FlightSim.Com Reviews: Global Sorties

Global Sorties

by John Goodlow (15 June 1998)

'm a sucker for adventures. When I first purchased the BAO Flight Shop add-on for Flight Simulator, I was hooked. Flight Shop launched the desktop pilot literally to new flight levels and changed the Microsoft Flight Simulator from a mere game where you could fly the ridiculous (Cessnas between the twin towers of the World Trade Center) to a serious navigational learning tool (ATC guided flight in a 747 from Los Angeles to Hong Kong using real world navigation).

But with your average Flight Shop flight, as in real world aviation, it's rare that you encounter any real problems. Global Sorties is one of the latest of a long and growing line of FS98 add-on products and part of a new breed of adventures available for Flight Simulator. Global Sorties takes the Flight Simulator adventure engine to the limit. Your average flight is not guaranteed to be trouble free with Global Sorties and nor is Global Sorties.

Janet Reno, Hear This!

Installation is standard; no surprises. Instant Access, however, has been blind to the browser issues between Microsoft and the Federal Government. As the adventures install directly into Flight Simulator under the Adventures option, the Global Sorties program group creates icons for installing Internet Explorer 4.0. Yes, you read correctly -- double-click on either of two options in the Global Sorties program group and you can install or update your web browser to IE4.0 on your PC. The logic here is a total mystery. The people at Instant Access not only think they know where you want to fly today but where you want to go!

After a successful landing, you're greeted with a "how'd I do" analysis. Despite only two altitude errors here, the next screen told me that I was lucky to be alive. Learjet panel by Ian Donohoe.
The program comes with add-on scenery, but this seems to mostly benefit users of FS5.x and perhaps FSFW95 as the FS98 product comes default with most, if not all of what's included in these .bgl files. I didn't fly any of the European adventures so maybe there's a UFO waiting for me on the runway during the final into Munich. Also, for FS5 and FSFW95 users are some new engine sound files included mainly for an acceptable balance between the voice and engine sounds.

Also included is something new to me in FS98 -- an adventure tuner, or the aptly named "Awesome Performance" adventure. This should be run before flying an actual flight adventure. It helps you select the number of adventure instructions to be performed per second. The more charged your system, the more adventure instructions you can handle.

The manual is very well written and all options are thoroughly explained. Navaids for each flight are included as well as an appendix, which lists all the possible surprises in each adventure. Don't look at this section until you've exhausted flying a particular adventure. Attention all pilots: hijacking is a very real possibility during flight as well as engine failures, etc. You must admit, there's never been a hijacking in Flight Simulator until now.

The Adventures

Global Sorties installs 21 adventures. A number of the flights are short enough to do in a rather short period of time while a few of the others, appropriately called "Long Hops" and "Over the Pond", take you across the U.S. or over the Atlantic.

Global Sorties incorporates a Flight Management Computer (FMC) which runs in three modes: Show Route, Fly Route, and Fly Hold. The one that captures my attention and gets the catch phrase "real cool" is the Fly Hold option. For the first time in my experience, I'm told by ATC to fly the hold at the John Doe VOR and I can select this option in the FMC. When I'm told to proceed to the John Doe airport, I go back into FMC and select Fly Route and the aircraft continues on until handed off to Approach. ATC had never before asked me to fly a hold in a Flight Simulator adventure. Did I hear you say "cool"?

The Keyboard and the Controllers

What I didn't like about this program relates to keyboard issues and the controllers. I was unable to change altitude or headings during flights using the mouse and clicking on the respective autopilot options. Use of these features during an adventure (with exception of manual flying) requires using preset keystrokes, i.e., to increase autopilot altitude hold by 1000 feet, press ctrl/shift Y. This was a giant step back to FS5.1 as far as I was concerned. One of the big advantages of FS98 is being able to use the mouse to set headings and/or altitude. When I tried doing this with the mouse and the autopilot, my settings were always reset to what they were prior to an attempt at making a change.

There's a different voice for the Departure, Center, and Approach portions of each flight, which is nice, but most of the controllers seem anemic -- these controllers need a good healthy steak. They will issue commands to other aircraft in the vicinity, but you never hear response from these aircraft. So ATC is not only anemic, but it's as if they're talking to themselves in a padded room. This could be partially remedied with some real world ATC for the background chatter as was done with Flight Shop. (Anyone at Instant Access willing to pull this together as a patch?)

Instant Access responds: We have looked at the two issues raised in this review with regards to the lack of Background Chatter. At an early stage of our design we wanted to include this, but to achieve this with a deal of realism would have required a much larger voice library.
We felt that many people would not like having a FS add-on with an installation of 50+ MB's of files.

What's So Special?

Despite the problems noted above, Global Sorties is special because each time you run an adventure, there's a potential that it will be a completely different scenario than the last time you flew a particular route. First of all, Global Sorties will let you use almost any aircraft for any flight, though some are specifically VFR or over long distances meaning you want to choose your aircraft wisely. You can fly a route one day with a Cessna and the next with a 737. Just save your Flight Simulator default situation with the aircraft you want to use and that's it!

The smart pilot will execute a missed approach here. I did. Note the enthusiasm in the controller's voice. (Click here to hear it.) MD-83 panel by Eric Ernst.
During adventure initialization, you're prompted to answer certain questions, i.e., minimum runway length, flight level, call sign and poor or good weather conditions. The first time I flew "Californian Cruise" adventure, it was a standard flight from Fresno Air Terminal in the Learjet. I was given an ILS approach into Reno Cannon International roughly 50 minutes later. The next day I flew the same adventure, though I chose to fly an MD-80 at 16,000 feet and with poor weather. This time, in addition to a hold at the Squaw Valley VOR, I got a diversion to Lake Tahoe, one of my alternates, due to a security alert at Reno. This was a nice. These are the kind of features that pay the price of admission and make the programs drawbacks tolerable.

What I did learn from this adventure was that it's important to select the "Established/Visual with Runway" key during the adventure (Ctrl E) when you have the runway in sight. The problem here is that unless you have charts and/or at least a map, the runway you see may not necessarily be the runway of the airport to which you're cleared. This has landed me citations before in other adventures. The people at Instant Access did not include navigational information for the alternate airports and this is unfortunate.

Compatibility

The program works with FS5.x (with Flight Shop), FSFW95, and FS98. Users of FS98 will be saddened to find that the mouse to autopilot feature can't be used to change headings and altitude though users with FS5x might find the use of keyboard as a plus.

Instant Access responds: As regards the using the Mouse in FS98, we have patched the program and will be conducting QA testing over the next day or two, before releasing a patch for download.

Global Sorties has a few problems, but I must say, if I hadn't been given this program to review, it would be on my must have list. Global Sorties is a kick! Happy Landings!

John Goodlow
njgoodlow@sprintmail.com

Download a demo of Global Sorties, direct from Instant Access.
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