Many of us bought pre-assembled PCs for flight simulation from brand-names, like HP, Dell. I did the same until one day I stepped forward to build one myself.
Frankly speaking, the first time was scary. Fortunately, I had done a lot of preparations; the work turned out to be far less difficult than anticipated.
Above is “A Complete How To PC Building Guide for Beginners” from MSI, which I found universally good. Definitely worth a favorite entry in your browser.
by Michael Basler
Here are good news. I just tested SPAD.neXt with FSW support and was positively surprised. My Prepar3d C182 profile (which, of course doesn’t have a counterpart in FSW) works excellently with the FSW Piper. This includes 
notably Tom’s gauges. Some of them are of course not appropriate for the Piper, but the values are all displayed and even the Flaps indicator moves.
I find this great news. Continue reading
by Colin Moir
Followings are comments originally sent by Colin regarding the early access of the Flight Sim World (FSW). As it is generally covering many aspects of the product, I am posting it as a full piece instead. BTW, sorry to hear that Colin had a bad fall at home while doing DIY recently. Hope him get well soon.
Installed FSW last night too, can’t complain about the price (free) as I’d already bought Flight School … a nice gesture from them, but I’m sure future DLC is where Dovetail expect to make money from this title, it all seems a bit raw just now and that’s expected because its early access … really like the windscreen rain effects, this reminds me of the old Flight Unlimited 2 from Looking Glass, if they can get the effect to change as the Aircraft travels faster I think they will have nailed this visual effect. Continue reading
I am a music lover since my very young age and had become an audiophile when I could afford to get some decent high-fidelity (hifi) equipment about 20 years ago. This hasn’t changed much even after flightsimming has gained the number one position on top of my limited pastimes.
Do we audiophiles live for music or gear? It’s a classic question and my answer is a definite both.
Whether you’re an audiophile and whether you agree with me or not, here’s a great BBC archive film produced in 1959 on this subject a friend sent to me a few days ago. Continue reading
A few days ago I received an email from Michael Basler who told me that he was scratching his head about the placement of the Generic PFD because, “You know, I have that X-Top panel with the sixpack where it belongs plus three additional FIPS at the right hand side…I just can’t map this onto my fixed X-Top panel.”
Just in case there are others who have similar bewilderment, here’s my suggestion to him that Continue reading
Dropbox just changed its Public Folder Sharing structure two days ago. All previous links to my downloads have stopped working.
Contact me if you encounter errors so that I can re-create them accordingly.
Here’s the email I received a few days ago:
Someone: Hello, I have a 421C with a turbine conversion and I am looking for some new engines Insturments. I believe your instruments would be a perfect fit. How much would a suite of instruments cost with dual TRQ, ITT, Ng, Prop, FF and FP? Let me know, thanks.
Tom: Please inform who is the maker of the 421C since I don’t have it myself.
Are you using Saitek driver or SPAD.neXt ? FSX or P3D ?
I need some more information before I can tell you if I can make the gauges for you.
Someone: The airframe is Cessna, the turbines are Lycoming owned by Honeywell now. The gauges for the Turbine Duke will work.
Here is a picture of my plane.
Tom: I make gauges for fight simulation, not for the real aircraft.
Someone: Roger
by Michael Basler (http://michael-basler.net)
Michael is a veteran flightsimmer, who started playing Flight Simulator 4 back in 1991. About 2 weeks ago, while we were discussing various issues regarding compatibility of my FIP gauges in X-Plane, an idea of inviting him to write a guess piece for his impressions and thoughts on the new X-Plane 11 came to my mind suddenly. Thanks Michael and here’s the piece.
At first: No, I am not one more X-Plane evangelist trying to persuade you to “convert”. But I don’t think it hurts to look what’s going on elsewhere.
At second: Do you think this is misplaced at FSX Times? It’s not – as you’ll find below. Continue reading
Remember the story about the Spaceship Landed in Panama reported in 
mid-October? The project has proceeded to the next stage and there is now a dedicated blog page about it.
In addition to the information about the program, Erik has also shared his view regarding monitor choosing for the project and how he overcame stutter issues in FSX and P3D during the project development.
