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Faro X is one of several newly released sceneries this summer from Aerosoft..

The airport of Faro (LPFR) is located several kilometres from the city of Faro on the southern coast of Portugal.  Having a moderate climate it is an area that is popular with tourists. That has impacted the airport by making it extremely busy especially during the summer months.  In 2008 it saw approximately 5.4 million passengers pass through it’s facilities. The airport has a single asphalt runway 10/28 that is 2490 meters long. The airport opened in 1966, since then a new terminal building was constructed and further expanded in 2001. The airport continues to undergo construction to increase capacity, enhance security and overall passenger satisfaction.

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Blueprint Simulations has done an airport of which I am very familiar, Toronto International, formally known as Lester B. Pearson International, CYYZ. I live in Toronto so I thought I’d review this scenery.

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I recently reviewed the Germany Base Pack and since then Dirk Stuck has issued the UK & Ireland Base Pack together with an Ireland & UK extension pack the latter works OK with the German base pack.  As I have said previously, this is a very nice simple piece of software that replaces all of the ground vehicles in FSX and replaces them with new 3-D models.

The vehicles now work in all airports in the UK and Ireland as well as in Germany, Sweden, Norway and Denmark and are partly animated (FSX SDK allowing).  They are also visible at nigh complete with flashing lights, etc.  The new vehicles include, fire trucks; shuttle busses, luggage loaders, tractors, fuel trucks, stair trucks and push back vehicles.  Other vehicles and other FSX areas will be added in the future.  I reiterate that this is a very nice add-on for FSX and it enhances the simming experience at major airports. Read the rest of this entry »

Addictive Simulations have released a Pitts Special S1 which is a light aerobatic biplane designed for FSX and FS2004.  This is a biplane single seater, tail dragger racer.  This is a stunner of a reasonably fast manoeuvrable aerobatic and even acrobatic racer.  It is a very nice model, very crisp lines and some nice animation touches.  It is great to fly and coupled with Just Flight’s Airshow Pilot it certainly gave me hours of fun and excitement during the review.  I want to park one of these next to my car and take-off down the street – imagine the looks on the neighbour’s faces.  I only reviewed the FSX version. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to part 2 of this overly long review of the Wilco Airbus Volume 1 addon aircraft package. The first part was published in April here: Review Part1: Airbus Vol1 Deluxe (FS2004 Version)

In this second part I will take the plane for a short hop across Germany and show you how that went. Rest assured – I did many more flights than only the one I’m telling you about. Read the rest of this entry »

Lately, Argentina is known has been known for it’s soccer team and now unemployed coach. Argentina is also known for it’s aviation history built on it’s military strength. Some of you may remember the Falkland Islands war in 1982 where the Argentine Air Force took on the mighty British fleet. This review I’ll cover TropicalSim’s SAEZ add-on for FS2004 and FSX which was built during World War II.

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The airport known as Strasbourg, LFST is located in the Alsace region of France just outside of the small city of Entzheim and approximately 10 kms southwest of Strasbourg.  It has a single runway 05/23 that is approximately 2400 meters long.  In 2009 it saw just over 1 million passengers use it’s facilities. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a very nice piece of software that replaces all of the ground vehicles in FSX and replaces them with new 3-D models.  At present the vehicles only work in airports in Germany, Sweden, Norway and Denmark and are partly animated (FSX SDK allowing).  They are also visible at nigh complete with flashing lights, etc.  The new vehicles include, fire trucks; shuttle busses, luggage loaders, tractors, fuel trucks, stair trucks and push back vehicles.  Other vehicles and other FSX areas will be added in the future.  This is a gem of an add-on for FSX and it enhances the simming experience. Read the rest of this entry »

FSADDON have released another WWII Fighter ie the GLOSTER GLADIATOR, designed specifically for FSX.  This is a biplane (the last built for the RAF) but was quickly superseded by the superior monoplane designs, eg Spitfire and Hurricane.  FSADDON have given us 3 variants, the Mk 1, the Mk II with a more powerful engine and the latter also powered another variant called the SEA Gladiator, which was used on various aircraft carriers in WWII.  This is a nice collection of a now defunct war bird that not only looked good and was also very easy to fly.

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What better way to broaden your horizons than to fly to new destinations. Polish Airports Vol 1 gives you just that type of opportunity if you’re one of those pilots that like to stick to familiar territory.  With this offering from Drzewiecki Design you get three airports; Katowice Pyrowice (EPKT), Rzeszów Jasionka (EPRZ) and Gdańsk Rebiechowo (EPGD). Read the rest of this entry »

This is the VirtualCol version of the Cessna T303 Crusader twin airplane.  It is reasonably well modelled with clean lines and you get 3 repaints in the package (plus a repaint package).  In general the instrumentation is reasonably good, nice and clear and functional, as are the default Baron sounds (internal and external), and it flies extremely well.

As I have said before the beauty of a twin engine plane is that they are usually fast (cruise 230 KIAS) and are ideal for mid-range GA flights and it is capable of both VFR and IFR.  The Interior is well designed with individual leather seats used primarily for luxury business travel.  Unfortunately it does not have facilities for loading, maintenance or repair during use, but that aside, it does handle quite nicely and it flies good distances without any problems.

It is not a great FSX plane but a lot of thought has gone into its design and it is another useful 6-seater twin.   Comparable planes would be: Beechcraft Baron, Cessna 310, Piper Aztec and Piper Seneca. Read the rest of this entry »

LatinVFR have been around doing scenery for awhile now and their products have been of superior quality. Their latest is Santiago, Chile, SCEL. Will they keep up their reputation? Read on to find out.

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Leonardo SH has given us their latest version of the Maddog… the MD-82 of the MD-80 series of airliners. Rather than take you through the various qualities of the aircraft, I’ll take you through a flight in FS9 so you can tell whether this aircraft is for you or not (FSX version available, too, read on…).

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Burkhard Renk has been producing My Traffic versions for several years, now culminating in this latest 5.3 version which is another milestone forward in producing a FSX world full of AI aircraft that you as a pilot have to interact with.  This FSX version has utilised all of the FSX programming possibilities giving a new sense of realism and practicality.   Anyone that has read my reviews know that I have had issues with AI traffic when I have reviewed airports and scenery and this program now populates all of my FSX airports with large numbers of planes that move, stop, go, taxi, and fly.  This is a great add-on for the Sim even for someone like me that only flies GA planes from small rural airfields. Read the rest of this entry »

The Boeing 767 was the first wide body twinjet produced by Boeing. Designed in tandem with the 757 they both share design features and the same flight deck.  The 767 is capable of carrying up to 375 passengers with a range of 6,590 nautical depending on the variant and the seating configuration. It is also the first wide body Boeing jet to enter service with a two person crew eliminating the need for a flight engineer. Commonly used on medium to long haul routes it has become the most popular airliner on the transatlantic runs between the United States and Europe. The first variant the 767-200 came into service in 1982 followed by the 200ER, 300, 300ER, 300F freighter and finally the 400 series in 1997. To date their have been just over 1000 aircraft ordered.

The 767 has also served in several military applications. Derived mainly from the 200 series it has been configured in both a tanker and AWACS platform.

The Captain Sim base pack is based on the 767-300ER variant Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Hurst has completed another excellent video review of the recently released UIVER Douglas DC2 for FSX. After a brief history of the DC2, Mark focuses on taxiing and crosswind operations, while covering additional aspects of the model during these procedures. The review is completed with a series of screenshots of the DC2, taken in FSX by Nick Churchill. We hope you enjoy the review, which is presented at www.screenshotartist.co.uk.

VRS have created a superb tactical multi-role fighter aircraft for FSX, building on their FS2004 model and in their word, supercharged the FS9 version with updated graphics.  It certainly shows, visually the VRS F/A18-E is an absolutely beautiful creation.

Once you get beyond the learning curve, and have read the 350++ page manual including the 90 page tutorial it becomes relatively easy to fly.  It handles extremely well, just a touch of the controls at 600KIAS and you are off into the vast unknown.

This is a stunning version of a very fast hi-tech fighting machine, and I could only access less than 10% of its complexities in this review.  If you like fast light jets, with no passengers, infinite tolerance to g-forces, complex instruments, and tons of armaments, then this is the plane for you. Read the rest of this entry »

VFR-Short Fields X is a newcomer to scenery development in FSX. They make smaller airports of Canada that are located in areas not well known to the general FS community. In this review I’ll check out their latest add-on, VFR-Short Fields PEI.

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Our hobby, flightsimming, is constantly expanding. Developers throw at us; a new aircraft here, an airport there, and every one of them, better than the last one you thought was the best. The awe can sometimes become a little tedious, as it can seem to be just more of the same. A new high in detail, in graphics, or in sound, but still just a plane, or an airport. Even excellence can become average if you are exposed to it too often.
And then, out of the blue, suddenly, without any warning, comes a little gizmo that just seem to blow all those “seen this, done that” feelings out of the water. Something different, something – that looks like it was just the thing the Flightsimulator world was missing – and it didn’t even know it.

This was the feeling I got when I first saw Flight1´s EZdok camera utility add-on. The video of the shaking cockpit blew me away. I knew at once that this was the difference between videos of real world flights, and FS flights. That the pilot´s eyes are not welded onto the plane´s structure, but moves differently than the planes reaction to external influence. Read the rest of this entry »

Every now and then a product comes out that takes you by surprise. By surprise I mean that on the surface it looks interesting and you’re not sure if it’s worth the money, but then you try it and you love it! This happened to me when a review of Flight Tracker Time To Fly Edition (TTF) by Chanticleer Software came across my desk.

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