MicroWINGS 2000 Conference / Seattle

Part 1/2

By FlightSim.Com Staff

Speeding westbound on the mighty 777-200 at FL390. The moving map showed us over the midwest with a groundspeed in a headwind of 525 mph.

MICROWINGS IS FINALLY HERE

Every two years or so, comes the time where flightsimmers from all around the world gather together to spend four days of pure simming heaven. The MicroWINGS Conference started almost 10 years ago on the campus of Cornell University in beautiful Ithaca, New York. Dr. Jim Mass was the host and since then has been hosted by Robert MacKay, MicroWINGS founder. This years event was held in Bellevue, Washington - home to Microsoft and Bill Gates. About 30 minutes outside of Seattle and the SeaTac International airport, this was the perfect location to get everyone together in close proximity to Microsoft's home, Boeing Field, Everett Washington and Kenmore Air floatplane bases. All the events took place at these locations, and it was an aviator's home away from home.

Big boy, United 772 parked at Denver just after getting off. Weather was cloudy and a cold 41 degrees on the ramp.

I was on my way to MicroWINGS to cover the conference and also to fly the Boeing 777 simulator that is used to train the real pilots. I have yet to fly on a real 777, so I routed myself through Washington Dulles just to get on a UAL 777 bound for Denver. The 777 comes with space age seats including adjustable headrests, and each seatback has your own video display screen. From there you can choose many channels of programming, or just listen to ATC communications from the flight deck. While listening to ATC the entire leg, I watched my flights progress on a moving map display! Complete with winds aloft, true airspeed, groundspeed and time to destination, the map provided a total flying experience. From a cloudy, cold Denver, I got on a 767 and continued my journey to Seattle. It was a long day of traveling, but worth it in every way. No matter how you slice it, air travel is the most entertaining and enjoyable way to cross the country - despite the complaining most passengers do. Not this one, I was so happy, I wanted extra airline omelets.

Passing over the mountains of eastern Washington in the 767-300.

THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS

After arriving at the elegant Double Tree Hotel in Bellevue, I was greeted by a friendly hotel staff and a bag of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies! What a welcoming! The reception would start at 5pm, and at 7pm the Terminal Reality folks would be starting their welcoming party. It was a great affair. I met with Richard Harvey and Brendan Goss from the FLY! team. Richard is the product leader, or lead programmer, and Brendan is the newest addition to the team. We talked for a long time together, as he is also a corporate pilot with many years experience flying Learjets and Hawkers. That's a lot of flying for someone who doesn't look older than 25. In any event, he's going to be a great asset to the FLY! team as Brendan loves simming as well as real flying. Now, he'll be there to ensure added realism, design and support of the new FLY II which everyone is busily working on. We discussed what we like and do not like in today's sims and especially what we both thought the new FLY! should really concentrate on - namely less sensitive flight models, more weather features, landing lights and other missing items. Both Brendan and Richard were there to talk to everyone in a great friendly manor and were busy the entire time speaking everyone who approached them.

Seattle area coming into view after descending from 10,000 feet.
The food was fantastic only to be complemented by an open bar. It was an eating and drinking frenzy for most of the jet-lagged and excitable simming crowd. To make the evening even more memorable, Richard and Brendan announced that all the FLY!2K boxes decorating the restaurant were indeed full, and each of us were told to help ourselves! This was excellent! Now, we all could take home a complete version of FLY!, with all the patches built in, and many new enhancements included, such as the latest version of SKY!

At nine o'clock we were all hurtled into the main conference room where we got the welcoming speech by Robert MacKay and an overview of the events to take place the next few days. Everyone was itchin' to be let into the "secret" exhibit room where we'd all be cut loose to fly flightsims until one or two in the morning. I myself was suffering from jetlag and sinus trouble so turned in early.

Very nice hotel rooms greeted the guests of MicroWINGS, along with fresh baked cookies.
The next morning it was hard to sleep in very long as I was anxious as everyone was to get started with the fun stuff. I chose to participate in the Boeing Tour up at the 747/777/767 plant in Everett, Washington. We all boarded busses for the 30 minute drive up to the world's largest building by volume. To give you an idea how massive this structure is, you can fit all of Disneyland (southern California) inside it, and still have room left over for parking. I have seen this place before, and while it might be the most fascinating place for any fan of heavy jets, the tour is very fast, and shows you very little. More exciting was seeing the flightline with all the new jets on the ramp, awaiting their deliveries. The Boeing gift shop was a great place as well, to spend a little money on things not easily found anywhere else in the US.

Our hero, Bob Mackay speaking before us, welcoming us all to an evening of fun, a party by TRI and a late night of simming in the main rumpus room!
That afternoon my sinuses had taken away my voice for good. Only once before in my entire life had I lost my voice, and to have it happen now, at MicroWINGS, was devastating to me. Only once every two years do I get to be surrounded by hundreds of flightsimmers that share my passion, and I couldn't speak to any of them! Oh well, I did manage to survive by croaking out a few words and sounds so I think everyone knew what I was talking about.

CONFERENCE OVERVIEW

This years MicroWINGS was slightly different from ones of the past. The daily tours were arranged to occupy the morning slot from 8am to 12pm. Then, after a great five course lunch Friday and Saturday (a great MW tradition) we'd be free to "play" in the exhibit room until we could take no more. Most of the people stayed up late into the night, flightsimming, chatting and having a great time surrounded by new friends from all around the world. That itself is the greatest number one aspect of the entire event, is the fact that you're spending several days with people just like yourself. The presentations are nice, the hands-on exhibits are great fun, but it's the sharing of stories, and outstanding company that you're with, that make it all so special.

Mike Altman of Precision Flight Controls shows off his latest super hardware that's FAA approved! This was the finest controls setup period, and I really wanted to burn a hole in my wallet standing here. Great stuff!
Jonathan Stern presented his annual MicroWINGS "Flight Simmy Awards". In my opinion, some of the winners were certainly deserving of their award, and others not so much. I share with you my thoughts on this.

Flight Simmy Award Winners:

Best Overall Simulator - FS2000 (I can understand this, but just barely so. I feel FLY! may be very close here!)

Most Innovative Simulation - FLY! (no doubt here)

Best High End Trainer - Jeppesen Flight Pro (either this or Elite, no problem)

Best Flight Modeling - X-Plane (no doubt here as well - great job to Austin Meyer)

Best Default Scenery - FS2000 (no problem here - a great new base to go with)

Best Default Weather - FS2000 (here's where Flight Unlimited III should have won - no one has as many features)

Best Panels - FLY! (no doubt - gets my vote)

Best Default Sounds - FS2000 (For Microsoft, the sounds are great, but some better, additional aircraft based and more stable sounds are found in FLY! and FU3 where all the aircraft sounds were 100% real)

Best ATC - X-Plane (Here, FU3 would have won again, with the most exciting and random ATC reactions with real voices)

Best VFR Sim - FS2000 (this one gets me, FU3 has the most photorealistic scenery to date)

Best IFR Sim - FS2000 (with the fast frame rates and panels of FLY!, why did they not win? FS2000 clouds are so clunky, frame rates destroy any smooth IFR I can imagine)

Best Add-on Aircraft - Precision Manuals Group 757 for FLY! (great choice!)

Best Add-on Panel - Precision Manuals 757 for FLY! (great choice, but many FS designers are right up there, like Eric Ernst)

Best Add-on Scenery - Airport 2000 by Wilco Publishing (well, you know how I feel about this - uggghhh - what happened to Lago's FSTraffic?)

Best Add-on Utility - SKY! by How in the World design for FLY! (I can agree with this)

Best Add-on ATC - ProFlight Series by AETI (no problem here)

Best Flight Hardware - CH Yoke and Pedals.

Marty Arant, captain of AETI, proudly shows me their newest product, the 747-200 "Classic". From what I have seen, this is the finest reproduced panel and 747 ever built for FS.

The most entertaining demo was that from Austin Meyer of X-Plane. Austin has built a great flight simulation offering many more features than many of the most well known sims of today. In addition, X-plane offers the most complete and accurate aircraft design program ever seen. Austin will jump, dance and roll on the ground to get the point across. The point being "look at my sim". He lacks no enthusiasm for his project, nor should he. The massive quantity of information concerning this simulation is the only reason I have not yet reviewed his latest versions here on FlightSim.Com. I don't know where to begin, or end. There is so much to discuss, and Austin demoed some great parts of his latest versions. It is obvious a week would not be enough time to show us all what X-Plane offers, and I could tell he was not ready to give up the floor anytime soon.

The most exciting news I gained from the conference came from three companies. First, Steve Halpern and Tom Main showed off FSClouds 2000. Never again will you want to go back to the default FS2000 cloud sets. They have done away with that "brick wall" appearance when flying toward clouds. The sharp edges are gone. Transparency is now evident in all cloud types allowing you to transition in and out of clouds much more realistically. The modeling and texturing is great, allowing for some amazing new sky effects. Even better, the frame rates are not hurt at all, and some say they have gone up a bit where the default clouds are so sluggish (like layers). I am now flying with FSClouds 2000 and I want to say early on, it's awesome. A review shall come soon!

FSClouds 2000 screenshot featuring the Kingair flying above a newly rendered layer. Note the smooth and transparent edges.
The second great product of the entire show was Lago's new FSAssist that will allow you to custom set your desired frame rate while flying! Yes, it's true! Finally, a frame rate controller as many racing sims have had for years. Why this was never invented years ago, I'll never know. Who cares now? Soon, we will all be setting our minimum desired frame rate for important segments of flight, such as takeoff, climbout, downwind, base and final! For instance, if you want a 15 or greater on final, and you're landing at a complex airport, scenery density will be taken away in the background to smooth things up. In cruise, you may want a lower frame rate to enjoy detailed cities passing by. I was very excited about this, and wish Ugo Grandolini and Mathijs Kok the very best success in getting this product into every flightsimmers computer! It was a treat to have been able to spend time with them, talking about their new offerings, simming and other fun stuff.

The third product that really caught my eye was AETI's 747-200 "Classic" add-on. This is the most accurately, perfectly reproduced 747 I have ever seen! People that know me, know I am one tough judge when it comes to this. This smashes all freeware and payware competition hands down. The Mosher brothers are the designers of this beauty. Ralph Tofflemire built the very lifelike and animated panel to go with it. I am fortunate enough to have received an early preview of this package and will have a review done shortly on this. The flight modeling, panel and aircraft visuals are very impressive and a wonderful surprise compared to a recent load of payware junk I have seen from other companies. You'll be getting what you pay for and then some, from AETI's new 747-200!

Tom Main has a reason to smile! It's called FSClouds 2000 - the "show stopper" in my opinion.
Richard Harvey gave a great speech on the open architecture of FLY! and the up and coming SDK which is slated for release in two months. Users will be able to design everything from panels to aircraft and more. This alone, along with the fact they are busily working on FLY!II makes me very excited about the future for this outstanding product!

Ugo Grandolini of Lago. A great person to just sit and talk flightsim with. I was most impressed with his FSAssist program that is due out soon. It was an honor to eat lunch with him and see them win copies of Flight Unlimited III!
Bruce Williams showed off the new mission builder to be contained in the new Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator. Easy to use with a great interface was its main points. Some of this "friendly" technology "may" make it into future versions of the civilian sim. When asked about anything to do with the future or status of outstanding bugs and problems in FS2000, Bruce Williams responded "we're aware of those issues and we'll be working on that as best we can in the next version of Flight Simulator". Please note, that may not be exactly what he said, but was similar to many of the answers Microsoft gave to open questions during the conference :) Even though they seem "cagey" in many ways still, the MS team has shown a much more positive and open attitude towards the users out there. I met with several key players at the dinner they hosted, and must say that all of them are dedicated, excited and really open to ideas, suggestions and user comments. They all read the newsgroups and web sites daily. They see each and every one of your comments posted out there, so for all you simmers reading this, keep on doing what you're doing - tell them what you want, they are listening! They are flightsimmers and pilots too!

Professional Flight Display's demo station. You won't find a more realistic primary flight display units to go with FS.
Lou Betti of DreamFleet 2000 gave a detailed demonstration on how they make the panels for FS2000. With their current projects based on the Cessna 182, 182RG and 172, many of you will be purchasing their great work. Hopefully by next Christmas, the mammoth undertaking of building the 737 cockpit in full detail, will be complete. Dreamfleet has produced "FLY!-like" panels for FS, minus some of the systems that FS2000 lacks by default. Chris Arrington and Lou both spoke to me about how much effort goes into each of their panels. I really enjoyed meeting them both and again, they have the enthusiasm that's as high as the quality that goes into each panel.

The other great part of the conference was the Sunday morning AETI Fly-off competition. Yours truly was picked out of a big group the night before, to participate in the fly-off with a chance to win some great prizes. I got a chance to fly the new AETI 747-200 on an in-and-out IFR arrival to 27 at San Diego International. I was ranked second in all who tried. However, during the fly-off the next morning, the electric trim on the yoke didn't work the way I was used to, and I spent too much time trying to stabilize the aircraft without the trim. On a 747 that's hard, and I blame it on that "surprise" for my sloppy profile. Eventually I trimmed using the keyboard, but by then my "graceful" approach was a bit scarred. Oh well. The winner, Arthur Gerlach of the Netherlands, deserves a big round of applause for his great job! He went home with lots o' software and a pair of Precision Flight Controls rudder pedals and an AETI avionics box!

Go to Part 2/2

[ Back | Main Menu | Logout | Help ]