FlightSim.Com Reviews: Abacus CoPilot
REVIEWS

CoPilot from Abacus

by Adam Lutz (20 Aug 1997)


What's the most popular thing in real life navigation that is missing for Microsoft's Flight Simulator? An official Global Positioning System (GPS) and a moving map display. Every new commercial or private plane is being built with one, so why not have it for your computer as well! Well, Abacus has come up with a great program that comes complete with flight planning, airport diagrams and approach plates, and a complete and realistic GPS and moving map display. This new product called CoPilot, is an absolute success with my Flight Simulator planning and navigation.

As you open the package, you are supplied with a very detailed manual, a registration card (which you will need to save because you need the number on it every time you install CoPilot), and other coupons that give you a discount on other Abacus software. The manual has everything you need to know about the program from using CoPilot for the first time, to advanced flight planning. This manual is in a very great format, making it easy to find sections, and showing many pictures as well.

GETTING STARTED

This program seems to be very intimidating and difficult to learn at first, but after you read the third chapter "Using CoPilot," and do the steps in the book on your computer, you will find that it is very easy, and fun to fly like the real pilots do! This chapter gives you step by step information, on how to create a flight, fly the flight plan, and if you have Flight Simulator for Windows 95, you get to have the realism of the GPS and the moving map display. I have tried the sample flight plan from the manual and it worked out great. The accuracy of headings, estimated time to arrival, and the approach plates were all just right, and with the airport diagrams I love to see where I have to taxi after I land!


USING FLIGHT PLANS

Unlike other flight planners, CoPilot is great because it takes all of the information from your airports, VOR's, and NDB's, so you are ensured that all of the places you can fly to and from are on your computer. I've made the mistake of downloading other flight planners and flying a six hour flight and finding out three miles from where I had to land, that I didn't have the scenery! The program itself has a great amount of features and options. To create a flight, you can do it two ways. One is the quick way if you just want to have a pre-made plan set up for you to fly. You just choose where you want to depart, and where you want to land, and CoPilot automatically sets up all the VOR's, and NDB's you have to fly through! It's that easy! The second way is to use the "plotter," and just point and click on the map to which places you want to leave, arrive, and just simply fly through. Both of which are fun, and easy!

USING THE GPS

If you have the version of Flight Simulator for Windows 95, the GPS and the moving map display take realism a step further. If you re-size the windows of Flight Simulator and CoPilot, you can see them both simultaneously, which is my favorite part of this add-on. There are many ways you can re-size them, so that both can be viewed at the same time. This picture is how I like to have it. You can set the map to show you a mark of your plane's position, and to have the mark stay centered so you don't have to keep messing with those annoying scroll bars every couple of minutes. The GPS displays everything, as a real GPS would. It shows you altitude, heading, ground speed, bearing, distance remaining and arrival time to the destination you have set.

PLATES AND CHARTS

The approach plates and airport diagrams are 100% accurate, because it comes off your own scenery files! They offer runway headings, altitudes, approaches, and holding pattern. This is the approach to the runway that is used in the sample flight to describe how CoPilot works in chapter three.


CONCLUSION

The final verdict? Well, I must say that I have a lot of add-ons for my flight simulator, but this stands out from them all. This is the greatest add-on I have ever seen, because it makes me feel like a real pilot. The only problem is, is that if you have FS5.1 you won't be able to use the GPS or the moving map display, which I think is the main part of this program. If you have FS5.1, you are only capable of using the flight planner part of the program, which offers less advantage over the freeware planners available from flight sim oriented Web sites. I still recommend that you get this even if you have the 5.1 version, because this program is the only one to offer diagrams of approach plates, runways, and complete airports.

System Requirements:

Adam Lutz
FlyLutz@flylutz.com

Visit the Web site of Abacus Publishing, publisher of CoPilot.



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