Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004

[goates]

To design and aircraft and show that it will fly, you want X-Plane. In FS2004 you could take a 3D model of a brick and attach the Concordes perfromance data to it.

Burt Rutan and others have used X-Plane for training and/or modelling to show that a new design will fly. If you want you could even design an aircraft to fly on Mars as X-PLane include Mars' terrain data and atmosphere characteristics. I wouldn't expect it to be good enough to compete with whatever programs Airbus, Boeing and NASA use, but for preliminary tests it seems to be good enough for smaller companies.

X-Plane

goates

[MMEMatty]

Cheers Everyone, i have headr about X-Plane, but it is for the Mac isnt it? im using windows OS. Also do i need to know any programming language? i have a basic knowledge of C (no, not C++, or department only taught us C), and pascal from my days doing AS level computing, burt other than that, nothing.

Cheers

Matty

[EDIT: soory, i've just been on the X-Plane website and noticed a version for Windows.....D'oh!]

[Lee-a-Roady Moor]

FunkyMunky

As for the next release date, FS seems to be renamed every two years; FS98, 2000, 2002, 2004 etc; and released a year earlier, so unless MS bucks the trend, FS 2006 should be out in 2005

Any idea when that tends to be? ie Is it worth purchasing FS2004 now, or perhaps waiting a few weeks or so for FS2006?

[FunkyMunky]

I'll be honest Lee, I have absolutely no idea. That just seemed to be the trend in the past...no guarantees for the future!

I can't tell you whether it's worth it based on the next release because I simply do not know, but I can tell you it's a pretty fun piece of software. Just dont expect it to be too useful in your real-world flying duties It's relatively OK for "procedure", but as for the view out the window, it's absolutely useless (as is every other PC based simulator).

[Kestrel_909]

Dubious there will be an FS2006.

The rumours are that the update for FS9 to make it 9.1 back in October? suggested that there wouldn't be a new release in 2005 for FS2006.

Rumours and speculation though, NOT fact!

Dear help some add-on developers if they do though, PMDG haven't even released their 744 for FS9/2004 and LDS are just about finished their 767, would hate to start working on patches for them in the Autumn to work with a new version

[goates]

Apparently one of the flight sim sites noticed that MS is hiring people for its flight sim team. And apparently the contracts are for one year. Don't know what this means for release dates though.

goates

[Loose rivets]

Flight sim. Viz viewing angle

I have just got a copy of Flight Sim again (04) after many years. My first reaction was how hard it was to fly the Boeings visual..I'm still messing with setup prameters.

The question is, despite being able to get rid of some or all of the panel to see forward, I can't raise my seat to see over the combing! Such a simple thing, can anyone help?

(The top hat did it on the old copy, now it defaults to the views.)

[daw]

The commands are listed under the "Learning Center" then go to "View" and scroll down to "Moving the eyepoint". To move your eyepoint up while on finals hit shift+enter until you get the angle you are happy with and be prepared to hit spacebar as the wheels touchdown to revert the view to normal.

[spannersatcx]

Shift 1, 2 etc gets rid of all the panels also try S as well for different views.

[Kestrel_909]

Or press W to remove the panel and show just primary instruments, no fancy panelling.

[Loose rivets]

Thanks chaps. That worked.

I'll have to put more work into FS now that it's upgraded somewhat. At least I'm getting the 737 on the runway at Stansted.

one thing that's still a problem is that I'm not able to drop the N1 below about 47 with the manual throttle, but in auto-throttle, it swings to the mid 30's. It makes the aircraft seem very slippery. The Logi extreme pro ($29) seems quite good, and its software shows full travel.

You will guess that I'm still like someone that is trying to fly an aircraft without doing the technical !!

I once went back to flying after a very long break, having only flown FS for a month prior to retraining. When I got to LBA, the runway and the wind were exactly as I had set the program for most of the time. 30kts accross– it was a fantastic help. The drift angles were virtually spot on. It was a much needed lucky break after being away so long.

[Port Strobe]

MS Flight Simulator X

Could somebody please explain how I could go about reversing the control sense of the pitch in MSFS please? I want to pitch up from a forward stick input on my joystick and vice versa. Is this transferrable to the other axes? I have FS 2002 & 2004 if it helps.

Thanks

[Tonic Please]

Would be pleased to answer you FS questions.

Load it up, press settings, go to Assignments, then joystick axes, and tick reverse

Dan

[tired-flyboy]

No problem,

the first question is WHY do you want to fly in the opposite axes??

But anyway follow this:

1. Settings
2. Controls ----> assigments (on the RHS of window)
3. Joystick axes (second tab)
4. Select reverse (for both pitch (Elevator) and roll (Aileron))

Hope that woks for you!

[Port Strobe]

Thanks for the quick replies guys. Doing it as a small experiment, figured it would be interesting to see how much different it will be having to think before you make a control input, maybe see how some more experienced pilots fare as well, probably worse. Thanks again.

[BoeingBoy]

Funny you should want to mention this subject as some years ago I was passing a games arcade at my local cinema. I noticed a hang glider simulator with a couple of TV screens for graphics. As I had never handled an A frame machine, and this was a full scale, stand on machine I decided to invest in the same experiment.

I started off quite well by having to think about what I was doing, but then the game started to hot up and thinking time was reduced. At that point my 19000 hours of fixed wing flying kicked in and I wrapped myself into the nearest tree pretty quickly by reverting into normal mode for pitch and yaw.

My wife was standing behind me at the time, and summed things up pretty well by saying "Don't ever take up hang gliding!"

Good luck.

BB

[jimgriff]

MS Flight Sim 2004

Guess quite a few of us have the above "game".

I have a problem in when I go to create a new flight the game just switches off.

Any suggestions.

My PC is fast 3.5 , 1 GB ram, 64 mb graphics card and huge hard drive. I have tried googling but to no avail.

[Evo]

XP, I assume?

Have a look in the Application log (start -> control panel -> administrative tools -> event viewer -> application log). It's a useful place to look when things go wrong. Are there any error messages there?

[Conan the Librarian]

Jim, I take it that you are running the no CD crack, so that FS doesn't have to have the CD installed when you start the prog. If not, go get it or PM me. It does (sometimes) sort out some of the many odd FS9 quirks and wonders.

Failing that, if you can get to FS in any way at all, ie, through a saved flight, last flight, etc.etc. then go for that and then check that all selected scenery, aircraft, etc. are default. If successful with that, then change parameters as needed and go to "Create flight " from there.

Plan Z - which is a pain in the butt, is that if all else fails, uninstall and reinstall.

Microsoft Flight Sim - A great confidence builder in Aviation Software!

[Irish Steve]

Microsoft Flight Sim - A great confidence builder in Aviation Software!

Tell me about it. The day I see a Windows logo on a flight deck is the day I start thinking about walking