Wishing all of loyal readers a safe and happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy some turkey, friends and flight swimming!

Many FSX pilots own Macs.  This means, that like me, you use a virtualization platform to run Windows within a partition on your MacintoshHD.   I personally use Boot Camp because it is free and I rarely need to run Mac programs in parallel with Windows.

To make a long story short, to check on the latest virtualizatoin news, I visited the blog for VMware Fusion; Team Fusion.  Boy was I surprised to see a post featuring FSX.  In a post titled MacWorld: First Look at VMWare Fusion 3, the team demonstrated the power of the virtualization graphics environment by running a demo of FSX. It appears to be mission where a CRJ makes a challenging approach to St Maarten. (Video below)

While the graphics didn’t seem to be set to a very high level, the fact that you could run Windows 7 and FSX from the Mac environment blows my mind.

Clearly the pilot flying the demonstration needs to learn how to fly.  Using the mouse to fly the CRJ is a little tough…  I hope that doesn’t mean joystick support has been left out?  I also wonder how FS2004 would look.

Anyway, I am off to buy Fusion 3.  How about you?

For your convenience, I compiled a directory page featuring some of the top freeware add-on design teams for flight simulator.  As I find more groups, I will add them to the list.  Consider this phase one with refinement of the directory coming as I have time to update it and add detail about each group.

Flight Simulator Model Directory

If you have a favorite freeware group you would like to see on the list, please leave a comment.   Of course suggestions and feature requests are always welcome as well!

Cheers!

Historic Jetliners Group (HJG) updated their website for autumn.  Included are repaints for the 727 family, DC-8’s, and 707’s.  But there is a little bit of a surprise.

The Caravelle!  Yep, Allied FS Group joined forces with HJG to bring us the Caravelle SE-210 family.

Go grab these awesome babies over at their website.

Following the devastating loss in May of AVSIM’s File Library, a serious gap opened up in the flight simulator world.  While other freeware download sites such as Flightsim.com and Simviation.com picked up a lot of the slack, there was still something missing.  I guess you can say that AVSIM delivers a truly unique add-on flight simulator experience.

Top AVSIM Downloads as of 21:51 PST, 5oct09

Yesterday, the library opened up for uploads.  Today, there are hundreds of add-ons available for you to partake.  POSKY is uploading their 777-series, Tom Ruth has uploaded his Antonov models, and Al Wheeler even snuck in updated Central Coast scenery for MegaScenery.   So what are you waiting for, get over there and grab some add-ons!

AVSIM

It has been quite a while since I built a papermodel ship.  The last one I made, I believe, was the Sikinami patrol boat which came out a little funky since I printed in on US letter paper and it was intended for A4

This time, I chose to build another patrol boat, but from a different part of the world.  In this case, Australia, a country surrounded with water, so it’s Navy must be on it’s toes.

Two pages of parts, 11 pages of instructions... eek!

The subject of this building is the Armidale class patrol boat, of which the Australian Navy has 12.  They are manned by a crew of 21 and have a range of 3,000 nm.  Not very large, but perfect for paper modeling.

This model has just two pages of parts, none of which appear too small, which indicates that this is not a highly detailed model.  However, there are 11 pages of instructions with it, so maybe this will be more complicated than it needs to be?  Well, you will just have to check back on my progress!

You can download the Armidale over here (there is also a submarine model available on the same page).

Project Opensky released a fabulous sound set for their 777 family aircraft fitted with the Rolls Royce Trent 800-series engines.  These account for 40% of all 777’s, according to POSKY. Head over to their announcement and download your 100% authentic sound set today!

Some of you may remember when Brent Henderson released his FSX Saab 340 earlier this year.  Well, there is another 340 available for you to choose from.  Both are excellent models.

The FSX model on the tarmac at KSBA.

The second generation Saab 340B is available for download from Premier Aircraft Design (PAD).   Compatible with FS2004/FS9 and FSX, it is currently available in two liveries, Provincial Airlines & FlyBE.  Look for more liveries in PAD’s “repaint corner” in the future. I am hoping for an American Eagle repaint.  How about you?

The model includes a great virtual cockpit and a fully modeled interior.

More to come after I put it through its paces!

Happy Saabing!

For me, the Lockheed P-3 Orion is one of the best looking aircraft ever made.  Not only does it have classic lines, but it is an important part of America’s homeland security.  Perhaps my view of the bird is romantic, but it still has an important place in my hangar.  When I heard that Team FS KBT released their Lockheed L-188 Electra for Flight Simulator X, I got really excited. The L-188 Electra is the civilian version of the P-3 Orion, which they released for FS2004.

L-188 Electra leaving Victorville

Despite the shear size of the download, topping 107 megabytes, installation of this model is quite easy.  Simply extract that zip file to a temporary directory, copy the two aircraft folders (pax and cargo) to the FSX airplane directory.  That’s it; no complicated copying of gauges, sound files, or effects.  This is an indication of great things.

Great things there are with this model. Firing up FSX, we get to choose between the cargo and passenger model, each with a handful of liveries, including the awesome Eastern livery above.   Starting a flight for the first time, brings shearing pleasure. The virtual cockpit is on par with many of the other fine aircraft available for FSX.  Panning around and you see that this is an advanced turboprop airliner, nothing like the old DC-4’s of yesteryear. Switch and lever animation is top-notch and seem to have a realism that I haven’t experienced before.  Such great stuff and we aren’t even off the ground yet!

The virtual cockpit is a great place to command ship.

Moving the throttles forward, the Allison turboprops roar to life and the Electra begins to move down the runway with the agility of a tiger.   Rotation is smooth and the thump shakes the floor as the landing gear retracks.  Upon initial climb out, I realize just how powerful those turboprops are, propelling us to 250+ knots at a climb rate of 2200+fpm.   For some reason,  I wasn’t expecting such power from a late-1950’s airliner.  Once I throttled back and smoothed out the climb to a more reasonable 1200fpm and slowed to 240knots, I began to appreciate the responsiveness of the controls.  The weather around Victorville was quite choppy and we were getting tossed around quite a bit, requiring minute adjustments to keep course.  Climbing out of 6,000 I set the autopilot with a course to Santa Barbara Municipal (KSBA).   Just a short hop across the mountains for its initial flight.

Along the way, I spent a lot of time in chase plane mode, admiring the sleek beauty of this bird.  As I mentioned before, I think this is really a classic airliner.  From the stubby nose, along the round hot dog like fuselage, to the large tail, one can appreciate its design.  Unfortunately, the flight was rather short, so my appreciation came to an end when it was time to descend into the greater Santa Barbara airspace.  The shear speed of this bird meant that I decided to make a wider approach than normal to give my self time to burn off some the energy.  I think in future flights, this won’t be a problem.  Landing this bird is a real treat with no surprises.   Just go in slow, flare, and drop the wheels onto the runway, engage reverse thrust and then taxi to the gate.  It was almost too smooth.

L-188 Electra at Santa Barbara waiting for passengers.

Shutting down the engines at the gate allowed me to what kind of eye candy the model has.  Not only is there a full virtual cockpit, but also a virtual cabin, which you can see in the screenshot above (the kitchen area is visible through the rear door).  The stairs are animated appropriately and also have a nice detail with detailed hinge bolts (below) and articulation. In addition, the landing gear has the same level of detail as the rest of the aircraft, stunning.  What isn’t there to like about this model?  Really not much and to say that the window reflections and curtain placements seem a little odd, is really being nit picky. The overall execution of the model is simply impeccable.

Exterior model detail

So, how do I conclude a post about such a remarkable model?  Simply by saying, don’t let the 100+ megabyte download scare you and download this model NOW and start appreciating the virtual beauty that the Lockheed L-188 Electra is and the wonderful job that Team KBT has done modeling it for us.  In my mind, this is definitely in the top 5 freeware downloads for FSX, if not number one.

The cargo version of the Electra.

Cheers!

Author: Team KBT
Filename: electrax.zip (simviation)
Filesize: 107 megabytes

X-Plane, an alternative to Flight Simulator

With Labor Day weekend upon us, the 2009-2010 school year starts shortly.  I have been working on lots of content to catch you all up on the latest releases for flight simulator.   These include the Convair CV-240, Lockheed L-188 Electra, an exploratory view of X-Plane and a few flight reports to inspire you all.

Cheers!