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FSX+Wilga+7WA3+AirTrack

Posted by Simmo W on September 9, 2012
Posted in: FsX, Videos. 6 comments

I do hope the FSX heading is enough to make you not watch if you’re against our exploring the other sim-worlds!

If, like me, you’ll marvel at anything of beauty, originality, innovation and immersion, I hope you’ll enjoy my demo of the incredible Wilga from Aerosoft, along with the free 7WA3 West Wind and 4WA8 Riverside airfield sceneries from Orbx (sorry for the missed landing, I gotta learn its position more!).

Towards the end I show you the Airtrack app for FSX/Xplane running on my iPad, such a great tool. Tell the missus you need an iPad! For ‘complex navigation reasons’. No more squinting at the screen for headings and waypoints.

The Wilga is far harder to start and keep running well than it appears, as it is air-cooled (!!!) and thus requires regular attention to temperatures, speeds and, well, everything that a pilot should check anyway.

See if you can spot the hilarious ‘bug’ I’ve found with the ‘Bob’ walkaround feature. Well it’s not Bob’s fault, it’s more mine or A2A’s.

Thanks to those who’ve donated already, this means that FT56 will be buying the Trip7 for some exhaustive testing himself. FT is a bloody disciplined tubeliner tester, so expect some good coverage!

And X-Planers, don’t worry, I ain’t touching a cent of any donations unless they’re earmarked ‘other sims’. I pay for my own sins!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Donate so that they may try

Posted by Simmo W on September 7, 2012
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a Comment

You may notice our new Donations menu item up the top of our site. No hard sell, check it out and if you like what we do, sprinkle some funds our way so we can keep the wide coverage coming. NO THE FUNDS WON’T BE WASTED ON CIDER OR V.B., WE ARE FAIRLY SURE OF THAT…

We are thinking of getting some ‘in the know’ T-Shirts whipped up too, what ya reckon? A stunning X-Plane vista with the words ‘when will it be 64 bit?’ will surely get knowing nods of admiration from your fellow simmers. Or just get you beaten up by the FSX Homies!

Teaser video – Ramzzess’ Boeing 777 Beta

Posted by Simmo W on August 30, 2012
Posted in: Aircraft First Look, Videos, Xplane 10 talk. 17 comments

Since we heard the bad news about Philipp’s office being flooded out (yeah sure, no competitors were involved in that mishap!) and figure the imminent release of the bird might be delayed for a few days, I spent the afternoon flying her and marvelling at the wing components and that landing gear bogey assembly. An absolute dream to fly, and like most modern airliners, quite easy to perform a smooth, ‘skilled’ looking approach.

For some reason the replay feature is nerfed in my beta of x-plane, so all this footage was filmed live. If I’m outside the aircraft, I’m flying from that perspective. If the camera’s looking back, so am I while flying! That’s for you purists who’ll no doubt pick apart every second of this movie, criticising my technique. This is just a demo of her best assets.

Enjoy! Hopefully it’ll make your heart flutter like it did mine. The guys are doing a great job with an extremely complex aircraft, so if it’s not released on time, don’t fret, as it will be well worth the wait.

Moruya

Posted by Simmo W on August 26, 2012
Posted in: FsX, Scenery Reviews, Videos. 7 comments

Here’s a video of one of the beautiful coastal ‘resort’ towns that we’ve holidayed at in my younger years, in Southern New South Wales, Australia. I say ‘resort’ because in typical Aussie fashion, it’s very laid back and hardly a 5 star resort by official standards. But for fun, sun and safe enjoyment by the kids, as well as good holiday food and a magnificent rural backdrop, it’s 6 star in my book! It’s nice and close to Merimbula, my favourite childhood holiday spot, oh we spent so many years going there in our summer hols. We even went recently with friends, discovering that the Pambula Holiday Village had the biggest ‘kids’ jumping balloon/bladder in the world. Bladder? Have a few beers and try to hold THEM in after getting on this, with a stomach full of oysters. Yes that’s my son, a little younger though. Not a happy chappy?:

Some real life piccies, to compare to what you see in the video -

Is there anyone in this plane? Are the drones out already?

 

I think you’ll agree that the YMRA Airfield produced by my favourite chaps at Aussie X, especially “kman”, is very special, a work of art and frankly, of payware quality. Its blending with the Orbx AU Region is top notch. I found the whole spot quite emotional, bringing back fun memories  - of getting sunstroke and blisters after being in the water and sun for 3 hours too long. My fair ‘English Rose’-like skin just wasn’t built for it. But 10 year olds don’t care! You haven’t lived until you’re shivering uncontrollably at 9Pm on a hot night, from the after effects sunburn. Then drifting off to sleep with the lilting sensation of riding the waves. Such beautiful sim scenery brings back these memories, so powerful. Sometimes our computers are not just for seeing an ultra-perfect simulation of prop-wash or marvelling at the artistry in an aircraft’s altimeter.

The Ant’s Airplanes Drifter was one of the first addons I bought for FSX, it’s still one of the best available for the sim, such good detail and probably the best animated and crafted pilot/passenger combos around. Compulsory buy. I love that he’s modelled (I assume!) himself and his little paunch, such a realistic chap.

Music in the video is by Abbie Cardwell, I’ve featured her beautiful voice and her ‘band of leading men’ before, and will endeavour to do so when the music fits. I can’t see this song ‘Come Pick Me Up’, from her great album ‘The bare bones sessions’  in the web version of iTunes.

But it’s definitely viewable in an iOS app.

 

 

Mabus’ first X-Plane 10 experiments

Posted by Simmo W on August 19, 2012
Posted in: Hardware Talk, Videos, Xplane 10 talk. 15 comments

It’s nice to actually use the PC again, rather than just install or troubleshoot!

Here’s the evidence of how it handles Xplane 10 with extremely high settings. Very pleased, in most respects. Those clouds can still plummet the fps, but it’s at different scales now. I could run them at 80% with bearable results, but since xplane needs high 20′s to feel fluid, I pulled them back to 40. Ha, I couldn’t run them above 11 for quite awhile with the trusty old 920.

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FSBreak interview with the 777 crew up on the ‘Tube

Posted by Simmo W on August 16, 2012
Posted in: Developer Interviews, MS Flight, Videos. 2 comments

We just received the alert and feel that it’s important enough to call for this urgent notice.

Haven’t watched it yet myself, will look forward to it. As an added bonus, they’re also chatting with the charming Kevin Miller, a well-known developer in AVSIM land who built some of the MS Flight aircraft like the beautiful Maule that I enjoyed so much. Will be nice to hear his thoughts about that disaster and what could have been!

FS Break is a great podcast/live feed service, plenty of news coverage and witty banter. I do long for the old days with Mark though, he was a real character!

Oh, just a little extra news while I’m at it, in between moving disk images to my new Mabus. A2A have finally announced what I’ve longed for ages, the development of more GA aircraft using their excellent accusim. Get this, their next GAs will be the C172 and Piper Cherokee!