BPL

Interesting stuff. If you could, keep us posted on how the flight training goes. I always enjoy reading these stories. I was hoping to take a few lessons over this summer, but I got sidetracked buying a car and fixing it up. I don't have enough money saved up yet to complete a PPL. (I know buying a car didn't help that any, but it wasn't too expensive; it's an '89 Civic. ) Anyway, I'm trying to decide if it would make more sense to just go ahead and take a few lessons, or to wait until I can afford to complete my PPL. Oh well, maybe next summer. . . . In the meantime, good luck with your training!

How often would we be called upon to write a review, and would there be any deadline for completing one? I might be interested, but I have college classes starting back on August 20. I'm not sure how easily I could juggle college assignments and product reviews.

It appears that MS has stopped development of FLIGHT!. Frankly, I'm not all that surprised. I don't see how the market for that game could be very large. http://forum.avsim.net/page/index.html/_/pri-news/reports-of-ms-flight-shutdown-r489

Very true that there is still a dedicated FS9 community. I can't argue with that. I just think that it's a bigger jump to consider FLIGHT! the successor to FSX than it is to consider FSX the successor to FS9. True, however, that only time will tell how the state of FS will evolve.

This is an interesting point; however, this is a somewhat different situation. I was on board with FSX from its beginnings. I left FS9 and never looked back. But I am not at all interested in FLIGHT!. The difference is that FSX was a true successor to FS9. We really lost nothing by upgrading; instead, we gained much. Some of our add-ons may not have been completely compatible, but it wasn’t long before much better add-ons became available for FSX. FLIGHT! is not a true successor to FSX by any means. It panders to a different market. I don’t think these attitudes toward FLIGHT! are likely to change much.

Wow! I wish that were true here in the US. It's hard enough to find flight sims in American electronics stores, much less add-ons.

I voted Yes, because I tend to be a very orderly, organized person. For example, I have folders containing hundreds of pictures of various aircraft on my PC, all of them organized by aircraft type and named with a strict nomenclature. Some people think I’m crazy, but I’ll tell you this: I’m not the one having trouble finding files on my computer! Anyway, I know nothing about marketing, but a messed up naming system would bother me. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the change if you’d changed them without mentioning it.

I have never downloaded FLIGHT!. I have researched it a little and concluded that it is not worth the used hard drive space. Personally, I feel that a flight sim that covers a small geographical area and has few aircraft could have potential, but not in this case. A sim of this type would need to have several characteristics in order to appeal to the hardcore simmer. The few included aircraft would need to fly and operate as close as possible to their real-world counterparts. The graphics would have to be superb, the weather complex and realistic, the immersion superior to what may be feasible in a large-scale sim. In short, the sim would need to compensate for its limited content by rivaling its large-scale counterparts in virtually every other area. IMHO, FLIGHT! has failed at this. I, of course, cannot speak from experience, but I know what I've heard. What a missed opportunity! I have thought for a long time that a well-executed small-scale flight sim could be very successful, especially among hardcore GA pilots like me. FLIGHT!, however, has missed the mark. As I understand it, no ATC, simplistic aircraft physics, limited content—and, IMHO, graphics that just look like FSX on steroids. I think this poses a serious question: What does FLIGHT! offer that is not available to us in FSX? Hmmm. . .unrealistic flight physics? Limited scenery coverage? No ATC? Few aircraft? An add-on market under the iron fist of MS? Don't misunderstand me. FSX is not that spectacular by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a whole lot better than FLIGHT!. MS has completely missed the mark here. They've alienated their potential long-term customers—the hardcore simmers—and embraced the market that is least likely to come back for more. As far as I can tell, FLIGHT! will most likely appeal to a younger crowd that will not be dedicated enough to purchase add-ons or future iterations of the platform. I'm certainly not bashing young simmers; I started about nine years ago at the age of ten. But I'm referring to young people who really have no passion for aviation or simming. These are the kids who will buy this game and forget about it in a year. If the people at MS are trying to increase profits through this new strategy, I'm not so sure they're going about it the right way. FSX is decent, but definitely showing its age. FLIGHT! is—well—see above. X-Plane is good but not great, and the XP10 demo left me quite unimpressed. (But that's another story.) The FS community is in need of a new sim. Aerosoft. . . .

Good to hear that it's simply been postponed. I was quite disappointed when I saw that the thread had been removed.

Happy birthday, Mathijs. Sorry I'm late.

Congratulations, Aerosoft! Thanks for the great products and the great fun on these forums. I've really enjoyed being a member for over two years now. You've been around for a long time. Twenty years ago I wouldn't be born for another two years. My parents got married twenty years ago.

My PC is over two years old now. I had it custom-built by a local computer shop. I haven't upgraded it since, but it still runs sims like FSX and RoF very smoothly with high graphics settings. One thing that greatly improved my frame rates in FSX was this post by Mathijs: http://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php/topic/30796-why-i-get-50-fps-in-fsx-and-you-might-not/. My fame rates went from about 25-30 to anywhere from 50-100 depending on the area. Thanks for that, Mathijs.

Go to the Aerosoft main page, and log into your account. A list of your previous orders should then appear. Click the "view" button on Dangerous Airports 1. Toward the bottom of the page there should be a link to the download. Hope that helped.

Thanks for all the help and patience, Shaun.

I have the same issue and just started a whole thread for this a couple of weeks ago. Here it is.