asten
your seatbelt Mr. President and all Microsoft flight simmers! Air
Force One, the latest FS98 and FSFW95 add-on from SkyDesign
(published by Alpha Software) is a "slam dunk" of ingenuity and
pushes the realism envelope with FS98.
Program Installation
This view shows the level of detail with the Air Force One aircraft.
No 2D landing gear here.
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Installation puts nothing new on your hard drive except the options
that you choose. You can select the aircraft you want and it's not
required to install the included adventure or add-on scenery. That's
a big plus for simmers like myself who already have more than enough
flight sim products on the hard drive. The installation CD runs
entirely from the CD itself -- no system files were installed.
The attractive, user-friendly installation interface provides
details, stats, and previews of the options that you wish to install.
There's a bevy of aircraft photos highlighting the VC-137B (the first
AF1, a Boeing 707), the VC-25A (the current AF1, a 747-200), the
KC-135, and AWACS. These flight models are also all represented in
the package.
Air Force One: The Aircraft
SkyDesign's previous effort,
747 Jumbo Jet, is a set of aircraft that
did nothing less than "blow me away". The flight models, panels, and
planes are nothing short of stellar and are right at the top of my
list in the Microsoft Flight Simulator heavy jet aircraft category.
I must be honest, my thoughts were that the "new" Air Force One
package would simply be another rehash of this program with a few
minor panel changes and new paint on the aircraft. This was truly an
act of prejudice on my part! The main subject of this package, the
Boeing VC-25A which is the Presidential Version of a B 747-200B, has
been greatly modified. The aircraft takes on the flight dynamics of
the real Air Force One, not just another 747-200. The engines on
this flight model, like the real one, are four GE-CF6-80C2B1 engines
providing a thrust of 56,700 lb each for the Presidential Jet. These
babies want to move from the minute you startup and release the
brakes. On a light fueling as it is used within the adventure, means
you have to be conscious of braking the aircraft, as you'll start
taxing without applying thrust. Air Force One pulls out so many more
tricks and so much more added realism like this, you'd never believe
it was designed by the same team!
The aircraft come with a complete sound package, all sampled from the
representative aircraft depicted in the program. Your heavy jet will
scream into life with these sounds. If you're not careful, you'll
think you're flying!
This panel for the VC-25A exemplifies the quality of work that went
in to this project. The view out the window really looks as if
people are awaiting a glimpse of the President to step out of the
plane.
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Air Force One: The Panels
Captain Andreas H. G. Herbst, the Lufthansa pilot who with his wife,
operate SkyDesign produced the superb previous effort, 747 Jumbo Jet
without the luxury of the Flight Simulator 98 panel SDK. This is
the software developer's kit that aids programmers in the quest of
designing add-on panels. With Air Force One, he takes the panel SDK
to its very limits. There are limits imposed by Microsoft that limit
what you can actually do with the program's aircraft and panels. But
you almost get the feeling that the Captain and his team have almost
rewritten the code for the panels. The program limits have been
taken to the edge! The sense of realism is a showstopper!
Air Force One: The Scenery
The program includes scenery of Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. I'd
never flown to Moscow before and the attention to detail of
Sheremetyevo is quite impressive. A number of additional buildings
and 3D objects have been added along with two terminals, which
includes jetways, one of which includes an Aircraft Guidance for
Noise-In Stands (AGNIS). This will guide your aircraft precisely to
Terminal 1 and dock your aircraft to the terminal. There's a lot
here in Sheremetyevo that will require a number of trips to really
see and experience all that is there.
The Airport Moskau Cargo Centre would be a good resting spot for a
couple of cargo jets from the 747 Jumbo Jet package.
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The quality of the scenery is of such quality that I'm hoping that
SkyDesign produces a package that would simply be a commercial add-on
scenery area for FS98. The talent is there to bring us simmers not
only high quality aircraft, but spectacular detail as well with
minimum impact on frame rates.
Air Force One: The Adventure
Well, SkyDesign includes a nicely programmed adventure that will take
you from Sheremetyevo to London's Heathrow and Paris Charles De
Gaulle. The realism begins with pre-flight checklists and some cabin
humor that makes one feel comfortable flying. The pre-flights and
light chatter between the cabin crew makes you feel comfortable
knowing that the President of the United States and, you, as Captain
DeeBee, will safely make it to your destination in London...or will
you? Several voices are included and for this simmer, seeing and
hearing actual procedures that actually take place in the cockpit of
747 was a real learning experience.
Prior to actually starting the adventure, you have five options from
which to choose which represent levels of difficulty. The easiest
being the "Student" level, which essentially means that everything is
done for you like tuning of radios, gear and flap manipulation, voice
and text ATC. The most difficult, which I personally feel is more of
a "training" or true "game challenge" scenario is the "Chief Pilot".
At this level, you will have to manually fly the aircraft the entire
flight. That is, you're given voice ATC and you must follow this all
the way to London. You must manually hold the heading and flight
level for three hours.
Now this could be fun and undoubtedly a challenge, but I think that
in real life, if this were the case, the crew would be either staying
on the ground or returning to the airport shortly after takeoff.
Also, if you're like this simmer, finding a nice three hour chunk of
time to sit in front of the PC is more challenging than making this
actual flight. I opted for the "Trainee" level when I made this
flight as it allowed me to assist the crew a bit getting the beast up
to cruising altitude and then squeeze in those Saturday afternoon
errands before starting the descent.
Terminal with docking gates.
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Make sure you have at least 170 megs free on your hard drive. It's a
disk hungry adventure, but it's worth every meg. I enjoyed the
occasional in-flight chatter between the pilots and the feeling that
I was "really there"! Just as in real world flying, the controllers
at Heathrow put the aircraft in a holding procedure just outside of
Heathrow while it was still handling other "heavies" coming up on
final. After a brief spell in the pattern, you're given the
instructions for your final approach, which is, I must say, a
challenging CAT II procedure. The skills of this reviewer were lax
during this phase of the flight as my landing was supposed to have
been a missed approach with instructions to proceed on to Paris, I
wasn't quite up to snuff and ended up on headline news that evening.
Conclusion
You must have this add-on to Flight Simulator 98. It also works with
Flight Simulator for Windows 95. The program adds another level of
quality that must be met by future designers of Flight Simulator
aircraft.
SkyDesign has outdone themselves with this one making it even more
impressive than 747 Jumbo Jet that is also a mind blower! They have
a big job ahead of them -- making sure that any future release is at
least as good as this one. That's a tall order and one I'm sure
they'll strive to keep. Congratulations to the SkyDesign team for a
true masterpiece and milestone in PC based simulation.
John Goodlow
Email:
njgoodlow@sprintmail.com
Visit Alpha Software at
www.alphasoftware.com
