Please address any comments about this report to: Arnie Lee Date: August 24, 1998 MicroWings Association held its popular flight simulation conference in Orlando this past weekend - August 20th thru 23rd. Although the heat was excrutiating outdoors (we went to visit Disney's new Animal Kingdom, but felt compelled to leave the park by Noon because of the heat), the air conditioned facilities at the Clarion Plaza Hotel where the conference was held, made Orlando seem like a "normal" town.
Hundreds of flight sim enthusiasts and industry members attended to hear the about the next generation in flight simulation and to meet and chat with major software companies, industry notables and flight sim personalities. It was a great opportunity for me to meet so many new simmers as well as to renew acquaintainces with others during the conference.
MicroWing's Organizer and President Robert Mackay calls the conference "flight sim heaven". Let's learn a few of the details of the exhibits and demonstrations that attendees were treated to at the conference:
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Red Baron 3D |
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Phil Cowles surprised the audience by announcing that the "patch" to upgrade from Red Baron II to Red Baron 3D is available for download from Sierra's website at no charge. In addition, there will be 100% rebate for the full packaged version when available in October. Here's Phil getting real serious in battle with Red Baron 3D. |
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Combat Flight Simulator Microsoft, was busy demonstrating the upcoming Combat Flight Simulator. Microsoft's Bruce Williams and Jose Pinero gave a live demo while Steve Wilson and Phil Siatta answered additional questions about the new package which is now in beta testing and is due out November 5th. Jose stressed that Flight Shop aircraft will easily convert for use under Combat Flight Simulator. We saw an armed 737 in flight! | ||||
 An excited Phil Siatta with Mungo Amyatt-Leir of Interactive Associates, U.K. | We're also told that FS98 scenery will be very compatible with Combat Flight Simulator. However due to the addition of elevation data in CFS, scenery developed for CFS is not backward compatible with FS98. |  Steve Wilson smiles before returning to Redmond for the final push for CFS.  Bruce Williams in action Separately, Bruce Williams announced that the final installment of the SDK - this one for scenery design and multiplayer - is now available for free download from the Microsoft website. Bruce mentioned that the scenery SDK was written by none other than Bruce Artwick. Shortly after the release of Combat Flight Simulator, Microsoft will release an update to the SDK describing the new scenery modeling. | |||
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Pro Pilot 99 |
 Brian Gallardo shows off his Pro Pilot 99 skills to a MW attendee |
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Flight Unlimited |
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Pro Flight Marty Arant from AETI demonstrated the company's new add-on for FS98 called Pro Flight 98. This new package includes an adventure generator with audio ATC and looks impressive. |
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Flight Sim Central Aaron Anderson of Reno-based mail order and web vendor Flight Sim Central is ready with a large stash of flight sim products to sell to a very enthusiastic group of attendees. Look how his flight suit matches his company's logo! |
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Desk Top Wings Here's a well-known personality. Alfred Poor, noted flight sim writer, computer columnist and book author was on hand to answer questions about the Desktop Wings popular ILS and VFR flight charts. |
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Training Associates Bill Stack talked about flying Flight Simulator "by the book". Bill is the author of a series of guides for using Microsoft Flight Simulator as a training tool. For more information contact Training Associates. |
 Craig and Steve Moser, part of the Virtual Skunks team flew in from Halifax, Nova Scotia to present their "next generation" aircraft designs. Some of the first of these new aircraft already appear in their current FSWow product. Craig and Steve explained how they make what Craig calls "eye candy" visual models as well as the highly accurate flight models. |
Virtual Skunks Laemming Wheeler (unable to attend the conference) who heads the Virtual Skunks, was one of the original developers of Flight Shop. He's told me that they have developed several propietary tools that allows them to "get around" some of the limitations in aircraft design. Their aircraft have many unique features such as rounded surfaces, moving landing gear, working flaps, landing lights and more. Captain Mel Ott, newly retired 747 pilot for NWA and beta tester for the Virtual Skunks, flew one of the 747 models and performed several unorthodox maneuvers to demonstrate the flight dynamics. |
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Elite |
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Aviator Pro 98 Flight Safety International is recognized as the largest provider of professional safety training. |
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FS Global Upgrade |  |
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Aerosoft Richard Donaldson of Hamburg, Germany demo's several of his company's titles including a new products for easy panel design and a very detailed German Airports I. Contact Richard at Aerosoft. |
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The Flight Crew Mungo Amyatt-Leir of London-based The Flight Crew discussed software publishing for flight sim add-ons for the European market. Authors wanting more information can find out more at The Flight Crew. |
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Lago snc Lago's Ugo Grandolini of Como, Italy demo'd their upcoming Bahamas 98 Scenery. It features a new technique which they call 'Active Scenery'. The Lago developers have uncovered a way to make scenery interactive with the user - like having dynamic scenery that responds to user input. For more information contact Lago. |
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X-Plane |  |
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Virtual Cockpit If you're thinking about making your sim experience even more realistic, take a look at this entry from The Cockpit Group. |
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Airline Simulator 2 Simon Hradecky demo'd the upcoming release of Airline Simulator which is due out in late September. The goal is to accurately model the flight characteristics of the MD83, MD88 and B747 aircraft. Click for more information . |
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Intensor |
 Michael Fisher strapped five PCs together with standard network cards and added a freeware product called "Wideview" to create this wraparound cockpit for MS Flight Simulator. |
 Hans Keiner built a full-size cockpit. This pilot practices a night landing at Orlando Executive. |
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