REDMOND, Wash. - July 29, 2003 - "Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight" lands on store shelves today. This 20th anniversary edition of "Flight Simulator" celebrates the first 100 years of powered flight while continuing the traditions of realism, technological innovation and richness that have delighted aviation enthusiasts and pilots around the world and made Microsoft "Flight Simulator" the best-selling aviation simulation produced for the PC.* The latest version offers a combination of historical and modern aircraft, superior graphics, interactive 3-D cockpits, dynamic weather effects and interactive multimedia content to celebrate history and teach the basics of flight. "Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight" is available today at retail stores nationwide for an estimated retail price of $54.95.**
"'A Century of Flight' allows pilots of all ages to take the controls of aircraft that most would otherwise never be able to fly," said Bruce Williams, business development manager for Microsoft "Flight Simulator." "Without leaving the ground, virtual aviators everywhere can experience what it was like to be one of the pioneers of flight. They also can fly a variety of contemporary aircraft in the most realistic skies available on the PC."
"Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight" allows everyone to celebrate the past by learning about and experiencing flight in such historic aircraft as the 1903 Wright Flyer,
Curtiss JN-4D "Jenny," Charles Lindbergh's Ryan NYP "Spirit of St. Louis" and the Douglas DC-3. There are 15 contemporary aircraft in the simulation, including personal aircraft such as the Cessna 172 Skyhawk SP and Robinson R-22 helicopter as well as turboprops and jumbo jets, each of which includes interactive 3-D virtual cockpits. "Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight" includes some 24,000 authentic airports worldwide, interactive air-traffic control and a new dynamic weather system that creates real-time, real-world weather for virtual pilots to experience as they fly to their destinations.
In commemoration of the Centennial of Flight, Microsoft is acting as an official sponsor of the Experimental Aircraft Association's (EAA) Countdown to Kitty Hawk. Visitors to the Countdown to Kitty Hawk pavilion can re-create their own first flight using "Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: Century of Flight" and experience many of the same challenges the Wright brothers faced 100 years ago.
I received the following Press Release from Avsim.
Imagine yourself in the tail gunner position of a B-25J Mitchell with the roar of twin high-powered radials vibrating you to your core. You could be one of four lucky individuals to tour the skies of Pennsylvania in one of the most accurately restored B-25’s in existence today; the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum’s B-25J “Briefing Time”.
That, and much more is in store for attendees to the AVSIM 2003 Flight Simulation Exhibition and Conference. The selected venue this year is the Mid Atlantic Air Museum (MAAM) located at Spaatz Field in Reading, Pennsylvania on Friday and Saturday, September 26th and 27th.
Among the sponsors and exhibitors attending this year are Microsoft, Lago, CH Products, Phoenix Simulation Software, Flight1 Software, Project Magenta, GoFlight, PCAviator, FlightSim Central, MAAM Sim and FlightDeck Solutions. All will be present and showing their latest offerings to the flight simulation enthusiast including Microsoft’s recently released newest addition to the flight simulation; FS2004 – A Century of Flight.
During the exhibition on Friday and Saturday, a papers session will be held in which experts within the hobby will be presenting topical subjects to attendees. The Microsoft flight simulation team, Austin Myers, Damion Shelton, Ian Gerada, Reed Stough, Bill Womack, Mike Evans, and Mathijs Kok will present papers and others are being added.
On Friday evening, AVSIM will host a Simmer’s Get Together. Attendees will be able to socialize with their fellow enthusiasts, meet the exhibitors and key personalities in the hobby, and participate in a great selection of carvery items. Join us at this annual event and meet your fellow enthusiasts in a relaxed forum.
The exhibition and conference will conclude on Saturday night with the Second Annual AVSIM Awards banquet. The Keynote speaker at this event will be Captain Richard Walsh, United Airlines’ Director of Flight Center Operations that includes the United Flight Simulation Center in Denver, Colorado. Captain Walsh will speak on the use of flight simulation in aircrew training, and will answer questions at the end of the talk. AVSIM will award its annual Bravo Zulu awards to the outstanding contributors in the hobby. You will not want to miss the great dinner, speaker and the most prestigious awards in our hobby!
Join us at the 2003 Flight Simulation Exhibition and Conference and help us to celebrate 100 years of powered flight!
For more information on the Exhibition and Conference, you can access the following:
The first ever F-15C Eagle cockpit for Falcon 4.0 is now ready for takeoff. This "front office" features detailed views all around, and also has a forty-five step ramp start, just like the F-16 in Superpack 3.
Visit www.STOPWORKS.us for more details, screenshots, and for a peek at the free engine startup manual. The cockpit is 1024 x 768 resolution, and is currently available for $9.99 USD.
Puma has updated his log with a story entitled Battles from Panama. Here's a snippet:
The Panamanian Communist Forces have battled hard but we are slowly gaining the upper hand. We have taken down the forward bases and our ground forces are moving north and holding to the south. The southern airbases are at 100 percent operations and we are receiving some harassment by the MIG-23s, MIG-21s, and MIG-29s that are based in the south. The Floggers and Fishbeds constitute no real threat as they are just drones for our guys to practice on. We are all fattening up our numbers on the poor bastards. That being said, the MIG-29s have lived up to their fearsome reputation. The Panamanian pilots are good but beyond an occasional lucky kill the have proven no match for our guys. However, the MIG-29s are flown by their best and they have bloodied our noses just a bit. More worrisome then the Fulcrums are the newly arrived Sukois. They showed up in theater, much to everyone’s surprise, just a week ago and have been really wrecking havoc. An unsuspecting flight of F-15Es was first to encounter this new, more deadly, threat. They were jumped last week in route to their target, in a clean configuration they would have their hands full with the SU-27s but loaded with bombs, and caught unsuspecting the Es had no chance. Needless to say, the SAR team was busy that day.
Rob "Viper" Senftle has opened a web site with a download section for his current hi res skin projects, called "VIPER's SKIN WORLD". You can download all his current skins and some other Falcon4 stuff.
Realsimulator have the pleasure of presenting you officially 2 new products:
- Desktop Cockpit Module. - Realsimulator Control Cockpit Device.
On their wen page they have more detail and prices. They also have the plans for Desktop Cockpit Module so that you can make it yourself if you want to.
JohnT has opened his Tactical Engagement Centre website. The site has missions for SP3 Korea, SP3 Balkans, RP5a and FreeFalcon Korea so far. JohnT intends to make missions for ODS and Vietnam for SP3 as well, but I can't say exactly when they will be available. All TE's come with a brief (Word doc) describing the mission objectives.
I have posted a review of IL2: Forgotten Battles from a Jet Simmers perspective, by HotDogOne. Here's a snippet:
There I was, sitting in my He-111... with the engines off....with absolutely no idea how to switch them on. So – I thought – ok engines, must be a key combination with an 'E' involved....nope, after hitting a few combinations I am sat watching my pilot leg it across the field...I think I sat there for about 5 minutes in shock because it was simply awesome to see the crew of my plane all run off and dive for cover – it’s those small touches to a sim that separate the wheat from the chaff. (Just for the fun of it I went back and watched the pilot run about from different aircraft).
C3PO has updated his F4 Multiplayer article. Some errors have been corrected and a lot more detail has been added. Even if you read the original the updated version is definately worth a read.
ATI have released an updated driver and control panel set for there Radeon series of graphics cards. Improvements include:
Fixed in this driver: * Switching to the program Second Life using the ALT-Tab command no longer results in the system not responding or looping indefinitely * Running the demo game Lord of the Realms 3 under Windows XP with a RADEOIN 9000 series card installed no longer results in the system not responding when a 3 stage effect is used * The game Unreal Tournament 2003 no longer hangs when loading the CTF-December level * The geometry flashing throughout the background of Second Life is now resolved * Flickering and display corruption in the game NeverWinter Nights is now resolved * Running ViewPerf 6.1.2 under Windows ME with any RADEON™ family product installed no longer results in the application not being able to render an image * Objects are now generated and the VP is no longer gray when running 3ds max in D3D mode * Loss of focus when switching between different layers in Studio Tool 10.1 is now resolved * Full Screen Anti-Aliasing no longer causes corrupt geometry in model viewer program * Overlay no longer disappears when moving the mouse around in panning mode on the secondary display adapter in the application Overfly * Multimedia mode scaling and positioning issues have now been resolved when using TV out * Display corruption noticed on the ATI Demo Rachel running under Windows XP is now resolved * The lighting and triangle culling on the 3D pipes screensaver no longer is incorrect when using a RADEON™ 7000 series card under Windows 2000 * Significant CPU usage is no longer noticed when Hardware Overlay Alpha Deblocking is in use * Enabling Overlay Theater Mode and playing an HDTV source through the ATI File Player, no longer results in the system rebooting * The TV can now be disabled using the Troubleshoot button in the ATI displays tab * Connecting a secondary DFP and attempting to enable extended desktop mode no longer now results in the secondary display device becoming active * Setting an LCD as the primary display, and a CRT as the secondary display followed by enabling Overlay Theater Mode, no longer results in display corruption when preview the screen saver on the secondary display * Enabling extended desktop at certain resolutions and colour depths no longer results in display corruption on the secondary controller * Installing a RADEON™ 9600 series card in a motherboard supporting AGP 8X no longer results in some 3D applications failing to respond
SimHQ's Andy Bush has taken a look at the eagerly awaited LO-MAC flight simulation. Andy concentrates in this review on an A-10 mission, and has added some great information, and screenshots.
I have posted an article by C3PO that details the inner workings of Falcon SP3's multiplayer code. Here's a snippet:
But there is another complication. When entering the game, the first person to get to the Second Pie screen, regardless of whether they are the host or the client, will host all the deaggregated ground units. This in effect means everything except the AI aircraft at the airbase you start off at. This may be a little frightening, especially if your connection is a dial-up. However, once all the players take off and move away from the airbase things improve. As the flight moves apart, each plane controls the ground unit in their respective bubble, ie in their "ground bubble".
Daws has released a brand new F/A-18 pit for Falcon4. As with other 3d pit modifications this will work in any resolution. Currently the release only supports FreeFalcon, however Daws is planning an SP3 version too!
Martin 'Terrapin' Gerner has announced a special price crash weekend for the the special sponsor access to Flighthangar.Net.
Here's the lowdown from Terrapin: If you decide to become a Special Sponsor of Flighthangar.Net between now and Sunday, 07/06/03, 20.00 GMT, you'll enjoy great savings: The next three days our Special Sponsor fees are heavily discounted: The yearly subscription from 34$ to only 25$, the 6-month-period from 21 to 14$ and the monthly recurring plan from 3.99$ to 2.99$.
The website for the 2003 LowLand Tiger Meet event, based in Europe is now online. The meet is being held at the Military Aviation Museum in The Netherlands on November 15th and 16th, 2003.
The Main competition is set to include Falcon 4 squad combat as well as a Ubi Soft Entertainment sponsored IL2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles championship competition.
I have posted an article by C3PO entitled "Weapon Enhancements in SP4". Here's a snippet:
In SP3, with the same single CBU-87 you get the same amount of T90/M1 tanks destroyed as compared with a T55s in same group pattern. This seems odd as the T90/M1 tanks have the best armour. In SP4, a single CBU-87 will not even take out the T90/M1 and with others like T72/80 there will be fewer destroyed compared with T55 tanks. Damage is scalable, as in RL. Now CBU-58s are best for foot or wheeled targets. You get more foot/wheeled kills per CBU if you use the correct ones compared with SP3. Before in SP3 there wasn't good scaling from foot to tank because of a hit-point bug.
