johncott

FSDS 3.5 is still available at PC Aviator for $24.95 US. 10% off on Tuesdays. Not sure how they license it. Abacus shut down when FSPilotshop closed, I believe they were tied together somehow. I bought my copy from FSpilotshop sometime ago and only have the one installer for 3.5. (my version shows 3.5.1) I installed it sometime ago and remembered I had to run the installer and with "Run as an administrator" option. I also remembered I had to run the program with the "run as an administrator" option as well. I am using it in Windows 10 and it seems to work ok, I do not use it that often, but it still started up today ok. You may be able to contact PC Aviator and ask them for some more details about FSDS. Here is link to the product page. https://www.pcaviator.com/store/product.php?productid=18364&cat=913&page=1 John Cottreau

Had no issues for years with FSX and OOM’s until I bought a new computer and new monitors with a higher resolution. Did you change your resolution lately? I may be wrong but higher resolution equals more memory usage in FSX where display graphics uses more computer memory and not as dependent on the GPU RAM. John C.

Not quite sure what you mean, do you want tools to design planes and panels? Are you looking who makes the best planes? If you looking who makes the best plane and panels, general aviation or larger jetliners? John Cottreau

It has been redone and is now called FSTramp and is available for MSFS. You can try it for 20 flights and then you have to pay for it. It has different purchase plans that are only good for so years then you have to renew. Check the new files section, it should show up two or three pages in. I would recommend that you try Little Navmap before taking the plunge for FSTramp. John C.

I did read somewhere else that the logbook will not work in development mode. Not sure if this changed during the new patch or not, I do not have MSFS and do not know much about the modes. Just been following closely here and on other sites to see if i want to purchase MSFS or not. John C.

First of all I do not own MSFS, but have been following these posts carefully to see if I want to purchase someday. My question if Bing gets a new image for an area and the image has clouds covering the airport where the old image didn’t, will that airport disappear? John C.

Gave up on MSFS before it came out. Only have room on my computer for one sim and I needed a new sim because of the OOMs in FSX. Had lots of add-ons and fixes already for FSX, most of which would work with P3DV5 or would work with free updates. Another reason, MSFS scenery is based on Bing maps and I knew there were some limitations in Bing Maps as well as Google maps from using it for work and other hobbies. John Cottreau

Yes you're right, it's not a competition. I will probably stay with P3DV5 for awhile, not because it's better or worst, but because it works for me. All my add-ons work and I only have room for one sim on my SSD. From what I've seen of MSFS from watching over 50 hours of videos and reading lots of posts, showcasing the good and the bad, MSFS still needs work, but where is shines, it's truly outstanding. P3DV5 still needs work as well. Try flying in the Canadian Arctic without ORBX vector. It's a "hot mess" Far as those 37,000 airports, one of the first videos I watch for MSFS was where a MSFS pilot was flying around and seen a pop-up that there was an airport. He decided to land there and it looked like a strip mall next to runway. Did a little research and the airport had closed sometime ago and was now a strip mall next to a road (old runway?). Kudo's to MSFS for being able to determine there was a strip mall from the video that was posted, but there was no longer an airport there. Finally, there are still add-ons in the library being created for FS98, just as long as they're happy, that's the main thing.

Wouldn’t say it’s a “hot mess.” Here is what I have to say, enjoyed a nice flight from EDDS, Stuttgart, Germany to LEGZ, Zaragoza, Spain today enjoying the lovely fall colours in P3DV5. Try doing this flight in MSFS. John C.

There are still files being added to the library for FS98. FSX will be around for awhile yet. John C.

My point was Carenado got it right and stand by that statement. I've flown the Realair Legacy with the castoring enabled, the Carenado SR22 and the Alabeo C400 which also both have castoring nosewheels and they behave the same. As you mentioned, one you have some momentum you can use the rudder for taxiing down a straight taxi way or down a runway. The three planes mentioned will do that. To make a sharp turn like doing a 180 degree turn at the end runway or a 90 degree from a taxi way on to a runway, you will need to use differential braking as would be the case in real life and these planes will do that as well. Not picking sides, Carenado vs whoever, just giving credit where it is due. Cheers, John Cottreau

Awesome plane and pics. Carenado actually did it right. The SR22 does have a free castoring nose wheel in real life and differential steering is needed at lower taxi speeds. Works really good with rudder pedals. John Cottreau

The Cessna 337 Skymaster. John Cottreau

Unless I'm missing something with the scenery files, I would have to disagree. The "demXXXX.bgl" files that store the P3DV5 default elevation mesh data, totals 3.27GB of data for the whole world. the complete FreeMeshX files covering the whole world have a total size of 46GB. The mesh in P3DV5 is definitely better than the mesh in FSX which was 1.27 GB in size, but nowhere as detailed as FreeMeshX. Not sure about P3DV1 to V4. Went from FSX to P3DV5. John Cottreau

I just switched from FSX to P3D, and have removed all my ORBX stuff to make room for P3D, but will try to help. I would check your scenery order and confirm that there are no UT USA or Europe scenery files left over in your scenery library. You can use the scenery library option in FSX, but I would recommend the free "Scenery Config Editor" available here https://sourceforge.net/projects/fs-sceditor/. I am assuming you purchase the ORBX Global Range base pack as well and installed the libraries as well. These will be needed for open LC ORBX products to work properly or as it says in the ORBX manual you will have unpredictable results with ORBX scenery. If you still have issues, let us know. John Cottreau

Looks Like you want to move up the eyepoint. This can be done in the aircraft.cfg in the "Views" section. [Views] eyepoint = -4.52, -.884, 1.4 The eyepoint is the location of the pilot's eyes in relation to the aircraft's center. The first number is the horizontal location, a minus number is forward in the plane and a plus number is further back in the plane. the second number is the lateral location from the center of the plane. A minus number is left of the center line and a positive number is right of the center line. The last number is the vertical height. This will be the number you will want to adjust. All numbers are in feet and each .1 increment will increase your eyepoint by .83 inches. If you increase the number to much, you eyepoint will be above the top of the plane. I hope this helps. Cheers, John Cottreau

How an aircraft shows up in the Aircraft selection list is determine by how it is set up in the aircraft.cfg for the aircraft in question. In the aircraft.cfg file there is a line called ui_manufacturer. Each Fltsim.X entry in an aircraft.cfg file will have a ui_manufacturer line. This will determine where the plane shows up in the aircraft list. For example for the Carenado C172, the ui_manufacturer=Carenado and it will show as Carenado as the manufacturer and not Cessna when you go to select the plane. The default Cessna 172 aircraft.cfg has Cessna for the ui_manufacturer line like so, ui_manufacturer=Cessna and will show up under Cessna when you select an aircraft. You can change each ui_manufacturer line to your liking, but if you have to reinstall the aircraft again you will have to change the ui_manufacturer line again. John Cottreau

They had their new site up, but now, I cannot even access it. I didn't like the new download charge after a year, but if the product was upgraded it was renew for another year without charge. Other than that, always had good service until this summer. I was lucky, I backed up everything including the serial keys on my NAS which I also backup on a 8GB USB drive regular on a regular basis. Besides ORBX, been using Just Flight, Simmarket and will start using the Flightsim store for my next purchases if they carry the items I am looking for.

Over the last year I have downloaded some freeware airport sceneries for existing airports created by Airport Design Editor (ADE) and the author has made elevation changes to the proper elevation for the airport they have created. The problem, I will go to the airport and the runways will be floating or there will be other issues. This is cause by not including the elevation file that is created by ADE in the FSX/scenery/World/scenery folder. When scenery developers create airports with elevation changes using ADE, could they please make sure this file ins included in their release. This file will be ICAO_ADEX_XXX_ALT.bgl. ICAO will be the 3 or 4 character ICAO code for the airport and XXX will be whatever initials you chose for in the ADE for the file name in the setup. The airport will appear okay on your system because this file was created by ADE and stored on your system but if you do not include this file with your release with directions of where to put it, there could be issues with floating runways. Thank you, John Cottreau

There is Flightgear and it is free.

Are you flying at higher altitudes at about 28,000 feet or higher? For some reason this is when I get my OOM's. ORBX also uses up a lot of memory. I usually do not have issues at lower altitudes but did have one plane that was causing issues. It had about 600MB of hi-def textures plus the repaint had over 300MB of textures. Redid the textures, cut them in half which is actually cuts them down to quarter size and that fixed the issues without any noticeable degradation. Are you using FSUIPC4? It has a memory monitor feature in the "logging" section. I am not sure if you need the registered version or not for this feature. Under "Specific value checks" enter “offset” 024C and “type” U32. In the "Display to" section check "FS Window" if you are using full screen and "FS Title Bar" if you are using FSX in a window. You can also check more than one item. This will show up in your main window memory or title bar with a number indicating how much memory you have left. Watch what happens to this value as you fly, you can also try various scenery configurations and settings and see what happens with your memory.

I also have the CH Pedals and Yoke. Got the pedals and yoke in 2005 and still work great. Cannot imagine flying without the pedals. I like the brake function when landing and are great for differential braking for the planes with a castor front wheel. I cannot compare to a real plane because I have never flown a real plane. John Cottreau

You can get FSX Steam Edition (FSX:SE) from the steam store for $27.99 Canadian. I find it works better than the disc version if you can still find the disc version. FSX:SE comes with a default C208 but it does not have a G1000 Panel. The default Cessna 172, Mooney Bravo and Beech Baron do come with a G1000 panel. The FSX default G1000 is fairly basic. There are some freeware G1000 upgrades available that have a few more features. If you want a C208 with the G1000 there is the Carenado C208 EX version. Be careful there are two version one with the G1000 and one with steam gauges. The EX version is about $38.00 US. Steam may also have a Carenado Version as well and it may be cheaper as mentioned in another post. The Steam version will only work with FSX:SE while the full version will work with FSX:SE and P3D. The Carenado G1000 has a lot of features but I do not think you can create a flight plan in it from what I have read. FS2X also makes a third party G1000 and when you purchase it you get a default 2D only C208 upgrade with a G1000 panel. I hope this information is helpful. John Cottreau