Xsimreviews

Well, all I can say is the more I work through Peter’s A321 the more impressed I become. Systems depth is incredible, and the flight model may well represent the best tubeliner behavior yet in XP. The aircraft is a handful, literally, to push around an airport, and I mean that in the best possible way. Think of the old adage about FsX’s flight model described as like “being on rails”, then think of the exact opposite and you’ll have an idea of what I’m talking about. Peter’s 321 feels positively alive, and exhilarating is a nice word to describe the afterglow that comes from making a smooth landing in this bird.

Again, FT56 and I are slugging our way through Peter’s latest v2 update, and we’ll try to have more up for you by the weekend.

We’ve posted a few WIP images of the DawsonDesign C17 Globemaster III a couple of months ago, and steady progress seems to have been made of late…as these images show.

Dramatic images, no? Looks like a hot time over Kandahar.

Panel images show a commendable level of detail, right down to very well executed reflections on those glass instrument faces, and the 3D objects appear crisply modeled, too.

Below, an assortment of night panel imagery, with a gratuitous daylight image thrown in for good looks.

No definitive word yet on a release date, but we’ll keep you posted.

+++++

The JARDesign Team is working through a revised cockpit plan for their A318; this is the team behind the An-148 that caused such an uproar almost two years ago when their first file, the Antonov, was released. Needless to say, there’s been a lot of anticipation about this file, and we’re at the top of the list of those who can’t wait to get our hands on it.

The JARDesigns Antonov 148 is still a remarkable file, with exterior lighting and landing gear detail that holds up quite well against most good payware files, even today; the panel is very well done as well. Hopefully we’ll have more details soon.

+++++

There’s a new ATR42/72 file at the Org today: it’s full of corrupt files and won’t load in v9.70 or v10. Perhaps they’re more of those v7 files that have been showing up lately, but they’re not labeled as such. Beware.

+++++

Located on Portugal’s Atlantic Coast a little north and west of Lisbon you’ll come across the village of Santa Cruz, a modest tourist destination best known for it’s rock strewn beaches and reliably good conditions for surfing. Of course, as long as surfing is involved I can see no good reason not to have a good airport nearby, even in XP, hence we now have access to these rollers via Petethalight’s LPSC.

Let’s look at the basics, first:

The layout appears faithfully and accurately reproduced, with very well done custom buildings are placed accurately on the grid. Those are XPFR’s recent Portuguese files further south, BTW…

The airport will fit in nicely with these recent offerings from XPFR as well, making this a logical extension of the training patterns afforded. Note the fidelity of the real airport buildings seen above with those in the file. Very well done indeed.

There are two issues, however. First, in XP9.70 you’ll find a powerline draped dangerously low over the active (as you see above and below)…

…and in v10 there needs to be an exclusion zone added to keep Rancho Cucamonga Estates housing from enveloping the airport.

That said, we can only conditionally recommend this facility for v9, and not at all for v10, at least until this file is cleaned up a bit. With a few tweaks this one will be a quite nice addition – and we hope to see this one added to the recommended list soon.

So, hope you had a decent holiday (in America, anyway), and that the weekend finds you well rested for flying!

Hasta later – Chip