Sunday, September 7, 2008

New Product: MAP! by feelThere

Vic from feelThere surprised everyone with a product announcement in the feelThere forums on Friday: MAP! Here is the announcement, if you would like to take a look.

The effect looks reminiscent of the realtime flight data maps you may have seen on the TV screens on the backs of the seats if you have ever flown airlines like Frontier, JetBlue, or WestJet. I love watching those, just to see where the plane is flying at any given moment.

The screenshots from feelThere demonstrate MAP! being used in conjunction with the feelThere/Wilco E-Jets add-on. One would assume that MAP! is compatible with all aircraft in FS9/FSX though.

I assume Wilco will be publishing MAP! for feelThere once again, as they have done with every other recent feelThere product of late. However, there is no mention of MAP! anywhere on Wilco's site yet.

I am feeling a bit lukewarm about this one right now. I might be tempted to pick it up if the price is right. It looks like a cute little product, but I am not sure if it gives me any info I don't already have via other sources. I can look at the built-in FS map to get my current position, although it does have the drawback of pausing the game. Most of the other data (distance traveled, distance to go) is available on the FMS of most add-on planes I fly. I guess if you are using the built-in FS aircraft or a simple add-on, this might really come in handy.

Wilco E-Jets PIC v1.5 Update

This one has been out for a few days, but I had not checked in a while. I have been busy playing around with the Captain Sim 757 and the CoolSky Super 80 Pro for a good bit of this week...

Anyway, the Wilco E-Jets v1.5 update offers the following fixes, according to their forums:
The following are part of service pack 'SP5':

- E190 nameplate issue
- additional E190 speedchart documentation
Looks to be a very minor update, for the most part. The funny thing is, I don't think I ever got around to installing the v1.4 update last week. Kudos to Wilco for fixing issues after the initial release, but the updates sure have been fast and furious lately!

Get the update from here if you need it.