By Dave Tonks
Well I am just the happiest little simmer that ever slipped the surly bonds (and if you don’t know what I mean by “slipping the surly bonds” you need to put those words into your online search engine and be prepared for some fascinating reading).
I have the ‘surly bonds’ poem printed and framed, hanging on my study wall – I never cease to be moved by it, but then I’m one of those aviation-inflicted devotees who can’t possibly not look up when something flies over. I suspect many of those reading this will connect with that.
It goes without saying that simmers strive for the highest level of accuracy that is possibly available, taking of course into account monetary constraints. Huge advances can be made in the pursuit of accuracy by spending up big on joysticks, throttles, rudder pedals, large monitors and of course the computer equipment required to give a fabulous onscreen result. For instance, I paid as much for my graphics card as some people have paid for their entire computer system, but that little chugger they have cannot possibly hope to provide the brilliant result I get whenever I go for a ‘fly’ at home.
High on the list of must-haves for a quality result with simming is aftermarket software (and I am talking payware and freeware here), both scenery and aircraft. If you’re a total heavy metal fanatic and hardly ever fly VFR then I guess in some respects you could be forgiven for not being too concerned with scenery enhancement - but when you look at what’s available for high-level development of airports, you really are missing out on some terrific stuff if you just concentrate on flying at FL 350 and don’t give a fig about your departure/arrival points.
FSX has benefitted hugely by the introduction of some superb scenery addons, one of the finest being the FTX products marketed by the bloke who started the freeware scenery enhancement ball rolling in Australia (with Vista Australis for FS9/2004), John Venema. With the costs involved in acquiring the satellite photo data (not to mention the time needed to develop the software), John’s new project (FTX) was always going to be payware. Having said that it is available in sections for different parts of Australia, so if you only fly in one part of Oz I suppose you could just invest in your local scenery. Personally I don’t see the point and appreciate the opportunity to have top class, superbly accurate scenery wherever I fly in Oz.
John has never lost sight of his freeware connections and the FTX (Full Terrain) website is the perfect indicator of that – the amount of brilliant freeware available there is staggering. Would you believe free 76 metre terrain mesh, free AI (artificial intelligence) traffic, free airports developed by the FTX crew, and free aircraft repaints/virtual cockpit enhancements. There is a link on the website to the freeware ‘offshoot’ of FTX, AussieX (or OZx), where you can either go to the OZx website and download 300+ Australian airports (or go to the forum and request a DVD). The ‘deal’ for the DVD is simply this – someone close to you will send you one, you then agree to send on 6 copies to others.
FTX payware airports include Melbourne, Coffs Harbour, Avalon, Hervey Bay and Tamworth, but there are many more plus more on the drawing board. The FTX freeware airports don’t have the enormous amount of detail and accuracy that the freeware ones do (doh) but they are terrific improvements nevertheless – hey, never look gift software in the...ah well, you know what I mean. They include Launceston, Redcliffe, Port Macquarie, and an Avalon Airshow enhancement so the airport looks as it did for the airshow in 2009. If you are not sure if FTX is for you, here’s a suggestion – spend a couple of weeks flying around Tasmania and take some screenshots of significant places. Then download the free sample of Tasmania (with no expiry date) from the FTX website, and go back and visit those places again – the difference will be nothing short of spectacular, so it should not be a difficult decision to make. Note that Tassie is only a small portion of FTX Blue, and that if you then decide to go ahead and invest in FTX blue your Tassie scenery will blend perfectly with your complete version of FTX Blue (which includes the majority of southern Australia).
As for Boonah, all I can say is that the work done by Anthony Lynch (OZx Airfield Developer Extraordinaire) at Boonah is nothing short of brilliant. Included in this freeware package (which needs FTX Gold to function properly) are: the Airsport hangar, complete with Savage Cub and Tecnams; the Flying Tigers hangar/clubhouse; the Boonah Gliding Club hangars/clubhouse; and even a little mob of skippys at the eastern end of the ‘field. Gotta keep your eyes peeled for those skippys, they can bound onto the runway at any time, usually when you least expect it (Murphy’s Law). Somewhere out to the west there is also a glider in a thermal, but as yet I haven’t managed to find it.
The combination of FSX, Orbx’s FTX and the OZx freeware software truly transform a reasonably functional flight simulation system into something that is truly a delight to behold. Get your system up and running with these brilliant extras and you will not only have the opportunity to ‘fly’ with an incredible degree of realism, you will amaze any non-simmers with your onscreen results. Feel free to drop me a line at davidtonks@bigpond.com if you have any questions, or just to say g’day.
This article is dedicated to those tireless, selfless individuals who spend countless hours developing freeware software so we simmers can enjoy the fruits of their labours.
