simFlight.COM Flight Simulation News Source

Every once in a while you stumble on a Wordpress Blog that is just that little bit more interesting than the average. Neptunus Lex is one of those. Today’s blog post shows a wonderful photo of a Raptor, taken by a Navy sonar operator no less ! The comments underneath are interesting also…. for military aviation enthusiasts, that is. There’s more interesting stuff on that blog, so have fun !

Associated Press reports that “…..A French investigator says Air France Flight 447 did not break up in flight but plunged vertically into the Atlantic Ocean. Alain Bouillard, leading the investigation into the June 1 crash for the French accident investigation agency BEA, also says life vests found among the wreckage of the plane were not inflated.

All 228 people aboard the plane were killed when it plunged into the ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Bouillard said at a news conference outside Paris on Thursday that the search for the plane’s black boxes has been extended by 10 days and will continue through July 10……”.  More news here.

I read a comment not long ago from a reader who was asking for a DC-9 under FSX….. wel, his wish will come through! It so happens I heard that there will be one on simMarket soon, made by a company operating under the name Sky Simulations, or SkySim for short. You can already take a peek of what’s coming on his website and please keep an eye on the news and on simMarket!

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Here’s something taken from a blog I found….. the blog of James Wiebe from Wichita to be exact. “…. Wichita, Kansas-based aviation enthusiast and entrepreneur James Wiebe and his wife, Kathy, have acquired the production rights to a previously designed aircraft, the Kitfox Lite, and formed a new business entity, Belite Aircraft, to market it. The airplane will incorporate stronger, lighter carbon fiber components that will allow it to easily meet Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) Part 103 weight requirements.

The Wiebes, who previously developed and marketed digital forensic computer storage devices as the founders of Wichita-based enterprise, WiebeTech LLC, acquired the tooling, existing parts and manufacturing rights to the aircraft in March of 2009. As a condition of the transaction, they agreed to re-brand the airplane to prevent any confusion with the larger, two-place light sport Kitfox that shares many of the same design features but is owned by another company. Kitfox has recorded more than 4,500 kit sales since its introduction 25 years ago…..”.

Exciting to see new aircraft compaies being born, follow it here!

Yet another FS web site apparently got hacked last night. The bad thing is that the hackers may have retrieved passwords from users who were so careless to try and log in into the non-regular screen presented to them !! So if you are one of those, and use that password elsewhere too, you’d better CHANGE IT NOW! Might be a bad idea to change it anyway…. Read the owner’s link about the issue here.

An interesting video on YouTube showing a DC-10 simulator in the Swedish Vasteras Aviation Museum in Vasteras with a flight from Hong Kong Kai Tak. Very impressive!

It’s that time of the year again that aviation lovers’ hearts start pounding faster. Oshkosh is nearing and opening its doors on July 27th ! EAA Air Venture is the world’s largest air ‘meet’ in the world, set up as a fly-in for experimental aircraft builders, but grown out to be much more. This year will even see the mighty Airbus 380 there ! If you have a chance to visit, don’t skip it !! Read all about it here!

Flightsim Developers, formerly known as FSD-International, have released their YF-23 fighter for FSX. From their product page “….. The YF-23 was designed for survivability, supersonic, stealth, and ease of maintenance. Designed with all-aspect stealth as a high priority, Northrop introduced the novel feature of rear jet nozzle troughs lined with heat ablating tiles developed by Allison, which shielded the exhaust from infrared detection from below.

The most notable feature of the YF-23 was the trapezoidal wing configuration. The trapezoidal design allows for a thin wing with low drag at high speeds, while maintaining high strength and stiffness. The YF-23 is both faster and stealthier than any other jet fighter…..”.
Available for purchase only from their own website here.

Here’s an interesting project (AND website) for those of you who believe the world needs to get greener FAST but who also are avid aviation enthusiasts. I know looking at the sky in our beloved Alps hideout that aviation is NOT doing well in that area, clouding the clear skies rapidly with gases and vapour trails, poluting our planet more than we’d want. This Swiss project is one of many to try and do something about it: meet the Solar Impulse Project!

Justin Tyme’s FSGenesis, the world’s premier supplier of add-on mesh for Flight Simulator, is in dire straits judging for a renewed cry for help from him. Justin has been supplying the FS communities with his products for over 10 years now, and is feeling the recent crunch in sales, as are many other small-time entrepreneurs in this industry.

This is of course not ONLY because of the global financial woes, but also related to a trend many have been seeing over the past 18 months with dwindling add-on sales due to a certain saturation in the market, a split between FS9 and FSX users, a steadily rising price level of add-ons and maybe a move to other simualtions and games in general.

If you feel you want to help Justin and keep him working on his add-ons, you can find his shop here.

Mike Cyul over at the SOH forums has posted a few screenshots of his upcoming new Super Cub for FSX. This little aicraft mus be one of the most porrtrayed models for the sim, short of the Cessna’s, and is a great plane for the bush pilots and other VFR lovers. Check out his work in progress here…..

Just in time for the weekend Aerosoft releases APPROACHING INNSBRUCK FS2004, so you can spend it deep diving into this well known winter resort airport. FS2004 only for now, but Aerosoft promises a free upgrade when the FSX version is released.

This is what they have to say about it: “ Innsbruck Kranebitten Airport (LOWI) is the main airport of Western Austria. In the winter months it is particularly busy because of the many tourists that come for the ski slopes of the region. As the airport is located in a deep valley the approaches and departures are far from standard and many of the procedures can only be flown by pilots who got authorisation of the federal office of civil aviation. Challenging in good weather conditions, potentially lethal in the less than ideal condition. Buyers of this version will get the FSX version for free soon. The boxed release that will contain both versions will be available later this summer.

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Tim Gregson, aka ‘Beatle’ on the numerous FS forums, has released the first public beta of his (private) new Managed SimConnect Client SDK. This SDK can be used to build managed SimConnect clients, both desktop (Console, WinForm, WPF) and web (Silverlight). This is not an add-on to play with, but an SDK (Software Development Kit) that will let you develop things for FSX. He also states that Microsoft has nothing to do with this product. An extensive ‘readme’ is included in the download file, which you can get from Tim’s blog, here.

Two news worthy messages that we picked up from our Cockpit Builders Forum. One is a link to a wonderful Blackhawk home cockpit under construction somewhere in The Netherlands (unfortunately the ‘About Us’ part of the site is not  used). Have a look at MH-60S’s website here. The other is the mentioing of a Belgian company, EOS,  offering a ready-made cockpit setup with some possible additional instrument clusters to go with it, if desired. EOS Cockpits can be found here.

Here’s an interesting tidbit of news from our AOPA news source. Brad Frederick, a pilot from Michigan, coughed up the money to help reopen an abandoned, overgrown field that was closed down back in 2004. Since then the airport has been improved and is now being used to promote the history and cultural heritage of the area. The airfield is known as Prickett-Grooms Airfield (6Y9) and is in full swing again today. Frederick’s motto is: ‘If you mow it, they’ll come!’ The airfields website is here.