers with both fans. In most cases, the Scythe S-Flex fan at constant 1600 RPM provided better cooling than the PWM fans, which were operated by the motherboard at minimum RPM throughout the testing.

WINDOWS 7 PROVIDES NEARLY 20% BETTER FRAMERATE PERFORMANCE THAN VISTA WITH THE SAME HARDWARE ON ONE TESTED COMPUTER.

Heat Generation and Processor Coolers. Overclocking success is related to avoiding high processor temperatures that can lead to instability and sometimes the blue screen of death (BSOD) warning that Windows is shutting down. Overclocking often requires use of higher voltages for several processor settings, and higher voltages lead to more heat.
H50_MAIN.JPG

Summary of Processor Cooler Tests. I conducted FSXMark07 benchmark test ights with FRAPS frame-counting software for one observation of idle temperature for each of seven cooling arrangements, and six trials each for two load challenges for the seven different processor cooling arrangements, using an Intel i7975 Extreme processor. Temperature results for all tests are shown in the table below. The i7-975 retail package cooler is furnished with a PWM variable speed 4-wire fan, so that it can be controlled by the motherboard, based on processor temperatures. The CoolerMaster and Corsair coolers were also furnished with PWM fans, and they were both initially tested with their furnished fans. The Thermalright is furnished without a fan and I tested it with both constant speed and PWM fans.

CORSAIR H50 SEALED LIQUID COOLING SYSTEM, SHOWING RADIATOR AND PUMP ENCLOSURE

CPU Temperatures During Testing (Degrees Celsius)

Intel Therm. (*PWM) U120e PWM Idle FSXMark07 3DMark Vantage 48.5 75.1 81.3 40.4 57.7 65.4 C/M Hyper Corsair 212+ H50 S-Flex 39.0 56.5 67.5 *PWM 43.5 66.8 74.5 S-Flex *PWM S-Flex 38.5 55.5 66.5 45.8 68.8 75.0 31.5 50.5 59.3

*Fan provided with cooler Red = highest temperatures Blue = lowest temperatures Summary of Overclocking Results. Using the Intel Desktop Control Centers Auto Tune overclocking utility, set for its most aggressive (Extreme) setting, there was no difference in processor clock rates attained with the use of default or alternative processor cooling systems. In all cases, the default Turbo Boost multipliers were increased from 27, 26, 26, 26 to 31, 30, 30, 30, along with increases in key voltages. Because the rst multiplier applies to single core operation only, which was not applicable during FSX operation, the performance gain was in the ratio of 30 to 26, which is slightly over 15%. Because these multipliers for the i7-975 processor are multiplied by the base clock setting of 133.33 MHz, the processor clock rate increased from 3.46 GHz to 4.00 GHz, which led to proportional increases in framerates in FSX. CPM. V15I2

THERMALRIGHT2.JPG THERMALRIGHT ULTIMATE 120 EXTREME COOLER, SHOWN WITHOUT FAN

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Better cooling is believed to result in longer processor life, particularly with overclocking. Of course, theres no simple means of testing this hypothesis, as I didnt want to destroy any of the sample processors. To operate with lower processor temperatures, Ill continue to use an alternative cooler with my test system, and the best cooler I tested for the price was the Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus, at $30 USD. I like this cooler because of its method of fan attachment. I particularly like its construction whereby its four heat pipes contact the processor directly, which should provide for better heat transfer than if the heat pipes were embedded in the contact plate, such as with many other cooler designs.

Solid State Drives. SSDs contribute to faster booting, requiring less than half the time than with a typical hard drive, though the gain in time was less than 30 seconds with my test system. With FSX, there is a startup time benet with the SSD for only the rst FSX startup after a fresh boot, and theres no benet from the SSD while FSX is running. I believe that SSDs will offer long-term benets, as size offerings increase and prices decrease.

COOLERMASTER HYPER 212 PLUS, SHOWING UNIQUE DESIGN OF HEAT PIPES AND PROCESSOR CONTACT AREA

Test Note. I conducted many of the reported tests for this part of the benchmarking series with the FSX.cfg parameter WideViewAspect= set to False for the 30 widescreen monitor. For some rounds of tests, I set this parameter set to True, which led to a 12% decrease in framerate performance. More of the control panel is displayed on a widescreen monitor with a True setting, and not surprisingly, theres a performance cost.

INTEL MODEL X25-M 160GB SOLID STATE DRIVE

Part 5: Six Core Processor, Solid State Drives, and Selected Core Activity
Six core processor. With this conguration, there was unfortunately no statistically signicant change in FSX framerate performance between operation with the four core i7-975 and the six core i7-980X. As reported previously, FSX does not utilize more than four cores and there was no change with hyper threading enabled or disabled on any of the tested processors.

Core Activity. The accompanying table shows the average framerate performance results from running FSX with the FSXMark07 procedure with its Global High conguration, for six trials at each setting, with the i7-975 processor set at an overclocked core speed of 4.0 GHz. At time of testing, no BIOS setting was available for operating three cores of a four core processor, nor three, four, or ve cores of a six core processor. For this set of tests, AI trafc was inadvertently disabled, providing higher frame rates than for the FSXMark07 Global High conguration, with which both airline and general aviation AI trafc are set to 15%. i7-975 Cores Enabled Four Two One FSXMark07 Framerate 53.7 fps 48.5 fps 36.1 fps

GULFTOWN_DIE4.JPG ARCHITECTURAL LAYOUT OF I7-980X PROCESSOR

Based on previous testing, my expectation was that performance would be approximately proportional to the number of enabled cores, such as in the ratio of 4, 2, and 1. However, the results are less proportional, and its likely explained by the inefciency of FSXs use of multi-core processor capacity. In looking at processor percentage loading during the test ights, with four cores enabled, the processor was nowhere close to fully loaded. With two cores enabled, it was still not highly loaded, though with one core enabled, FSX loaded the processor close to 100%, with framerate performances as shown in the table. 71

Part 6: Budget Computer Builds for FSX

FSX was released and updated in 2006 2007, and is based on hardware available during this period. Investment in more recent top of the line hardware did not provide much difference in FSX performance, except for processors with higher default clock rates, or by overclocking, which is made easier with factory-unlocked or Black Edition processors. Manufacturers continue to release new processors, motherboards, memory, and graphics cards, with generally decreasing prices compared to older products. At time of writing, here are my recommendations for AMD/ATI and Intel/NVIDIA based systems, noting that graphics cards can be used with either type of system.
RETAIL PACKAGE FOR UNLOCKED INTEL CORE I7-875K PROCESSOR, WITHOUT COOLER

1. AMD processor Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, four cores 2. AMD motherboard ASUS M4A89GTD Pro/USB3, with SATA 6Gb/s and USB 3.0 3. AMD graphics card Radeon HD 5750 or higher, with memory 512 GB or greater 4. 2 x 2 GB DDR3, rated for fastest speed compatible with motherboard.

XFX RADEON HD 5750 GRAPHICS CARD, WITH HDMI, DISPLAY PORT, AND TWO DVI OUTPUTS

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1. Intel processor Intel Core i7-875K processor (factory-unlocked) 2. Intel motherboard Intel DP55WG socket LGA1156 or similar 3. NVIDIA graphics card GTS 250 or higher (*see note) 4. 2 x 2 GB DDR3, at fastest speed compatible with motherboard *Note: By time of publication of this article, the DX10-capable GTS 250 will likely be out of production and the DX11-capable NVIDIA GTX 460 or 470 are recommended for budget builds. Recommendations for AMD graphics cards for budget builds include the Radeon HD 5750 and higher models, such as the 6850. As an example, 90% of the FSXMark07 framerate attained with the high-priced system was achievable with a budget system for 44% of the price of the high-priced system. Compare these two systems and results, with prices at time of writing: Budget System: Intel DP55WG LGA 1156 motherboard - $145 2 x 2 GB DDR3 1600 Corsair Dominator RAM - $95 Intel Core i7-875K unlocked processor, overclocked to 4.0 GHz $330 NVIDIA GTS 250 1 GB graphics card - $140 = $710 42 FPS Higher-priced sytem: Intel DX58SO motherboard - $230, 3 x 2GB DDR3 1600 Corsair Dominator RAM - $140 Intel Core i7-975 Extreme processor, overclocked to 4.0 GHz $980 NVIDIA GTX 280 1 GB graphics card (out of production GTX 285 is closest $260) = $1610 46.5 FPS Because its likely that the new Microsoft Flight product will be programmed for DX11, its best that future purchases of graphics cards be DX11-capable. Im also hopeful that the new product will also be programmed for a wide range of multi-core utilization.

With FSX and SP2 or Acceleration Pack, the afnity mask setting is automatic and my experiments to use it led to lower framerates or inconsistant performance in multiple trials, as tested with standard testing method FSXMark07 (see FSXMark07.zip on avsim.com). My conclusion, as Ive published in my series of benchmarking articles in Computer Pilot magazine, is that FSX does a better job of managing core use than I can guess at. Regardless of afnity mask setting, my testing, with hundreds of trials, indicates that FSX will use a maximum of four cores, whether real or virtual (i.e. Hyper-threading feature). Within the past few months, Ive tested the following processors to verify this conclusion: Intel four core Q6600; two core unlocked i5-655K; four core unlocked i7-875K, four core i7-940 and i7-975; and six core i7-980X, plus AMD four core processors Athlon II 640 and Phenom II 965 Black Edition. The most signicant determinant of FSX framerate is core speed, so add-on CPU cooler installation and learning to overclock is key, not to mention compromising on high framerate hit FSX settings such as AI trafc density. The implications of this are signicant because less expensive processors that are overclocked can produce framerate performance equal or nearly equal to very expensive processors that operate at default frequencies, and this can be more signicant than graphics cards, memory, motherboard, and other hardware, provided the latter are not the cheapest you can nd. There will be more to say about this in future Computer Pilot articles.

Final Thoughts
To close this recap, Id like to share a few words provided by alert reader Toly, who suggests: Since FSX has not been designed from the ground up with multi-threading in mind, raw CPU speed is still the king. Get the most promising processor in your budget; overclock the heck out of it, and you will have the best bang for your buck in terms of performance. And minimize AI trafc that chews up the CPU a lot. And, please, dont run FSX on Vista - that chews up CPU, too. XP or Windows 7 is your ticket to that ride. Being a 32-bit application, FSX can use up to 4 Gigs of memory in theory, and signicantly less in reality. Thus, 4 Gigs is all you need; in fact, you need a total of 4 Gigs shared between your main memory and your video card memory. Any extra RAM cannot be addressed by the application and thus will not be used.

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AN APPROACH TO THE CAT III APPROACH or... LOOK MA, NO HANDS!

o you want to land but the reported ceiling is nearly zerothis is not a problem. So you want to land but the reported visibility is nearly zerothis is not a problem. Well, to clarify- these may not be problems. First of all, this is ight simulation and there are no virtual FAA inspectors to notice if you fudge the regulations a little and attempt an approach in below minimum weather conditions or continue an approach beyond the decision height without the requisite visual cues to do so. But assuming you have a modicum of integrity

and a desire to properly simulate the aviation world it is assumed that you are seeking a means to legally y an instrument approach in very bad weather conditions. That means can be found by ying a CAT III approach. If you are unfamiliar with the CAT III approach that may not be all that surprising as it is only available to certain aircraft operated by specially qualied crew members to specied runways. And therein lies the catch- your aircraft might not be suitably equipped to permit the use of a Cat III approach.

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Instrument approaches are divided into three broad categories: Category I (CAT I) A precision instrument approach and landing with a decision height not lower than 200 feet (61 m) above touchdown zone elevation and with either a visibility not less than 800 meters (2,625 ft) or a runway visual range (RVR) of not less than 550 meters (1,804 ft). Category II (CAT II) A precision instrument approach and landing with a decision height lower than 200 feet (61 m) above touchdown zone elevation but not lower than 100 feet (30 m), and a runway visual range not less than 300 meters (984 ft) for aircraft category A, B, C and not less than 350 meters (1,148 ft) for aircraft category D. Category III (CAT III) is subdivided into three sections: Category III A precision instrument approach and landing with: a. decision height lower than 100 feet (30 m) above touchdown zone elevation, or no decision height (alert height); and b. runway visual range not less than 200 meters (656 ft). Category III B precision instrument approach and landing with: a. decision height lower than 50 feet (15 m) above touchdown zone elevation, or no decision height (alert height); and b. runway visual range less than 200 meters (656 ft) but not less than 75 meters (246 ft). Autopilot is used until taxi-speed. In the United States, FAA criteria for CAT IIIb runway visual range allows readings as low as 150 ft. In addition to these two there is also the Category III C with no decision height and no runway visual range limitations. However, this category is not yet in operation anywhere in the world as it requires guidance to taxi in zero visibility as well and there are no systems in place to facilitate that. Category III B is currently the best available and most sophisticated system.
KLAX 25L CAT II TOP

KLAX 25L CAT II BOTTOM

KLAX 25L CAT I TOP

KLAX 25L CAT III TOP

KLAX 25L CAT I BOTTOM

KLAX 25L CAT III BOTTOM

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In the United States, many but not all airports with CAT III approaches have listings for CAT IIIa, IIIb and IIIc on the instrument approach plate (U.S. Terminal Procedures). KLAX in Los Angeles is one example of an airport with CAT IIIc listed even though it is not authorized for use. CAT IIIb runway visual range minimums are limited by the runway/taxiway lighting and support facilities, and would be consistent with the airport Surface Movement Guidance Control System (SMGCS) plan which dictates what visual aids must be installed and operational in order to conduct various reduced visibility operations. A SMGCS system consists of the provision of guidance to, and control or regulation of, all aircraft, ground vehicles and personnel on the movement area of an airport. Guidance relates to facilities, information and advice necessary to enable the pilots of aircraft or the drivers of ground vehicles to nd their way around the airport and to keep the aircraft or vehicles on the surfaces or within the areas intended for their use. Control or regulation means the measures necessary to prevent collisions and to ensure that the trafc ows smooth and freely. Operations below 600 runway visual range require taxiway centerline lights and taxiway red stop bar lights. In each case, a suitably equipped aircraft and appropriately qualied crew are required and, as would be expected, the equipment and qualication requirements become more stringent as the roman numerals are added to the CAT. For example, CAT IIIb requires a fail-operational automatic landing system, along with a crew who are qualied and current, while CAT I does not. The concept of a fail-operational system is that in the event of a failure there will not be a total shutdown of the guidance available and the approach, are and landing can be completed by the remaining part of the automatic system. Typically, this is accomplished by using multiple autopilot systems- either two or three- when in full automatic mode so that the failure of one autopilot will not disrupt the function of the remaining system(s). This requirement for system redundancy can also be satised by using a hybrid system consisting of a primary fail-operational setup as described above coupled with a head up display that receives its guidance cues from a different source than the primary system. The head up display information normally takes the form of command information, but it may alternatively be situation (or deviation) information such as a synthetic vision system or an infrared depiction of the outside environment. A head up display (HUD) which allows the pilot to perform aircraft maneuvers rather than an automatic system is considered as fail-operational. Aside from the autopilot redundancy requirement, CAT I CAT II and CAT III approaches utilize different altimetry equipment for precision and accuracy. CAT I relies only on altimeter indications for decision height, whereas CAT II and CAT III approaches utilize radar altimeter to determine decision height. The difference being that a radar altimeter allows for a more accurate and precise measurement and is less prone to error as it does not have to be manually set to a local barometer reading in order to function properly. The possibility of malfunction and error in instrument indications is a critical factor as the visibility minimums decrease. One requirement deals with the potential failure of the instrument landing transmitters. An ILS transmitter is required to shut down upon internal detection of a fault condition so that it does not transmit erroneous signals. With the increasing categories, ILS equipment is required to shut down faster, since higher categories require shorter response times. 90

For example, a CAT I localizer must shut down within 10 seconds of detecting a fault, but a CAT III localizer must shut down in less than 2 seconds of fault detection.

Now you see it

There can be a bit of confusion between visibility and Runway Visual Range (RVR). You might have noticed that in the dening descriptions of the different CAT approaches only the CAT I approach makes reference to both visibility and RVR. The other CATs refer only to RVR. One major difference between the two is that visibility is stated in miles or fractions thereof and RVR is reported in hundreds of feet. Once again, this is a requirement based on the increased precision needed to allow decreased minima. The term visibility as it is commonly used in aviation refers to the estimate of a trained observer at or near ground level. The observer will look for familiar reference objects at a known distance from his position such as buildings, towers, trees, mountains, lights, etc and determine the prevailing visibility for at least half of a complete circle. By contrast, RVR is a derived value for a particular runway based upon measurement from a transmissometer-a device that determines the amount of light that passes through the atmosphere and provides a continuous measurement. This instrument utilizes standard calibrations so that its reading represents the horizontal distance a pilot will see down the runway from the approach end. It should be obvious (and yes, I toyed with the idea of writing It should be clear but decided we need not go down that path) that in a precision approach it is much more important that a pilot be aware of the visibility at the exact spot where landing is intended as opposed to knowing how far one can see for the most part in the vicinity of the airport. These differences mean that it is possible to y a CAT III approach and then perhaps switch to a different runway in an area of the airport with better visibility for the actual landing. This is not an uncommon occurrence at coastal airports where fog may be a factor at some runways but not for others at the same airport that could be at least a mile further inland. An important point to remember about both types of visibility measurements and reports is that they are of horizontal, not slant range. This distinction means that what distance can be seen from the airborne cockpit may differ from that reported and quite often will probably be less than what was indicated.

Enough chat - Lets fly

All of the above references to the detailed requirements for equipment are for one simple reason- the CAT III approach is performed by an automatic landing system that is far better at maintaining the needed precise ight path than a human pilot. It is most important that the autopilot receive accurate information and that it functions correctly in order to respond to that information. Therefore, the pilots primary role in this event is to manage the situation-keep an eye on the instruments and indicators, verify that the airplane is properly ying itself and be prepared to take over and y the beast-presumably on a missed approach procedure- if things go haywire. It is pretty much a seamless effort when things are going right. The pilot needs to set things in motion by dialing both the Nav1 and Nav2 radios to the ILS frequency of the landing runway. The Nav2 setting is critical in order to enable multiple autopilots to be utilized for the approach as required for CAT III operations. CPM. V15I2

BOTH NAV RADIOS TUNED TO THE ILS FREQ FOR KLAX 25L

For the initial entry into the approach there is no difference in the operating technique for the CAT III and a CAT I approach. After localizer intercept the VOR/LOC function should be enabled and once the glideslope indication becomes active the APP function should be selected. At that point the major difference is that the second and third autopilots will be switched on. Depending on the aircraft, there will be different instrumentation indications that multiple autopilots are active. For example, the Boeing 757/767 will display a panel light that states LAND2 or LAND3 depending on how many autopilots are active. The Boeing 737 will display a white text word FLARE underneath the green G/S text at the top of the PFD if multiple autopilots are active. If there is just one autopilot working there will be a yellow message SINGLE CHANNEL on the PFD.

ON THE LOCALIZER 25L

IN AUTOLAND MODE AS SHOWN BY THE WHITE FLARE TEXT UNDER GLIDESLOPE COMMAND TEXT ON THE PFD

ON THE LOCALIZER AND GLIDESLOPE, INTERCEPT COMING SOON

If the ight crew has neglected to activate the additional autopilots that must be done before the aircraft has descended below 1500 AGL otherwise activation will not be possible and a CAT III approach will not be permitted to continue at that point. The crew can initiate a missed approach and recongure the equipment properly or maneuver to land at another runway that might have better visibility. Most of the CAT III systems will perform the needed functions for landing and some will even command the procedures through rollout (spoiler deployment/reverse thrust/wheel brakes) requiring human pilot input only to taxi the aircraft off of the runway onto a taxiway. In order to demonstrate a CATIII approach I chose to y the ILS 25L approach at KLAX. I elected to use the PMDG 737 and went with user dened weather to create truly awful conditions much worse than I have ever encountered using a weather engine to generate real world conditions. My diabolical construct in this instance was to have overcast skies from 10,000 to the ground, visibility of 500, wind 280@10 and very heavy rain. The images accompanying depict a few key stages and events in the procedure that resulted in an arrival at the very gloomy LAX airport. It is readily apparent that this landing would simply not have been possible without the autoland system. 91

NOTE THE SECOND AUTOPILOT COMMAND BUTTON ACTIVATED ON THE TOP RIGHT OF THE GLARESHIELD

CAT III COMING THROUGH. .1 MI FROM THE RUNWAY AND STILL NO VISUAL BUT CONTINUING

AT THE THRESHOLD AND STILL BLIND

REVERSE THRUST AND BRAKES-FINALLY A LIMITED VIEW

ON THE GROUND-AUTOTHROTTLE HAS DEACTIVATED AND THROTTLES BEING MANUALLY BROUGHT TO IDLE

TAXIWAY TURNOFF. NOTE THE TAXIWAY CENTERLINE LIGHTS

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NOT MUCH SIGHT DISTANCE

TOUGH TO EVEN SEE THE TAXIWAY SIGNS. YOU CAN SEE WHY TAXIWAY CENTERLINE LIGHTS ARE REQUIRED

While CATIII autoland systems allow for approaches and landings in conditions that would otherwise dictate alternative plans, there is no room for pilot complacency once everything is set up, all the buttons have been pushed and the aircraft is following a path to the runway. The pilot must stay engaged in the process, ensuring that the aircraft is following the electronic instructions and be prepared to intervene to whatever extent may be necessary in order to maintain safe ight. The CATIII approach does not replace the pilot or relieve the responsibility to conduct the ight. It is simply a tool, albeit a very talented and useful one, to assist the pilot in the job of ight and its implementation and use allows for landings to take place when they otherwise would not be prudent thus expanding the efciency and usefulness of the aviation transportation system.

THOSE PINPOINTS OF LIGHT TO THE RIGHT ARE ALL THAT IS VISIBLE OF ANOTHER AIRCRAFT ON AN INTERSECTING TAXIWAY

WOULD NOT HAVE WANTED TO TRY LANDING MANUALLY IN THESE CONDITIONS

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The State of Play: Combat Flight Simulators

We take a look at the latest offerings in software and hardware in the combat flight simulation field. Some excellent advances are being made in combat simulator realism in recent years and some high-level replica control hardware is now also available at reasonable prices for virtual top guns.

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CPM. V15I2

Subject:

Programs to Make FS2004 Aircraft Come Alive

Hello, I have subscribed to Computer Pilot magazine for about three years now and I look forward to receiving it every other month. The articles are very informative and interesting. I have a Canadian commercial pilots licence along with a multi-engine rating. I did have an IFR and Instructor rating but they have lapsed as I havent flown for about eight years. I always wanted to be an airline pilot but for one reason or another, I never got into that field. But I still enjoyed flying on my own by going to my local airport in Toronto, Canada, renting an aircraft and flying around. I am one of those people who is still using FS2004 as it runs well on my Pentium 4 - 1.7GHz laptop computer. Since I am no longer flying in real life, I enjoy keeping up to date on FS2004. With a lot of marvellous freeware airports and aircraft on the internet, I can fly the actual flight test route I did for my instrument rating as I did in real life from a very good representation of my home airport (Buttonville). I also like to fly the heavies too, such as the various models of the 737. I have downloaded some very realistic freeware 737 panels which make the experience quite real. But, the flights were rather quiet. Something was missing... the sounds of cabin crew announcements, callouts and other audible sounds. I found a number of files online that have made my flying a lot more realistic. So, I thought that I would share this information with your readers as Im sure other flight simmers would also be interested (especially those new to the hobby and those who have not discovered these gems yet). The following are various programs that will liven up your flights. They can be found on various download sites like www.avsim.com

phens ILOT ant Ste OMPUTER P ! Gr TH C SION 2 MON ION/EXTEN 1 WINS BSCRIPT SU
1) rcbgp-33.zip 2) fdsfxpnl.zip 3) rcbvs-24.zip 4) rcbgh-32.zip 5) autoland_v21 By Rob Barendregt. Ground proximity warning callout along with altitude callouts. By Marcus Thompson. Cabin and Captain announcements. By Rob Barendregt. V-speeds and other callouts. By Rob Barendregt. Ground handling file which has a Taxi speed control and pushback feature with conversations. By Martyn Becker. Co-pilot duties with autoland so you can sit back and relax.

I hope these files will turn your flights into a more realistic experience. Best regards, Grant Stephens (In Japan) [Hi Grant Great letter, thanks for sending it through. It includes very helpful information for fellow flight simmers. Nothing more to say, you win! Enjoy your free Computer Pilot subscription extension for Letter of the Month - Ed].

Subject:
Hi,

737NG Panel Article

What a pleasant surprise to open this months (Jan/Feb 2011) magazine and see my panel not only in contention but as a joint winner in your ultimate FS2004 737 Panel article! It was really nice to read that people are still enjoying it after all these years! As your article suggested this was originally released as payware back in the day (at 2.99 GBP) but not to make money; more to cover the cost of running the old website I had (which gets surprisingly expensive when you are hosting files!). Designing the panel, although a lot of hard work, led me to interact with people all across the globe. I had people in Australia testing betas for me, people in Japan helping with the lighting graphics as well as expert advice from a lady aircraft mechanic in the Netherlands which truly showed the strength of the FS community!

These days Ive stopped designing add-ons for the moment but with the impending release of Microsoft Flight I have to say I am getting tempted to get back into it. Anyway thanks for the kind words in the article. Happy landings! Paul Scarratt [Hi Paul Thanks for your email, and it is our pleasure to feature your work. It was obviously one of the best 737NG panels available for FS2004 in our eyes, so the recognition is well deserved. We hope you do put your designers hat back on when Microsoft Flight comes out in the near future Ed].

Write To Computer Pilot INBOX

If you have something you want to share with fellow ight simulator enthusiasts, then Computer Pilot INBOX is the place to be heard. Each issue, well choose the best letter as the letter of the month and reward that reader with a prize! The easiest and quickest way to submit your letters is by e-mail to: inbox@computerpilot.com

97

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