Still Here...

I made some upgrades to my main FSX rig this summer, and things did not go exactly according to plan.  It took me a while to get everything sorted out, but I am pretty happy with the result now.  I finally got around to upgrading the OS from Windows Vista to Windows 7, and although the difference isn't terribly dramatic, flying in Win 7 generally seems a bit smoother to me.  I also upgraded from 4 GB to 20 GB of memory, by adding two 8 GB memory sticks to the existing two 2 GB sticks.  In my view, I think this has made the greatest impact on FSX performance for me now.  I realize FSX is a 32-bit application, but with all the external add-ons and such running on my system alongside FSX, it barely slows down anymore.

QualityWings recently released their Ultimate 146 Collection for FSX, and I picked it up last week.  It's not perfect, but I have enjoyed tooling around in it here and there so far.  I will post a mini-review soon.

In other news, I visited the Museum of Flight in Seattle again this past weekend - one of my all-time favorite museums, up there with the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.  Definitely a must-see for any airplane geek in the Seattle area.

Elsewhere, Coolsky looks like they are getting achingly close to pushing their DC-9 out the door.  I am really excited about this one - it looks beautiful, and will be a fun plane to learn.

PMDG head honcho Robert Randazzo relocated from Nevada to Virginia over the summer, and took PMDG's operations with him.  Some previews of the 777 trickled out about a month ago, and things are looking good.  Sure would love to fly this one soon, although my gut tells me not to expect anything until 2013.  That's OK, though, as the NGX has sealed itself firmly in position now as my all-time favorite FSX airliner ever.  I'm sure the 777 will eventually displace or share that distinction when it is released, but the NGX will tide me over nicely until then.

Speaking of the 777, the Captain Sim guys have also been busily working away on their 777 Captain product.  It is already out as a work-in-progress, but still lacking a lot of functionality.  I will be interested to see how it stacks up when it is fully released.  Which reminds me, I need to go check out their 737 Captain ("Baby Boeing") series sometime soon...after seeing a 737-200 cockpit up close and personal inside the Museum of Flight, I definitely want to try it out.

The FlightSimLabs guys also apparently continue to make progress on their Airbus A320 series as well.  I am really excited about this one, too!  This one seems to offer the most promise of delivering a PMDG-level simulation of the Airbus series...which admittedly, is a tough bird to model in a simulation like FSX.

I don't know that I have seen as many new product announcements from the usual suspects this year - I know a lot of this has to do with the maturing of FSX (and FS9) as a simulation platform.  High-quality examples of most popular aircraft now (or will in the near future) exist for FSX.  There are still plenty of exciting projects coming down the pipe - PMDG is apparently working on a Dash-8, DC-6, and a rewrite of the 747-400, in addition to ongoing work with the NGX expansions and the 777.  I would still love to see a high-quality CRJ - the Digital Aviation one seems to have stalled for a while, although work apparently is slowly proceeding.  There are still lots of classic airliners out there yet to be fully modelled in FSX, such as the L-1011.  X-Plane also seems to be gathering some interest from popular FSX developers, although it is too soon to tell yet whether it will fully emerge as a viable successor to FSX, which is now going on six years old.  All in all, it remains an interesting time to be involved in this little hobby of ours...

Captain Sim Releases 777 Captain To CIP Phase 2

Looks like Captain Sim is the first one out of the gate in the 777 add-on race this year.  They just released the 777 Captain (featuring full VC) to the Customer Involvement Program, Stage 2 (experimental).  This means there are likely still some issues with the product, but it is basically flyable.

It will be interesting to see what the initial impressions of this product are...my instinct tells me that they hurried this one out to beat PMDG out of the gate, but I really hope I am wrong on this.  Cost for now is €39.99, or about US $50.

(Well, I will say this much about the ongoing Euro economic crisis...at least it's making the exchange rates with the USD a bit more favorable for us here in the U.S. these days.)

Update: my initial hunch appears to be correct.  Some of the initial reviews over at AVSIM indicate that they pretty much rushed this one out the door to the CIP program.  I would advise letting this one bake a little longer before giving it a go...

Memorial Day

And I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to honor the brave men and women who have fallen in the line of duty to protect our freedoms here in the U.S. on this Memorial Day.  Thanks to them all for their service - without heroes like these, I would not have the privilege of being able to enjoy simple hobbies like flight simulation.

Captain Sim Previews 777 VC

Well, isn't this interesting?  Captain Sim has unveiled a little video of the upcoming Virtual Cockpit addition to their 777 Captain.  It looks quite nice - complete with a simulated Electronic Flight Bag.  As best as I can tell, it will be up to the user to populate it with charts, though.  Will be interesting to see how this one turns out.  Gotta give them credit, as they have done a nice job up to now.

QualityWings BAe-146 Released (Phase 1)

QualityWings has released the initial phase of their BAe-146 series today!  This release spans the newer AvroRJ series, and is for FS9 only for now.  The FSX version is in the works, and then they will work on the older BAe-146 series of the planes next.

Unfortunately I do not fly FS9, so no mini-review from me until the FSX version is out...

QualityWings is using the Flight1 eCommerce wrapper for this product, although this product does not show up at the Flight1 website at the moment..

Those of you FS9 flyers, I'm anxious to hear what you think about this product.  I've been looking forward to it for a long time.

Edit: initial impressions over at AVSIM are rather positive.  C'mon QualityWings, hurry up with the FSX version now!  :-)

Preview Video of Coolsky/McPhat DC-9

McPhat released this juicy video today:

They promise it will be out "soon" - getting excited yet?

Sky Simulations Adds Military Variants of DC-9

By popular demand, Sky Simulations has added some new military variants to their DC-9.  These include the C-9A Nightingale aeromedical and evacuation aircraft (USAF), the C-9B Skytrain II passenger/cargo transport (USN/USMC), and the VC-9C VIP transport (USAF).  All of these are available at no charge to existing Sky Simulations DC-9 customers, and are now included with new purchases.  Enjoy!