Been watching FSPilotShops YouTube videos and reviews. They mention “FScene” and it looks amazing! It replaces the default textures/buildings with much more realistic ones, for FSX and FS9.

Here’s a picture of default FS scenery vs FScene, and the video showing it below.

Its on its way!!!

An old friend of my brothers, who happens to fly helicopters, told me that his menu bar in FSX was blank! He said he could click and the menus would pop down, but the actual text for the menubar inside FSX was not there. I came across the information below and he let me know that fixed the problem.

The issue is that FSX requires the Verdana font for  the drop down menus when the program is running. For some reason it cannot see the file in your Windows/Fonts directory where it looks.

Here’s the easy fix (you must CLOSE FSX FIRST!!!) …..

1. Go to your C:\Windows\Fonts directory and copy the verdana.fft file

You will NOT be able to right click and use the mouse menu for this - use the menu items at the top bar i.e. click on the font file the go Edit and then choose Copy

2. Paste this file into your FSX/Fonts directory. Assuming a “standard”  install, this would be C:/Program Files/Microsoft Games/Flight Simulator X/Fonts

Or C:Program Files (x86)/ blah blah if you are on Vista.

3. Start FSX and enjoy!

Am getting ready to upgrade to FDS’s MIP. This is a 5 part upgrade. The MIP, the Glare, the CDU/Lower Eicas, the hardware packages to make all those fancy backlit panels actually have knobs and buttons, and finally a controller board (called a sys board) to plug them into in order for them to actually work. So, just like any other hobby (hey, some guy just finished building a scale model of San Francisco out of toothpicks… and that only took him 34 years!) this is a long one in the making. (And I spent 3 years on the Cessna Sim) So, I’ve taken the plunge and started on my first official REAL section of my sim. I’m going to replace my home build wooden MIP with an FDS MIP. And this is going to be the first time I’ve had an F/O (First Officer) side. Which I’m really excited about! (And my hat is off to Peter Cos at FDS, this guy is AMAZING!)

Phase 1 – FDS MIP

Phase 2 will be upper glade shield.

Phase 3 will be hardware packages (switches, buttons, knobs)

Phase 4 will be the sys board (that the leds buttons knobs connect to to make them work)

Phase 5 will be the CDU’s/Lower Eicas.

When all 5 phases are complete, this is what my setup will look like. Once it’s done, I’ll be allowing people to fly in my sim for $20/20 minutes to recoup the costs!! =)

AirNav RadarBox is the closest you can be to real world aviation without leaving your chair thanks to next generation Radar decoding. By decoding ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast) radar signals, you will be able to see on your computer what real Air Traffic Controllers see on their screens in Real-Time. Flight number, aircraft type, altitude, heading, speed are all updated each second.

http://www.fspilotshop.com/product_info.php?cPath=1_9&products_id=1262

So, in flying now from KLAX to KLAS to hone in on my ILS skills, as I’m on final for runway 25 L approach flipping FSX bails with an out of memory error.

I manually increased my page file (virtual memory) from 6 gigs to 18 gigs. Same thing.

Then I came across the post below. I followed it and had no out of memory errors with the same flight. It appears that FSX was designed to only use 2 gigs of ram. Bah. So if it goes over 2 gigs, you get the out of memory errors. This change allows the application to use more then 2 gigs of ram. (I’m hosting these files on my own site, incase in the future the originals disappear off the web. Since this fix worked for me, I’d like to keep the files around if I have to reinstall Vista for any reason)

1. Download this zip and uncompress for the CFF Explorer.

2. Download the NTCore files here.

3. Install the NTCore files.

4. Run the CFF Explorer file.

5. Follow the directions below.

CFF is a GUI tool that allows you to enable a w32 bit application to use more than 2 GB of RAM.

I have Vista Ultimate 64 bit, so this resolved my issue. (works with 32bit as well)

Got several Out of memory errors when I fly with the great Alphasim SR71 longer distances. Sometimes the error occurred five minutes after takeoff. The error occurred under SP1 too.

So I tried a solution I found for make STALKER ready for run with Windows Vista. The solution seems to work with FSX too. I got no error on flights which crashed before regularly with OOM.

Try this only if you have at least 2 GByte of RAM and at your own risk.

First download the explorer from http://www.ntcore.com/exsuite.php

Next make a copy from fsx.exe. Than start “CFF Explorer” and open the original fsx.exe file.

Now go to NT Header/File Header and click File Header. Ther you find a button labeld “click here”. Click it. And select the mark at “App can handle> 2gb adressest ”
Save the modified EXE, overwrite the original one (You have you’re copy saved?).

If you run Windows Vista 64 or Windows XP 64 youre ready and didnt need to read on. The rest is only for Windows Vista 32 or maybe Windows XP.

Now make Windows Vista (32-Bit) ready to support more than 2 GByte.
Open a command prompt with Administration rights. You find it under “Programs->Accessories->Command prompt” click right and select “run as administrator”.

Enter “bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVA 3072″ (without quotes) in the command window and press enter.

After that restart windows

For Windows XP there is a similar setting for the boot.ini, but I have no Link to it, should be found be google.

For me it solve the problem.

To reset the Increased User Adressspace just start the command line prompt with Admin right again and enter “bcdedit /set IncreaseUserVA 2048″

Here’s a few picts of the sim so far. I have to rework the top as I’ve added a 24″ screen (alongside the 19″ screen) for the visuals. I’ll take more picts of that when the screens are adjusted.

Just came across this link to a program that is supposed to add way better lighting to FSX. Its called Shockwave 3D Lights Redux for FSX

http://www.fspilotshop.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=87&products_id=1384

Here’s a video of it. It’s only $12 dollars, so I might pick it up after reading some reviews

A simple tutorial video I made to kind of get people started. Once you see this, it’ll be super easy.

I’m in search of a flight planner that will work with the project magenta CDU as well as VoxATCx.

In the mean time, I’ve come across SimRoutes which is a pretty cool online flight planner. Off to test it now.

Here is a great site explaining ILS, along with a lot of other great info!

http://www.navfltsm.addr.com/ils.htm

So I’ve learned there is a difference between an ILS landing and an autoland. ILS basically lets you get aligned with the runway and once you have your approach locked into the localizer (VOR lock for horizontal and then once you have the glideslope in your PFD you can hit APP) it’ll take you down the glideslope. But this won’t flare the aircraft and will just, it seems, run you into the runway. Autoland will take you in completely unassisted.

Anyhow, here is a couple more useful videos I’ve found: