Stephen

Yes it will, but Imaginesim's KATL will have to close to exceptional to beat this version from Nimbus

News! - Released : ToLiSS A319 BSS CFM soundpack BlueSkyStar (BSS) have released a soundpack for the ToLiSS Airbus A319, called "Baby Bus Symphony"? this is a far more comprehensive package of sounds than provided by the original soundpack created by Turbine Sound Studios (TSS). This soundpack currently is for the CFM engine version only, with the noted IAE engine soundpack also going to be soon available... the comprehensive sound package is noted: Honeywell 131-9 Apu operation with igniters, apu door, combustion, exhaust, all stages, contactors, heard differently from outside inside, with open and closed exit doors. Safran UBCF Brake fans with start shutdown and running 360 degrees outside and inside with exit doors open dependent volumes. Brake release and set sounds (mechanism) as well as brake "singing" on high speed usage. All electric sounds of "Electric Bus" such as transformers rectifiers, cooling air fans, coil whine, the 28DC whine and 400Hz whine. Many sounds from E&E bay, contactors, relays, resets and much more. Flaps motor sounds start, stop and run, hydraulic state dependent sounds, flaps wind (drag) sound depending on degree of flap and speed Fuel Pumps Center right and left aft and forward sounds Hydraulic pump sounds for all three systems, typical sounds heard in A320 family of modulations with pressure change. PTU sounds - bark, self test, PTU gear sounds, fast and slow dependent on state. Generally PTU can only be heard from mid cabin with engines on. From all cabin with engines off and even from cockpit with cockpit door opened, engine shut and no other loud sounds on the way. Externally of course they can be heard too. Typical Y pump operation during cargo doors opening etc. Oxygen mask test and use sounds, purge and flow Packs sounds, internal and external with open and closed exit doors, all areas. Typically with running avionic fans in cockpit packs are more "felt" than heard and in cabin you can hear them work more louder since it is more quiet environment there apart from cockpit. All vents, blowers, extractors, inlet, outlets, start run and shut as well as cabin fans and recirco fans all placed in correct locations and sound both externally and internally. You can also hear toilet fans, galley fans aft and forward galley equipment sounds, best heard when parked engines off. All switches, knobs, selectors, small and big buttons, levers - everything that is present in aircraft sounds different. There is a specific sound for each position of those, so there is no "general 5 sounds for all pushbuttons", each position sound different, so if there is a three way switch, all three positions will sound different, all recorded in quiet environment in A319 cockpit. Everything is present, so if Toliss A319 has a button that is not working yet (dummy) we already have sound for it, so it will get updated when Toliss will make them all available. EGPWS, FWC, TCAS enhanced sounds. Same thing if system wise Toliss doesn't have certain EGPWS sound, we cannot have it done until these get programmed in aircraft code by Toliss. People sounds, Flight Attendant sounds, exit doors, cargo doors, everything bumps and clicks. People talk, seatbelts get fastened unfastened depending on stage of flight Attendants will automatically announce as per stage of flight. You will be able to control general volume of those to turn them off and on completely. Turbulence sounds, depend on actual turbulence and your smooth flying, yes these overheads will shake if you fly abrupt. All sort of ambiance sounds such as airport outside, the cabin ambiance Wind external and internal, cockpit is a loud place, it is calculated and measured by decibels and cockpit wind will be according to real thing. Fuselage wind flow, engines wind flow, gear flow, flaps flow. All dependent on where you at inside the aircraft. Correct bumps on the tarmac will include bumps, cracks, panel shakes, plastic inside cabin will shake all depending on whats going on with the aircraft. Centerline light will sound if they are present, all depending on speed. Gear mechanism with gear doors slamming and gear transfer with gear rotation vibration and stoppage. Rudder pedals will sound when fully depressed each, trimmer sounds, hydraulic variation when pressured hydraulic demand Wipers all speeds and park, seatbelt and no smoking dings, seat motors, horns, beeps, self test beeps etc. Touchdown sounds, depending on the force, each separate gear and magnitude Weather wind, rain drops and many other sounds, all quality and perhaps are too many to list. Generally the whole aircraft sounds, anything that can produce sound, everything that you will hear flying as the passenger in every seat different as a pilot.CFM56. No explanations needed. You can find any video out there on internet and if you see N1% compare. It will always sound exactly the same as per videos from any position inside this aircraft. Made separately with N1 fan and N2 core sounds, jet blast. Reversers. Jet Rush, Vibration, Jet Bass, exact spool up and spooldown speeds. Sound of engine will change per speed and altitude, simulated jet blast of tarmac into gear compartment when open. 6 years of development, endless days and nights of making it sound exact the same as the real prototype. I haven't compared the default custom sounds with the newer and more extensive BSS soundpack yet, but I have always been a big fan of the BlueSkyStar packages and the enhancement they bring to the aircraft. ______________________________________________________________________ Yes! the Baby Bus Symphony A319 BSS CFM soundpack is now available from the X-Plane.Org Store here : BSS Baby Bus Symphony A319 CFM soundpack Price is US$19.99 ... Yes! you do need the: Airbus A319 by Toliss - US$69.95 Requirements: Toliss A319 is required for this sound pack. Will not work on any other A319-A320 aircraft Current Version: 1.02 (November 3rd 2019) ______________________________________________________________________ Blue Sky Star Developer Site : Blue Sky Star Simulations News by Stephen Dutton 5th November 2019 Copyright©2019: X-Plane Reviews (Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions)

Scenery Upgrade : KATL- Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta Intl Airport UHD v2 by Nimbus Simulation You can hardly miss Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport either in real life or in simulation. It is a huge airport, the biggest (currently) in the world until the Chinese build something bigger. In X-Plane scenery terms it came down to one custom version, Butnaru's (now Nimbus Simulation) version that was released in March 2015 and a Global airport version. So here is the upgrade of KATL to v2 from Nimbus which will be soon be up against a FlightSim conversion with Imaginesim's version of KATL that is announced as coming soon. The differences are that Butnaru is X-Plane's own developer and Imaginesim is a crossover developer, so it will be interesting on how that aspect plays out. So over the years Butnaru's original v1 KATL scenery got quite a workout. It is on one of my X-PlaneReview aircraft test routes from KRSW - Florida Southwest to KATL - Atlanta, so I have flown a serious amount of category of aircraft between these two points over the years. As a scenery overall Butnaru's KATL was not bad (for the release period) but it had a few issues... notably my biggest issue was the frameweight of the scenery, it was very nasty in the sheer amount of frames it gobbled up, plus it was always usually have to be set at a render setting of a quite low-resolution because of the sheer weight of the scenery, so it was a lose-lose situation of high frames and a low quality visually, and if you approach any runway you usually got the stutters as the computer tried to process through everything and yes I accept there is a extremely high object count in the scenery, but it wasn't at all that efficient either. Second issue was that Butnaru had done the airport with the "runways follow terrain contours" switched off, which means it was flat, so it also didn't match any other scenery that usually had the contours setting switched on, all early Butnaru sceneries had this setting, which always made them the sort of odd ones out in my routes. Finally there was no active gates (airbridges), so you parked up... and nothing happened, so this sort of took away some of the simulation activity (okay fun) if departing or arriving at KATL. The X-PlaneReviews v1 (original) review is here: Airport Review : KATL - Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta Intl Airport by Butnaru KATL- Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta Intl Airport UHD v2 by Nimbus Looking at v2 you notice quite a few differences from the original v1. First is the airport boundary textures are quite a different shade and design than the rest of the textures... more on that in a moment. Runway, taxiway and apron textures are also a more darker colour than the original more light concrete colouring, but this is not as noticeable on the ground. In the v1 release we had a significant difference in colour between the inner airport boundary and external airport (default) textures. Here in v2 there is now three different texture colours? the inner, boundary and external. Actually the inner and external are the same, but it is the new boundary mesh textures that are a real worry... Worse is that the sharp lines make them stand out more, they all look like bad algae swamps which I doubt is in these qualities in Georgia... .... obviously I prefer the original even if odd colour layout as these coloured mesh things are a serious distraction, the point is why would you do this, as it obviously doesn't look at all realistic at all in any shape or form? some developers just can't seem to match up boundary textures correctly. HDR Dynamics Those Runway, taxiway and apron textures are a darker colour for a couple of reasons.... first they are of a far higher quality, and now also have far better realism details than the originals.... .... secondly they are now also HDR active, or they are reflective of wet surfaces, and so if you get the right lighting conditions they really come alive... ... and yes I absolutely love it, realism 101. Before we look at the infrastructure, then we will look first at some special features. First up is the choice to use the "Static aircraft" provided option, to fill in the gates with static aircraft.... .... or use the WorldTraffic3 (WT3) option (this is done by changing over the "Earth nav data" provided) and all the correct WT3 ground routes are provided as well... so which is which? well the static aircraft are in the image above left and the WT3 traffic is the above right, and it is very hard to tell the difference. One thing that give it away is that the static aircraft have the airbridges connected to the aircraft, were as the WT3 aircraft are not connected, a nice touch... .... Butnaru uses still the older marginal system, and not SAM. But they have been highly customised in detail and have those lovely working hoods, so it is a nice compromise, obviously far, far better than a boring static gate like there was in KATL v1. A note on WT3, in that the provided ground routes and settings are excellent... all the traffic flows for this complex airport are really good and you get a very highly active and realistic working Atlanta Intl. It is a small thing in the larger scheme of things, but a highly important one. KATL comes with a few active features, these are provided by a plugin that is placed in your plugins folder. Personally I don't like scenery plugins filling up the plugins folder, but this one is very good. You select via the plugins menu and you have two selections (the second KATL we will look at later), but first is the "Info Screen". Selecting the "Info Screen" will bring up a menu to set your destination ICAO and your departure time... .... the information board will then show you these set details, with the current "on time"... so now you are on the clock for departure, and if you go over your departure time then it will then show you are "delayed" and then your delay time... .... talk about working to your "On Time" pressure! but it is a brilliant feature. Concourses and infrastructure All the concourses and terminals have all been totally rebuilt (remodeled) from the ground up... Terminals and concourses T (Domestic), A, B, C, D, and F (International). infrastructure detail is simply excellent, as all the concourses and terminals are now a world away from the blocky v1 architecture... ... realistic internal structures are a Butnaru specality, and he has worked hard to perfect the idea. This is the best yet internally with not just great detail, but the usual animated passengers, look externally into the excellent activity internally and you really believe you are at Atlanta. All the individual concourse or terminal styles are covered, so again it feels like the real Atlanta... ... right down to the more basic Southwest gates. One thing that threw me with my first arrival at KATL v2, was that I thought I was not actually at Atlanta? Gone are all the bright orange facades that covered the concourses, now they are a faded dirty blue... .... and yes I was actually at Atlanta. Gate clutter and branding is excellent as well, as this is totally Delta territory, but a nice touch is that in some areas they are branded for the airline, like for Southwest. All individual airbridges are numbered (correctly) and the custom detail is really good, note the metal and concrete barriers. Besides the internal animations the external movement is just as good. Butnaru's walking airport employees are everywhere as is the extensive animated service vehicles... so the object count is off the chart. I particularly like the tugs, with the detailed drivers.... great stuff. There is a sort of misterx6 feel about all the detail here, and if you flew between the two sceneries of both developers then you would feel as home in both, and that is a compliment by the way. Control Tower The control tower which is the tallest in the United States, with a height of over 398 feet (121 m) is all new. At first glance it doesn't look much different, but the higher detail and design quality gives it all away, it is well done... .... only comment is on the low-res base textures which are not very pretty in a visual area. Delta Maintenance Base (T.O.C.) The Delta Maintenance Base is all new as well, and all the hangars are now open to revel extensive static aircraft and maintenance platforms, it looks far, far better than the original version. North Cargo One of the most decisive areas in KATL v1 was the North and the North Cargo areas... actually they were horrible, and really just consisted of an island Renaissance Hotel which was lost in an area of flat low-res textures... the north areas in v2 KATL have been completely redeveloped and now looks like part of the scenery. The main Delta administration offices and Delta museum is there and it now all comes with extensive full carparks, the older "Fly Delta Jets" on the museum roof is however still missing. Odd is the nice touch of the Delta museum Boeing 747 and B767, but they disappear with the static aircraft switched off? Overall this area is a massive improvement. The totally unusable General Aviation area is now actually usable as well, it is still a little blank and open as a few static GA's would have been nice to fill it in. South areas and South Cargo South Cargo was more usable than North Cargo, but not by much, again the area has had a significant overhaul and looks as good as the north... .... but there are still areas of low-res textures that are a little washed out, at least they are now fenced in and lit (lighting), so that sort of helps. With the terrain contours now active you also get elevations. On the south side under runway 10/28 they are very realistic and well done, RWY 10/28 is always a great runway to arrive on at KATL, and now it it is far better also from a visual point of view. Lighting The lighting on the original KATL v1 was one of the highlights of that package, so you sort of expected it to be good here in the v2 version, and it is... ... although with ATL's sheer size it does all tend to blend in more with the background from a distance this time around, but the details are excellent. A highlight is the nice brighter lit under building work areas (baggage entrance zones)... the windows are far better here as well, as they don't have that blue tinge at night like at Butnaru's KMIA, but a more natural realistic hue.... .... nice detail is the internal lit airbridge, and on the ramps it is very nice place to work and is well lit. Other zones north and south are also well done, but the Delta Maintenance is a bit bright on the RWY 26L threshold... maybe not all of the hangars needed to be so brightly lit? Second plugin feature is the "KATL" and here you can adjust the lighting dynamics of the Control Tower and Terminal T canopy lighting... slightly odd is that if you use the pop-up menu at night it goes blank? so you have to set everything in the half-light. You have on both items a choice of six colours in: Blue, Red, Purple, Green, White and Dynamic (white) And very nice they all are... canopy There are too many combinations of choice to show here, but you get the idea... personally I'm not sure of the best set up for either the tower or canopy, or just use the plain white... safe. So the lighting is in the details and not in the overall experience, but KATL v2 is a great place for an after-hours arrival. I have left the best feature till last, and it is not even a published feature.... On arrival at KATL you always brace yourself, as how bad will it be this time?... .... so you are waiting for it, waiting for it.... and waiting for it? .... the hell zone of framerate shudders and the slideshow of a landing, only this time..... nothing happens, as you just glide in and land as normal. No fall of the framerate, no sinking feeling of a ruined landing as it is all now quite perfect... can this really be KATL? At first I thought I was landing at the wrong airport, but no this is ATL and I am landing in Atlanta. Yes the framerate dipped into the 30's and high 20's, but hell with the obscene object count here that is a miracle, and yes I am not greedy with my texture settings that helped, overall I am just ecstatic that I now have a workable KATL- Atlanta that I can use. Summary The original version of Butnaru's KATL-Atlanta was released in March 2015 and by the standards of the period it was very good, but this new v2 KATL simply blows that version out of the water, this is no simple update, but a highly developed new airport that is full of dynamic features. All terminals and most of the more important infrastructure has been redone from scratch with custom airbridges and (visible) internal details, all the outer North and South areas that were sorely lacking in the original have now also been filled in and completed. Dynamics are everywhere from the HDR runways (reflective, wet) to internal and external animations (vehicles, walking ground staff), clever interactive gate boards and active changeable lighting on the control tower and Terminal T canopy. Highly refined WorldTraffic3 (provided) ground routes with the option of static aircraft if you don't want the WT3 dynamics. Airbidges are now also active, they are however Marginal sourced and not SAM, but custom detailing and animated hoods are excellent and makeup any shortfalls. The move from contours off to contours on, gives you compatibility now with other airports and elevation details. Lighting is overall excellent, but a bit bright in areas. Better and far more refined framerate with far more objects finally makes the airport usable and effective. Niggles... those horrible algae boundary textures, which are highly visible on all approaches and really the only significant negative in the scenery, Delta Museum aircraft disappear when not using the static aircraft setting? and lighting Delta Maintenance is a bit bright and distracting, some areas still have visual low-res textures. Nimbus Simulations epic KATL UHD v2 is so close to an absolute five star rating, except for those weird boundary textures, they are an eyesore you just don't need here... otherwise this is a totally sensational scenery, epic in scale, but more so epic in framerate and usability, a final note is that any purchaser that has the original v1 version can get US$10 off this highly upgraded v2 KATL, and it is well worth the investment. ______________________________________________________________________ Yes! KATL- Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta Intl Airport UHD v2 by Nimbus Simulationis is now Available from the X-Plane.Org Store here : KATL - Atlanta International UHD v2 Price is US$28.95 Customers of KATL v1 can get $10 off this new version: Coupon code can be found in your original invoice. Features: Terminals with 3D interior and people HDR lights New 4K textures with PBR materials for the main terminals Night lighting New ground textures with PBR materials New high quality vehicles with PBR material 3D trees Parking lots full of cars Ground markings on each gate and runway Numbered jetways Files for empty airport or static planes World Traffic 3 ready (files included) Fully Animated Airport World Traffic 3 ready (files included) GroundTraffic (plugin by Marginal) AutoGate plugin with custom highly detailed jetways Animated people inside the terminals NEW!! - Information screens that shows time, pressure, temperature, destination airport, departure time, delay and the amount of delay ______________________________________________________________________ Installation Download is 669.20mb and the three folders are placed in order in your X-Plane custom scenery folder: Nimbus Simulation - KATL V2 - Atlanta - Roads Nimbus Simulation - KATL V2 - Atlanta Nimbus Simulation -Z- KATL V2 - Atlanta "Nimbus airports V1" plugin to be also installed in the X-Plane/resources/plugins folder Total scenery installation is 1.74gb Marginal AutoGate - Animated jetway and docking guidance system is required (plugin) Choice of static aircraft ON/OFF (show or don't show) is provided (Earth.nav.data) and full sets of WorldTraffic3 groundroutes and Parking defs Requirements : X-Plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux 4 GB VRAM Minimum. 8 GB+ VRAM recommended Download size: 670 Mb Current and Review version : 2.0 (November 1st 2019) Documentation: basic (half-completed) README!.pdf is provided ______________________________________________________________________ Scenery Upgrade Review by Stephen Dutton 6th November 2019 Copyright©2019: X-Plane Reviews Review System Specifications: Computer System: Windows - Intel Core i7 6700K CPU 4.00GHz / 64bit - 16 Gb single 1067 Mhz DDR4 2133 - GeForce GTX 980/SSE2 - Samsung Evo 1Tb SSD Software: - Windows 10 - X-Plane 10 Global ver 11.40 Addons: Saitek x52 Pro system Joystick and Throttle : Sound - Bose Soundlink Mini : Headshake by SimCoders Plugins: WorldTraffic3 US$29.95 (recommended) : Environment Engine v1.12 by xEnviro US$69.90 : - Boeing 738 by Laminar Research - Default with X-Plane11

Yes it is confirmed the developer has pulled the aircraft from sale... acually he has done this before and then came back again with a better aircraft. I am not saying he will do this again, but you never know.

Sceneries Reinstatement : TruScenery in Finland You can prove your X-Plane credentials if you remember a developer group called TruScenery. Yes they are still actually around, but these hugely popular X-Plane developers decided many moons ago to go solo with their own sales site, and like every thing else in the huge internet ocean they quickly fell off our simulation radar. The point here is that unless you stay close to main flowing streams of the internet, you can be quickly forgotten no matter how good your brand is, non-release or even constant updates of new product can really also help in the context of doing an invisible magic act. Simulation as a whole is marginal segment, inside it is a big universe of wonder, but just step outside of that boundary and you will be quickly forgotten. So TruScenery are back, well sort of... in re-releasing their original sceneries back onto the X-Plane.OrgStore, in the series that covers Finland is also one new airport, the original first three sceneries have had various touchups over the years with EFPT -Tampere–Pirkkala, EFHF - Helsinki-Malmi and EFJO -Joensuu Airport have been joined lately by EFRY - Rayskala Airfield... So I was curious to find out how they still stand up today and set within the higher X-Plane dynamics and detail, so let us take a quick look around all of them. EFPT -Tampere–Pirkkala This is a scenery of multiple award wins, including X-PlaneReview's best scenery of 2013 which is Tampere–Pirkkala in northern Finland... at the time EFTP was head and shoulders above everything else in X-Plane scenery for detail and quality, so does it still stand up six years later? If fact it does, which shows how advanced the scenery was at the time of it's 2012 release, I will note is that missing here are the later X-Plane11 PBR dynamics of reflective glass and wet runways and built in ATC routes (Parking spots exist, but not taxi routes for a good WT3 generation) features. The custom darker tree lines show the boundaries of the scenery, but otherwise Tampere–Pirkkala blends nicely into the scenery, it was good 6 years ago but with the advances in X-Plane the integration is now far better, and helped enormously by the far better autogen and SFD Global local housing... .... the once remote custom ABC 24hr service station is now part of the local scenery, and the custom Näsinneula observation tower in Tampere is not so isolated as well. The single original apron is now split into Apron 1 for the newer terminal (A1 - A5) from the original terminal that is now apron 2 (B1-B5), you do notice the very flat now but well detailed textures, and that reflection PBR gloss you expect is not here, but the detail is still extremely good, Tampere–Pirkkala was one of the first really walkaround to feel the realistic scenery releases for X-Plane and that is still a worthwhile thing to do... 3d grass and flowers were a big deal back then, and it is still very well done compared to even today's versions... Simulated metal reflections also looked excellent, but now with the PBR metalness feature in X-Plane it looks a little dated, textures are still very good however as is the intimate detailing. Animated vehicles (baggage cart) was another innovation at the time, and the scenery realism from the ramp still looks very good. Nightlighting is still excellent as well, it was a poster on how to do great terminal night textures, and to a point it still is... landside and apron lighting is excellent as well. Overall EFPT - Tampere–Pirkkala stands up amazingly well for it's age, certainly if upgraded with the lastest X-Plane dynamics (reflections, metalness and textures) it would certainly be well up there with the best of current sceneries. Tampere-Pirkkala Airport (IATA: TMP, ICAO: EFTP) is now available from the X-Plane.OrgStore for: US$19.95 EFTP Tampere Airport ________________________________ EFHF - Helsinki-Malmi The first of the TruScenery releases was the extraordinary Helsinki-Malmi airport. All these years on and it is still outstanding... more so with the better autogen and European urban industrial objects, as what was once a blank area is now a very filled in VFR landscape. Highlight then and it is still now was the functionalist terminal building which was completed in 1938 and designed by architects Dag Englund and Vera Rosendahl. The official opening ceremony took place on 15 May 1938. Here we have outstanding modeling of this amazing functionalist terminal that is still breathtaking today, detailing is amazing with also a working clock! (there are actually two clocks) Chimney below smokes, but sheer detail here is second to none... You pay for authenticity and that means authentic real hangers like at EFHF, as there is no generic LR buildings here, it is all as real as the real airport of Helsinki-Malmi. Oddly unlike Tampere–Pirkkala there is no 3d grass here at Malmi, and it certainly would have been a very nice visual feature to have. There is a lot of nice static aircraft also set around the scenery and branding is very good as well, but basically EFEH is a general aviation airport only, but a worthwhile one to use. Helsinki-Malmi is not really a night time operations airport, but EFHF still shines very well in the dark, close lighting detail of the functionalist terminal is breathtaking at night, note the slightly different lit aged clock face. In reality all those years ago we were totally spoilt for this excellent scenery, as it still stacks up very well after all these years on. Helsinki-Malmi Airport (IATA: HEM, ICAO: EFHF) is now available from the X-Plane.OrgStore for: US$16.90 EFHF - Helsinki Malmi Airport ________________________________ EFJO - Joensuu Airport Joensuu Airport is an airport in Liperi, Finland, about 11 kilometres (7 mi) northwest of Joensuu city centre. Joensuu Airport is not as highly modeled as the other sceneries here, but again the detailing is very good, it feels like a very remote airport, but it is not that far as say up into the Arctic Circle like EFRO - Rovaniemi. Some buildings feel just 3d modeled and not textured like with the control tower, but with the way the expert work has been done, it mostly hides the short cut... ... where it has been actually textured like with the hangar doors and building detail, then the wear and tear is very good, yes EFJO is an old scenery, but still a worthwhile one. Lighting The night lighting at Joensuu Airport is very good, again those exceptional night textures are so highly realistic. It is still very hard to believe that these sceneries are 4 to 5 years old... Certainly EFJO is a worthwhile scenery if you love regional airport hopping, and it delivers very well as a fly in and fly out spoke and hub destination... Joensuu Airport (IATA: JOE, ICAO: EFJO)is now available from the X-Plane.OrgStore for: US$12.90 EFJO - Joesuu Airport ________________________________ EFRY - Räyskälä Airfield Räyskälä Airfield is an airfield in Rayskala, Loppi, Finland, about 23 kilometers (14 mi) west of Loppi center and 37 kilometers (23 mi) east of Forssa town centre. It is also the largest sports aviation center in the Nordic countries and one of the busiest general aviation airfields in Finland. It is also home to the Finnish Sports Aviation Academy. EFRY - Räyskälä is the youngest of all these TruScenery airports, in that it was just released only a few years ago... .... that aspect is immediately apparent by the far more modern textures on the buildings. The Räyskälä Airfield layout is also quite unusual in having one main runway 12L/30R, but part of twin parallel runways: 08L/26R - 800m (2,625ft) Asphalt 08R/26L - 1,020m (3,346ft) Asphalt/Gravel 12L/30R - 1,270m (4,167ft) Asphalt/Gravel 12R/30L - 480m (1,575ft) Asphalt The airport is basically a field with a small box tower, hangars and buildings for the extensive gliding activity that goes on at Räyskälä Airfield. The detailing is extemely good and highly realistic, and obviously done by someone who knows the airfield very well. For a field and a few cabins, the lighting is also highly impressive... ... all the windows and porch lighting is well done, with the clubhouse which is also well lit and signed. Overall it was all very authentic in the dark, and you want to stay there and then get ready for that very early glider flight at the first sight of dawn.... impressive. EFRY - Räyskälä Airfield (IATA: None - ICAO: EFRY) is now available from the X-Plane.OrgStore for: US$9.90 EFRY - Räyskälä Airfield ________________________________ The journey to reconnect with these sceneries brings back a lot of great memories. TruScenery was a pioneer in creating very authentic and highly detailed sceneries for X-Plane, there were then excellent and very far ahead of the game when they were originally released, and unusually I didn't get that old out of date feel when using them again, so they have all certainly more than weathered the test of time. Yes no doubt a bit of attention on using the more dynamic elements of X-Plane11 in glass, Metalness and reflections would certainly be well worth the investment by the developer, and certainly they would benefit from the upgrades, otherwise they are still great if still some of the best scenery ever created for the X-Plane simulator. TruScenery for years have also been working on a large scale Helsinki Airport EFHK or Vantaa, and noted that the development on the scenery is still continuing, we obviously hope so, as a gateway to Finland then Vantaa is the main airport, and currently there is no large scale custom EFHK to fill that void... if TruScenery did deliver such a scenery then they would certainly mark their total presence on the country they obviously love... ________________________________________ TruScenery Overview by Stephen Dutton 1st November 2019 Copyright©2019: X-Plane Reviews (Disclaimer. All images and text in this preview are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions)

Behind the Screen : October 2019 We here at X-PlaneReviews have had to have a bit of a rethink in the way we select and present our reviews. The problem quite simply is that X-Plane as a simulator is now going at full throttle, with releases coming now not just weekly but even daily. In other words we are getting absolutely snowed under with new product. We do pick the best from the releases as many are not really worthy of attention, but we are seeing far too many now not being presented for your selection or choice, that is not good or even fair to you. Reviews on a whole take three days to process, so mostly that is two to three reviews a week, but get a complicated aircraft or a plugin that demands a lot of learning and testing and then a week can go by in a heart beat. Yes we would love some reviewers to help out the cause and anyone is welcome to have a go, but reviewing does require an intimate knowledge of the simulator and knowing the ins and outs of the aircraft and of the scenery you have to review, it can be time consuming as well (three days) so finding good solid reviewers is hard. But the rewards is that if you love simulation are very high, and you get to do that also with a lot of benefits. With a release you basically want to know the details. Mostly this is with scenery because in sheer release numbers then scenery out releases all other releases by 3 to 1, and that is as noted is increasing 2 fold every year. So the idea is for a "Quick Impression" review in that I look at the newly released scenery and give you my first impressions of the good and the bad, the price and a link so you can purchase the item if you wish... aircraft as well, will also have a quick look over, but many aircraft releases do require a bit of time to detail (meaning flying the damn thing) so aircraft first impressions won't come as much as a scenery or maybe a plugin for a quick impression. If the scenery deserves a more detailed and in depth full review, then that like in the past that will also be forthcoming, but the overall point is that far more recent releases can be shown on the site, even if they are not the full in depth review. This rethink was while I was away from the site moving house, you would think it would be easy to move 150 ft across the road, it is not, not when you have disconnected (firewall and human firewall) 3rd party phone companies, thankfully I am now reconnected to the modern internet superhighway, but the palaver in doing so shows that legacy companies are not deserving of our business no matter what "feedback" and "satisfaction customer policies" they believe... they are absolutely crap at doing the basics as I will atest... and yes that is you Telstra. Rant over means I am now a few releases behind in reviews, but I hope to catch up by Christmas... but it still gave the idea of the "Quick Impression" that was noted as required earlier in the year as the backlog mounted and mounted, as it is an absolute requirement anyway. We are thinking for 2020 of a few new changes and categories as well for the site, we feel the current layout is getting a little restricting... something to think about over the Christmas/NewYear holiday. ProjectFly An interesting story popped in October about ProjectFLY's who's servers went offline as confirmed by its owner Matt Davies mid-October. The reason was that Matt Davies was struggling to pay the hosting Google account for the ProjectFLY servers, the cost was a whopping GBP £2,750 or US$3,556, and that is a lot of cash to find. ProjectFly is a community based online system that notes "to follow the path of a real Pilot through their training and type rating ready to simulate that daily routine of a Low Cost Carrier Captain or even if you simply want a community of like-minded individuals", like in real life you can do a "journey similar to those pursuing a real career in Aviation. You start at the bottom, working your way towards your PPL. From there, you will have the ability to progress onto your CPL and ATPL before finally going on to your type-rating for that dream aircraft.". It is a very ambitious project but a very worthwhile one, but being community based then it is known as free! But look at the cost of providing "Free", and there you will see a problem, as nothing... I mean nothing is free, as someone somewhere has to pay. The idealism and the reality check often collide as it did here for Matt, the thing that horrified me was that when Google shut down Matt's servers, then the firestorm started, the "freeloaders" started blaming Mr Davies for something he had at the time no control over... thankfully a lot of donations paid the bill and ProjectFLY will thankfully FLY another day... but the point has to be made that nothing is free, you just can't take all the time without giving back. Now ProjectFLY will move to a subscription service to provide the platform, which Mr Davis now acknowledges should have been done from day one, and it will actually be cheap at £1 or US$3 a month... biscuits, but the point is that one if you are thinking of doing a simulator business then do your homework, as like in the real world it is still a business and you will still get real bills to pay, and of course your time requires some sort of payment, for the freeloaders, then apologise to the nice man and buy his low subscription... and remember for everything you get for free then someone out there has to pay for it, if you don't then you will simply lose it, as business dynamics are still the same whatever you do. Cosford Right in the middle of moving heavy boxes, the yearly UK Simulation event at RAF Cosford in the United Kingdom 5 - 6 October 2019 went on. My thoughts were that Laminar Research were doing another presentation and obviously X-PlaneReviews always covers LR seminars for details and announcements. X-PlaneReviews didn't cover the event because basically there was really nothing new to present... most of the presentation was mostly covering the old Vulkan and Metal ground (The US Expo), and yes the Guy's and Girls at Laminar are now getting very close to their Holy Grail of a new API for the simulator, an update and a display of yes "X-Plane is now flying in Vulkan/Metal" barring a few more tweeks, but nothing of news of a major scale or future road map was worth presenting, and certainly nothing exciting enough to put the boxes down for. But I am seriously very excited on the coming Vulkan/Metal feature. I am actually tired of living in the 30fr to 20 fr zone and want more framerate headroom, as if anything slightly out is currently putting me close to the 18fr slideshow, personally I can't get simply any more efficiency out of my Win box with my current settings that I can. So like you the new API couldn't come soon enough... But there is the warning in that don't expect too many new aircraft releases or updates until Vulkan/Metal goes live. The API affects aircraft more than any other area of the simulator and the 64bit period is going to be again a pain of a lot of fixes and updates. Yes developers will get an advance copy of the new X-Plane engine to test and check their aircraft, but as in the past it will still take time to resolve the details and the bugs will by very evident, note that a lot of beloved (meaning a lot of early X-Plane10) aircraft will be simply rendered useless, again it will be like with the 64bit crossover period, so your virtual hangers are going to get a bit of a clean out, my recommendation is to keep a copy of the older OpenGL X-Plane version (download now from the installer) to keep on flying these aircraft when you move forward. A note that it is easy to switch in that all you have to do is move (or swap) the mega Custom Scenery, Global Scenery and ClassicJetSimUtlis (WorldTraffic) folders to the simulator version you want to use, as they take up way too much drive or SSD space to duplicate. Hopefully by the time of the next edition of "Behind the Screen" we will be in API heaven... I hope so See you all next month Stephen Dutton 1st November 2019 Copyright©2019: X-Plane Reviews

News! - Released! : SSG Boeing 748 Inter Advanced v2 SSG - Supercritical Simulations Group have released there version 2 of the Boeing 748i (Passenger version) Advanced... Notes... this is a complete rebuild of the aircraft, not just an update, new features include: EXTERNALS The entire external 3D model for v2 has been redone, including the following: All new fuselage closely modeled on the real one with added details Each door can be opened individually and is more detailed dded animations and details (almost all parts that can open/move on the aircraft are modeled). New external details such as a satellite antenna and tail camera New cut passenger windows instead of textures New vertical and horizontal stabilizers with added details New nacelles and engines with more details and new animations Reworked and more detailed landing gear/gear doors with additional animation Improved and more detailed leading and trailing edge flaps and added flap mechanisms Upper deck interior with seats/galleys and stairs to lower deck New wing flex and nacelle animations The textures for the entire aircraft have been redone to match the new model, along with decals for certain detailed areas, right down to most of the external placards, working closely with our technical advisors to ensure all the main details are present and that we have gotten them right. COCKPIT The entire cockpit 3D model has been largely redone and completely retextured. New overhead panel and buttons/switches New forward panel and buttons/switches New pedestal and buttons/switches/handles New miscellaneous panel and buttons/switches Side panels and window frames completely redone New cockpit seats Various added details SYSTEMS/FMC Almost all switches function properly and independently IRS alignment process implemented More realistic fuel system with different pumps and tanks along with FUEL TANK / ENG logic Realistic AUTOSTART and RUNNING indicators on secondary engine displays Improved and more realistic air conditioning system and logic Better track representation on ND Clock and chronometer on ND working like on the real aircraft More realistic baro pressure logic (STD, preselected, transition altitude) Captain and First Officer FMCs are now independent FMC FIX page added FMC Route 2 function added FMC Diversion function added Librain rain effects (currently not working on Macs) Requirements: X-Plane 11 Windows , Mac or Linux 4GB MB VRAM Minimum - 8GB+ VRAM Recommended Current version : 2.0 - (October 30th 2019) Noted is that current owners of the 747 v1 will see a discounted price once logged into their X-Plane.OrgStore account for a discount on the v2 aircraft ______________________________________________________________________  Yes! the Boeing 747-8i/8F Adv v2.0 By Supercritical Simulations Group is NOW available from the X-Plane.Org Store here : Boeing 747-8 Inter Series v2 Advanced (Passenger) : Price is US$65.00 Freighter version is coming soon as a free upgrade Images are courtesy of SSG ______________________________________________________________________  News by Stephen Dutton  31st October 2019  Copyright©2019: X-Plane Reviews   (Disclaimer. All images and text in this review are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions)    

Quick Impression : LGIR - Heraklion International Airport by FlyTampa Having looked at the other two Greek FlyTampa recent scenery releases of Athens XP and Thessaloniki XP for X-Plane11, it was only fitting then to have a quick look at FlyTampa's LGIR - Heraklion International Airport in FlyHeraklion XP... LGIR was the first release of the XP series and this is FlyTampa's version with JustSim having a LGIR - Heraklion scenery as well... and I will note that in this Quick Impression is that I am using the misterx6 SFD Global autogen, but it isn't really required as the provided custom autogen is very extensive. Heraklion International Airport "Nikos Kazantzakis" Διεθνής Αερολιμένας Ηρακλείου "Νίκος Καζαντζάκης" IATA: HER - ICAO: LGIR First Impression of FlyTampa's LGIR - Heraklion XP was very good, the feel however is more darker because of the custom textures applied here, the object count of buildings is off the chart as well, as FlyTampa always provide not only the airport scenery itself, but the extensive produced custom autogen as well, and that makes up quite a visual view filling scenario. WT3 generation from completed ATC ground routes is available, but it is all very average, with a very odd wing waving (rolling) approach line to RWY09, and a lot of popping off of aircraft on the actual landing, but at least LGIR WT3 is active... sort of. Great clutter detail is all airline branded. All aircraft parking at LGIR is by remote stand only (no airbridges) but there is a lot of available parking spaces to choose from. Terminal modeling and detail is excellent, but it feels slightly disconnected from the ground? The idea to use low-res textures in various high detail areas can create visual disparities, as it is here at LGIR. Vehicle and clutter quality is very high and nicely airport and airline branded with the gate mounted F-16 well done, Greek flags are animated and look great and there is extensive animated traffic airside and landside. Landside is well catered for with clutter, but well let down again with the low-res texture carpark and road detail... cars are riding on dirt more than roads into and out of the airport and the good detail here sadly really suffers. Runway/Taxiway textures are excellent and also PBR (Physically Based Rendering) active (wet, rain and reflective) as well and look amazing in the right lighting conditions with oily areas that look authentic, runway signage and markings are also very good... Like all in these Greek FlyTampa sceneries you have 3d grass and here it is one of the best yet in detail and it is certainly well done on the verges. Airport detail is very good, as all areas have something interesting and related to HER, highlight is the hilltop dome radar (IRAKLION VOR (108.80)) that dominates the scenery. Heraklion Port is noted, with two ships in the harbour and the port is really well highly detailed. Custom autogen is created for efficiency and not detail and that allows the custom scenery to go on... and on and on... in that it covers the area very extensively, but the boundary is noticeable... Heraklion's famous Rocca a Mare Fortress is well presented and there are a few landmarks and stadiums in between the buildings to give you the perfect overall Heraklion feel. Lighting Lighting is as good if not better than the other sceneries in the series. All the aprons are well lit (nicely reflective) stands like on Apron L and the western end of the main apron that are also excellent. Terminal and building lighting is also excellent, and right down to the real detail in the lower under terminal strip lighting that is so authentic, and the X-Plane11 dynamic lighting effects just makes it all look so very good. Runaway/Taxiway lighting is good, but there is no centre line lighting on any of the main runways. Heraklion City as a vista at night is very good, and gives you a nice exciting arrival feel, as the Port, landmark buildings and stadiums are all very nicely lit. Feature list is very good, with a lot of dynamic X-Plane11 features provided. Heraklion International Airport N.Kazantzakis (LGIR) Detailed custom Taxiway, Apron & Runway markings Sloped airport terrain Custom city mesh, vegetation and dynamic XP lighting Full city coverage with custom buildings and landmarks Custom Terrain Mesh Models baked with Ambient Occlusion PBR Textures Volumetric Grass Animated apron vehicles and road traffic Compatible with World Traffic and other AI Traffic programs. Optimized for excellent frame rates First Impressions Overall extremely good like most of these Greek Sceneries from FlyTampa and their eastern Mediterranean series, Layout, clutter, lighting, grass and detail is very good to excellent, and it all comes with that FlyTampa extensive custom autogen. Best of the series certainly for X-Plane dynamics (reflective glass and runways) and lighting is exceptional, and the PBR ground textures here are also very good... very, very good value. Contrary are the usual low noticeable resolution photo-textures (roads, carparks... etc) landiside and even in some areas airside , WT3 needs more refining (RWY09 approach is simply weird), but it works... This scenery was just so, so close for a full 5 stars. Four out of Five stars ☀️☀️☀️☀️⭐ LGIR - Heraklion International Airport by FlyTampa is now available from the X-Plane.OrgStore here: FlyTampa-Heraklion XP Price is US$22.00 Requirements are: X-Plane 11 Windows or Mac (not compatible with Linux) 4GB VRAM Minimum - 8GB VRAM Recommended Download Size: 750MB - Install Size: 858 mb Current and impression version : 1.0 (Nov 7th 2019) ________________________________________ Quick Impression by Stephen Dutton 7th November 2019 Copyright©2019: X-Plane Reviews (Disclaimer. All images and text in this preview are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions)

Yes most FlightSim crossover scenery is usually the old rehashed work, but at this price it is not too bad, I have seen a lot, lot worse... the lack of ground detail shows it's age.

Quick Impression : LGAV Athens XP by FlyTampa In a flurry of releases FlyTampa have hit the airports of Greece hard, FlyCorfu XP had been released last year 2018, but then in the last few months we have had three in succession with LGIR - Heraklion XP, then LGTS - Thessaloniki XP and just a few weeks ago FlyTampa released this big one in LGAV - Athens XP. This is not a review of the FlyTampa - Athens scenery, just a sort of quick first impressions overview, mostly to give you an idea if it is worth putting down your hard earned cash for the scenery, a first overall view of what X-PlaneReviews likes or doesn't like about the release, more sceneries in this vein will follow soon. LGAV Athens XP by FlyTampa Athens International Airport "Eleftherios Venizelos" Διεθνής Αερολιμένας Αθηνών «Ελευθέριος Βενιζέλος» IATA: ATH - ICAO: LGAV As per FlyTampa you get a lot of photorealistic textures in area, they are slightly darker than the default textures, but overall they fit into the scenery quite well. The terminal (main) has A1-A13 and B3 - B17 (13 Gates) and there is also a satellite A30 - A39 (10 Gates) that are airbridge active and all are SAM - Scenery Animation Manager plugin (Plugin Required) featured, and come with the lovely branded Piraeus Bank blue airbridges which are excellent... ... there are a huge amount of remote parking stands here, all set out on the North and South aprons, GA apron and even in front of the huge Olympic maintenance hangar area. FlyTampa use the phototextures to do most of the work for them, but like with most of their sceneries the resolution is not great? fine in an overall aspect, but very poor in detail... ... so a lot of landside road, carpark detail is missing and areas around the aprons have missing fencing and that finer detailing that I think is important to the view from the aircraft... so much here is very well done at ATH, but these areas certainly needed more development? Runway and taxiway textures are good but not brilliant, thankfully they come with active PBR (Physically Based Rendering) textures (wet, rain reflections for realism).... 3d grass is included with nice grass in field and lovely spring flowers. Lighting LGAV lighting is excellent, there is masterful use of lighting and it all comes with great tones used to differentiate the different airport areas... Sofitel Airport hotel and Railway Station building lighting is done very well, but their warning (red) building lights are surprisingly quite annoying in the distance. .... highlight is the great IKEA and LEROY MERLIN store lighting, that can be seen on approach or departure from RWY 03L. Athens City can be seen from the airport, and the horizon lighting is very realistic. I am using misterx6 SFD Global autogen, but FlyTampa add in their own custom buildings to create a full realistic city environ. The feature list is long and excellent, with some great vehicle (branded) animations and clutter, and nice some nice static aircraft spread around the scenery. WT3 can be generated here from built in set ATC routes, but it is a patchy generation with a few aircraft popping off on the runways after landing... so the ground routes would need refining (flow) to get the full activity you would like. Features Custom Ground Textures Custom Photo Scenery Custom Terrain Mesh Models baked with Ambient Occlusion PBR Textures Dynamic Lighting with color matching real airport PBR Textures Dynamic Lighting Detailed custom Taxiway, Apron & Runway markings 3D Taxiway Bridges 3D Taxiway Signs & 3D Taxiway Lighting/Units Volumetric Grass Animated Vehicles Animated Train Animated Windsock SAM Animated Jetways SAM Docking Signs SAM Marshals Static Hawker Jet on GA Ramp Static Bell Helicopter New Solar Farm Compatible with World Traffic and other AI Traffic programs. Optimized for excellent frame rates First Impressions Overall excellent, this is a really great and worthwhile Athen's scenery from FlyTampa with a huge feature list. Layout, modeling, lighting and detail is very good to excellent and with WorldTraffic 3 running (needs refining) you have an excellent destination airport. SAM feature is well done. Contrary are the low resolution photo-textures (roads, carparks... etc), inner landside detail which needed more development Four out of Five stars ☀️☀️☀️☀️⭐ Fly Athens by FlyTampa is now available from the X-Plane.OrgStore here: FlyTampa - Athens Price is US$28.00 Requirements are: X-Plane 11 Windows or Mac (not compatible with Linux) 4GB VRAM Minimum - 8GB VRAM Recommended Download Size: 750MB : Install Size: 2.0Gb SAM plugin is required for this scenery Current and impression version : 1.0 (Sep 29th 2019) ________________________________________ Quick Impression by Stephen Dutton 29th October 2019 Copyright©2019: X-Plane Reviews (Disclaimer. All images and text in this preview are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions)

You can install the Librain plugin in two places, in the main X-Plane plugin folder (sort of global setting) or if available in the plugin folder of the aircraft... you won't get the effects to work via the render settings? the weather settings (i.e. rain!) is where they are activated, however they can be hard to set to get the right precipitation to create the rain...

Thank You Philippe for your comments, yes I am a bit behind on reviews, and as you mentioned most that have been released are sceneries... first I had to move house over the last few weeks and it was a difficult double move, but that is finally done except for the reconnection of the high-speed internet (NBN in Australia, and yes as usual Telstra messed it up badly). so I am currently restricted to using my iPhone connection and it is slow, but I expect to be back at full speed mid-week... Usually if I am doing a full review I don't want to waste time doing an impression, but they can take a few days to process, so yes under the circumstances a few quick impression reviews maybe a way to cover a lot of lost ground quickly, then see (and you can vote on this if you wish too) if you want a full in depth review of a certain scenery... so yes that will be the plan 😊

News! - Released! : EKBI Billund XP - Denmark by Vidan Design Back in June X-PlaneReviews reviewed the first scenery from FlightSim crossover developer Vidan Design. Vidan Design specialises in sceneries within Denmark and this first release of EKYT - Aalborg XP which was a revelation and was a scenery that I really liked from ,my very first impression, for a FS developer, Vidan did however cover most of the X-Plane11 features with professionalism and one of the highlights was the excellent intergration of the scenery into the X-Plane11 landscape. So here is their second release with EKBI - Billund, which is the second (after EKCH - Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup) largest airport in Denmark. First impression of EKBI are excellent... SAM - Scenery Animation Manager plugin (Plugin Required) feature is available here at BLL - Billund and it is excellent. With marshallers to guide you into the gate and all the remote stands are also active... Main Features also include: Billund Airport EKBI, BLL airport scenery Animated jetways (SAM plugin needed) Working Visual Docking Guidance System (SAM plugin needed) Custom modeled airport vehicles Photoreal ground imagery Custom modeled vegetation, grass, trees City of Billund scenery (Legoland not included) Noted the famous Billund Legoland is not included here... Scenery intergration like AAL is excellent. Airport lighting is also top notch... EKBI Billund XP - Denmark by Vidan Design is now available from the X-Plane.OrgStore here: EKBI Billund XP - Denmark Price is US$22.90 Requirements are: X-Plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux 4GB VRAM Minimum - 8GB+ VRAM Recommended SAM Plugin is required Download Size: 363 MB Current Version : 1.0 (October 24th 2019) ________________________________________ News by Stephen Dutton 27th October 2019 Copyright©2019: X-Plane Reviews (Disclaimer. All images and text in this preview are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions)

Actually the Magknight B787 is due for another update right now. The team announced the update at the Cosford Flight Sim event and the details provided in the update are these: Interim CDU New autothrottle Throttle limiter FMOD sound set by AudiobirdXP New fuselage model 3D Cabin model PA announcements The presentation also noted as coming soon the Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines, evacuation slides, air conditioning/pressurisation, fuel jettison and checklists I wouldn't expect however an upgraded FMC for a while yet, it is a complicated beast to to do, but it will come. 🤔

Scenery Review : LGTS Thessaloniki XP by FlyTampa In April 2018 FlyTampa a very well known and respected FS/P3D scenery developer released their first scenery for X-Plane. This was FlyCorfu XP and a very nice if small scenery it was. The main feature was not actually the airport LGKR that was the focus of the scenery, but the full aspect of the island of Corfu was covered with custom photo textures and 3d modeled buildings, and so also in creating a full and complete vista of the Greek Island. This was the reputation that had delivered FyyTampa into it's lauded position and when you received the look and feel of the FlyCorfu scenery it certainly had an impact. So obviously you wanted more... and FlyTampa noted that yes more was coming at the end of 2018. But that date slipped into 2019 and nothing was forthcoming even when passing the mid-year point, so were we going to get any more FlyTampa's for X-Plane, well at that stage it didn't actually look like it. Then in very quick succession we have had three releases in as many months with first LGIR - Heraklion XP, then LGTS - Thessaloniki XP (this scenery) and just last week FlyTampa released the big one in LGAV - Athens XP. So in quick succession we have gone from one scenery to four from FlyTampa with more listed to come before Christmas, and I won't hold my excitement back because still in that list is EKCH - Copenhagen Airport. But back to the current releases and there is theme here in that every release currently is focused on Greece and mostly it's islands. Overall the series in look and feel are all very much the same, so what you are seeing in this Thessaloniki review is very adaptable to all the other currently released sceneries. (Navigraph) Thessaloniki is a Greek port city on the Thermaic Gulf of the Aegean Sea. Thessaloniki Airport "Makedonia" was formerly known as Mikra Airport. And the airport is located 13 km (8.1 mi) southeast of the city, in Thermi. As with all FlyTampa sceneries you get orthophoto textures, and as Thessaloniki is not an island the end of the textures is noticeable in a line to the north, but it has a slightly better intergration with the X-Plane default textures to the south of the city. The contrast to the default textures is however quite noticeable and not as blended in together to create a smooth transition from the default to the custom landscapes. I will note formally that this review is running the SFD Global autogen (whiter) and there is a mix between the FlyTampa custom 3d autogen (Terracotta) and the new misterx6 SFD autogen, but in most areas they mix in nicely together to give a very realistic Greek feel to the scenery. Thessaloniki Airport "Makedonia" Κρατικός Αερολιμένας Θεσσαλονίκης "Μακεδονία" IATA: SKG - ICAO: LGTS 10/28 : 2,440m (8,005 ft) Asphalt 16/34 : 2,410m (7,907 ft) Asphalt Elevation AMSL 7 m / 23 ft LGTS layout is a lazy X of the two runways 10/28 - 16/34 with the main terminal building situated in the northeast, and the General Aviation area is north of the single main terminal. As with most European airports the opposite zone from the commercial area is a military facility, plus an area that operates the airbourne fire (waterbomber) services. Terminal All stands here at Thessaloniki are for walk/parking only with no airbridges attached to the terminal building. Stands numbered 2 - 22 are all turnaround and park, and the centrepoint and highlight of the scenery is the excellent terminal building... .... the terminal building framework and complex detailing is extremely impressive, and the HDR reflective windows and glass all add in to the realism... .... you can take a fair while looking around and admiring the construction as the detail is also very intricate and it is all as detailed on the roof as well, and moving around both the airside and landside areas of the terminal are also a few branded (Olympic/Aegean) animated vehicles, luggage trolleys and fuel trucks. Control Tower is part of the terminal building on the north end, well done with a rotating radar (not fully connected to the tower?) and HDR reflections again give realism. Tower view however is set far too low, so you get obstructions in the view that are not pretty? Airside is good, sort off (we will get to the reason's why in a moment) there are 3d vehicles, foliage and well done terminal ramps.... .... but overall the clutter in minimal, with (just) enough to satisfy, but not enough to cover heavy detail. General Aviation GA/Private Jet zone is good, fine for a quick stop through for a refuel. Aeroclub Thessaloniki building is welcoming and there is the airports well detailed Fire Station at the far northern end. A few static abandoned aircraft also fill in the scene with a B727, DC3 and (a broken) Caravelle all presented. Highlight here is the 3d concrete drainage channel which is very well done. South is the Cargo/Services buildings and apron (Cargo is stands 15-18)... the cargo/service building is done well with great if average resolution signage, and the red/white blast fencing is thankfully of quality detail.... ... and far south is a large well textured maintenance hangar with a static Hurky Bird on the apron. Outer boundaries cover the sparse Military zone which is well done, and the waterbomber parking apron. Ground Textures There is great RAIL lighting on the approach to RWY34 and overall the runway/taxiway are very good, there isn't that 3d asphalt feel, but they are nicely detailed with oil, tyre rubber markings, surface cracking and general wear and tear... 3d Grass all over the scenery is very good, with lovely areas set of spring flowers, and all the field areas are well catered for. The under construction of the extension to Runway 10 is well done with cranes and working huts set out around the development... but does that make the RWY10 approach usable? As noted to cover the extreme wide areas of the scenery the provided ortho textures are of a very low resolution? almost all are completely washed out and not very detailed on any approach.... ..... so there is no detail, roads and carparks and other detailed areas as are simply washed out or over bright, the effect also creates and brings a billiard table flat effect to the scenery and there is no differencial of texture resolution to the airport environs either to lift the detail within the working area. This is an aspect that is common throughout all FlyTampa sceneries, but the aspect is good in one way, but also shows the age of these original sceneries. Today our computers can handle far better quality and a more highly set of resolution photo textures (even if used around the airport boundaries) and their detail, and simulation as a whole has also now moved on from this once but very simple but effective technique. Thessaloniki City Again I will note the addition of misterx6 SFD Global autogen... but with the full compliment of both the SFD Global and the extensive object count provided by FlyTampa, younow get... simply a scernery that is totally INSANE! in the number of objects and in the detail of Thessaloniki City. Object detail is extraordinary and finally X-Plane is seeing fully and worthwhile and realistic city environments without the graphic card meltdown, all this complexity was under 4K (3669mb) on a graphic setting of "high". All the landmarks of Thessaloniki City including churches, numberable sports stadiums and official city buildings are all visible, Thessaloniki's port area is also highly detailed. Lighting Another area that is outstanding is the scenery's lighting... Approach, runway and taxiway lighting including navigation signage is all first rate.... all main aprons are bathed in great lighting and all the textures are also HDR dynamic (reflective) for realism. Terminal lighting is totally exquisite, almost overwhelming, so it is well worth a night landing at LGTS - Thessaloniki . different tone lighting separates the different areas and again it gives you great lighting dynamics... Thessaloniki City lighting is also excellent, varied and extensive. All the main landmarks are well lit, but very good also so is the important urban housing night textures.... ...... port zone is set at a different tone and visually everything works here in a totally realistic night lighting city environment. WT3 : The ATC routes are noted as done here, but only in the case of the basics of aircraft placement. As most aircraft landed then pop out on the runways and there are no connections to the parking stands and airport flow is non-existent, so overall LGTS is not a fully active or working operational WT3 airport, so the attention of new or refined ATC/Ground routes are required to bring this element up to a working standard. Summary Since the original FlyCorfu XP release, then FlyTampa took almost a full year and a half before releasing their next scenery for X-Plane, but then we got three in succession with LGIR - Heraklion XP, then LGTS - Thessaloniki XP and lastly LGAV - Athens XP. LGTS - Thessaloniki XP is typical of all FlyTampa sceneries. In being overall excellent, but highly let down by using the older style ortho texture technique that creates a very low resolution and blurred background with no detail for airport environs and roads on a flat surface. Otherwise detailing is very good with and excellent and highly detailed terminal and buildings, animated (not much) traffic and a lot of HDR elements of reflective lighting and glass, all ground runway/taxiway textures are passable, but have no depth of detail... Excellent and extensive 3d object count is off the charts in creating Thessaloniki City and surrounds combined with the recommended SDF Global autogen is breathtaking in creating a new standard of objects in the X-Plane simulator.. City detail in landmarks, featured buildings, stadiums, ports is extensive and all together all are outstanding. Final excellent feature is the standard of the night-lighting. Not only for the runway,taxiway and apron lighting (reflective) but also the amazing terminal lighting and the full Thessaloniki cityscape lighting as well. Yes there are a few gliches in this Thessaloniki Airport scenery (WT3 and suspended radar in case of points) and if you can live with those poor resolution textures then this is an outstanding scenery, certainly to be part of your FlyTampa scenery collection that at this point is still centred around Greece and it's island destinations... buy one scenery and you will probably buy them all, but that is not a bad thing because they are all very good investments to add into your X-Plane route flying. ______________________________________________________________________ Yes! LGTS Thessaloniki XP by FlyTampa is Available from the X-Plane.Org Store here : FlyTampa-Thessaloniki XP Price is US$22.00 Features Complete city add-on with custom mesh, vegetation and lighting Full city coverage with custom buildings and landmarks Sloped airport terrain Animated apron vehicles, road and ship traffic PBR materials ______________________________________________________________________ Installation You download an Installer, that you then set the X-Plane install address and then insert your email address and the authorization key... the installer will then do the rest (Internet connection is required and fast if possible). Install is six folders set in order: FlyTampa_Thessaloniki_0_forests (274mb) FlyTampa_Thessaloniki_0_airport (565mb) FlyTampa_Thessaloniki_3_mesh (93.1mb) FlyTampa_Thessaloniki_2_photoreal (1.75gb) FlyTampa_Thessaloniki_0_city (564mb) FlyTampa_Thessaloniki_1_overlays (25mb) Total scenery installation is a large 2.23gb SFD Global by misterx6 is highly recommended with this scenery. Requirements : X-Plane 11 Windows or Mac (not compatible with Linux) 4GB VRAM Minimum - 8GB VRAM Recommended Current and Review version: 1.0 (Sep 1st 2019) ______________________________________________________________________ Scenery Review by Stephen Dutton 19th October 2019 Copyright©2019: X-Plane Reviews Review System Specifications: Computer System: Windows - Intel Core i7 6700K CPU 4.00GHz / 64bit - 16 Gb single 1067 Mhz DDR4 2133 - GeForce GTX 980/SSE2 - Samsung Evo 1Tb SSD Software: - Windows 10 - X-Plane 10 Global ver 11.40 Addons: Saitek x52 Pro system Joystick and Throttle : Sound - Bose Soundlink Mini : Headshake by SimCoders Plugins: WorldTraffic3 US$29.95 : Environment Engine v1.07 by xEnviro US$69.90 : SFD Global by misterx6 US$30.00 Scenery or Aircraft - Boeing 738 by Laminar Research - Default with X-Plane11

News! - Released! : CT182T Skylane G1000 by Carenado Carenado have released the X-Plane11 version of the CT182T Skylane G1000. It is really hard not to be confused with their earlier Cessna release of the C172 Skyhawk G1000 in March 2019. Visually and with the same G1000 avionics install they could be noted as very much the same aircraft. The Skylane is a four-seat light aircraft with fixed landing gear, powered by a fuel-injected 230 hp (172 kW) Lycoming IO-540-AB1A5 piston engine, gross weight of 3,100 lb (1,406 kg) for take-off and 2,950 lb (1,338 kg) for landing. It was certified on 23 February 2001 and, as of July 2015, it is the only C182 variant now in production. The earlier Skyhawk has only a Lycoming O-320-D2J (160 hp (119 kW) engine and a top speed of 125 kn (143 mph, 231 km/h), so this newer Skylane however will propel you at 150 kn (170 mph, 280 km/h)... so what you are buying here over the Skyhawk is speed, and lots of it. Special Features of this totally upgraded XP11 version include NEW Full interior and exterior PBR (Redone completely), NEW 3D interior and exterior with MANY details, NEW customized FMOD sounds and the Laminar Research Customized X-Plane default G1000. Other Features Include: Full VR compatible Specially designed engine dynamics for XP11. Flight physics optimized for XP11 standards. Physically Based Rendering materials and textures throughout. PBR materials authored with industry-standard software used by the film and gaming industries. Realistic behavior compared to the real airplane. Realistic weight and balance. Tested by several pilots for maximum accuracy. Recommended System Requirements Windows XP – Vista – 7 -10 or MAC OS 10.10 (or higher) or Linux X-Plane 11 CPU: Intel Core i5 6600K at 3.5 ghz or faster. Memory: 16-24 GB RAM or more. Video Card: a DirectX 12-capable video card from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel with at least 4 GB VRAM (GeForce GTX 1070 or better or similar from AMD) 310MB available hard disk space Included in the package 5 HD liveries. 1 HD blank texture. CT182T G1000 Normal Procedures PDF. CT182T G1000 Emergency Procedures PDF. CT182T G1000 Performance tables PDF. CT182T G1000 Reference PDF. KAP140 Autopilot PDF. Recommended Settings XPLANE 11 PDF. If you have read the X-PlaneReviews review of the Cessna 172SP SkyHawk XP11 by Carenado Then you would know I absolutely loved this little aircraft, it was a gem, so I am very curious on how this more powerful C182T Skylane will compare... ________________________________________ Priced at US$34.95 the CT182T Skylane G1000 is now available from Carenado Now Available here from Carenado Images and details are courtesy of Carenado ________________________________________ News by Stephen Dutton 13th October 2019 Copyright©2019: X-Plane Reviews

By default in all the reviews the "Runways Follows Terrain Contours" option is on... if the setting is to be off then I will note that the off option is required like I did in in the review with Mexico MMMX, so you have it the wrong way around... and yes annoyingly developers consistently do their work with the contours switched off so their work does not match the rest of the X-Plane scenery.

Scenery Review : Cancún International Airport by FSimstudios I flew a review of the original release of FlyJSim's Boeing 737 TwinJet back in 2014. The route was KDFW (Dallas Fort Worth) to MMUN (Cancún) and it was the first time I had flown into Cancún, but it was made possible by a freeware release of MMUN by 5171 I had always wanted to fly to Cancún, Quintana Roo in Mexico as this is an extremely popular tourist resort that is a sort of an America's Ibiza as the location is so central to all North, Central and South Americas. No doubt I loved the flying, but the freeware rendition was good (for the time), but there was also a lot of liberty taken with the scenery in tall highrise buildings at any airport is usually a no, no in the authenticity stakes, but as you know my goal in any scenery is the rendition of the actual real world scenery and not a close fantasy. So I never sadly went back to Cancún until a more worthy scenery was possible, that is until now and interestingly enough only a few weeks after the excellent release of MMMX - Mexico City that I really (really) like, so a flight from MMMX to MMUN, was always going to be an interesting idea and a great route to put into operation. (Navigraph Charts) Departure from Benito Juárez International Airport - MMMX is always very dramatic, the weather up this high AT 7,316 ft / 2,230 m altitude can make for very challenging departures and very scary arrivals... Flying distance is almost exactly 700nm or around 2 hours 10min flying time, but as i was using the VOMA1A STAR the approach is almost directly into RWY 12L, go into 30R or 30L and the route is the far way around the coast by the visually far better but longer routing... MMMX is placed not in an urban environment, but in a more remote rural setting south of Cancún City, the runways are well spaced and to the point our landing runway 12L/30R is placed almost remotely away from the main central terminal areas... .... first impressions were extremely positive, but there was an average join between the custom scenery and the default mesh, we will look at this later. The photo ortho textures are very good and give you a nice feel of Cancún with the lakes and environs looking pretty spectacular on approaches, but the 3d or say 2d grass is at odds with the photo texures, I love 3d grass and they are a major requirement to take the flatness out of the flat orthos, but here it doesn't quite work as the bushes or grass is too dark or at odds with the surroundings, it looks fake rather than realistic, a more lighter to match grass would have blended in better (as most developers do). The surrounding foliage is quite good, but some 2d tall palms have again the same effect as the grass, they look out of date and average and the age is shown with the black surrounds and rather than a transparency around the foliage. There is a 3d taxiway bridge from 30R threshhold on taxiway D, it is well done but it has a steep incline that needed a fair bit of thrust too climb up... ... I love taxiway bridges (sad like that, I need to get a life), but I just do, but there isn't much happening on the Carr. a Aeropuerto Cancún as it is deserted of traffic, in fact all roadways don't have a lot of or any dynamic traffic in or outside the airport. Taxiway detail is very good, as is the runway textures... one thing you need to aware of is that if you use the 12L/30R runway (most arrivals do) then it is a long taxi to the terminals... Terminal 3 is not that far, but Terminal 4 is a long all the way around the airport taxi, the opposite is true as well, if departing from T3 then it is a long taxi around to the 12L threshold (past T4), personally I don't mind as I love a long taxi, it gives you time to see and explore the new destination, but be aware of the required taxi fuel. MMMX is a busy place as well, the busiest in Mexico... Terminal Two (domestic) stand 20 is my assigned parking... MMUN has the SAM - Scenery Animation Manager plugin (Plugin Required) feature, and one feature I seriously like, but I found the navigation VDGS guidence board blank (arrowed)? However if you get your parking position correct the SAM will activate correctly... some gates however didn't work either (stand 18 was one) so you need to have a working assigned gate. As a note I checked the SAM data and Gate 18 was listed. So overall my first impressions of Cancún International Airport are extremely positive and I seriously like the scenery a lot, but there are a few details that I thought could have been far better executed. ____________________________________ Cancún International Airport Aeropuerto Internacional de Cancún IATA: CUN - ICAO: MMUN 12R/30L - 11,483ft (3,500m) Asphalt 12L/30R - 9,186ft (2,800m) Asphalt Elevation AMSL 20 ft / 6 m Although there is the (very good) custom photo ortho textures, but the install is a bit of a mis-match. As you have the default base textures and the custom, and then the secondary airport custom textures all converging around the airport? so the result is a bit of a bad mis-match of everything, poor blank areas are around the boundary of MMUN, sharp lines of the custom photo and all in contrast to the different airport scenery textures themselves... it doesn't all quite match up? So as an X-Plane installation of the scenery it is all a bit amateurish, maybe passable as freeware, but certainly not as payware. The main Carr. Tulum - Cancún carraige way is cut off to the northeast of the airport and you lose the traffic on the roads, and there are a few buildings missing here that would be a visual requirement to the scenery... number one rule is that any custom scenery should blend in completely into it's surroundings. The Terminal numbering is also the airport's history, and follow the development and you can see how the airport has developed since the airport was officially opened in 1974. All terminals are adjacent to RWYs 12R/30L, the secondary RWY 12L/30R was built and opened in October 2009. Terminal 1 The oldest and the most basic terminal at MMUN, it is not even actually a building in the sense as it is an open air set of layers for arrivals and departures... It takes the meaning of "Cattle Class" to a whole new level, but it does add authenticity to the scenery. Terminal 1 has 7 gates: 1-7A. After suffering damage by Hurricane Wilma, the terminal (carpark?) was temporarily closed for remodeling in order to accommodate charter airlines operating into the airport. It re-opened in November 2013 to charter flights of which now currently serves only one airline in Magni. Terminal 2 You could class Terminal 2 as the main older terminal at Cancún Intl, it is the domestic terminal with the old control tower still visible... it has 22 gates: A1-A11 (in a satellite building) and B12-B22 (in the main building). Absolutely your choice for the best Mexican feel with the satelllite building having an Aztec feel, and that early design authenticity throughout the terminal. Modeling and textures are very good. Terminal 3 CUN has always battled with the explosion of passenger traffic, long delays and overcrowding are well founded here. In 2005, ASUR invested US$150 million for the construction of Terminal 3, which was inaugurated in 2007, along with the new runway and a new control tower which was opened in October 2009. Terminal 3 has a lovely brick facade and great windows. T2 has 21 gates: C4-C24. And in t has been recently expanded adding six gates and commercial areas, and it was formally opened in March 2016. Most US carriers as well as some Canadian and European carriers all use this terminal. All terminals in the scenery have internal details as well, overall most are quite basic, but still viewable. Terminal 3 is the best and typical of the four internal designs. Terminal 4 The newest Terminal is Terminal 4, which has 12 gates and was opened in October 2017. Gates are 53 - 64 plus two remote stands 67/A - 68. Airlines flying to terminal 4 include Aeroméxico, Interjet, Air France, Lufthansa, Air Transat, WestJet, Condor, Southwest Airlines, Air Europa, Frontier Airlines and Sun Country Airlines. You could note T4 as the International terminal at CUN as T3 is more North American continent focused. Sitting behind T4 is a tall ground radar tower that is well done, and highly noticeable. There is a large remote apron position between Terminal 1 and Terminal Two that cover stands 1 - 11 with 4A, 9A and 11A diagonal parking. There is a huge general aviation/private jet parking area by the threshold of RWY 30L, there is a modern VIP terminal that makes the area highly usable if you are transiting the airport or doing a quicky vacation weekend. Loads of PP (private parking) stands PP1A to PP37 are available so there is always somewhere to park. Control Tower The taller newer control tower was built with the expansion in 2009 and is notable by the beer branded "Corona" advertising... .... well done, and the style reflects the bare concrete architecture. All the tower views can see each approach well, but the approach to 30L has a black line (arrowed) in view, but it is below the actual approach runway view. A note that the tower cannot see the T4 ramp, as it is noted on the real terminal charts. Cargo Terminal Nestled between Terminal 2 and Terminal 3 is a small domestic cargo facility, there are six stands 26 - 32, and mostly has undercover warehouses, there is a DHL logistics facility set out behind. Ramps and clutter are very good, but the ysfsim ground routes the parking defs are marked for passenger and not cargo... so if you want run frequently to MMUN in a cargo role you would need to designate or shutdown a couple of the ground routes for cargo use. Amerijet International, Estafeta Carga Aérea and FedEx Express are the users of the facility. Detail of all the terminals is very good, and so are there textures, of all the minor infrastructure it is well presented here as also very good and so is the excellent branded ramp and apron clutter, but that is where it ends.... .... carparking and between building spaces are like the roads, in being just textures (mostly all grey) with the lines added on, and in many cases they are just blank areas, so there are no photo based textures to give the airport good landside ground detail, and unfortunately the blandness is highly noticeable. You can get away with this on the ramps and aprons (just) as the linage is very good, but in the other areas it all looks quite average. Cars and vehicles are 3d, but just boxes than actually modeled cars, again you just get away with the effect from a distance, but overall it is not the realistic photo or modeling detail you expect. The abandoned Allegro Boeing 727's add a nice bit of authenticity when using RWYs 12L/30R. And static aircraft are supplied, but not shown here (WT3). Runway and concrete textures are fine, but not in that high quality feel the stones in the asphalt look, but they are realistic... ... but two shoulder areas with the Taxiway C/E junction and the entrance to the GA apron from taxiway D (D2) don't connect up correctly, and no it is not like that on the Google Maps, as there they are correctly aligned. Cancún visuals FSimStudios give you some very good if excellent photo textures that surround Cancún city... .... they look exceptional, but the execution at the edges of the photo textures are just visually horrible? Attention to detail is certainly at a miss here. Cancún's beachside hotels are represented, but are just very basic at best... this is only a skyline visual only, and not even a VFR worthy flight. WT3 : The ATC routes are done here, but badly if you do a generation of MMUN. Aircraft pop out on the runways and there are no connections to the parking stands, so overall it is total mess.... however ysfsim has completely redone the ground routing (we need to buy this guy a beer!) FSimstudios MMUN Cancun Intl WT3 Ground Routes and now the whole airport is fully WT3 functional. Operations are now about as perfect as you need, love it, and again a big thanks. Lighting At first glance MMUN looks pretty good in the darkness... from a distance. The ramps are excellent, bright and highly workable, and it is nice down here and the tall control tower looks great with the brand lighting.... ... but again away from the bright lights the rest of the lighting is all a bit average. All the landside areas are in darkness, with not even any carpark lighting and that the approach and internal roadways also do not have any lighting. Night taxiway lighting is a bit hit and miss as well, the approaches to the actual runways for departure are noted by lightboxes, but not the taxiways, except for in a few zones, worse is the large break of lighting on the edge taxiway and centreline lighting over the taxiway bridge.... you could easily lose a B747 here off the bridge... ... and with the poor scenery to ground texture insertion, the traffic lighting going north (to Cancún City) is broken and missing, so overall it is again pretty amateurish. Summary FSimstudios are another FSX/P3D studio to release their first scenery for the X-Plane simulator. And as with most FlightSim developers the results are a bit hit and miss, and the misses here are mostly and as usual in the areas that X-Plane in scenery differs from the FSX/P3D platform. The good is that we have finally a decent Cancún MMUN airport to fly into as a very desirable destination. Terminal reproduction and design is very good as are the airside layouts of the airport, the photo realistic textures look excellent on departure and arrival and you have that excellent SAM - Scenery Animation Manager plugin on all the gates, airside clutter is branded and again well done, so overall CUN looks really good. The average is when you get a little closer to the scenery. The airports X-Plane boundary installation and even the photo realistic install is quite awful and even amateurish, ditto the landside layouts (flat textures), lighting layouts and traffic road lighting and oddly placed shoulder areas. ATC routes are incomplete. Taxiway lighting is incomplete as is the taxiway navigation. Grass and tropical trees are out of date and X-Plane airport animations are not available and neither is active traffic on the roads (not even the supplied default traffic). Cancún City is about as basic as you could deliver. The frustration of sceneries like FSimstudio MMUN Cancún is that it has everything in it's basic form to be a top notch high level scenery, but again like with most Flightsim crossovers it fails on the most basic X-Plane aspects in not knowing or understanding the X-Plane dynamics. Can it be fixed... yes it can and actually quite easily, but an experienced X-Plane scenery developer would have to iron out the many kinks. So do I recommend to buy Cancún International Airport by FSimstudios for X-Plane11? For the overall quaility then no, as it just falls too short... however as a working scenery it is still a great addition to your flight routes, and flying in and out of CUN is a very good experience, certainly with the fixed WT3 ground routes and the SAM interaction. Overall I do actually love the Cancún experience and will obviously use this scenery with Mexico City's MMMX... but CUN could have been so, so much and a far better introduction from FSimstudio's for the X-Plane simulator. ______________________________________________________________________ Yes! Cancún International Airport by FSimstudios is Available from the X-Plane.Org Store here : MMUN - Cancun International Airport Price is US$22.50 Features High detailed representation of Cancun International Airport Detailed terminal buildings, including interiors and the new Terminal 4 High Resolution textures (4096x4096) Realistic Ground Poly of the airport Hotel Area with over 300 hand modeled hotels FBO and airport Surroundings modeled with great attention to detail Baked Shadows Static Planes SAM Animated Jetways Highly optimized for great performance Volumetric grass and custom vegetation 3D Modeled bridge on Taxiway D SAM Animated Jetways HDR Night Lighting PBR Textures ______________________________________________________________________ Installation The download package is huge at 1.05gb and is installed into your "Custom Scenery" Folder. Total scenery installation is a huge 2.50gb SAM - Scenery Animation Manager plugin is required and to be installed in your X-Plane Resources/Plugin folder WT3 - Ground Routes by ysfsim FSimstudios MMUN Cancun Intl WT3 Ground Routes is a requirement to replace the poor ATC routes (with the ysfsim MMUN ground routes there is supplied an optional scenery folder to hide the static aircraft (recommended)) Requirements : X-Plane 11 Windows, Mac or Linux 4GB VRAM Minimum - 8GB VRAM Recommended Download Size: 1.1 GB Current and Review version: 1.0 (Sep 17th 2019) ______________________________________________________________________ Scenery Review by Stephen Dutton 7th October 2019 Copyright©2019: X-Plane Reviews Review System Specifications: Computer System: Windows - Intel Core i7 6700K CPU 4.00GHz / 64bit - 16 Gb single 1067 Mhz DDR4 2133 - GeForce GTX 980/SSE2 - Samsung Evo 1Tb SSD Software: - Windows 10 - X-Plane 10 Global ver 10.45 / Checked install in X-Plane11b6 Addons: Saitek x52 Pro system Joystick and Throttle : Sound - Bose Soundlink Mini : Headshake by SimCoders Plugins: WorldTraffic3 US$29.95 : Environment Engine v1.07 by xEnviro US$69.90 : Scenery Animation Manager plugin - Free Scenery or Aircraft - Boeing 738 by Laminar Research - Default with X-Plane11

Listen Sunshine the details and the fix are there to be used, use a text editor to adjust the text in the MMMX apt.dat and it will work.... the required text file is on the bottom of the review (if you look).

Behind the Screen : September 2019 First of all the September edition of "Behind the Screen" is quite short, mainly because my personal interaction with X-Plane in September has been quite minimal. Real life sort of got in the way of my online life in that I had to secure a new home, but that aspect, plus the packing to move has now been completed. The actual move in the middle of October is still to be completed, so again the site will be quiet again for another week or so in that period. Certainly we are sorry in the lack of output from the site, but it is what it is. I was (on and off) able to review JustFlight's lovely PA-38 Tomahawk. And it did get me thinking in what was the main aspect of the review, in that what is the best aircraft for an introduction to simulation. For myself originally it was to fly a Boeing 747, which was really in hindsight is the worst type of aircraft to try to fly, or to learn to fly in... it is called a "Heavy" for a reason. To my benefit X-Plane9 and the evolution of the aircraft presented in that era in a way allowed me to sort of grasp the basics, but to confront say the same situation now in the current "Study" grade environment, I certainly would have been totally overwhelmed, or even try to factor in of where to start. You can and mostly do muddle through, but looking back after 10 years of simulation flying, there are so many different and complex factors now to learn and study. So unless you are a current flying pilot, I doubt you could could reach a high professional grade within two years, most will scoff at that statement, but I mean the total depth of every aspect of flying an aircraft, and there is the actual simulator running skills to learn as well. Flying aircraft is highly complex, but achieve a credible level of skill and you will have achieved a great goal in your life. One aspect was that I never even remotely considered early was in flying was a GA or General Aviation aircraft and to most of you punters that may seem to be quite a bizarre point of view, but I admit it was a mistake in trying to learn the basics of flying in a reverse order, and one aircraft in particular thankfully saved me. Before moving on I will recount one quite funny story that highlights your inability to understand the early details and the learning of flying a (heavy) aircraft, I was flying the XPFP (X-Plane Freeware Project) Boeing 747 from Singapore to London, I took off and did the whole procedure to get the B747 to 34.000ft and made sure it was following it's route, all done I settled in for the 11 hour flight to Heathrow... so obviously your not going to sit in the chair for the eleven or so hours, so I went and got something to eat. I checked the aircraft two hours later off the northern east coast of India, and noticed the B747 was actually flying around in long wide circles and was way off it's intended route... it was just lazily flying around and had been for about 20 minutes or so, so I noticed the autopilot had disconnected itself as that was the reason the aircraft was doing it's strange antics... so what caused the autopilot to disconnect? I couldn't at first actually work it out? but the cause was the simple change of the speed from IAS to .Mach, I had not done this, so when the aircraft went higher it went faster and then over it's maximum IAS speed and disconnected the autopilot... you learn, you get better, and as you would gather I was quite late arriving in London with very minimal fuel and irate passengers. But the core essential point is that I was putting my cart before the horse, in reality I should have learnt the very basics earlier and in a basic aircraft before putting myself through a lot of torture of things not going correctly.... at a certain point I had to stop and then return to do this critical aspect. I had always liked Carenado's F33A Bonanza and even it's very early form it was thankfully a fully rounded aircraft and the very first aircraft I prided myself in buying. I had to a point got here very lucky in the quality, dynamics but more so in the excellent avionics package that was set up for not only VFR flying but also for IFR (VOR) instrumentation... so I went back to the very basics. I started flying circuits, touch and goes, basic flying and handling techniques and then learning how to trim the aircraft correctly. Then I moved on to point to point flying, setting up a route and flying that route to the destination, then added in VOR to VOR navigation while learning how to follow maps and navigation... on and on, but the biggest interesting thing I did was to fly in learning only the F33A, and I flew that F33A week after week until I knew pretty well everything about that particular aircraft... I simply logged hours and hours on it, in all weathers, all airports and was building up skills that would last me years. When Carenado updated the F33A to X-Plane11 I was very critical on some of the aspects that had been changed, they were fixed, but the point there is how well I knew the aircraft to notice even the slight aspects of changes that had been done. I adjusted to the better X-Plane dynamics and still even now when wanting a base line not only to measure my own skills, or to update my flying skills then that F33A is still the benchmark that I work too. So everyone has their own particular or favorite aircraft they want to fly, but a high quality one here is important and not just a basic machine, as if the dynamics are off on your chosen machine then it can seriously mess and sometimes even damage badly with your basic skill base, and that is the word here... base. Because when I flew the Tomahawk, the first thing I did was to fly the F33A on the same (long) circuit for one to get me into the right headspace and then to translate to feel out the balance of the dynamics of the PA-38... that F33A is also my constant benchmark for any changes in X-Plane itself and always that F33A is my first flight to see the different changes and how they affect the simulator. And sometimes I fly that little damn machine for just total absolute fun. So I was very aware of promoting any aircraft to be a learners first, and obviously the F33A Bonanza is my absolute favorite, but there are a few out there that are simply excellent... VFlyteAir's PA-140C is excellent, as is the Cessna 172SP SkyHawk XP11 by Carenado (Glass) and the JustFlight's C152 and PA28R Piper Turbo Arrow III/lV (not the non-turbo Arrow as it is dog slow), and the one most will nominated will be the Cessna 172SP Skyhawk by AirfoilLabs which I acknowledge is extremely well liked and a very well completed aircraft, it's extensive features however would not make for a great if basic learning tool, it would just be a little too hard for a complete novice to learn on and master the aircraft with too many distractions. Strangely unlike the real world, X-Plane users have access to pretty much any aircraft they desire, were as in the real aviation most pilot's unless they have unusual jobs (like a ferry pilot) are mostly restricted to only a few models or ownership. So our skill base has to be quite wide to cover the huge range accessible to us, but I have found (reviews aside) that mostly I now fly only certain aircraft, but that still ranges from a heavy to a general aviation aircraft, the difference is I know them intimately. This aspect for me is important in the factor of what I called flying professionally, in the fact that in flying these few I do the full complete procedures that they require, and again they reflect a baseline to other aircraft (and reviews) for my judgements. Overall I have come a very long way in mastering my skills, you never ever stop learning, but that learning has also taken 10 years to master. My biggest yardstick is that in reality I have learnt more in the last three years than all of the seven years before, that is a combination of the changes and the ongoing depth of the simulator and also the sheer depth of the aircraft we now get to access, but overall it still comes simply down to doing the basics, in circuits and trimming the aircraft correctly as it is in the real world of aviation. See you all next month Stephen Dutton 1st October 2019 Copyright©2019: X-Plane Reviews

Aircraft Review : PA-38 Tomahawk by JustFlight-Thranda One aspect of reviewing is to find or filter out aircraft that goes beyond the basic simulation of flying the aircraft. This focus is to recommend certain aircraft to be used in a learning context. In other words if you are coming into a simulator for the first time and know absolutely nothing about flying, but want to earn your wings or basic want to fly an aircraft, then what is actually the best aircraft to buy to do this. So such a basic trainer is required as learning to fly in X-Plane is not as far removed as you would do in the real world, and we all have to start somewhere. Obviously the default X-Plane 172SP Skyhawk is the starting point, mainly because it is free and already included with the simulator, and it is certainly a good aircraft in learning the basics. But the point here is that the aircraft is just that in... basic. But what if you wanted to start in a more quality environment, and this is important, because in this higher level of detail and functionality you do get a far more rounded and realistic view and feel of a real aircraft in detail and more importantly in better dynamics... yes you are paying for that aspect of course, but I believe it is an important point. But even at this level then the aircraft has to still deliver the basics, in feel, reaction and control adjustment. So an entry level aircraft is an important choice, and as I am in a different position in being able to review a lot of aircraft, I can steer the inexperienced in the right direction so they get the details right the first time and if their experience is a realistic and rewarding one, then they are more likely to enjoy and learn more of simulation. The biggest problem with an entry into simulation is that it is like facing a smorgasbord of food, there is a lot it and you can eat everything... but the initial experience is very important, and get the wrong aircraft and you can get seriously overwhelmed technically, but more importantly is the fact that many aircraft are actually quite hard to fly, well not so much in the actual flying aspect, but in the set up, loading and trimming aspect. And if you get that wrong they you will be in early trouble in trying to fly the aircraft correctly, so you have to start at the bottom and the with the basics. Which brings us to the JustFlight PA-38 Tomahawk. JustFlight already have released one aircraft that fills out already the high criteria of a "Good entry Level Trainer" with their Cessna 152 ll by JustFlight Thranda (review) which was an exceptional entry level trainer, but here we have another in the Tomahawk, it is if a more sporty machine than the high-wing 110 hp (82 kW) C152, and the Tomahawk is also slightly more powerful 112 hp (84 kW) (yes all of 2 hp) but a more streamlined low-wing and effective high-elevator design. The PA-38 is a direct competitor to the C150/152 because it was created by Piper to compete directly in the same trainer/twin seater market. Piper widely surveyed flight instructors for their input into the trainer design. Instructors requested a more spinnable aircraft for training purposes, since other two-place trainers such as the Cessna 150 and 152 were designed to spontaneously fly out of a spin. The Tomahawk's NASA GA(W)-1 Whitcomb airfoil addresses this requirement by making specific pilot input necessary in recovering from spins, thus allowing pilots to develop proficiency in dealing with spin recovery. The design is a sweet if perfect trainer aircraft. The quality is certainly in that high HD detail depth you expect from a $40+ reproduction. All latches door hinges and engine cowling tie-downs are great items designs, but the front cowling looks like it can be removed to see the internal Avco Lycoming O-235-L2C air-cooled flat-four piston engine... but it can't which is a real disappointment, and should that sort of detail be available on a $40+ priced aircraft... yes maybe. Note the lovely 2-bladed Sensenich metal fixed-pitch propeller and spinner. There is the high normal mapping for down-to-the-rivet precision of aircraft features and accurate simulation of waves in the aluminium plates. Side fuselage NACA ducts are perfectly designed, as is the lovely wing fuel caps and installation detail. All aerodynamic surfaces are excellent and the detail is right down to excellent wing-tip lighting assemblies and the 1983 mandated additional pair of "Stall Strips" added to the inboard and outboard leading edge of the PA-38 wing to "standardize and improve the stall characteristics", here on the leading edge they are clearly seen. Rear tail, rudder and high T-Tail elevator are all exceptional with the reproduction, note the well designed high set navigation light. Glass is top-notch in reflectivity, shape and has that depth of mottled tint between the layers. The landing gear on the Tomahawk is a very basic strut based tri-cycle design, and a very basic set up it is... ... but also beautifully well done here, note the worn and rusted brake disk and brake assembly bolts. Front gear is again basic but effective. Highlight is the LED landing light in the nose. External design and detail then is excellent, no flaws and all high quality. Menu The Tomahawk uses the same menu system of all JustFlight aircraft, activated on the left side screen tab (mouse scroll to hide) There are seventeen menu tiles to use including: Top row : Open/close both cabin doors - Toggle GNS 530 GPS pop-up window (or the GTN750 payware add-on by RealityXP) - Toggle window reflections and interior glass dynamic reflections - Toggle dome light if the engine is running, or flashlight when starting cold and dark. Middle Row : Toggle GNS 530 (see later) - barometric pressure scale between InHg and mb - Toggle automatic fuel selector (switches fuel tanks automatically) - Toggle fuel refill menu window - Open weight and balance window - Toggle sound volumes window  Bottom row : Select ‘ready for takeoff’ or ‘cold and dark’ state - Toggle checklist pop-up window - Toggle flight computer pop-up window - Toggle logbook pop-up window - Toggle ground handling pop-up window - Toggle chocks and tie-downs. Chocks, tie-downs and a ground pull handle are visible when activated. The animated pilot disappears as well, and yes he is realistic, but certainly not in the way of the better Carenado style human realism and I think here a trainee pupil in the second seat would have been a nice visual addition. The arrows at the very bottom of the menu panel allows you to select the livery you require and to do so far more quickly than the X-Plane menu. The weight and balance window is very good, with weights for both passengers and baggage, fuel can be set here as also can the change from kg - lbs. A full list of weights, CG and a large graph of your settings are all very helpful in for balancing the aircraft. Weight limits though are extremely low, so if you put in a passenger then your fuel load (and range) is then highly compromised, you can set selections of Half or Full tanks and the standard variable scroll choices. Interior JustFlight's GA interiors are some of the very best in X-Plane, even in certain aircraft they are even far better than Carenado's renditions. And you are not disappointed here, this minute two-seater cabin it is simply gorgeous. Worn red leather seats (always love the red) with a very nicely carpeted rear baggage shelf... ... all with realistic straps and seatbelts, note the really well done structure struts in the rear section, and the high detail of the door latches. Glareshield detail is excellent with worn edges and vents, whiskey compass is highly detailed with external temperature gauge is again highly detailed, as is the lovely roof-mounted door latch handle Instrument Panel For a trainer the first big surprise is that there are no primary flight instruments on the right trainee placement seat? Yoke detail and feel is outstanding, totally authentic and realistic, they both can be individually hidden, but oddly only the right yoke has the highly animated coiled cable? and as the aircraft is based on a real-life Tomahawk, G-BNKH, based at Goodwood Aerodrome with SportAir, then does the original have missing the same attachment? Instrument panel is outstanding in design and realism, I really love the texture and detail. The Standard Six (SS) flying instruments are front and centre... Airspeed Indicator, Artificial Horizon and the Attitude Indicator are on the top row and the Turn Coordinator, Heading Dial/Course and Vertical Speed Indicators set out directly below. Left of the SS is a clock, and far right is an VOR OBS (Nav2) dial (SL30), below is a large Tachometer RPM gauge, but it is mostly hidden by the yoke. Mid-Console are the two fuel gauges (15 US Gal per tank) and selector. Throttle and Mixture levers are each side. Right lower panel are four gauges covering Ammmeter, Oil Temperature, Fuel Pressure and Oil Pressure, instrument panel lighting is below. Far right is a full working circuit breaker panel. All electrical switchgear is right panel. Avionics are quite light. Top is a Garmin GMA 340 Audio Panel, Garmin SL30 COMM1/NAV1 radio, Garmin SL40 COMM2/NAV2 radio and lower a Garmin GTX 328 Transponder... the SL30, SL40 and the GTX 328 panels pop-out, although the GTX is of a different default window than the two radios. The GTN750 payware add-on by RealityXP can also be installed replacing the GMA 328, SL30 and GTX transponder leaving only the SL40 visible. On the menu you can select the X-Plane GNS 530 to be inserted into the right panel side, the menu buttons are a bit confusing because one (row two) switches the unit, but the top row (third) will pop it out, but this doesn't work if the GNS is not showing, then just press the unit anyway to pop it out. Air vents are beautifully crafted and animated to open and rotate, very impressive... ... under panel detail with the lovely branded rudder pedals is all very good, but... the under panel point the pedal linkages that go into the instrument panel are quite under developed, and the ends of the linkages will show badly (in mid air) if in the full yaw position and the point of contact is just a plain/blank panel, so you have all this extensive detail but this is so average under here, yes it is hidden in a normal seating position, but it could have been finished off just a little bit better than this. Flap handle is on the long console (Up - Half - Full) with the pitch trim wheel (arrowed) that is set behind, now after me "the trim wheel is my best friend". Flying the Tomahawk Starting the PA-38 is quite easy, but it must want to like you... Avionics SL30 and SL40 and GNS 530 must be turned off before setting 1/4 throttle and 3/4 mixture, fuel pump on (it makes a very annoying noise) then turn the key to start, once running then let the aircraft warm up and settle before idling the throttle (turn off the clicking fuel pump). You can simulate fouled plugs and battery drain, or not and if your really impatient then just hit the menu quick start tab. I found I had to click on and off the Alternator switch (twice) before the ammeter showed any voltage, which I found realistic. Turn on and set the avionics and your ready to go... Let us be frank in that the Tomahawk is a very simple and easy aircraft to fly, there are no wizz-bang details to do here, it is basic machine in a quality feel and use, note the lovely LED landing light that is really well done... ... taxiing is always for me a general introduction to the quality of the aircraft in it's controls and feel, so the first impression here is of a lovely throttle control (mixture still set at 3/4) with plenty of idle to thrust feel, this makes taxiing a dream, and in also giving you full control of the speed. So the PA-38 tiddler is very nice to handle around the airport on the ground and you feel from the start you have a lot of control over the aircraft. Remember to trim the aircraft to neutral, mixture to rich and throttle up for power. Even at this high (for the aircraft's size) 1637 lbs (743 kgs) weight it is quite sprightly off the mark, but don't give it full power but feed it in nicely, then when confident give the Tomahawk full throttle... .... there is a slight asymmetrical yaw left, but nothing to counter heavily and the Tomahawk is very easily kept to the centreline, takeoff distance is around 1,460 ft (450 m) At around 70 knts you can pitch slightly back for flight, not too much but 4º to 6º and find a 500 fpm climbout rate, Rate of climb is noted at 718 ft/min (3.65 m/s), so 500 fpm is about right with a speed set to around 80 knts. The Tomahawk is super, super nice to fly, very simple and supremely balanced. very little stick or rudder movements are required... ... any banks or turns are a flow of instinct between the rudder and stick movements, but you have to be aware of a pitch drop as you go into the turn, and the need to smoothly counter that.... .... once level and at your altitude you now need to trim the aircraft, in adjusting the pitch trim wheel to counter the pitch to neutral. There is no rudder or bank trim on the PA-38 so even with the aircraft neutral in pitch trim there will always be a tendency to drift left and the left wing will bank down, so you have to slightly counter that with a little right stick, otherwise the PA-38 tiddler will cruise along quite nicely all day with a minimum of effort... Maximum speed is 126 mph (203 km/h, 109 kn) at sea level and an efficient cruise speed is around 115 mph (185 km/h, 100 kn) at 10,500 ft (3,200 m) (65% power), Range with full tanks is 539 mi (867 km, 468 nmi) at 10,500 ft (3,200 m) (65% power) and a full service ceiling is a surprising 13,000 ft (4,000 m)... but good luck on getting up there quickly. It is all basic flying, stick, rudder and trim stuff, but also absolutely great for easy learning on how to fly and control an aircraft. There are no auto helpers and it is all VFR flying as well, but you do have VOR2 if you want to use that. It would be very easy to be lulled into a false sense of security. Taking off, and even flying the little Tomahawk is quite easy, as all trainers are... ... but landing as in any aircraft still requires skill, to me it is easy, as with constant practice and learning have over the years have finely tuned my skills, so to land the Tomahawk is a doddle... easy. So practice and learning techniques is important, circuits and speeds are the most decisive and the trick is to use the tools made available to you. Here in the PA-38 I particularly liked the V marker on the upper Artificial Horizon - Rate of Turn. It allows you to make perfect banks and turns and mostly 90º circuits to make approaches look very professional, in the straight ahead position you tune into the centre O point So the tools are there, so you need to use them, I do wish though the Tomahawk came with a course pointer, I like to set it to the direction of the runway to set out the angle of the circuits. The Heading Dial can of course be adjusted, but a yellow course pointer to me is the better option. Sounds are from the original doner G-BNKH PA-38 and right down to the noisy fuel pump, so they are exceptional and FMOD in aural dynamics. So a approach speed of 80 knts and down to 70 knts with the full flap extended is perfect, I do have a significant crosswind, so I have to do the approach in that context... one thing to note though is that if you reduce the throttle it puts your fine tuned trim out as well, but you can adjust for that margin with the stick and a little bit of pitch and when level again the trim will resume it's set position. Lowering the speed down to 65 knts will give you nice slow descent towards the runway... ... slight pitch to rub off the speed to slide smoothly into the flare... ... in the flare (slightly nose up) your speed should be around 58 knts on touchdown, and I make it look easy, but remember I also had to counter that crosswind (rudder) and keep the aircraft steady and level before allowing the Tomahawk to drift down to the runway surface... stall is 56.5 mph (90.9 km/h, 49.1 kn) (flaps down) or 50 knts so you don't let the speed drop more than 60 knts on the approach. Yes the PA-38 is an absolute doddle to fly and even land, so it is absolutely the best aircraft to learn your first few flights in, so all you need to do then is add in the practise of circuits to the repeated touch and goes. Nightlighting As expected the lighting is pretty basic, but it is very good. Both instruments and avionics lighting can be adjusted, and there is a good overhead light that is well done (menu). All instruments are sharp and clear. Externally there is that nice LED nose light, red/green and white tail navigation lights (tail light has a nice glass reflection) and bright wing strobes. Rain Effects The Tomahawk comes with the Librain (Rain) effect application and it is very highly effective here. As the PA-38 has a lot of glass area (certainly to the rear) and that makes it all very realistic. More so is you don't have wipers on takeoff or landing which can be very, very realistic and hard to see though the murk until it clears.. Liveries There is one white/blank and ten brand liveries. All are of high quality, but there are a few oddities... one Canadian register has a German flag, and the British Airways trainer is registered in France? But overall there is some nice designs in the collection and G-BNKH (donor aircraft) is also noted _________________________ Summary The PA-38 Tomahawk was created as a direct competitor by Piper to the dominance of the Cessna 150/152 in the twin-seater trainer market. The PA-38 is what it is, in a basic VFR flightline trainer, so there are no big feature lists here for avionics, autopilots and navigation tools. Directly targeted at pilots to learn to fly in, it is also an exceptional starter aircraft for the same entry level into quality simulation flying. Yes you could fly a default X-Plane aircraft like the C172SP, but this is a far more detailed and refined aircraft to get your first feel to what simulation is really all about. Even for the experienced flyer they will also take a lot away from this aircraft as well in the shear pure context of flying a basic and very if excellent feel and handing aircraft. Design and detail is exceptional externally and internally for the aircraft, and so it should be at this US$40+ price, and in that aspect to note, in that at this price should you expect more features, yes the feature list is high... but noted items like say the opening engine cowling and modeled Avco Lycoming engine, extra pilot in the passenger seat, baggage in the rear, opening fuel caps and even now a virtual EFB (Electronic Flight Bag), the PA-38 just seems a bit too featureless at this price grade. So if you would love a pure small twin-seater to fly or are even ready and approaching simulation for your first experience of flying a quality aircraft, then this excellent Tomahawk is the perfect flying machine for you... I found it an excellent experience and love the pure flying dynamics of this JustFlight PA-38 Tomahawk. ___________________________ The PA-38 Tomahawk by JustFlight and Thranda is NOW available! from the X-Plane.Org Store here : PA-38 Tomahawk Priced at US$41.99 Special Features Model Our most detailed GA model yet, featuring numerous animations right down to a vibrating ignition key and fully adjustable cockpit air vents Accurately modelled PA-38 Tomahawk, built using real-world aircraft plans and comprehensive photography of the real aircraft Ground equipment including chocks and tie-downs 4096x4096 textures are used to produce the highest possible texture clarity PBR (Physically Based Rendering) materials with real-time environment reflections for superb quality and realism Detailed normal mapping for down-to-the-rivet precision of aircraft features and accurate simulation of waves in aluminium plates Support for rain (requires free Librain plugin) Cockpit A truly 3D virtual cockpit right down to accurately modelled seat belts and screw heads - every instrument is constructed fully in 3D with smooth animations Cockpit textures feature wear and tear based on reference photos taken in the real aircraft to produce an authentic environment Dimmable cockpit lighting Interactive engine start checklist that responds to user inputs and sim variables Interactive checklists for every stage of flight Panel state system which will automatically save the panel state whenever a flight is saved and reload the panel state whenever that flight is loaded Aircraft configuration system that will allow you to choose between 'cold & dark' or 'ready for take-off' Fully functional and comprehensive IFR-capable avionics fit including: - GMA 340 audio selector - SL30 COM1/NAV1 radio - SL40 COM2 radio - GTX 328 transponder - Support for Reality GTN750 (sold separately, Windows only) Flight computer panel with useful information such as fuel burn, endurance, speed and wind speed/direction Interactive logbook panel for logging your flight details (X-Plane native) GoodWay compatible Option to activate flashlight from within pop-up window, to aid in those pitch-black cold and dark starts at night Option to remove window and instrument reflection effects Radio knob animations routed through plugin logic for optimum movement fidelity and sound synchronisation. All knobs, buttons and switches are configurable via the 'Manifest.json' preference file and have tooltip pop-up hints to make hooking up to hardware easier. (Just enable 'View>Show Instrument Descriptions' in X-Plane for tooltips). Aircraft systems Custom-coded fuel system, including the option of automatic fuel tank switching for use on those long-distance cross-country flights (this option is remembered for future flights) Custom-coded electrical system with functional circuit breakers. Circuit breaker logic is linked to X-Plane's internal failure logic, so if the plane is set to fail a certain electrical component after a certain number of hours, the circuit breaker for that element will pop out. Functioning carburettor and primer controls Dedicated interactive engine pop-up window displaying values such as fuel tank weights and imbalance, fuel pressure, oil pressure, oil temperature, battery charge (with quick charge option), and information about spark plug fouling and vapour lock condition Simulated vapour lock condition, with warning pop-up and suggested actions Simulated spark plug fouling condition, with indication of percentage of fouling Custom external light logic with custom strobe light pattern and custom light halos for added realism Other Features Realistic and accurate flight dynamics based on real-world performance and handling data, and input from pilots Authentic sound set, generated using X-Plane's state-of-the-art FMOD sound system Custom sounds for switches, doors, warnings and more, featuring accurate location placement of sounds in the stereo spectrum, 3D audio effects, custom atmospheric effects for both internal and external sounds, adaptive Doppler (affected by temperature) and headphone simulation Exterior sounds spill in when window or doors are opened, different sound characteristics depending on viewing angle and speed, custom external sound effects that are weather-dependent and engine sounds which are affected by user interaction (engine temperature, throttle position, manifold pressure etc), engine even makes ticking sound when cooling down after shutdown! Comprehensive manual with panel guide and performance data PSD Paint Kit included so you can create your own paint schemes Dedicated pop-up window for sound mixing, allowing for individual adjustment of the volume of exterior sounds, in-cockpit sounds and various effects Custom weight and balance manager window Requirements X-Plane 11+ Windows, Mac or Linux 4GB VRAM Minimum - 8GB+ VRAM Recommended Current and Review version: 1.1 (September 26th 2019) Download Size: 690MB Installation and documents: Download for the PA-38 Tomahawk is 655 Mb and the unzipped file deposited in the aircraft "General Aviation" X-Plane folder at 746 Mb. Download the LIbrain rain effect plugin (add into the aircraft's plugin folder) for use of the effects Documentation: There are two manuals provided. The ODM is full of performance graphs and data and the X-Plane Manual is a full detailed manual of the aircraft's systems and layouts, a good if basic tutorial is also included ChangeLog.rtf EULAstandardcommercialandacademic2019.pdf PA-38 Tomahawk X-Plane manual.pdf PA-38 Tomahawk X-Plane ODM manual.pdf ______________________________________________________________________ Aircraft review by Stephen Dutton 27th September 2019 Copyright©2019 : X-Plane Reviews (Disclaimer. All images and text in this preview are the work and property of X-PlaneReviews, no sharing or copy of the content is allowed without consent from the author as per copyright conditions) Review System Specifications: Computer System: Windows - Intel Core i7 6700K CPU 4.00GHz / 64bit - 16 Gb single 1067 Mhz DDR4 2133 - ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 8Gb - Samsung Evo 1Tb SSD Software: - Windows 10 - X-Plane 11.35 (v11.30+ is required for this aircraft) Addons: Saitek x56 Rhino Pro system Joystick and Throttle : Sound - Bose Soundlink Mini Plugins: Environment Engine by xEnviro US$69.90 : WorldTraffic 3.0 Plugin - US$29.95 Scenery or Aircraft - KHAF - Half Moon Bay by Rising Dawn Studios (X-Plane.OrgStore) - US$19.00

I just checked my MMMX version and the fix still works fine here? and I am running v11.40b2? I would take a relook at your editing?

Your log says you are missing these plugin elements or they are damaged... Fetching plugins for C:\Users/svenkohlitz/Desktop/X-Plane 11/Aircraft/Boeing777Extended/plugins C:\Users/svenkohlitz/Desktop/X-Plane 11/Aircraft/Boeing777Extended/plugins/FF_MouseHandler/64/win.xpl : Error Code = 126 : The specified module could not be found. Loaded: C:\Users/svenkohlitz/Desktop/X-Plane 11/Aircraft/Boeing777Extended/plugins/FF_PluginManager/64/win.xpl (FFSTSpluginmanager). C:\Users/svenkohlitz/Desktop/X-Plane 11/Aircraft/Boeing777Extended/plugins/T7Avionics/64/win.xpl : Error Code = 126 : The specified module could not be found. [SASL] Starting... X-Plane scriptable avionics library plugin snapshot 2.6.1 20181026 Commercial Edition Loaded: C:\Users/svenkohlitz/Desktop/X-Plane 11/Aircraft/Boeing777Extended/plugins/sasl/64/win.xpl (1-sim.sasl). your plugin folder should look like this I would do a full redownload first to see if it was a damaged download file... Stephen

I do remember the B777 had an odd visual C++ that was required, send me your XP log text after running the sim.

We (Australia) get seriously hammered by the exchange rate, sometimes I think we are subsidising the low prices the Americans get, certainly on Apple iPhones, and as China is far closer than California... it hurts and I certainly feel your pain, but wait for the sales later in the year.