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Snowdon comparison
(above)
The
basic FS2004 gives a series of rounded lumps, while the enhanced version
shows the mountain as it really is, instantly recognizable to any hillwalker,
complete down to the various paths to the summit.
Installing the Terrain mesh alone would give something like the surface textures of the base FS2004 photo (left) draped over the contours of the enhanced terrain mesh.
Terrain
Mesh
A
terrain mesh is a grid of points recording altitude across the landscape.
The enhanced grid differs from the basic FS2004
one in being much more detailed, so detailed in fact that mountains look
entirely accurate (19m spacing) . The VFR terrain mesh includes (landable)
lakes and rivers. (Fortunately this mesh can be used in conjunction with
other world meshes (that duplicate England/Wales)
to get coverage of Scotland as the terrain
engine in FS always uses the most detailed mesh available).
VFR
Photo Scenery
"Visual
Flying Rules" scenery that is derived from photographs rather than the
generated scenery plus features found in FS2004/FSX.
Who would it suit?
Any
PC pilot who wished to navigate by visual flying rules (interpreting the
land below the aircraft rather than flying by instruments. Also any PC
pilot who is interested in flying in the upland regions of the country.
What are its drawbacks?
It
is less impressive for the "sightseer" PC pilot in lowland areas. This
is because the massive advantage of an accurate terrain mesh is much less
apparent in flat areas and does not offset the loss (correctable - read
on) of many 3D features such as "autogen" trees and houses. 3D features
indeed had to be suppressed because they were not correctly placed for
the improved mesh. (The two systems have slightly differently aligned reference
points). Its also not as good between dusk and dawn. However, whenever
I fly in the Highlands (outside of the VFR scenery area) and see Autogen
houses and trees in stupid places I wish for Scottish coverage. Not to
mention the streetlights (or are they M25 style traffic?) on remote highland
and island roads!
(I personally do not much like the colour reproduction, but this is a trivial point and offset by running Active Sky).
Airports
You
do get airports with the VFR scenery (and some other features), if you
want fully detailed airports you can add more airports.
(Screencaptures
with Activesky):-
Airports
with and without the Just Flight airport addons (selected at random before
buying the addon):-
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A closer
look at the Just Flight airports:-
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Is it "blurred"
at low level?
Not
really. The photos were from 2000 feet so if you fly at 200 feet its not
pin sharp. In my experience any blur is usually because the full detail
has not yet had time to load. Here's a low flying shot of Blencathra which
I think is typical of the quality. The new high resolution version from
Horizon is of course better still.
Some other shots from Dragon Rapide, Tiger Moth and Harrier.
VFRaddons, 3D
autogen and other features for VFR photoscenery
A
number of addons are commercially available for the VFR photo scenery,
"Visual Flight London" from Visual Flight, the West Country and a series
of airport disks.
But
the good news is that a freeware non commercial group of users are working
to add in UK scenery 3D detail. They have developed an alternative (swappable
for non UK flying) autogen engine for FS2004 that generates UK style houses
and trees. There are also a range of free downloads of scenery features
and a software tool to enable any reasonably competent PC pilot to join
in adding landscape features. (When installing the VFRaddon engine and
demo note that some files are installed in FS2004 and others in VisualFight
directories). Personally I tend to concentrate on features like masts,
chimneys and towers that are a flying hazard and major landscape features.
Detailed cities can be a problem for frame rates.
Addon
scenery is usually added to the "Addon Scenery" directory/folder as a new
subdirectory.
If
instructions are unclear, add any .fx files to existing folder "effects".
Within the new scenery folder .bmp files will be in "texture" and .bgi
files in "scenery".
After
copying open FS and go to Settings | Scenery library | add area. Then restart
FS.
Visit the VFRaddons site.
Visual
Flight's London
VFRaddon's demo of what can be achieved (Isle of Wight)
Installing Terrain
Mesh and VFR Photo Scenery (FS9 version)
I
am told unofficially its best to install the photo scenery before the mesh.
I did this and the process was tedious but error free. Each section reruns
the install program so its a matter of sitting at the PC for quite a while
clicking "OK". At one point a whole series of warning messages popped up
about renaming files but this did not indicate a problem.
System
requirements
Reading
from the (good) manuals:-
700
MHz processor, 128 MByte RAM, 16 MByte Video card, Direct X 8.0a
compatible.
250
MBytes to 1.3 GBytes of HD for Terrain mesh.
650+
Mbytes for photoscenery, (650 is for one area only)
Win98
or better.
Personally
I think you will want a fairly modern well specced PC (I write in 2006)
to run this well, I have a Dell XPS 700 and apart from the full scenery
complexity lagging a little behind my low level flying sometimes, all works
well.
Adding
extra aircraft
A
wide range of additional aircraft are available for FS2004, either
commercially
or
as freeware.
This
Dragon Rapide was created by Dave Garwood and team and the AA livery by
Mike Wilson. The Sea King is by Edwin Thurston.
Additional aircraft are usually quite easy to install. Each aircraft has a folder within the folder "aircraft" (NOT the sub folder of "aircraft", also called "aircraft") Sounds and Texture etc folders are normally within those aircraft folders. Aircraft liveries like this "AA" paintjob are texture files and normally installed within the aircraft's folder with an amendment to the aircraft.cfg file in that folder. There are also sometimes individual files to install in existing folders such as "Gauges".
The
aircraft list in FS2004
Sometimes
manufacturers' names are used differently by developers, "De Havilland"
and "DeHavilland" for instance. To get them to list together alter the
aircraft.cfg file (after making a backup copy as "aircraft.old") at the
"ui_" entries in [fltsim.n]
[fltsim.0]
title=Westland
Lysanderv2
sim=Westland_Lysanderv2
model=
panel=
sound=
texture=
checklists=
description=Westland
Lysander
ui_manufacturer=Westland
ui_type="Lysander
v1"
[fltsim.1]
ui_manufacturer=Westland
ui_type="Lysander
v2"
Freeware
aircraft can be downloaded from:-
Avsim
FlightSim
Classic
British
and
others
My
favourite freeware aircraft
Adding
other terrain mesh / photo scenery areas to FS2004/FS9
Quite
a few other areas are available as freeware addons to FS, the CanarySim
project have produced a freeware mesh and photo scenery for the western
Canary Islands.
There
is a set of freeware meshes for the Himalaya.
The
whole world is covered in a payware package by FSGenesis/Abacus or just
Europe as required. (lesser density meshes that overlap will work OK as
FS's terrain engine always chooses the finest mesh available. Nearly all
3D objects are designed for relative altitude so will sit on the surface
of an improved grid.
The
default FS9 meshes are 1223 metres for world, 611 for USA, 305 for Australia,
153 for the Himalayas and Cairo, 38 for Athens, Dover, Hoover Dam, Rio
and Mt Rushmore. (The UK VFR mesh is 19m).
The
FSGenesis meshes are 76m with some higher resolutions. (The Alps at 19m
and the USA is at 38m or better).
World
areas with FSGenesis mesh
While
its not a perfect solution, (there seems to be problems with lake water
levels causing odd but not unacceptable effects) it's a great improvement.
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Scotland
After
the England/Wales 19m terrain mesh Scotland is just not good enough at
1223m so it's worth buying the FSGenisis mesh "Europe and Africa". I decided
its worth covering the whole world in their improved meshes, although it
takes up over 30 GBytes of storage. <FSGenesis
website>
Scotland
- Scotflight
Further
improvements to Scottish scenery can be obtained by installing the Scotflight
package. This is Fair Isle in the base package, with Genesis terrain mesh
and then with Scotflight, which seems to have remodelled some of the poorer
areas as well as adding airfield and city objects.
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Barra
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Weather
Improving
the complexity of weather display makes a difference. I have installed
ActiveSky, (FS9, free patch to be available for FSX). To use it, make a
flight plan and load it into the ActiveSky engine and then download the
actual weather (if you have broadband you can run with online updates).
Its worth saving interesting weather like this thunder storm to fly again
later.
Biggin
Hill to London City during stormy autumn weather using Active Sky + VFR
scenery and mesh + Visual Flight London:-
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Scottish
western isles , Active Sky, FSGenesis mesh and Scotflight
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More on using ActiveSky and more screen captures
Joysticks
and Yokes
A
yoke looks rather like a steering wheel and gives precise control. A joystick
is more intuitive and cheaper to buy. The ideal setup would include rudder
pedals but if you want to keep it simple a joystick can mimic the rudder
pedals with a twist action on the joystick. I went for the Saitek
X52 on the advice of other flight-simmers. It has a good number of programmable
toggles and hat switches. For visual rules flying in "spot" mode or with
"virtual cockpit" I have found the following setup works well.
Joystick
(my choices)
Hatswitch
1 View (pan) "look around" incrementally.
Hatswitch
2 Allocate the move eyepoint keystrokes. (Mimics leaning out of the cockpit
for better view).
Buttons
"fire"
(button with flip up guard)- reverse thrust - (F2) (cancel by opening throttle
slightly)
"A"
switch screens (keystroke S)
"B"
Pause (P)
"C"
zeroize view (spacebar) useful to line up for landing etc.
Toggles
1
flaps up
2
flaps down
3
flaps down increment
4
flaps up increment
5
stop engines (not allocated a key in FS, I used SHIFT+C and CTRL+C for
start/stop, but you could just allocate the joystick button in FS)
6
start engines
trigger
- brakes
"pinkie"
trigger - parking brake.
(On
many aircraft these setting will give differental brakes from rudder +
brakes).
Throttle
Hatswitch
look left/right etc (shift+numpad)
Buttons
D
Gear up/down
E
reset zoom (backspace) This and the C button will reset your view position
to normal ready for landing.
(The
display screen on the throttle and slider controls I find useless so far
- except that you can WITH CARE adapt them).
The
two rotaries on the throttle can be set to elevator and rudder trim. Be
sure to set three bands with a dead zone in the middle. Check rotary 1
is not controlling the rudder first (see "bugs").
There
is also a mode switch which enables you to toggle to other configurations,
this could be useful for setting up radio and navigation shortcuts for
instrument flying.
A
possible approach:-
Mode
1 normal as above.
Mode
2 use toggles for pre takeoff, lights, magneto etc.
Mode
3 radio etc.
I found it best to set the button functions in the joystick software, you can also set the buttons in control assignment in FS. The exception was the primary hatswitch, which I left unallocated and set as "POV" rather than "buttons", checking in FS options|control|assignment that View (Pan) is set to hatswitch (you can do this by choosing "assign joystick" and then waggling the hatswitch.
Rudder
bugs
I
don't know if these are exclusive to this device or general.
Rotary
1 (on throttle, marked "i" in centre) may operate the rudder as supplied.
This may clash with the twist. If you experience twitching rudder, set
close-up spot view behind plane and zeroise rudder on rotary 1 (If you
turn it carefully you can also sense the centred "dead" position. If this
fails try moving the sensitivity sliders to the extreme poitions and then
resetting, in FS and in the joystick software.
Check
fs9.cfg for multiple entries in [JOYSTICK_MAIN] for rudder. If there
are, delete duplicates after making a fs9old.cfg backup. (you can check
which is which by playing around with deadzones and sensitivity settings).
Buy
from 
UK
see
also:- AV8R Retro joystick from UK
(less functions, retro style, cheaper)
Cyborg
EVO fromUK
and Logitech Pro from UK.
Adapting
the precision slider
Set
"bands" and create three bands, the centre band MUST be most of the range
and be Null (unused). The end few % can then be allocated to "+" and "-"
keys to control zoom view. You can then leave the slider centred and move
to ends of range to generate keypresses. If the centre isn't null you will
generate constant presses. DO NOT experiment with this in the default profile,
do it in one you can clear from the right click menu.
Buy
Flight Simulator from Amazon.co.uk:-
 FS2004 (the
base package). |
| or
the new version:-
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Terrain Mesh(the
contour data add on).
VFR Photo Scenery
Part I (east and north)
VFR Photo Scenery
Part II (central and west)(these
two discs cover England and Wales and are excellent value compilations
of earlier disks)
FSX
for MS Vista/Win XP