I’m baaaaaaack ;-) !

No, I was just kidding. Haven’t been away, actually. A few minutes ago I was looking at the Aerosoft Dornier Do-27. I just had read the review on Avsim and though David Wilson-Okamura finds it a great aircraft (something I agree with) he mentions that he has “average framerates” with the aircraft. I really love this aircraft (first it looked ugly to me but afterwards I fell in love with it…). The problem is that I hate to have my FPS going lower than 25 (the framerate you need in a combat flight sim). And I’m sure this plane wil let it go down.

I have got several payware packages, but not even one gives complete satisfaction. The Captain Sim C-130 for FSX which I recently reviewed (thanks to David, the FlightSimX.be site admin) is a terrific aircraft. But the frames dropped. The Columbia 400 of Eaglesoft has something strange that causes FSX to crash when switching quickly from exterior view to VC or the 2D panel. And my frames dropped too much…The SkyUnlimited P-38 Lightning is a very, very nice and well-made airplane, but I don’t like the fact they used the stock DC-3 gauges instead of making new ones. 

You know what I’m really satisfied with ? Good freeware. On Sim-Outhouse.com (a site I found when I was still a full-CFS3 user) there are some people who are great at developing small, fine, framerate-friendly aircraft. One of the best examples is the Bristol F.2b Fighter of the Australian Robert Bruce, a.k.a. Robby88. A splendid, easy to install package. Payware quality, IMHO. Just look at the Virtual Cockpit! I love (yeah, I really love a lot of aircraft…) it since I flew the original version on CFS3…

Another nice a/c is the Piasecki/Vertol H-21C/V-44, made by Mick Posch. With a nice 2D panel and a even nicer 3D cockpit. There are two things who have to be changed with this helo:

• you have to put the model file from the ‘beach party color’ version in the New York Airways model, because there’s a window that remains there if you open the front door (he accidently forgot to fix it when he released it).
• you need to adjust the .CFG file so the turbocharger will work ( 9450 ft is the service ceiling of the chopper). With this modification you can get to 15 000 ft without problems.

[piston_engine]

power_scalar = 1                              //Piston power scalar

cylinder_displacement= 90.0                     //Cubic inches per cylinder
compression_ratio= 8.5                          //Compression ratio
number_of_cylinders=4                           //Number of cylinders
max_rated_rpm= 2700                             //Max rated RPM
max_rated_hp= 180                               //Max rated HP
fuel_metering_type= 1                           //0=Fuel Injected, 1=Gravity Carburetor, 2=Aerobatic Carburetor
cooling_type= 0                                 //0=Cooling type Air, 1=Cooling type Liquid
normalized_starter_torque= 0.3                  //Starter torque factor
turbocharged= 1                                 //Is it turbocharged? 0=FALSE, 1=TRUE
max_design_mp= 29                                //Max design manifold pressure, (inHg)
min_design_mp= 12.0                                //Min design manifold pressure, (inHg)
critical_altitude= 9450                            //Altitude to which the turbocharger will provide max design manifold pressure (feet)
emergency_boost_type= 0                         //0=None, 1=Water Injection, 2=Methanol/Water injection, 3=War Emergency Power
emergency_boost_mp_offset= 0                    //Additional manifold pressure supplied by emergency boost
emergency_boost_gain_offset= 0                  //Multiplier on manifold pressure due to emergency boost
fuel_air_auto_mixture= 0                        //Automixture available? 0=FALSE, 1=TRUE
auto_ignition= 0                                //Auto-Ignition available? 0=FALSE, 1=TRUE
max_rpm_mechanical_efficiency_scalar= 0.94       //Scalar on maximum RPM mechanical efficiency
idle_rpm_mechanical_efficiency_scalar= 0.7      //Scalar on idle RPM mechanical efficiency
max_rpm_friction_scalar= 1.0                   //Scalar on maximum RPM friction
idle_rpm_friction_scalar= 1.0                   //Scalar on idle RPM friction
magneto_order_left_right_both = 1  //sets the order of the magneto switch direction

By the way, is there someone who can explain me why the text I’ve typed under Nick’s comment regarding the Cat is smaller and how to get it back to a normal size ?

Going back to payware now, at the moment I’m looking forward to the Catalina Aerosoft is making. On their forum they showed some beta images of it, made by Nick Churchill. I asked him on the Screenshotartist.co.uk forum or Aerosoft is making some progress with it and he replied:

 ”As for the Catalina, with all honesty I think it’s on the backburner for the moment. It’s an external developer and I presume they are busy with other projects. If I hear anything else I’ll be singing to the world as it’s a project that I too am eager to see completed. “

Well, I can’t add much to what he said. It’s clear, the great Catalina, one of the rare WWII classics we would be able to use in FSX, is not really under development. ^sigh^. Now, I’ve got some other things to look at. The Flight1 PC-12 is a great plane too, Nick told us. Somebody else on the forum bought it too and remarked:

“I gave up…I bought it. Awesome airplane!”

My current wishlist (all FSX)
Aerosoft Catalina (which hasn’t been released yet…they have been working on it since March 2007 or so…)
Aerosoft Twin Otter
Aerosoft Beaver X
Aerosoft Dornier Do-27
Real Air Scout package 2007

Returned from school with pain in my back…

This morning I drove to school with a headwind of +/- 43 kts. Simply horrible. I had a bit of pain in my back and I thought it would go away after a while, but it didn’t. The second class (religion, the most boring class of the whole week…) it became worse and worse. In the end I asked or I could just go to the secretary, where they told me I was looking very pale (very unusual for me) and didn’t looked really healthy. I was asked or I wanted to phone my parents and so I did. The school day (read: morning) ended at past to twelve A.M…

I’m 17 now (my anniversary is the 14th of February by the way) and I can tell you one thing: it’s horrible to have pain in your back! I feel like somebody who’s ninety years old or so, in a wheelchair….frustrating ? You bet!

Now I’ve kept myself calm and layed a bit on the sofa, and it’s a bit better. I hope to go back to school tomorrow, but if it isn’t better tomorrow morning the doctor advised me to go the eh…(good grief, I’ve got to take the dictionary to look up the word…don’t know it in English…)…’fysiotherapist’.

Now, wait and see the ‘Rosbifs’ (French nickname for English and or British people) say, so…

While I’m writing this I still wonder which screenshot I’m going to enter for the April FlightSimX.be screenshot contest. In case you want to help choosing one (the theme is military, so it’s either a Tornado or a Bristol Fighter screenshot)…you may always post a comment and give me the name of the file (just copy the link, that’s the easiest way…) you like the most .

You can watch two slideshows of my best shots of both a/c, it’s more handy instead of watching page per page (my album there contains 400 + screenshots…).
My Photobucket album

One of my favorite YouTube videos!

There’s one user I check regularly, and that’s Lotus/Ramasurinen: www.youtube.com/user/Ramasurinen.
He makes great videos with Flight Simulator X and has some pritty planes in his hangar…

Back…finally. Working on my Captain Sim C-130 X-perience Pro Pack for FSX review.

I had a busy week so I didn’t really had time to make some progress with my review (FlightSimX.be) of the already mentioned Herky Bird made by Captain Sim. It’s a great plane, with a stunning model and animations. The only thing I regret about it is the FPS which goes down. And perhaps some labels on certain 2D pop-up panels where the text is a bit too small to read. However, it flies like no other! It’s a lot better then the Wilco A400M I reviewed recently.

The model of that one – the A400M – was quite good, but my framerate dropped from 30 to about 9 to 15. It’s very tricky to fly with 15 frames per second, cause you can’t make these fine corrections you’ve got to make while doing the flare. And the panel and Virtual Cockpit were both horrible…

With the C-130 the frames are reasonably better, but I seem to experience some sort of ‘lag’ while flying the plane. I guess we’ll have to wait for an update which may fix these issues a bit.

Yesterday I really didn’t have any inspiration about where and what to fly, and eventually I found myself flying around the Caribbean with a bare-metal Douglas DC-3. It also gave me the opportunity to take some screenshots, which you can view by clicking on the thumbnails here under.

Though the Virtual/3D cockpit isn’t really what I should be, the 2D panel is a lot better and nice to look at.

And the plane lands on short runways, I landed without head or tailwind at MYZ1 (the runway length is 2800 ft) and I still had a lot of runway to go when I came to a stop. Flies well, this Douglas Commercial.

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Tags: Douglas, DC-3, Douglas, Commercial, FSX, FS, Flight, Sim, Simulator, 10, X, Deluxe