Personally I think the golden era of flight simming was the years following the release of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator 2002 and 2004. Not only did these releases mark a great technological achievement, but they gave birth to a vibrant and innovative addon development and Internet scene. Things changed with the release of Flight Simulator X (FSX). The freeware scene almost disappeared completely, and the Internet scene lies in ruins with inactive forums, blogs and websites. The big question is why?

Many blamed Microsoft for the loss of interest. FSX put high demand on computer hardware, in fact, so high that most state of the art computers still can run into trouble running the software. Add to that the lack of backward compatibility and more complex code which made addon development more challenging.  But that might just be part of the answer. Like so many other things, flight simulators might be a phenomenon of the past. Do present day teenagers hold the same interest in flight as generations before them? Flight simming might end up being the hobby of nostalgic middle aged men. I mean, flying has become as common as driving a bus these days and for young people there seems to be nothing magical about it.

But all isn’t starless and bible black. Aerosoft, ORBX/FTX/Fullterrain (whatever this company’s name and brand is), Real Air, Just Flight and Flight1, to mention a few, keeps bringing quality addons to the market. Saitek and Thrustmaster have continued to develop and manufacture innovative and affordable peripherals. Rise of Flight, Storm of War, A-10 Warthog are three recent titles proving that there is still stunning simulators being developed for those who like to blow things up. 

But more importantly, Aerosoft, Microsoft and Laminar Research all have new simulators in development. But how will they manage to gain an audience outside of the imploding sphere of hard core flight simmers? Microsoft has been clear about their goal. They want to reach everybody with an interest in flight. If they do just that it will be the greatest achievement in the history of flight simulation and computer gaming. Sounds impossible, but the proof will be in the pudding. But what features does Microsoft’s Flight, Laminar Research’s  X-Plane 10 and Aerosoft Flight Simulator 2012 need to include to become a success? Apart from obvious features like state of the art graphics and immersive simulation I think the following will be of great importance:

Usability. The simulator needs to be simple to operate and configure. It needs to have a good learning center and strong tutorials.

Playability. The majority of the market wants more than free flight and random missions. There needs to be a story and/or career mode to keep people coming back for more and to appeal to their competitive instincts. Intelligent artificial intelligence, exciting adventurous and immersive missions must be implemented.

Dynamic product. Users need to be taken seriously.  A strong support forum and frequent upgrades is something we expect from a modern software product. Not a completely new release every five years with barely anything happening in-between! 

More than a Simulator. For many users flight simulator has become synonymous with scenery and aircraft development.  Also a great many take pleasure in creating videos and screenshots. With the development of more user friendly tools the birth of a new vibrant Internet addon and video scene is possible. Not only does this expand the areas in which people use the simulator, but it ensures that it is a dynamic kind of software constantly being upgraded and renewed. Most important of all, it makes the simulator adaptable to whatever need and expectation people have, which vary greatly among users that can be divided into many groups (video makers, vintage prop heads, wannabe pilots, cockpit builders, simmers, gamers, architects, aeronautical engineers, flight instructors, designers, virtual travelers to mention a few).

The problem now is that the Aircrafts are modelled to go out after a certain amount of time when you turn off the engines (like I always do…I turn the engines off at the start of the new flight and turn them on later by myself using the procedures and starters…this happens after I am pushed back from the gate… and in real life you might need a clearance to start engines too but this is not available in FS). When the battery goes out you get a blank instrument panel with all the screens showing nothing but a black screen…which is not helpful.

In order to go around this you can change some configurations of the aircraft CFG files. This method I found online and I loved.

1. Right click the aircraft.cfg file inside the FS folder under \Aircraft\Type (e.g. b737_400)\
2. Select open
3. Select notepad from the list of programs
4. Change the values in the file as you’ll see in the example below

The values for the B737-400 are:

                ;BusType, MaxAmpLoad, MinVoltage       BusTypes:0=MainBus,1=AvionicsBus,2=BatteryBus,3=HotBatteryBus,4-7=Generator/AlternatorBus(1-4)
flap_motor         = 0, 0 , 17.0
gear_motor         = 0, 0 , 17.0
autopilot          = 0, 0 , 17.0
avionics_bus       = 0, 0 , 17.0
avionics           = 1, 0 , 17.0
pitot_heat         = 0, 0 , 17.0
additional_system  = 0, 0 , 17.0
marker_beacon      = 1, 0 , 17.0
gear_warning       = 0, 0 , 17.0
fuel_pump          = 0, 0 , 17.0
starter1           = 0, 0, 17.0
light_nav          = 0, 0 , 17.0
light_beacon       = 0, 0 , 17.0
light_landing      = 0, 0 , 17.0
light_taxi         = 0, 0 , 17.0
light_strobe       = 0, 0 , 17.0
light_panel        = 0, 0 , 17.0

As you can see I only change the 2nd number to 0 in order to make the feature before the “=” sign not cutoff even after turning the engines off. You’ll do something similar with other aircrafts…just look for the part which starts with (     ;BusType, MaxAmpLoad, MinVoltage       BusTypes:0=MainBus,1=AvionicsBus,2=BatteryBus,3=HotBatteryBus,4-7=Generator/AlternatorBus(1-4) ) and change the values of the features you want to maintain after the engines are out the same way as done above (changing the 2nd value to 0).

That’s all, hope it is easy!

Immer wenn es darum geht eine Checkliste für Default-, Free- und auch Paywareflieger zu bekommen, schaut man am ehesten nach “Werner Schott”, denn “Werner Schott” ist der Name, wenn es um Checklisten für den Flugsimulator geht.

Die Schott’ schen Checklisten sind in PDFs zu 4 bis 6 Seiten zusammengefasst und nennen z. B. auch die Autoren der Flugzeuge, die mit einer WSC versehen wurden. Natürlich gilt selbiges auch für Panels, sollten sie von den Originalen abweichen. So kann sich jeder Chairman ohne Problem auf die Suche nach den passenden Downloads machen und vielleicht sogar durch reines Stöbern auf das ein oder auch andere Perlchen stoßen.

Das übersichtliche System der schott’ schen Informationsaufbereitung erfolgt stets nach dem gleichen, bestens zu handhabenden Schema… egal ob Kolbeneinmot oder Megadickblech.

Neugierig geworden? Nun – dann gebt einfach mal bei AVSIM oder FLIGHTSIM den Namen Werner Schott ein.

Enjoy!

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1) fortalv5.zip (cenário principal v.5 – main scenery v.5)
- AVSIM
- 4Shared
- Rapidshare
- Flightsim

+

2) fortaleza_v5_update.zip (acrescenta sinalização das taxiway – adds taxiways’ signalisation)
- AVSIM
- 4Shared
- Flightsim

+

3) FortalV5UPdate.zip (corrige textura dos fingers – corrects fingers’ textures)
Void (alguém tem o link? – someone has that file’s link?)

+

4) fortalv5-addon.zip (adiciona objetos de solo – adds ground objects)
- AVSIM
- FSBrasil

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Versões anteriores / Previous versions:

- FS2004 – fortalv4.zip (V4 @ AVSIM)
- FS2004 – fortalv2.zip (V2 @ AVSIM)
- FS2002 – fortalv1.zip (V1 @ AVSIM)