Nice week-end ! more news very soon

Pragua Ruzyne airport, LKPR. There is also a famous freeware LKPR airport on the web.

http://lkpr-scenery.wz.cz/en/index.php

Captain Sim GOT HIS GUN

Include, a catalogue of military Ai aircrafts models.

"Weapons for FSX " IS the product X. This new feature adds different kind of armaments to a range of aircrafts, including Captain Sim previous military aircrafts ; CS jet F/1-18 and armed version of the Learjet 45. Are also include in this package sophisticated 2D/3 HUD, radars and a special weapon control panel to choose between armaments and acquisitions. Different kind of rockets are available, like the well known Sparrows and ASRAAM. Airdailyx, today, is the very first to announce that at 17h UTC. More news to come tomorrow. Captain Sim warned us : "this product has never been done in FSX". Partly true. Several features, mostly freeware, were tested these last years and last month, VRsimulations showed off VRS TacPack . With this new WFF, that might be a real breakthrough and an amazing come back for the FSX platform. Editors will design more and more military aircrafts and - who knows, maybe Weapons For Fsx will become a sort of AES enhancement for... WAR.

Updated/05/02 : Armaments include all kind of weapons from gun and rockets to missiles (Captain Sim still working on bombs feature). Any defaut FSX aircraft can be equiped with the weapon loader. WFF adds military traffic "sceneries" of major conflicts from 40's to 90's of the 20th century. These "sceneries" only include AI traffic, no buildings. According to community feedback and commercial success, Captain Sim will push further developments like multiplayers.

Flightbeam studios recognition

Fs Dreamteam and Fly Tampa are not alone anymore. With their KSFO, the unknown members of Flightbeam studios have prouved the strongest skills in 3Dsmax and GMAX scenery designing. First feat of all, they managed to build this first scenery in less than a year. Second, despite the size and complexity of San Francisco airport, the scenery is going to be smooth (this is important because there are others products around the bay ; KOAK & KSJC airports, US Cities SF, plus Ultimate terrain USA layers). Third, their screenshots and videos are showing innumerable textures effects ; photoreal ground mesh, dirt/wear, static shadows (and dynamic ?), shine, dynamic shining effects, transparent textures, static and dynamic reflective textures etc... Not to forget custom animations ; moving birds, cars, shuttles, plus the AES feature (moving jetways etc.). After FSX, Flightbeam studios will also release a FS9 version. The product will be downloadable from their website, as soon as AES is implemented and this will be a payware. Some of us might show apprehension about the framerate. But even if a lof of american simmers are now I7-core possessers, Flightbeam launched a poll to figure out what is the actual average processor type.

Updated 08/02 : we know a little bit more about this team. "Mir", who is the administrator of its own website, is apparently developing alone but he works along with a consultant and four beta-testers.

The long quest for the holy graal of Fly-by-wire...

all rights reserved, Airdailyx 2011, credits D.C.

A first KLAX comes alive

Blueprint Simulations : imminent release of its KLAX airport.

More screenshots on :
http://www.blueprintsimulations.com/Galleries/BluePrint_GalleriesKLAX.html

Fight over Corsica island

With its montains and coastline, Corsica island has becomen a first choice for visual flights in France and Mediterranean sea. Its not astonishing if three french designers are developing sceneries of the so-called "french beauty". France VFR, the forerunner, launched a Corsica VFR for FS9 with a LOD10 mesh in 2005. This scenery was completed by several personal works, like Tony Agramont's autogen.

Back in 2011, three different products are about to be available AT the same time. France Touristique Scenery completely overturned this market last year with its Corsica North, designed from a 50 cm/pixel resolution (maximum resolution offered by IGN french cartographer). Then came SceneryBox with a full range of departments sceneries. Now, the commercial fight is to reach its height with two imminent release : France VFR new generation Corsica and France Touristique scenery South. In the upper right of this post, a table shows and compare these products. I will just add two things : first, mind the weight of the files (the higher the quality, the heaviest the file) and second, we must ask ourself ; what is my style ? VFR or IFR ? Scenery beauty or detailed airports ?

nb : France Touristique Scenery will release Corsica South between mi-february and march. France VFR is preparing several regions. Rhone-alpes shall come first, folllowed by Corsica in spring.
SIRX project was also about to release photoreal "tiles" of Corsica but they dont communicate any more.

Torreon MMTC hot test

Taxi2gate's eigth airport, is Torreon in the Coahuila region of Mexico. The airport has two runways, one for the international flights (American Eagle, Aeromexico, Click Mexicana...) and a second for local and propellers. The scenery (28 mb) includes the Corona stadium and several home blocks around the airport. I tried differents aircrafts and scenery densities just to check the smoothness and it looked very good. Be warned, its not a huge airport and there is just one jetway but the place is exotic and somehow, we are lucky that a designer chose this airport lost in the Altieplanicie Mexicana. Ground textures are not photoreal but realistic and based on recent images and there are a lot of details in the airport vicinity. Two regrets : no wet runway (but does it ever rain here ?) and i would have liked car traffics around the airport, which was the case in Mexico MMMX airport. This team are technically progressing and will release Varadero in February. Updated 03/02 : i did not see a lot of AI aircrafts neither.

A selection of pictures on

http://airdailyx.blogspot.com/p/scenery-test-torreon.html

Serial scoops in Europe

Hush-Hush, In its pre-order page, Aerosoft confirms its wish to distribute FreeZ Zurich scenery as a "Mega airport Zurich". The german editor has also planned (for the end of the year) a Mega airport Lyon scenery (LFLL). This plate-form is the fourth french airport and has been renamed as Saint-Exupery airport in memory of the illustrious pilot and writer. Well done Aerosoft.

Some tips on the AES NG project

Oliver Pabst, developer of the appreciated Airport enhancement system has posted some tips about its next AES rehash, the - Next Generation -. Planned to be released in a couple of months, the NG will much better cope with aircrafts types and will offer a greater positionning of vehicules around doors, wings and noise. Cargo loads management will be implemented and vehicules will be chosen accordingly with the geographical regions. Meanwhile, no doubt that the competition will be harshed between AES flow and OrbX PeopleFlow (if you still dont know what is PeopleFlow, run watch that on OrbX website).

Miami City scenery, firsts screens

Intersim Studios has shown us its first image of the incoming Miami City scenery. These are from the payware version and will be available for FS9 and FSX both (thanks Junior ! you comment will be published 02/01). In the meantime, Intersim is still working with Taxi2gate on the KMIA airport.

2012 / Market Survey

Airdailyx will conduct a market survey of the FS market
with payware editors and developers.

Some of the most popular teams already answered to our questionnaire.

They will receive our stats on april 27 th exclusively. Only those who responded will receive the extensive stats based on 8 questions, some on economic others or technical trends.

If you are among payware developers, it's not too late. just ask the questionnaire at
airdailyx@gmail.com

Some of the stats will be published later, in early may, in our blog.

Dom and D'Andre
Airdailyx

About vertical integration in flight sim market

I will never cease to write that i really like Aerosoft products, and i usually buy my products at Simmarket, just because i found them on the web a long time ago and i appreciate the service. But i am a consumer and a citizen. I would like to point out what looks like an advanced vertical integration on the sim market. Aerosoft, Simflight and Simmarket are privately own companies. There are no any known official links between them (no common shareholders to my knowledge), but everybody can look at subtles connections (see the picture).

Aerosoft makes and distributes products, Simflight provides "information" (but we dont see very much critizism) and Simmarket sells the product. As they need the fourth level - credible information - the next stage is to buy a good newspaper (may be they already did). Of course, this is not specific to the flight sim market and industry has the same tendancy to accelerate vertical integration. Updated 02/02 : Francois "Navman" Dumas clarifies that Simflight and Simmarket never made a secret of their relations at all. Simflight is beeing funded by Simmarket and Simmarket news prevails on any other news (Mason : including interesting ones).

Good luck and good day.

Incoming this week...

Will Imagine simulations respond to our interview request ?
Fight over Corsica island.
Where is Mexsimulations ?
A complete review of the incoming KSFO (Flightbeam)
Fukuoka (Aerosim), almost finished.

And much more.. Thank you for your fidelity !

PMDG 737 NGx : new set of screenshots

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/325428-externalities-and-the-ngx/page__st__425

News about Miami

Screenshots to be released tomorow on Miami KMIA by Intersim Studios and its partner, Taxi2gate.
Release date in early march. Updated 30/01 : KMIA will be for FSX and FS9.
AES Airport Enhancement system : ongoing negotiations.
The same designers will also release a Miami city (2 versions, one freeware, one payware).
Stay tunes ! Help Airdailyx by tweeting around, thank you.

Nice Week end !

Free of right.

Oh yeas, Munich !

At last, first external views of the NGX

A FSX full Native B-757

A new aircraft project from Enigma Simulations team. This FSX native Boeing 757 will benefit latest possibilities in bump and specular maps. Below, one of the very early shots of the project now conducted by Jordi Blumberg and Tom Koffeman.

Bern-Belp LSZB, aviation paradise

Located at the foot of the Belpberg hill, the small Belp airport is a pure sample of aviation ; a concentrated of choppers, gliders, light aircrafts, turbines, and sometimes even some Boeing 737-400 or small Airbus are landing here. This is also a formidable base for swiss Alps trips. I usuall fly over Thunersee (heading south-east), then, Reichenbach airport, toward some cirques.
The flylogic airport (180 mb exe. file) is a model of meticulous work and 70 % of the buildings are covered with a high quality photoreal textures. The framerate is good and the scenery includes a traffic utiliy, seasonal textures, AES-Lite and a 18 page manual, english and french. According to this manual, the ILS 14 approach, near the hills, is thrilling. I tested the scenery with My Traffic and i got plenty of turboprops, Cessnas and two Dornier of the Belp base airline Flywork.
Useful ressources :
http://bernairnewslszb2000to2010.blogspot.com/ (wonderful pictures)

http://www.vacc.ch/
http://www.flylogicsoftware.com/

The V-tail V35B Bonanza

I am going over the Bonanza V35B again because this Carenado aircraft was barely noticed by flightsim medias. The V35B was the last version of the Bonanza 35, with the V-tail profil inherited from polish engineer Jerzy Rudlicki works. In two words, the V-tail lighten the aircraft weight and reduce the drag but need finest adjustments on pitch and yaw. The higher mechanical stress also requires structural strenghten. But i am not going any further, a lot of real pilots can explain that better. I dont know if the V-tail gives a better flyability but at least, i made really nice shorts turns. In the opposite, i did not feel the famous waggle effect on landing. Did Carenado really improve the flight model in this version, that's the question.

On graphics side, its all about high defintion textures except on the exhaust. The propeller can be animated, antennas are vibrating under the wind and there are the same navigation modules than in the previous version : the intuitive alt and vertical speed selector and the Garmin GNS430. I regret that its always the same guy on the yoke and the same basic fade liveries. I would have liked 1 or 2 real paintings and frankly, its time to add passengers. Also great would be the tool to auto-convert our face and put it on the animated pilot...Cars makers want to personnalize our futur cars, maybe its time...

Updated, By the way, Flightsim international developers team (http://www.fsd-international.com/), designed their own B35 with nice liveries and inside cast shadows. (nice price too).