QualityWings Announces BAe 146/Avro RJ Series

Well this one was a pleasant surprise!

Hot on the heels of their recent announcement of the Boeing 787, QualityWings has made another stunning announcement as to what they have been up to: the Ultimate BAe 146/Avro RJ series!  I am really excited about this one.  System complexity is supposed to be higher than their Ultimate 757 last year.  Check out the announcement (including a list of features) and screenshots here.  There are also some great preview animations of the BAe 146 here.

I liked the QualityWings Ultimate 757, apart from some customer support difficulties that I had real problems with last time around.  Hopefully they have managed to iron some of those issues out.

Wow, between the Captain Sim 737 Captain, the PMDG 737 NGX and 777, the Aerosoft/Digital Aviation CRJ-700/900 series, and now the QualityWings BAe 146/Avro RJ series, 2011 is shaping up to be another fine year in flight simulation!

Captain Sim Gives Early Preview of Their 737 Captain

Wow, looks like I picked the wrong week to go out of town on business!  Some interesting new Flight Sim developments this week.

First, Captain Sim has released a couple of previews of their 3D external models of the 737-100 from their 737 Captain series.  Recall that this is their "Baby Boeing" series - the 737-100 and 737-200 series, with the classic cockpit. Anyway, the models look very impressive for the relatively short amount of time that they have been at work on the project.  I wouldn't be surprised to be flying around in their 737 Captain sometime before Christmas, but we shall see.

Check it out here.

Captain Sim Releases Weapon for FSX

Captain Sim has released Weapon for FSX.  This adds air combat capability to FSX, by adding several weapons systems to the built-in F/A-18 or LX-45 aircraft.  Looks like fun, and is relatively inexpensive at € 14.99, or around US $20.

PMDG Shows Off Their 737 NGX

PMDG has just posted a major update on the 737 NGX, complete with tons of eye candy.  Captain Randazzo goes into great detail on all the small details that are very realistically modeled on the plane.  My description here wouldn't do it justice - just pop on over to AVSIM and read it for yourself.  Suffice it to say that this is probably the most detailed plane ever modeled in Flight Simulator.

PMDG has promised to post more pictures this weekend.  Could the 737 NGX really be on final at long last, ready to land in our virtual hangars very soon?

Get ready, this is going to be a fun ride!

Too Cool!

I recently upgraded the hard drive in my main FS rig to 1 TB from 250 GB, as my many planes and liveries were stretching my available space to the limit. I used Acronis True Image Home Edition to move my Windows installation over to the new disk, without having to reinstall everything. (Great product, by the way - did exactly what I needed to do, with a minimum of fuss. Two thumbs up!)

Unfortunately, in the process, I discovered that running everything from the new drive invalidated many of my license files for my aircraft add-ons. The major problem children have been the planes from PMDG, Flight1, and Captain Sim. So, for the last several days, I have been going through the painstaking process of backing up my Aircraft.cfg files containing all my repaints, uninstalling planes, reinstalling planes with new license files that take into account the new drive, and then restoring my Aircraft.cfg files. Ugh. Surely there HAS to be a better way of upgrading your hard drive. This is nearly as bad as just reinstalling FSX and all my airplanes and repaints from scratch. :-(

Anyway, I took this as an opportunity to double-check all my favorite sites for any updates to add-ons that I may have missed, by redownloading the latest versions. While perusing the Flight1 site for the CoolSky Super 80 Professional, a familiar line appeared in the "Product Reviews" section:

"If you can only buy one add-on for FSX this year, get this one. You won't be sorry. It is really a shame that the MD-80 is a dying breed these days, in the era of high fuel prices. This one is definitely a fun plane to fly, and the Super 80 Pro add-on captures that essence very nicely." - The Pretend Flyer

Very cool, guys! Thanks so much! It's really neat to see this site get mentioned elsewhere in the flight sim community. I do this blog mainly as a little hobby whenever time permits, and I find interesting things to talk about. Lately, most of the developers must be really hard at work, because there has not been a whole lot of new news since the holidays. Still hoping to see the PMDG 737 NGX and the Aerosoft/Digital Aviation CRJ real soonish.

I have been very pleased with nearly every Flight1 product I own, and they are great guys who are very easy to do business with. Go give 'em some love if you see something there you like.

QualityWings Announces Boeing 787

QualityWings is showing off some initial screenshots of their Boeing 787.

This one should prove to be interesting...

Mini-Review: feelThere! E-Jets v.2

I've been thinking about this review off and on for a few weeks now, and admittedly, I have struggled with it a bit. This review will be much shorter than a typical review, as the feelThere! E-Jets v.2 is primarily a derivative product of the original feelThere! E-Jets released in 2008. If you have seen that product, this product does not add a whole lot new to it.

I refer you to the original mini-review of the feelThere! E-Jets here, in case you missed it. The E-Jets v.2 VC and 2D panels are largely unchanged over the original E-Jets version.

In this review, I will focus on the new features that the v.2 product adds to the original version.

The main things that the E-Jets v.2 adds include:

• Two new E-Jets models: the Embraer 175 and 195
• feelThere's Call! for the E-Jets
• feelThere's Map! integrated into the 175 and 195 models
• A simulated HUD used in the 175 and 195 models for landing
• Many new liveries for the 175 and 195 from McPhat Studios, at extra cost.

Here is the 195 model, in the Embraer house livery:

Here is a shot of the Call! panel for the E-Jets:

I actually like Call! a lot. It does add a degree of realism, in the sense that it acts as a virtual copilot that helps you run through the checklists at each stage of the flight. You can even have a virtual flight attendant provide a safety briefing to the passengers before takeoff.

Here is the HUD, which I think is actually rather neat:

Bottom line: I can't really say anything bad about the E-Jets v.2. It works well, behaves as expected, and is actually fun to fly. A few of the textures look a little subpar in the 2D panels when flying at night. It's not terrible, but not very realistic looking, either.

My main concern with the E-Jets v.2 is one of value. If you have never bought the E-Jets package before, then the v.2 product will definitely be worth your while. Otherwise, if you previously bought the first E-Jets package, you probably can't escape the feeling that you are paying twice for something you already bought previously. Sure, Call, Map, the HUD, and the 175/195 models are extra bonuses, but are they really worth around US $45 for all that? I would have liked to have seen a lower, upgrade price for previous owners of the E-Jets package. Unfortunately, no such option exists.

Rating: ****