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We’ve been unreachable for a while, because I’ve upgraded some hardware, and as a result I got a new IP address from my provider. Then there was a little mixup at my domain registrar so it all took a bit longer than anticipated. But everything should be up and running again.

Aaaaaaand….. we’re back. From the Lowland Tiger Meet, that is. Once again a most excellent weekend to meet and catch up with fellow flightsimmers from all over Europe. Big thanks to all involved, especially Ice for organising everything, to the sponsors for the location and all the wonderful prizes (none of which we could take home, alas) and to Odin and Big Brother for all their hard work creating the missions and evaluating the results. We couldn’t improve on our second place from last year unfortunately, but at least our sibling team (Campground II) went home with the third prize. Good on ya!

So, the Lowlands Tiger Meet is coming up next week, and one thing I learned last time is that aerial refueling is pretty important if you want to be successful. So I made myself a Falcon4 Allied Force TE (Tactical Engagement) to practice some night-time refueling. Get it here (Right-click, Save As).

You’ll start out in the pitch black night at angels 30, with the tanker a little under 10 miles ahead of you at angels 20. He’ll be doing his usual speed of 315 knots, you’ll be at 350 knots. You’ve got 5400 pounds of fuel and two 370 gallon drop tanks, so you can fill ‘er up to 12000 pounds.

Good luck!

I wrote an abbreviated Falcon 4.0 ramp start checklist for my own use, but you may find it useful too. Find it here. I haven’t specified where to find all buttons and knobs because I want to force myself to memorize them (and it’s going pretty well, I must say).

Hello and welcome to everyone who visited us at the Flightsim Weekend at the Aviodrome in Lelystad. If you’re looking for information about the SimSeat II, my home-built pit, or about the SimDash panel you’ve come to the right place. The page about the SimSeat II is here, and the page about the SimDash is here. Enjoy your stay, and don’t hesitate to also drop in at the Virtual Fighter Forum!

The leaflet that we handed out during the Flightsim Weekend can also be found here.

Hallo en welkom aan al onze bezoekers tijdens het Flightsim Weekend in het Aviodrome bij Lelystad. U bent hier aan het juiste adres voor informatie over de SimSeat II cockpit, of over het SimDash knoppenpaneel. De SimSeat II pagina is hier en de SimDash pagina is hier. Kijk gerust even rond, en kom ook eens langs op het Virtual Fighter Forum!

Het informatiepapiertje dat we tijdens het weekend uitdeelden kunt u ook hier vinden.

Well I’m sorry, but it does.

The release of Microsoft Flight Simulator X was the most anticipated event for flightsimmers this year, and boy what a disappointment it’s turned out to be.

You may not care either way, but my first disappointment was that the satellite photo underneath Schiphol airport has gone. It used to be that I could follow much of the road that I take to work everyday, but not anymore. This is an improvement? Yes, we now have the new runway 36L/18R, but the very distinctive ATC tower beside it is represented by a very generic one in FSX. Well, at least the spooky extra tower at Schiphol has gone.

The main reason I got the Deluxe version was the promise that I could act as a tower controller. Finally a replacement for the lamented BAO Tower simulation, I thought. Alas, the tower controller position can only be used in a multiplayer game. You can’t control AI traffic. Another hope dashed.

Load times have gone through the roof. Which is funny (okay, not ha-ha funny) because the scenery looks worse. Much, much worse. Everywhere looks like a tundra, with random scattered trees all over the place. Textures (and I mean all textures) look like a watercolor painting that has been hosed down, to the point where even the names of the airline on the side of the aircraft are illegible. Granted, much of this is probably down to my Radeon 9800 Pro videocard (which is all of 2 years old and therefore probably ancient) but my goodness… I don’t think I’ve ever seen a flight sim that looked as downright ugly as this.

The view system, which used to be merely silly in FS2004 is now downright stupid. Where we used to have 4 different views plus an extra top-down view, we now have 6 view categories with a number of views in each one. So now you have to first cycle through the view categories and then through the views in a category to find the view you want (no, there are no shortcuts to get to the one you want immediately). And you need to pay attention because there is not only an “aircraft” category (”Your aircraft from an external camera on or near the aircraft.”) but also an “outside” category (”Your aircraft from an external viewpoint.”). Why on earth these needed to be two different categories is beyond me.

The 3D cockpit still works with TrackIR. That’s the good news. The bad news is that in the 2D pit the out-the-window view also responds to the TrackIR, but the foreground, the panel itself, stays in the same place (at least as long as you’re within 45 degrees or so from straigh-ahead, otherwise it changes to the 3D cockpit). So the panel doesn’t move, but when you move your head you see the horizon moving behind it. Your first reaction is to grab the controls because you think that the aircraft is making a sudden pitching and/or yawing movement, but of course it isn’t. And when you try to land like this you will find yourself wondering why the world is going by sideways when you’re looking out the front, until you realise you’re not really looking out the front. You’re looking out the side, only the panel you’re looking at has moved along with your field of view, as if it is attached to your head, not to the aircraft. Whoever came up with this idea needs his head examined.

“But, ” I hear you asking, “some improvements have been made, surely? How about the annoying feature where ATC cleared you to your next level, just as you were levelling off? Maybe that has been fixed?” Nope, that’s still there.
“Well, now that we have this new ‘hybrid’ system of units, where altitudes are in feet but pressures in hectopascals, maybe we have correct transition levels for different locales too?” Sorry, still 18000 feet everywhere.
“Then maybe screen shots are now written directly to a folder instead of being put in the clipboard? So we don’t have to get out of the sim, start paint, paste the image, save it, and go back for EVERY FUCKING SCREENSHOT? Hasn’t that been fixed?” Uh-uh, sorry. It’s still there and it’s as annoying as ever. Even the ATC window is still as useless as ever for those who (like me) use a speech recognition program like Shoot. Having to choose a phrase from a menu means you can never link a phrase to a set sequence of keypresses, so Shoot cannot be used like it can in Falcon. Another opportunity missed.

I have no doubt that many of these problems will be addressed using third party tweaks and utilities, or by throwing more and faster hardware at the problem. That has been the case for every previous version. But as it stands, the 10th version of Microsoft Flight Simulator is, in my opinion at least, a giant leap backwards.

It’s been quite a long haul, but I’ve finally finished the page on the SimDash panel. Find it here.

Imported another old page: Networking for flightsimmers

Happy birthday to the best li’l folksinger.

Translated the page describing SimSeat II. You can find it here.