M31

Meant to add a heads up to this guys missions a while back .. he did some freeware ones around San Francisco that I thought were really clever and pushed the FSX mission engine, he also adds voice at various points of historical interest during the tour/mission that i'd never have known about if not pointed out this way. Vertical Studio missions are great, 1,99 dollars each ... maybe £1.20 in my money ... well worth it for the professional way these are done (great voice acting too) ... all the missions are very well structured and thought out and make the best of the FSX mission engine IMHO

I'd probably pay a fair bit for a good Civvie Flight sim that had staying power ... I've learned tonight by looking at the forums here that you can give Prepar3D a 30 day trial, so I'll be checking that out very soon. Like many here I've made a substantial investment in FSX Add-ons and hardware that seemingly only will ever just work with FSX (some of it works with FS9) and while I'm quite happy to keep using FSX for years to come, if the push comes to the shove ... I'd rather have seen Microsoft build on their Flight Simulation heritage for the future ... Despite what some Pro MS folk say on

I still dont hold out much hope for MS Flight but love new flight sims FSX and my add ons will last me for years yet I reckon, but we still need to keep an eye open for the future. I'd kind of heard about AeroflyPC being mentioned a few times but never really took it seriously until I saw this video of crash testing ... or testing its physics. Aerofly is kinda limited too in that it only has the whole of Switzerland for scenery ... but thats a lot more than MS Flight has from the start, just been looking at the Aerofly site and they too promise more DLC in the future. What Aerofly

Hi, you dont really need an SSD, but once you use them there is no going back, Win 7 with its built in TRIM support (forget about de-fragging an SSD) is a match made in heaven, I have two home built Intel I7 PC's here with 60 GB SSD's for Win 7 64 HP OS and the second Sandy Bridge Flight Sim PC has a 240 GB SSD just for FSX and my add-ons, but if I were not going SSD for FS9/FSX I'd probably get a 450GB or 600GB Western Digital 10'000 RPM Velociraptor ... mechanical HD prices are probably still hurting after the Thailand floods though so I'm not currently up to speed on prices? Any of the fast

We'll be able to download any song we like while flying from the MS Portal, through micro transaction I'm sure

But the ATC was kinda cool ... Ok Ok, I'll get my coat Can you just imagine someone trying to hook up to Vatsim on this garbage and asking for directions to the nearest health up golden hoop boost Oh, and I wonder when the inevitable you tube Hitler (Downfall) parodys will emerge ... they are probably already out there!

Unfortuantly, the targeted audience are not interested either from what I've read ... MS have Royaly screwed up on this. No wonder its free.

It gets worse! I'm not sure who leaked this, but it deserved to be leaked IMHO. To begin with I was not too sure about the CEO of Orbx speaking so early about MS Flight and his inside knowledge so early and maybe being a loose cannon. But I'm with him now, he spoke up for the people ... his company too. I wonder if Mathias from Aerosoft will now break his silence ... because he had same thoughts too.

OK, so this is the big Fork lift truck we used to use. One of my more proud builds I contributed to was the Elf Elgin TPG built between **** and Ourselves Way before that, was our TLP Tension Leg Platform getting floated out ... another first for us ... about 1984 ish? Van Halen had the song Jump at the time ... I'll always remember that. Wee Bottle lift from the old old days archive. Sighting up. A wee bit more:) Finally, an old float out.

Cheers, never thought this would interest anyone. Might throw in a few more pics of my oil rig fabrication adventures later

Thanks Tim

I think it was FS2000 that made a big leap in graphics over 98, but it made real demands on the current days hardware ... it struggled. FS2002 was leaner and meaner by a long measure, FS2004 made it FS2002 SP1 really, but it was much better. And then we had FSX

I think we need a Prepar3D FAQ. About £322 UK quid at the current exchange rate. If we can get over the current legal hurdles and my vast FSX add ons will work with it, its a possible purchase here ? The Guy from Orbx is hinting we might be able to turn this around away from what we now know Flight is ... I've not checked, but I expect the guy from Aerosoft to be saying something soon too. For sure, everything is a changing, and its probably because of the poor global economy in recent years too? Microsoft game division are panicking because profits are not as much as they were before ...

For sure As far as I'm concerned FSX I have with all my add-ons and flight gear is still the same ... I'm looking to the future for certain FSX ad-ons and thats good too. But its certain we are at the end of an era here, its good to be able to discuss it.

Cheers mate This is all very interesting developments to me as a passionate Flight Simmer. Looking back into the past again, we had some fantastic competition against MS FS ... they are not unbeatable, anyone who remembers Looking Glass Flight Unlimited will remember that in many aspects it was far far superior to the MS Flight Sim of that day, but they made the mistake of trying to make their series modular like FS are trying to do now with Flight by concentrating on individal area's ... ignore the early stunt plane DOS Flight Unlimited 1 for now, though it was great in its time. Flight U

I can see where you are coming from here, from the vid there are some nice graphical enhancements like internal cockpit shadows that look very nice and not necessary in a PC Platform aircraft arcade game, we almost had the internal cockpit shadows with FSX DX10 preview ... it looks like someone at least was working on more than an arcade game ... going by Orbx CEO's comments and the time line MS stopped talking to them, it looks like someone higher up wanted change ... stepped in and culled the development of FS11 yet again in favour of what that executive, or those bean counters think will wo

You could well be right John, it will be interesting to look back on this in a year and see. But I'm a light gamer too, and the two gaming forums I subscribe to think Flight is a joke, they are excited its a freebie of course, but after that I don't expect much follow up interest. MS have got things wrong before, especially after a big shake up and change of top brass as they seem to be going through, a success with Flight is not guaranteed because it comes from Microsoft IMHO.

J Venema seems to think there is a way out of MS's stranglehold John, I hope he's right. I don't think XPlane 10 is the answer either, even if Aerosoft support it to the hilt. For sure we have FSX and a wealth of add-ons for now, but like our pensions, we want something nice for the future too. Good discussion

I'd like to know too what you think of X-Plane 10 once you get it Tim, but the demo's interface is still as clunky as XP-9's was, love to hear what you think of J Venema's comments RE XP -10 too ... one things for sure, Orbx made about the best scenery enhancements for FSX ever without photo scenery that has its own limitations, Aerosoft did some interesting small scenery add ons, like Lukla that appeal to me, some nice GA Aircraft too, but for wider area's Orbx were a force to be reckoned with. If only all the third party devs could work together with Prepar3D and give us what we want. I do

Orbx developer has broken silence on Avsim, interesting reading. If we can get around any stranglehold MS has on Prepar3D sold to the public for more general usage than we have, we might have something for the future, FSX and its great add-ons wont last for ever. http://forum.avsim.net/topic/358739-since-the-cat-is-out-of-the-bag/ Interesting they had insight to Flight code (and I suspect Aerosoft at least did too) over a year ago, many of us had a feeling things were not right, the guy from Aerosofts quotes were probably the biggest give away for me as English is not his first language and

Just had another thought, I actually do play some games but I like my Flight Simulation to be as accurate as possible, aviation is passion for me, but one flight game MS (I think it was MS?) tried before was Crimson Skies, for light relief it was actually quite a hoot, MS dropped the PC follow up to it but apparently did a Crimson Skies two for the X-Box. What I'm alluding too is, Crimson Skies had Shooting, Bombing and role play elements in it and as I recall it was minor success to the larger gaming community ... but this time, no shooting , no blowing up stuff, they want to attract folk to

Agreed, mildly disappointed here I guess, but quickly getting over it ... guessing that's because deep down I guessed for a long time Flight was going to be no proper successor to FSX. The other possible avenue a lot of folk are talking about is Pepar3D that was sold to Lockheed Martin by MS, this is a much tweaked FSX as far as I can see, but Microsoft have that covered, its only allowed to be limited in use, its currently very expensive for an outright purchase or cheaper for a monthly license, if we all rushed out and bought it MS would clamp down I'm sure ... I'm not 100% up to speed on a

They definitely did a lot of preparation ground work for a 2012 simulator of their own and I know this is true because they were talking to Saitek about hardware support when I was a beta tester for them back then, but apparently it was dropped but put on hold, hints are they may resurrect the sim again with 2015 being mentioned. I guess a lot depends on how things pan out with their stated commitment to developing for X-Plane 10, if its a big success they might just be happy to continue doing that. I'd like to see Aerosoft do their own Flight Sim though, if any company could do it it would

Looking very good. I think I'll follow your lead on that mini keyboard, accessing mine with all the Saitek GA panels and throttles clamped to the desk is a bit difficult.

These are the thoughts I've just put down in another post here Tim, its not going to keep the casual gamer attracted for long once they realise they cant blow stuff up. I do reckon its lot more than 1% of folk who want to fly on a PC want GA type Aircraft though, most of my virtual flying is that way and a lot of add ons support that, Airliners are not really my thing, fair play to those who like it though. I wouldn't be surprised if it does get ported to X-Box.