Kumara

Hello Bojote,if I may I'd like to chime in this very interesting and helpful thread: I've applied your tweaks since I had tremendous blurs and indeed they worked! Thanks to you and everyone who tested it!At this moment I'm using these: I've observed in normal flights all seem well, even after a time > 2 hours.I discovered one problem though if I use high speed and altitude kites: i.e. with super sonic aircraft.When I fly above 500 knts @ > 30000' after one hour or less I start to get blurs all around; I have then to pause the sim to let the textures, meshes and autogen to load fully, and then can continue my flight, to pause it again after a while.This is happening especially when I change the zone types: let's say after I fly above normal ground (GEX or default) then I cross over long stretches of water and again above normal ground; in this case I always get blurs. The same is happening if I start a flight in a photoreal scenery and thereafter I cross above normal ground, or vice-versa.This is a kind of fault you get when slewing the aircraft very fast to far away places, or switch the view to an AI or tower that are not near the present position: it would take a while for the blurs to disappear.One curious thing I noticed when on pause waiting the sim to catch up, I switched the view to outside Top View and observed the plane position was just on the edge of a fully loaded area entering a still blurry one; then gradually the area get defined and fully loaded centered around the aircraft, with the dimension of such an area defined by the LOD value.I so casually discovered that if I keep the Top View active once it is loaded and continue to fly (un-pause) it will stay fully defined and centered on the plane (no lagging behind it)! I then can switch my views again in VC or outer for a check and all textures etc. stay crisp and sound! In this way I can fly for long legs without having to pause the sim, though I cannot just stay in the VC or in outer views all the time, but instead jump to God point of view and now and then I can enter the cockpit or see my airplane with fully defined landscapes.What escapes me is why this is happening? Eventually I may suspect my nVidia Palit 460 1GB cannot cope with a constant swapping of data or that my i5 cannot handle them, but still these same data are fully loaded if I stay on Top View and readily rendered switching views for a couple of minutes at times...I can use this trick to avoid pausing the flight especially when I finally get to my final approach and need to see exactly where I'm going: once I see the destination area is fully loaded I can switch my view to VC and stay there to land my aircraft.I would appreciate any observations/hints about this!TIA

Beware the Thunderbolt! This was the motto of the top scoring for aerial combat in ETO 56th FG, just to contradict the reviewer about the P47 main use as a fighter/bomber; true after the advent of the P-51 Mustang in the Fighter Command, only the 56th kept this aircraft operating in the 8th AF, and still was able to maintain the top to the end of the war in Europe, and this motto was also much subscribed by the Luftwaffe pilots who were facing this 'dinosaur - but a dinosaur vit goot proportions!' [cit. Alex Kartvell, designer of this kite].It's also a coincidence the reviewer citing IL-2 Sturmovik for both the actual aircraft and the WWII sim: in fact I started to fly FSX after a long time I was using the IL-2 simulator with and without its extensive MODs: the point is that I'm a WWII buff, and I enjoyed very much the possibility to check out all those aircraft first hand in the simulator, always with the most realistic mode enabled, seldom in combat (quite exciting, I should add) and never on-line (not by choice anyway).In that simulator I flew all kind of aircraft, both allied and axis ones, and sure enough the Surmovik has nothing to do with the Thunderbolt, and particularly for the D-20/22/23 depicted by A2A here IMO: the IL-2 was a heavy armored plane designed to blast tanks in heavens, often flying at treetop level, seldom reaching 12000', and besides being a great damage absorber, was no match for the fighters; in fact they needed a fighter escort to accomplish their missions.In the early stages of WWII, the P47 was the only choice for the USAAF, so all their FGs in Europe were equipped with the C or D5 and D15 versions: at first the pilots had some misgivings to bring this massive and ponderous fighter to cross swords with the more agile and much smaller Me109s and FW190s: they were even outmatched in the Zoom Climb tactic they were obliged to use to evade the more maneuverable German fighters in a dog fight where the pilots were trying to get on the tail of their adversaries using the horizontal plane in tight turns and rolls; even the Germans were adept in Zoom Climb tactics to evade the RAF Spitfires, especially with their Me Bf109s: their tactic consisted on circling at high altitudes 'on the perch' and dive down at high speed on the enemy aircraft; as they built up momentum in doing this they were so able to climb back up, taking the fight on the vertical plane.All this came to an end with the coming of the new advanced versions of the Thunderbolt, the D20/22/23 and the later variants: the P-47 was out-climbing and out-diving them by a great margin; using the Turbo Compressor and the Water Injection systems, the P47 was an unmatched fighter at high altitudes, from 20000 to 34000 feet, and using the external fuel tanks (from the D-15) it also had sufficient range to fly above Germany itself.Enough of this long historic preamble and let's go down to the nitty-gritty of this Accu-Sim WoPIII A2A product: it's wonderful!I have now about 200 flight hours (the number of hours required for a pilot to become operative on the Thunderbolt) on the different versions, and I should say they matched many (if not all) real procedures and details about how you should operate the aircraft; she can climb very easily to 30000', and can cruise there at about 300 knts GS, and she keeps you busy all the time in managing all the engine controls. In diving, being one of the heaviest fighter of WWII, you can easily exceed 400 knts, but still you can fairly maintain control both horizontally and vertically when not encountering the compressibility factor, very well depicted in the A2A model too.To actually learn to fly well this airplane I studied the Top Secret manuals of the real aircraft, and you can clearly detect how deeply and accurately the developers have gone to make this kite right.All aerobatics are of course possible (looping included) except in the real manuals they advise never to snap roll her (I still have to check this maneuver) and not to keep her on her back for a longer time: the roll rate is just fine.I enjoyed flying her on all of the SE Asia and through the Himalayan valleys, though you should be aware this is not by any means a STOL kind of aircraft, and the sinking rate on approach is hair rising, besides not being able to see in front of you. I noticed how well the flight model is particularly on approaches: this is one of the few aircraft in the sim where you can really see how the rate of descent is controlled by the throttle, while the speed is controlled by your pitch: I almost always end up in a three wheels landing, and feel proud to taxy her near a Lear Jet or a Jumbo Jet on the aprons anywhere in the World!Both thumbs Up for A2A: work well done!Cheerio.:Peace:

Personally I would prefer a JP233 to target that AI kite that hangs on the runaway forever after the seventh call from ATC to 'Exit the runaway when you're able' as I'm on final...As for combat flight simulators the IL-2 Sturmovik has a great and vast community of developers producing amazing stuff, and all for free; besides the software architecture of that simulator is much more efficient than FSX IMO, but still you have to deal with the shortcomings of the main proggy called Windows...Back to defrag!Cheers

Just an update: I discovered I may have a corrupted GrantedRewards.bin file since I successfully accomplished a new mission (Swiss Outing) and after landing the C172 on the Saanen runaway and received my bus ticket in the following screen (essential reward to go back home!:(), it didn't appear on my Pilot Records tab...At this moment I made a check by renaming the incriminated file, restarted the program and verified it recreated the file; in my Pilot Records I have all the rewards concerning flight hours and landings etc., but no mission rewards anymore: not really a problem, since I was thinking to re-fly the missions anyway, but I'm curious about the certificates too, and so my next step would be to first run the flight Solo Machado's lesson and see if I can get my certificate.Main issue and advice is to often back-up your FSX config folder (in Win7 is <username>/AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/FSX) and never edit your logbook entries from FSX but using the logbook Editor by Lamont Clark (lc0277)... It would be very helpful to be able to edit the GrantedRewards.bin file too, but not so crucial: of course it would be quite idiotic to use such tools to create a pilot's career without building up your skills with experience!Cheers.

Well, I had just finished to fly around the world in real weather on the Lockheed Electra, and already at 1/3rd of the excellent Wiley's FSX Real World Training for Pilots accumulating about 400 flying hours (half of them by night), and as much landings at around 200 different airports and about the same IFR hours, but then I decided to go back to basic and fly Rod Machado lessons, just to check my skills: I know I'm not a superb pilot anyway, but I can follow and read fairly well both my instruments and control my aircraft attitude, between landings and take offs; sometime the lessons end abruptly and apparently for no reasons, while other times they never end; as for my First Solo flight I accomplished it successfully about four times now, stopped on the runaway, received the congratulations of the instructor, but I'm not receiving any reward or certificate for it (well, I know actually it's not my first solo!); during the landing lesson part two, when Machado is supposed to handle the roll wings' attitude during my approach, I had to push all the time full left rudder to land on the runaway, since he complained in my previous effort I landed off it, while he was supposed to keep the heading!:mad:So I believe these ancient lessons are bug plagued for sure in FSX Acceleration, and a real undermining factor for any newbie who would like to enter the world of FSX, and besides I would really appreciate a more encouraging approach to teachings, and got some nausea of the silly jokes I have to listen again and again with no hope for a reward, or a useful remark about my failure... I really would hope someone may fix these lessons, or at least give me my certificates!Thanks for reading my silly complaint.

I finally landed back to Farnborough! It was a long adventure lasted about a month, but much less than the 400 flying hours stated in the manual, even if this may depend on my VFR flying most of the time mostly at superior speed than the one in the Nav Log, although I always followed the same plan (just selecting VFR instead of IFR).As a reward I bestowed on myself I added a flag for each Nation I landed.So here are my own impression about this package: conceptually I can appreciate the underlying idea about kind of following into the steps of such a legend as Amelia Erhart, using that same aircraft she used. About the Electra besides the engines configuration I wrote about, you do need to get used to the undocumented features available: first of all the Autopilot as already noted by another user has some buggy depiction between the panel and the VC. I can't say if this was intended by the designers to simulate the experimental character of this device, but until I got used to the inverted representation of the switches, it was a tough wrestling that made me lose a lot of time and fuel. Hopefully the original device installed in the Electra had no such problems (of course she had no GPS!), so here are the correct combination you need to engage the AP for 1. GPS 2. HeadingIn fact I learned how to use the Heading function particularly when I flew in IFR and besides being more realistic as you have to fiddle with the actual AP device, you can cross reference your heading setting with the GPS, using this last as a sort of interactive map, and blindly following the Approach instructions when flying IFR on ILS.If I was happy to finally accomplish the challenge, I have also some critique I like to share: I would have much preferred the flying routes not just following the modern high altitude ones, but instead they should have been more detailed, particularly if the designers would had gone the further step and placed some way points to important landscape features: i.e. when you're taking off from Cairo you are told in the Manual (and even shown) there are the Pyramids, but if you want to have a look at them you have to find them well out of your departing route, and consequently you'll need to fly VFR or facing the insistence of the ATC to change your heading or altitude; there are many instances along the way when you would like to explore more of the landscape, and to find the exact spot where there should be some interesting features you are told in the manual, you have to pinpoint them in Google maps to have a glimpse of these. Of course the challenge here is to fly around the world in a museum aircraft so in the end you find yourself more involved in accomplishing it than in sight seeing. Talking about the challenge of flying this venerable kite, particularly in following the requested high altitudes, or if you happen to fly in RT weather with the occasional thunderstorm, rain, monsoon and the likes, remember to turn on your Pitot heat AND the Carb Heat (another undocumented feature you NEED to use): I suspect the lower levers depicted here were used to cool the radiators by opening the cowling flaps (this feature is disabled, I presume) and to direct some heated air to the carburetors to prevent their icing with the consequent loss of the Manifold pressure I was writing about before: these levers are not animated, so you would not know if you have them activated or not, but pressing the [H] key will immediately heat the carbs and you will notice it on the proper cockpit gauge as the needle will move up almost to the yellow zone. Also notice I enabled the second position for the fuel selector switch as suggested by Alan in his review.While flying Around The World in 80 Flights I encountered a few glitches and errors: as I mentioned I detected some mesh elevation errors when lakes or rivers are placed above the surrounding ground, or with a couple of landing strips placed below it: this happened mainly in Africa and Asia; these two vast continents needs some rework and more attention both for their meshes and for their texturing too, and hopefully some third party addon producer may take care of it. After a 13 hours flight from Hawaii to SF and in view of the airport FSX just vanished in a crash leaving no trace of this long and challenging flight: this is a really annoying aspect of this FS not having an automatic save function, so either you do need to manually save your efforts periodically or go the full way using the excellent and fundamental addon FSUIPC enabling its Autosave function there; I also made a routine of taking a lot of screen shots of my flights, always remembering to take one inside the cockpit showing the clock at take off, and one when on final: in this way if anything bad happens as FSX crashes, I can always have references to edit my log book with the proper entries using the free logbookeditor for that. As for the Scenery troubles I had some very low frame rates in two occasions: the first was landing and taking off from La Guardia NYC and the second on my very last leg towards Fainborough when flying above Heathrow and London (at night): please be sure you can fly on these Scenery without problem beforehand, and eventually lower your Settings accordingly.One last observation: besides the log book entries and eventual rewards awarded by FSX for the ILS/Twin Engines/Landings I would have greatly appreciated a form of reward or memento for accomplishing this flight around the world; even just some postcards would have been a nice finishing detail.Out

Hi there!Apologies to Alan if this may drift a bit out of the Review feed back topic, but we're still talking about the Around The World in 80 Flights, and hopefully I'll be excused...First i'd like to correct myself in stating you should not care about the red marks on the RPM and Manifold gauges: these are still relevant for optimal cruising setting, but can be exceeded eventually on take offs. I've also noticed that using my new engines' configuration the prop pitch are now effectively working, a thing I didn't notice with the original configuration.At the moment I'm heading to Darwin: I've decided to fly mainly VFR, since flying ILS is most often quite annoying; I confess i use a lot GPS autopilot and accelerated time to cover long stretches, so when it comes to ATC ILS they start diverting you from your course sometime even 70 NM before the approach; in the case of Kathmandu it may have some sense, since the approach to the Valley may be tricky, and still ILS is very useful when flying in low visibility and towards an airfield without beacons or lights, but more often than not they make you turn here and there a few times, when the ILS vectors are just straight in front of you. I'm not a RL pilot, so I can't say if these are normal procedures (possibly they are); anyway I've also decided to fly in real time/ real weather and this IMO makes it all more interesting, challenging and adding a further immersion factor: i.e. it was a memorable moment after a quit night flight to land in Khartoum at dawn in the middle of a thunderstorm! The scenery looked wonderful in the contrasting light... Talking about scenery I noticed some awful lakes, rivers and airfields at wrong elevations: sometime they are above the ground while other times they are below it: surely an error in the terrain meshes.About the Real Weather challenge, my last few flights in the Far East have been a discovery: I crossed India in full Monsoon season, so the 'Sun City' of Jodhpur was my first experience with a landing in heavy rain in FSX! Then I also discovered how realistic this FS may be: above Thailand there were a few very challenging thunderstorms: I never imagined these can be so dangerous; my idea was that a thunderstorm was kind of throwing your kite here and there, but given enough altitude and power, just something you can deal with by corrections; actually I found myself at 18000' with RPM and MP suddenly going down low, as if there was no more engine power at all; to keep flying above stall I had to lose some 10000' and maneuver to turn around in clear spacing, where eventually the engines got back their power. I'm not sure if this was the effect of icing, or a combination of low atmospheric pressure on the MP: I would appreciate if some expert flier can explain this to me!Another piece of advice I can give is to download and install all the AFCAD and Scenery you can find before taking off for this long adventure: at least you would enjoy a little more about the surprising aspects you will discover when flying above the landscapes or landing in all those airports.All in all, this is still a very enjoyable addon: landing your vintage aircraft in those modern airports side by side with the most modern liners and business jets brings some satisfaction to me.Way To Go!Over.

Here I am again: after the repaint I made some research about the L10E and I came to the conclusion this virtual model was underpowered indeed, so I delved into the aircraft.cfg and modified a few data regarding the engines; I've not touched anything about fuel load or consumption, so that may be still wrong...I've also added the option to select the fuel tanks as suggested by the good Alan in his review [number_of_tank_selectors = 2 ], so now I have the position Left and Aux, besides the Off: can someone explain how these works? I just use it on Aux presuming it will empty first the fuselage tanks: is this correct?After I implanted the more accurate Pratt & Whitney R-1830 configuration, I just made a relatively short flight in mission #22 Kilimanjaro - Mombasa HTKJ - HKMO, and now I was able to reach 20000' with a decent rate of climb, and just above the 100 Mph I was able to fly almost straight, so it seems the Electra can be more enjoyable for those who may like to give it a try I decided to post here the modified sections to the aircraft.cfg you can Copy/Paste into and replacing the relative sections and as usual I recommend to make a backup copy of the original, just to be sure; also keep in mind the red markers on the gauges are no more relevant:[General]atc_type=LOCKHEED atc_model=L10 editable=1 performance="Cruise speed\n185 mph 161 kts 298 km/hr\n\nEngines\nTwo Pratt & Whitney R-1830s\n\nMaximum range\n2800 mi 1,150 km\n\nService ceiling\n23,200 ft 7,071 m\n\nFuel capacity\n604 gal 2,286 L\n\nEmpty weight\n6,454 lb 2,930 kg\n\nMaximum gross weight\n10,500 lb 4,760 kg\n\nLength\n38.7 ft 11.8 m\n\nWingspan\n55 ft 16.8 m\n\nHeight\n10.1 ft 3.1 m\n\n" Category=airplane[Reference Speeds]flaps_up_stall_speed=65.000 //Knots True (KTAS)full_flaps_stall_speed=57.000 //Knots True (KTAS)cruise_speed= 168 //Knots True (KTAS)max_indicated_speed = 192.000 //Red line (KIAS)[GeneralEngineData]engine_type = 0 //0=Piston, 1=Jet, 2=None, 3=Helo-Turbine, 4=Rocket, 5=Turbopropengine.0 = 0, -6.89, 0,engine.1 = 0, 6.89, 0,fuel_flow_scalar= 1.15 //Fuel flow scalarmin_throttle_limit = 0.1; //Minimum percent throttle. Generally negative for turbine reverser[piston_engine]power_scalar = 1.000 //Piston power scalarcylinder_displacement= 130.71 //Cubic inches per cylindercompression_ratio= 6.7 //Compression rationumber_of_cylinders= 14 //Number of cylindersmax_rated_rpm= 2700.0 //Max rated RPMmax_rated_hp= 1200.0 //Max rated HPfuel_metering_type= 1 //0=Fuel Injected, 1=Gravity Carburetor, 2=Aerobatic Carburetorcooling_type= 0 //0=Cooling type Air, 1=Cooling type Liquidnormalized_starter_torque= 0.3 //Starter torque factorturbocharged= 1 //Is it turbocharged? 0=FALSE, 1=TRUEmax_design_mp= 47 //Max design manifold pressure, (inHg)min_design_mp= 1.0 //Min design manifold pressure, (inHg)critical_altitude= 7000.0 //Altitude to which the turbocharger will provide max design manifold pressure (feet)emergency_boost_type= 0 //0=None, 1=Water Injection, 2=Methanol/Water injection, 3=War Emergency Poweremergency_boost_mp_offset= 0.0 //Additional manifold pressure supplied by emergency boostemergency_boost_gain_offset= 0.0 //Multiplier on manifold pressure due to emergency boostfuel_air_auto_mixture= 0 //Automixture available? 0=FALSE, 1=TRUEauto_ignition= 0 //Auto-Ignition available? 0=FALSE, 1=TRUEmax_rpm_mechanical_efficiency_scalar= 1.0 //Scalar on maximum RPM mechanical efficiencyidle_rpm_mechanical_efficiency_scalar= 1.0 //Scalar on idle RPM mechanical efficiencymax_rpm_friction_scalar= 1.0 //Scalar on maximum RPM frictionidle_rpm_friction_scalar= 1.0 //Scalar on idle RPM frictionThese values IMO give the Lockheed a more realistic fly model, at least for the engines and climbing power, and from what I gathered these are the historical tech values related to that special E model.If i may go a bit off topic, I'm really disappointed by the scenery look you get in Africa: it seems all like the Sahara desert there, even around the Victoria lake: is there any addon to improve on this part of the World?I decided to take the flights at night, so not to get bored too much by the endless waste land, but there I also have the trouble of a very poor depiction of the ground, and a banded sky, both too light: it may be my LCD monitor as well, but over Europe or USA the night is not so moiré and blotched by false colors; I decided to give a try to the EMBserie and though it improves a lot on the looks of the day, in the night it's hard to find the right values (by default it's way too dark); in the readme of this hack it's suggested to use the video card driver to control Luminosity and Contrast instead (you can easily disable EMBserie using Shift+F12), but even so it changes dramatically from way to dark to way to coarse and psychedelic... This is a big trouble for me at the moment, so any good advice to improve on these aspects of FSX would be most welcomed! I'm using nVidia GTS250 1 TB VRAM.S!

It may sounds superfluous but since it happened to me just in these last days, it may be useful to check: are you flying with real time weather? In summer you may get easily thunderstorms somewhere especially above water bodies, as you also hinted... Have you tried a clear weather flight?I was flying in Africa at night and I had some screen corruption with the nVidia: later I updated the driver and all went well, except I had these sudden white flashes, and I started to wonder if rhe card was defective, 'till I heard the thunders! I was in the middle of many thunderstorms I could then see at dawn...

I'm hooked by this long adventure, but I wasn't happy with the kite's colors, so while in Algiers before my next hop to Mallorca I rented the service of one indigenous painter for some bakshish and here are the results:I know it's a bit colorful and maybe I would get tired of it soon enough, but for the moment I enjoy flying her.If you like it, I've just uploaded it in the AVSIM Library: look for the Lockheed_L10E_ATW_Challenge archive!Cheers!

Thanks again Alan for your detailed and competent explanation! Give me a Lightning any day, then! It's a twin with twin tail fins, it has enough autonomy and can easily fly above the 20000' with superchargers too, and still it's a Lockheed! Even a Hudson will surely fly better around the globe than this... Electra! I don't know: maybe I'm not cut for challenges. Let's see: my first flight was problematic as I went along at full throttle all the time and 50% mixture or more, wrestling with the AP I lost so much time I end up gliding powerless some 50 miles from Paris; on the second attempt all went smoothly enough, but I switched altitude to 7500' and full tanks (the take off was hair raising, but it's ok); after an endless taxiing at Orly (you're right, it can taxy very nicely, except it's hard to see where you're going, but this is about all tail draggers), I then took off for another smooth flight to Marseilles, again at 7500' (more than enough); on my last flight I learned not to ask for more fuel from those pesky truckers and all went well, except I discovered the high altitude instability of this kite: now you have given some useful confirmations about this, and I'm back to the engine point; as I landed at Sion I still had plenty of fuel, so possibly I should try to use a richer mixture at high altitudes, if I can gain at least 10 Mph more, and being able to make it to my next landing... The tale goes on. Cheerio!

I see. But even that given I find the behavior in flight somewhat unrealistic: I've just landed at Sion, again converting to a VFR flight plan at 17500' (useless, if you ask me): after an eternity I was able to reach that altitude, set the AP to keep it and the master AP on GPS to keep the nav straight and relax; the plane was barely exceeding 100 Mph at max throttle, 20% mixture and about half the fuel load with which I took off; the aircraft was oscillating continuously governed by the AP both in pitch and in roll directions; I was fed up and disengaged all AP to level it, and I lost some 1000' in the procedure; possibly it was windy, I cannot say, but this started from took off until I decided I had enough and flew it manually into the valley to Sion in a relatively fast dive. I have the impression this kite can barely fly at all, sometime. In my previous flight from Paris, it was much more stable at 7500'... I wonder if this is correct, but I doubt it, since this plane was an advanced airliner in her age, and I doubt the VIPs using it were so hazardous minded.

Hi Jane, and thanks for answering here!From what I understood reading Alan's review the L10E had more powerful engines than the standard versions: I still have to check the other two Electra present in the package, but as hinted by the reviewer there shouldn't be any relevant difference between them and the Amelia Earhart's version. Actually I would be willing as I wrote to tweak a bit into the .cfg file to have a more realistic power curve for those P&W radials. If you have any data I can look into and test fly it, I would be more than willing; I'm not an expert about Earhart historic flight, but from the little I could understand, she had the Electra modified to have a lot more fuel while removing all passengers' seats and consequently required some more powerful engines: it seems odd to me this plane has so much difficulties in climbing, even without a full fuel load, but I may be wrong.I also can understand why the developer wanted to keep the sense of challenge in doing so, but even then it takes away the spirit of exploring the globe, while you have to wrestle with the AP switches, or always be anxious about your fuel and even worse trying to keep the IFR for High Altitudes commercial flights. I'm convinced it would be fun enough to accomplish the whole trip at low altitudes and VFR where you can enjoy more of the landscapes, or implement a more manageable climb rate: to reach 20000' as a challenge I can always check out a glider, without worrying about the fuel, as it appears to be at present in this aircraft. As a rookie FS pilot I decided just to take off in the Mooney to make a tour of the Mediterranean: I didn't know how to use the AP or the Radio, and I had no flight plan at all! I just wandered above places I traveled, and landed as I pleased (a true air pirate already registered in the black book of GA, if you ask me! :( ) when I needed fuel, or wanted to have a close look at the places I knew; in doing so I started to fiddle with all these modern procedures and instruments, and find it's even added fun to the experience...As I wrote I downloaded a fine freeware postcard Rewards dispenser (just a few MBs): I cannot believe that would be such a difficult task to accomplish and include it in the FSX install. If you cannot have a detailed briefing before taking off, at least you get a reward when you accomplish it, and IMO that would also increment the will of the virtual pilot to go on in this long flight. Of course this is my 2 cents.S!

Hello Alan,thanks for your considerations and suggestions: I've just landed the Electra at Provence Marseilles, flying VFR at 7500'! It was an uneventful flight, except above Clermont Ferrand and the Puy du Dome: as I recall that area is one of the most beautiful site I visited in my life... I'm starting to understand how to fly properly in this aircraft, and I agree it may be a fine challenge: I put my mixture at 21% and purr my course all the way at the fast pace of 120 Mph, and parked her with the fuel manometer about the 60 marks (I still have to understand what it really indicates, since the maximum scale goes only up to 200 below F): I loaded 600 gallons just to be sure! The fuel truck bug came out again, so it's a sure thing, at least in Orly: if you like to add some gallons, the truck will come and depart, living you completely dry! :( 'If you can't make it with this fuel quantity, you'd better don't go!'I also thought about the Dakota as a suitable replacement, maybe less elegant than the Electra; the Cat is so much fun to fly, and it is amphibious, so besides the growling wonderful radials, you also get land/water/air in one stroke, and can always hijack one of those tanker ships in the middle of the Pacific Ocean if you got short on fuel! But let's see how the Lockheed kite will fare in the next few hops.I've just downloaded a nice freeware Rewards file that will give you some 200 postcards for places you'd happen to visit in the USA: a nice and funny idea, since the author wouldn't say which places will give you a postcard (or a couple): as yet I already got 5, but i cannot recall how I got two of them, since sometime I just decide for a surprise free flight from anywhere in the World; anyway this may be a very good idea to add to this package, if I would only know how to assemble such kind of data. Is the Jane you're talking about the same one who flew with the Chevaliers Du Ciel on her pages at Jenny Air? I'm still convinced the Engines should be a little more powerful so I may contact her; in the meantime I will try the tweak of the fuel selectors, and possibly try a repaint following your suggestion above to go to the tutorials section...Cheers!PS: with the Quick Reply all the text editing functions work as they should, but not so if I try the full Reply! I'm puzzled...

Greetings Ladies and Gents! This is my first message on this forum, but I haven't registered just to post on this thread: since sometime now I was lurking in the dark collecting useful information, as I'm quite a new virtual pilot using FSX Acceleration since just a couple of weeks! I come from b]IL-2 Sturmovik[/b], as my foremost interest in Aviation is about those WWII era screwdrivers prop aircraft, but of course I'm very much fascinated by all kind of kites, and even in that exciting and very challenging FS I spend most of the time exploring places and maps around the world, more than fighting; so my switch to the FSX world was easy and enjoyable, so far. As I wrote, I'm quite a rookie, but I already collected about 100 hours flying time (almost half of them by night), and I'm flying almost exclusively VFR, since I'm not much interested in becoming a train driver myself: I admit I'm surely challenged by the complexity of IFR flying those huge airliners, but in the end I get bored fast, and prefer to switch back to a F4U Corsair or even to the Goose, and fly around as I please... As a discovery of FSX I started from a nearby Mil Base (LIMN) in Northern Italy one night with a Mooney Bravo, and islands hopped down to Malta, and then from Istambul I reached Gibraltar, collecting almost all of my flying hours exploring many places and islands I know since my land and sea travels in the real world, and loved it. I find most amazing to compare the airfields depicted in the forties of IL-2 how they got transformed as they are depicted in FSX: one glaring example comes to mind when flying the Hawaii Islands from Dillingham airfield as I compared it to the excellent and accurate map made by modders in IL-2. Apologies for the lengthy introduction, but this is my first message here, so bear with me. I resurrected this thread since this is the first Addon I installed on FSX, as I was much excited at the idea to expand my first clumsy attempt I mentioned (the Mediterranean Tour) to a World Wide raid and discovery: I've just made my first flight and feel somewhat deluded. As noted already, it would be difficult to appreciate the places from 20000', if you ever reach that height (I know the good Alan did!), but of my grumblings later. The first thing in this package I did not liked is that install just free flights, and not Mission/Adventures where you could have briefings (with images) and eventual rewards/postcards as memento of your accomplishments! The second thing is the poorly manageable aircraft: Chock wrote in his review this is a choice made by the designers to simulate the difficulties those flyers had; that may be, but then why fly in the modern IFR world at impossible altitudes? At my first attempt, I lost so much time trying to reach the proper IFR required altitude, and delving with that buggy AP, I run out of fuel short of Paris and glided down safely in a field in the NW area! No doubt my combat training in IL-2 came to fruition! I love to crashland in that FS after an hot mission, as the damage depiction and management is excellent there, and even if your aircraft falls literally apart, you would in the end know if you survived your adventure. That is missing in FSX... On my second attempt, I just went to the fuel pump and filled all the tanks: taking off was a nightmare, but I switched to a VFR plan to 7500' and managed to land safely in Paris, without the ATC continuous and annoying calls to speed up my climb! As a revenge flight I took off the same night with a fast and beautiful Mosquito Intruder, and without using any radio I just took off and landed back at Farnborough flying at 4000', mostly with nav lights off too! The points about the Electra are: the AP switches are inverted in the VC and in the panel too, so you'll need some fiddling around trying to figure out the correct positions for GPS or Nav, and even using the keyboard shortcuts, sometimes create a whole mess; you cannot load a full amount of fuel anyway: I had somewhat 50% of fuel at Orly starting for my second flight, so instead of roaming that huge airport to find a fuel pump I called the fuel track. It came in due course and imagine what? As I selected for a 100% load in the panel, it was noticed it was above my maximum weight: I chose to lower my quantity by some amount and fill up as much as possible, and when the truck left my tanks were empty! Alan, please, if you have any useful information on how to tweak the Electra .cfg, please PM me! I need a true Pratt&Whitney R-1340-49 power, a larger amount of fuel, and possibly a better AP too. I confess I checked all the Electra around, but they wouldn't load properly in FSX Acceleration; I even attempted to use parts of their .cfg pasting them in the ATW Electra, but I ended up with a total mess, or an altogether missing plane. I'm seriously thinking to switch to a modern twin engine aircraft, even to the Grumman Intruder I love to fly, but that would mean a different set of challenges. Over. S! PS: As this is my first message I noticed the direct editing is not working using Mozilla Firefox, and I had to edit all manually in html... Is there any chance the direct functions will be upgraded and made more compliant in the near future? I surely hope so! PPS: I cannot actually edit my message but just in html directly, and that is a bit... boring!