FSM Moving Map 1.2.0

By Chip Barber (13 March 2005)

admit it. I'm an add-on junkie. My "Favorites" list is longer than...well, trust me, it's pretty long. Embarrassingly so. The overwhelming majority of the URL's to be found there involve flightsimming. And, the majority of those are sites that I scour regularly for the latest add-ons.

I think it was Tom Sawyer (or maybe Huck) who claimed the best tasting watermelon was "snitched". For me, the sweetest add-ons are the freebies. My hat is off to those intrepid developers out there (you know who you are, and so do we!) who offer to our simming community their works of love and art. These acts of generosity are as old as flightsim. Just can't thank you guys and gals enough!

Every so often, during one of my evening searches, a gem will appear. I happen to have stumbled onto one just recently that I thought I'd mention. Don't ask me where I learned of it (not that it was the site of a competitor, I just haven't been able to recall which of the multiple sites that I frequent it was). But here is where it may be found:

http://ranainside.com

This little delight is called FSM Moving Map. It was created by a UK software company called RANAINSIDE. Their site describes them in this way:

Established in 1994, RanaInside is a highly progressive, leading provider of Internet Technology, Design, Consultancy and Solutions for a host of large and small clients.

RanaInside provides holistic, creative and scalable solutions. We have built our reputation on delivering a comprehensive service that is innovative, proactive and cost effective.

Adequate, but they forgot "Programmers with a great understanding of what the sim community likes, the ability to put together add-on software that is a blast to use, and mighty generous of spirit, too!"

OK enough. What is this thing? Well, take a look at your humble kneeboard. Now envision adding to it a moving map, be it a sectional, a street map, whatever. It appears that nearly any type of map will work. With a zoom feature, of course. And, it WORKS!

Installation is a breeze. If I can manage it, it must be. The hardest part is creating a folder to keep your maps (or perhaps downloading them, since they can be large), and then directing the program to look there. Heady stuff. You also need to install FSUIPC if you don't have it installed already. There is a 30 page manual, which I looked at. I don't pretend to know how calibrate a map of my own for use. There are a few pages dedicated to this, in clear and specific terms. I looked at those pages, too. Then I downloaded the U.S. Sectional Charts, World East/West and the Terminal Area Charts of the U.S. These are already calibrated and ready to go. They are big! Once in your file, it is a simple matter of opening the launcher and clicking the Maps Defined tab.

I've got 139 maps installed. Yours will be initially empty, of course. A RightClick anywhere in the Maps columns brings up some options, from which you select Mass Import (this is all in the manual, by the way).

This will open a window from which you click on the folder in which you placed your maps. Click OK, and the rest is automatic.

So, off we go. At any point in your flight, simply open the kneeboard, click the 'A', and the program will choose the most appropriate map for your location.

On the ground at KITH

In the air, the map tracks with you.

This is looking over the right wing at KSYR. Note the black aircraft icon at the center of the moving map, and KSYR over the right wing!

As I said, this is a blast to use! It is easy to identify surrounding terrain features, and if you happen to have navigational skills which are on par with mine, it comes in darn handy on those VFR flights.

This is a program which could have easily been released as payware, and I am certain it would have generated interest. That the developers decided to offer it as freeware speaks highly of their approach to the flightsim community.

Well alrighty then. I was all set to see this review in all its mediocrity on the website, and what happens? Rana has the NERVE to release an update. OK, fine. Who knew he was gonna blow us all away with his improvements? Starting with the small potatoes, he added a progress bar to keep the terminally impatient among us from rebooting the machine during load (it's all of six seconds or so). There is an option to show the map inset on the screen by default, the aircraft icon is now a very visible blue. There is a list of other stuff he did here:

http://ranainside.com/software_flightsim_movingmap_version.html

The really cool thing he did was to add AI traffic in your vicinity. No, it's not a TCAS, just a graphic representation (moving, of course) of other aircraft on the map. The airports look like a red paintball strike until you zoom in close enough to separate the individual aircraft. Yours is blue, and all others red. And darned if you can't watch them taxi, line up and go.

So let's see...easy to install, a large supply of usable maps which grows larger all the time, application to flight limited only by your imagination, no hits on frame rate (that I could find, anyway - don't hold me to this). And the cherry on top of the parfait, freeware.

It just doesn't get much better than this!

Chip Barber
rfbarber@optonline.net

Download FSMMovingMap 1.2
Download FSUIPC (required to make FSM Moving Map work)

Download U.S. Sectional Charts
Download Sectional Chart Index
Download U.S. Terminal Area Charts
Download World Maps

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