I’ve been thinking for some time that I’m duplicating a lot of effort with running both Flight Sim Daily and the Flight Simulator Network. Below is a post I made today on the Network on this very subject.

As some of your are probably aware, I also run Flight Sim Daily, the flight simulator blog, and have done so for a number of years.

I originally started the Flight Simulator Network as a kind of forum for the blog, but, as you’re probably also aware, the Network has somewhat taken on a life of it’s own, much to my delight

I’ve become increasingly aware that I’m duplicating a lot of effort posting to both the blog and maintaining the Network (with the help of Kev and others) and it occurred to me that maybe it’s time to combine the two. I’ve copied a few articles over from the blog to here on the Network and they seem to be well received.

What would this mean in practise? I normally post 2-3 articles a day on Flight Sim Daily. On a slow-news day, there might be none at all. They always fall into certain categories, e.g. Flight Simulator X, X-Plane etc. If I went ahead with this, I’d simply post those messages here into the relevant groups, so I wouldn’t be cluttering up the main forum. One thing I most certainly DON’T want to do is to be seen as spamming the Network. In truth, all it would really mean is that you’d see a few extra posts from me each day in the groups, or the odd one in the Forum if it was relevant to everyone. And, so as to provide full disclosure, I am trying to make a little money out of this – not enough to pay the mortgage, but at least enough to pay for the site – so there would be links to stuff on which I would get commission, in much the same way as I do now on the blog.

As I mentioned, I’m duplicating a lot of effort at the moment. We have two sets of competitions, two sets of “Members”, two sets of posting etc, so that’s why I’ve started to think it’d be easier (for me, anyway!) to put it all under one roof.

Having said that, the Network is yours as much as it is mine, so your thoughts are essential to help me make this decision, one way or the other.

Before committing to anything (it’d be a huge leap of faith for me to close the blog and combine everything), I wanted to get some feedback from all of you. Do you like the idea? Does it fill you with horror? Please do let me know – whether you approve of the idea or not.

Just to clarify: If I was to go ahead with this, nothing would change here on the Network (apart from the ongoing changes I make anyway). You’d just see some extra posts from my with current flight sim news.

The response from members of the Network has been overwhelmingly positive, so I’m going to give it a go for a week or two. I’ve created a new Flight Simulator News Group on the Network where I will post all news articles for the next couple of weeks to see how it goes. Of course, you don’t need to join the Network to read the posts, but I bet you’ll have a lot of fun if you do

I’d love to see you there and also to receive your comments on the suggested change.

This is a review of Just Flight’s Lockheed Constellation Professional by our regular reviewer Jessica Bannister-Pearce.

There are plenty of aircraft in history that are forgotten. There are some that are somewhat remembered. And there are those few aircraft that are true icons. The DC-3 is one. The Lockheed Constellation is another. There are few aircraft as instantly recognisable. She is an Icon of speed, glamour and beauty and a symbol of a bygone era when flying was the preserve of the rich and famous. And she’s an aircraft I’ve always wanted to fly. Well now I can, thanks to Airplane Heaven and Just Flight.

All hail the shiny

What do you get?

Nicely there are two choices to get the Connie. For those in a rush, there’s a fairly large 171mb download. Or if you can wait, there’s a boxed version. Each contain a small manual, either printed or in PDF guise weighing in at a reasonable 56 pages. Installation is easy and once it’s finished you get a choice of three C-69 Variants and four L-049 variants (BOAC, TWA, PAN AM and AOA) each with an additional variant of the optional ‘Speedpack’ offered by Lockheed. There is also a tutorial flight that you can select from the ‘Load’ option in the ‘Free Flight’ section. There are also going to be two add-on packs available later in the year that’ll add-on extra liveries and models, but for now let’s deal with the base pack.

The beautiful cabin

Meet the ‘Connie’

My first impressions of the Connie were ‘Wow’ followed by ‘Ohh, Shiny’. The exterior model is one of the best polished metal finishes I’ve ever seen. The wings glimmer as the sunlight hits them and the engine cowls looked almost chromed. Add to this FSX bump mapping and you can see the Connie as it would have appeared back in the 40’s and 50’s. The Period liveries look beautiful and are fully DX10 compatible (no more white airframes). The attention to detail is second to none. The landing gear has been modelled beautifully with realistic brake squeal at the smallest dab of the pedals. But if the outside is beautiful, it’s nothing compared to the inside.

The Cockpit and your own ground crew, ready to help you start up

The cockpit is fantastic. The level of detail is great. It may surprise some to discover that there is no 2D panel included, something I’ve seen now with several add-on aircraft. There is a basic set of 2D gauges, mostly for navigation as well as the radio and autopilot, but that’s it. It doesn’t matter though, as the VC is fantastic. To say its frame rate friendly is an understatement. It’s more a case of being married for 20 years and still happy, the frame rates are that good. I could still get 20fps over the most complex scenery areas in FS and with some very high slider settings. Out in the quieter areas FPS regularly top the high 60’s. I don’t know how Airplane Heaven did it, but this has to be one of the most FPS friendly aircraft ever.

The cockpit doesn’t skimp on the detail either. The VC is made up of some really high definition gauges and panels, making the FPS even more impressive. The gauges move smoothly and switches, levers and knobs all move like silk. The level of detail is superb, from the word ‘Constellation’ stamped into the rudder pedals to the ‘GE’ powered torch on the ceiling, you really get the period feel here. There are some nice extras, too. A flick of a switch on the pilots left and you can have your very own ground crew to help you out to start the engines. You can also slip back into the cabin, which is full of period style and elegance, including a rather chic lady sat in her seat. There are stewardesses as well, each in the appropriate uniform for the chosen airline. She’ll be there to greet passengers as they board or disembark. It’s a really nice touch.

It’s an entirely different kind of flying

The Connie may look good, but how does she perform? Well, to start, and I mean start up, you’ll need the flight engineers panel. For modern jet pilots, the Connie will take a bit of getting used to. Nothing is where it should be. The radio is on the overhead panel whilst the autopilot is situated just below it, right in the centre of the windscreen. There are strange levers positioned here and there and start up requires you to be in two places at once.

Once you’ve turned on the magnetos, you’ll need the flight engineers panel to get things going. He has the start switches, prop adjustment levers, mixture and his own set of throttles. He also controls the cowl flaps and AC. Getting the old girl up and running is not that difficult though, and before you know it the Wright engines are burbling at idle. Outside there are some scary sights for the passengers though as it’s not unusual for flames to be seen spouting from the exhausts. With the engines running we’re ready for the pushback. The custom sound set sounds okay. The engines clunk and the aircraft groans and squeals along. Lowering the takeoff flaps produces a nice whirly noise that seems a little too clear a sound in the cockpit for my liking, but you’ll always know that the flaps are in transit.

The Flight Engineers panel at night is amazingly atmospheric

Takeoff is swift and the 4 Wright engines roar along the runway. I was surprised at how low a speed such a big aircraft as the Connie can lift off. V1 can be reached around 80 knots, whilst takeoff can come at as little as a 100 knots. The amount of lift generated by the wings is just vast. Once up, however, the handling can seem wooly and sluggish. Very sluggish. But at low speeds it’s not really surprising. With flames shooting out of the exhausts and a set of black contrails behind you, you soon accelerate to 150 knots and the handling gets better. Now comes the difficult bit. Navigation.

If you’re an established heavy metal flyer or a Scud running GPS star, then the Connie will come as a shock. THERE IS NO FMC OR GPS. To fly this old girl you’ll need to brush up on the old navigation techniques. Its VOR’s all the way.

I had to do a few training flights just to get my head around how to navigate. But once you’ve got the idea, it’s easy. You’ll need to make sure that your compass is calibrated before takeoff. I adjusted the wrong thing and spent 30 mins flying in the wrong direction. The compass adjustment is located on the autopilot panel. You’ll need to adjust the top half of the compass, not the bottom, to avoid my mistake. Once this is done, you set the VOR frequency on the radio panel and then pay attention to the VOR gauge and radio compass.

By turning the knob on the radio compass, a small needle will move left or right. Centring it will let you know you’re on the right heading. All you need to do is make sure your heading to the VOR, not away. To help with this, you have the autopilot. Don’t expect great things. It has two basic functions. Pitch and heading. There’s no altitude hold, so reaching you designated altitude requires you reset the pitch setting. Even then you’ll have to monitor it closely to maintain altitude. There’s also no autothrottle, so setting the throttles just right is more important than you think and don’t forget to adjust the mixture as you climb. Flying the Connie like this lets you know how spoilt modern pilots are by comparison.

The Co-pilots view of the beautiful cockpit, and FPS friendly

Once mastered, it becomes really satisfying to navigate like the pros did. The same gauge acts as your ILS for landings. Landing is gentle but make sure you have a long approach as the Connie won’t move quickly.

Conclusion

There’s a lot to like about the Connie, but she’s not without her bugs. The cockpit can seem dark during daylight hours with several areas left in the dark. The night lighting however is very good, but doesn’t help in daylight. There are several switches that either don’t work as they should, or switch without any real function. The AC panel on the rear bulkhead is just such a switch. The custom sounds can also be a little hit or miss. At some throttle settings the sound is obviously looped and it stands out quiet badly I feel. But the biggest mistake, at least for me, is that the Superchargers aren’t functional. That really is a shame. Especially as the package is sold as ‘Professional’. To me that implies a greater depth than found here.

I don’t want you to think it’s all bad, it’s not. The Connie is still deeply satisfying to fly, and the overall presentation more than makes up for the small problems I’ve found. I’d recommend this to any lover of classic airliners or are looking for a new challenge. Fly the Connie and feel like a pioneer.

The Icon In Flight

Many thanks to Just Flight for supplying the review copy of the Constellation.

There’s just 12 hours to go to the start of the Oz Flight Sim Expo (so if you’re travelling from the UK and haven’t already boarded your flight, you’re probably gonna be late!).

There’s an absolute ton of stuff taking place at the Expo, including word record attempts, competitions and commercial simulator flights. Head over to the Expo site for full details.

The creators of Rise of Flight are now offering a 3 day limited demo of their popular Word War I combat sim.

The trial account has limited functionality and playtime. To continue playing a full game version you will need to purchase a retail or digital Rise of Flight — The First Great Air War version and activate a license key on your trial account. After license key activation your trial account will be upgraded to a full account.

An internet connection is required to play. The use of this software product is subject to the terms of End User License which you must accept before you install Rise of Flight — The First Great Air War. Online account cannot be transferred.

If you’ve been tempted, but weren’t too sure whether to take the plunge or not, now’s your chance to try it for free.

Aerosoft have announced the release of MyTraffic 2010 for FSX and FS2004.

My Traffic 2010 is the latest version of the popular and longtime successful My Traffic series. Uncompromisingly optimized for the Microsoft Flight Simulator X this product provides realistic air traffic in the air and on the ground, which is controlled by artificial intelligence, for more than 8200 airports. * The FS2004 version is included in the Box/CD-Version only!

Worldwide dynamic and realistic AI-Traffic

More than 140 aircraft models were newly designed for FSX with in a never before seen detail for AI-planes and a with a minimal impact on the PC resources. Nearly all current airliners, most commuter aircraft and civil freighters are included. There are additional versions of many aircraft types featuring different engines. 1600 aircraft liveries are included as well as more than 4000 different types and associated flight plans. My Traffic generates more than 800000 flight a day, worldwide.

This enormous number also counts on the fact that My Traffic 2010 is not “very active” in North America and Western Europe – You can also explore every part of the world and find airlines you`ve never heard of before.

My Traffic 2010 goes far beyond airline traffic. Charter carriers fly to touristic places, cargo airlines carry freight, military planes fly to and from military bases and general aviation airplanes make sure you do not feel alone on thousands of airports. In some typical regions you will find newly developed water planes bopping up and down on the waves.Over 2000 airports were transfigured to make more space for airplanes which are at home there. Even some important airports which were missing in FSX are now included, for example the big regional airports of Moscow.

With the attached My Traffic editor you can program flight plans to your liking.

The principle of My Traffic 2010 is the simplicity. After the installation the normal user can just go flying, nothing more – with the virtual world around him is becoming more real than ever before.

Also included is the My Traffic 2004 Version 4.1 for the FS2004.