Sky Simulations DC-9 Teaser

Here you go...just departed MSP enroute to ORD:



This sucker is a challenge to fly, much like the Captain Sim 727. Landing is especially tricky, as the stall speed is higher than you think...will take me a few tries to get the hang of it.

Caspian Airlines Tu-154M Crashes

According to CNN and various other news reports, a Caspian Airlines Tupolev Tu-154M passenger airliner has crashed just outside of Tehran, Iran. All aboard are feared lost.

The Tupolev Tu-154M is a Russian-built tri-jet that appears to be quite similar to the Boeing 727. I've never seen one in person, as we get so few Russian-built airliners here in the U.S. Supposedly, they are ruggedized to withstand takeoffs and landings in very harsh, remote airfields in places like Siberia, which do not have paved airstrips.

Condolences to all those affected by this tragedy.

Snagged the Sky Simulations DC-9

I picked up the Sky Simulations DC-9 this morning. I haven't had much time to look at it yet, but I did briefly fire it up. So far, it looks very nice -- the sounds seem very faithful to the actual sounds heard in a DC-9, for example. The Sperry autopilot is very similar to the one used in the 727, and I had no trouble getting the DC-9 to fly around on its own. I think I am going to enjoy this one.

Will post some more thoughts about it soon, when I have a chance to play around with it a lot more.

Initial reviews over at AVSIM have been generally positive, but as with any 1.0 release, there are some minor bugs being reported. Nothing major that I would regard as "show-stoppers," but hopefully, they will release some updates soon to fix the little glitches.

Southwest Ends Publication of Printed Timetables

According to their blog, Southwest is doing away with printed timetables. I didn't realize airlines were still publishing these! Apparently Lufthansa still does, but very few others do. You have to go online or call the airline to get a schedule of flights these days.

Long ago in the pre-Web era, I used to grab the Southwest timetable whenever we would pick my grandmother up at Hobby Airport in Houston. It was interesting to read and/or dream about flying to all the different places that Southwest would go. Needless to say, that list is a lot longer now than it was about 30 years ago...

The blog post has some cool pictures of old timetables from several other airlines besides Southwest. Fun for aviation history buffs out there.

Yikes! Southwest 737-300 Depressurizes in Flight - Hole Found

A Southwest Airlines 737-300 had to make an emergency landing in Charleston, West Virginia yesterday after a hole formed in the top of fuselage ahead of the tail. Here is a link to the story, along with a picture of the hole.

Luckily, the plane landed safely, and nobody was hurt. The plane had taken off from Nashville, bound for Baltimore. Southwest sent another plane to Charleston to pick up the stranded passengers and continue them on their way to Baltimore.

Glad this one ended well. Very reminiscent of Aloha Airlines Flight 243, for sure. Wonder if metal fatigue was a factor in this Southwest incident...

Airport News

Some of this has been known for a while, but I just thought I would acknowledge it here:

• Lufthansa announced that they are ending service to PDX. Not a big surprise, given the terrible shape of Oregon's economy right now. Lufthansa recently started service to SEA and also serves YVR, so it was probably not as cost-effective to serve so many stations so close to one another in the same region. Sucks for PDX, but Delta is still running nonstops to AMS for Oregon travelers who want a direct flight to Europe.
• vivaAerobus ended service to AUS back in May, thus ending the "low cost terminal" experiment at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport for the time being. I think this concept has some potential, but bad economy coupled with the swine flu outbreak in Mexico ultimately did this one in.
• Somewhat surprising announcement: American Airlines announced the end of their "nerd bird" service between the high-tech centers of AUS and SJC, after nearly 18 years. Another victim of the recession, no doubt, as high-tech companies continue to lay off staff and restrict travel. Fortunately, Alaska Airlines stepped in to save Austin's high-tech travelers from the nightmare of connecting flights through DFW: they announced one daily direct flight between AUS and SJC, with continuing service onto PDX. Will be interesting to see how well this does. Alaska has clearly identified Austin as a target market, given that they had previously planned to start offering direct flights between AUS and SEA (another former American direct flight that was recently terminated). Alaska will be using 737-800 planes on both routes. I wish them well -- I have heard many good things about Alaska, and it is nice for Austin to maintain some direct flights to the West Coast. Maybe a direct flight to PDX would be in the cards, eventually?
• At DFW, things seem relatively stable for now. This is American's principal hub. American Eagle recently launched service to Santa Fe, NM, and is planning to start up service to Manhattan, KS, soon. Interesting choice...there must be a lot of pent-up demand for flights there among Kansas State University fans and Fort Riley soldiers, perhaps?
• Over at IAH, Continental Airlines seems relatively stable at their main hub as well. Alaska continues their expansion into Texas -- they will be running a nonstop between IAH and SEA soon, too. This will directly compete with a Continental Airlines route. More choices for Houston travelers, which is good!

Airline cutbacks due to mergers and the global economic situation have really hurt airports like CVG, and even flying out of AUS or PDX ain't what it used to be. However, at least around Texas, I suspect things could be a lot worse.

Captain Sim 767-300 Released, More Variants Coming

I just popped over to Captain Sim, and it seems they have officially released their 767-300! Visit the link for screenshots and features. It looks like they are using a common Navigraph database format as the 757 series, which is standard with a lot of add-on software houses across their product lines. Nice to be able to upgrade the FMS in the 767 as a standard feature right off the bat, though!

The 767-300 model is listed as the base model. Several variants have been announced as add-on expansions, to be released soon. These include:

• 767-200
• 767 Freighter
• KC-767A (military tanker)
• E-767 AWACS (updated military AWACS plane)
• 767-400 (!)

The last one is especially interesting, given the fact that the 767-400 essentially introduced a new cockpit that is similar to the 777 and the 747-400. It is listed as a "work in progress," which probably means we won't see it for a while yet. However, it could portend a nice transition to possibly some Captain Sim 777 or 747 models in the roadmap down the line.

Pricing of the base 767-300 model is fairly modest: € 39.99, which is about $56.00 in U.S. currency. In the usual Captain Sim fashion, the expansion models will require purchase of the 767-300 base model, and then be priced substantially less as subsequent purchases.

I love the Level-D 767, but I do like the fact that Captain Sim is covering the entire 767 series. Casual users of the Level-D 767 will probably not be tempted to snag this, but diehard simmers who want to try something new and different will probably want to give it a look for this reason.

Looks like I'm going to be busy doing some more mini-reviews soon...not that I mind. Things have been slow in the Flight Sim world for a while, but it looks like they may be heating up again a bit.