Am I the only one who didn't know this?

[brillobo]

Recently read in one of D. Marshall's Tips and Tricks that FS9 limits the number of addons to 300 or so.

Is this true? Then what happens? My computer explodes? Lou Betti and K.S. arrive at my humble abode to personally award me a shiny pin that says "300 Club" (to keep my pocket protector from falling out when I do handstands and summersaults)? I get huge bills from FS2004 and that other FS addon-download outfit? in recognition of my commitment, Microsoft sends me an advance copy of FSX? All kinds of interesting possibilities. Anyway, is it true?

I dare not ask my next question. You have to guess. Hint: I assume(d) that if FS9 does limit addons, it was just one more of the many flukey things about this game that we work around... or live with. Until I asked this question at that other FS forum yesterday (and they pulled the post today), I didn't even consider that this issue could be "taboo".... Nuf said.


Rob

ps, thunder and lightning here, downpour, really gotta go now.

[lnuss]

What kind of add-ons? I've had over 400 aircraft with quite a number of sceneries at the same time, so IF it is true, it needs to be better defined.

[Kimber]

My aircraft folder is over 2000!! +repaints!!

[angels355]

Kimber!

You're so sweet! It's always a privilege to hear from you! I haven't counted how many aircraft I have but it's significant, I don't think I'm near 300 though, but in total across my four simulators I think I've got quite a a few. I have to get a new HD to do much more downloading.

I wonder if you might know the answer to this question. I'm in the middle of a flight from PHTO to KLAX in a Fly!2K V88 King Air B200 (Rob Young), cruising at FL461 fully 10,000 feet above its' normal ceiling departing fully fueled, with no passengers and no co-pilot (not required on B200 which is not a type rating required aircraft; on the B350 which exceeds the weight category required for type ratings, does that require a co-pilot, or is that just jets?), and no luggage, and absolutely NO AIRLINE PEANUTS, ABSOLUTELY NONE! I'm cruising at 147 KIAS (338 Knots GS). Would this flight be possible in the real world, in a real $1.4 million B200?

[angels355]

PS: Landed after 7 hours, with 726 lbs fuel remaining out of a total of 2312 lbs initially (121 gal remaining out of 544 gal initially). The high cruise altitude really lowers the fuel flow pph. Does this sound possible to do in a real B200?

It was a fun flight :+. My next leg takes me down to MMLP.

[brillobo]

Here's the quote from T & T #1 that I read a few days ago:

“Scenery:
In FS2002 and I presume still in FS2004, there was a “magic number” of addon sceneries you could add before FS would decide you had reached the limit and randomly (and without warning) remove a scenery entry to make way for a new one. If memory serves, that total number of scenery entries was 332.”

Just now I found this from T & T #7

"Thanks to a gentleman by the name of Kevin in one of the Avsim Flight Simulator forums; it appears that Microsoft addressed that issue in FS2004. He was exploring the content of the language.dll and under Resource 3033 found this interesting error message:
"SCENERY.CFG has too many sections in it. The maximum number of sections is about 1000. Click ABORT to Exit Flight Simulator."
This at least implies that you can have about 1000 total scenery entries before that error message would be displayed!"

Interesting. If I had a couple thousand addons, I think I'd be checking if FS9 hasn't been pushing stuff off the back of the shelf as I put new ones on the front.... but I guess it's suposed to tell you if it's doing that. As for me, I'm right at 300 total addons at the moment, so I guess I won't be getting that visit from Lou and K. for a while.

So, as Rozanna Rozanna Danna would say, "Never Mind." (For those of you old enough to remember RRD, Gilda Radner (Wilder) would have turned 60 a couple days ago. How old does that make you feel?


Rob

[angels355]

Rob,

There was a much smaller limit to the no. of aircraft Fly!/Fly!2K could allow, new aircraft added after that small limit would just not show up. Then they patched it and those aircraft would show up. I think game developers underestimate our capacity to download. My aircraft folder is nothing compared to Kimber's, but it's about 18 or 19 gb's.

Just landed my King Air at MMLP, the runway was not lighted and it was dark (Fly!2K V88), somehow I managed to get it down.

Gilda's passing was very sad. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that Gene Wilder never made another film after she died. John Belushi's passing was also very sad, but Jim Belushi gave me quite a few laughs, especially the film "Real Men".

[Kimber]

In the real world, you do not stretch fuel that far!! Just
plain unsafe!!

I looked at my aircraft folder, has been a while and I added
a bunch of stuff in the last couple of days!!

I also make up my own folders, like the Fouga, I have a seperate
folder for each country!! Easier to fine what I want to fly!!

4115!!

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3273/count3eb.jpg

100gbs aircraft, 131gbs total for FS9!!

[angels355]

Hi Kimber :)

Nice to hear from you. I would only explore the limits on the simulator, too much RW excitement is not good. It's been a few years since I've listened to the King's (King Schools) 13 tape video instruction tapes. They were so good, and went into lots of details about minimums. They were sure thorough, I hope I can go through those again soon. Actually my Dad (former Navy fighter pilot) and I used to stretch the range limits when I was 8, by flying w/ reduced throttle and doing a very long slow descent to our destination. So perhaps I was raised on adventure! That was in a '46 Funk, it was really easy to manually hold on course, unlike some excellent simulations of similar aircraft.

I checked out another route to Hawaii with shorter legs in past months, off the top of my head it was something like this, KSEA, to PANC, over to one of the Aleutian islands maybe Dutch Harbor AK23 (is the Air Force there very welcoming to thirsty King Airs?) or PADU, then down to PMDY (in the RW is there anyone at PMDY who'll fill 'er up an' give me a quart of oil?), I think that would be the longest leg 1613 NM's, then an easy hop to PHNL. I think there were maybe other airports out farther on the Aleutians like PAAK or PADK Adak I., I wonder how friendly they are over there to thirsty King Airs. PADK would be better to PMDY as that would only be 1420 NM's. I've heard the weather way out on those Aleutians can be really bad. I know, it would be a lot easier to just use the ollllde Gulfstream V and fly direct, but my hobby is flying around the world and I like checking out all these navigation options.

What do you think of this? $82,000 for one year, living expenses not included (could make a long commute there), going from zero to 737 (haven't gotten back to me about a 757 type rating) type rating in 12 months. Everyone tells me to just go to the commercial (plus multi and instrument) level, then beg for a job. A 757/767 pilot from Europe was nice enough to tell me that in Europe paying for the entire education is now very common, while over here it might be sort of a union thing to refuse to pay for your own type rating. Everyone also says that a first 737 type rating is better, as there are more jobs, but wow a 757 (plus 767 also usually) is so awesome. Of course I'd still have to convince someone to give me a job wheeling one around town. Credentials don't necessarily equate to a job, as an athlete with a related degree, I've been turned down for an athletic job, while someone without any athletic training or education was given the job instead; no big deal, just trying to illustrate how the job market can be difficult. I've been exploring this flight career possibility. I'm a scientist, but am interested in the possibility of a pilot career. It seems daunting, but, I know I'm going to ignite a huge contoversy saying this, but, when I'm flying my simulators it seems extremely easy; like I could just bring my own steering wheel knob and get that 747 pilot job! :+ Hee haw!

You are sure talented Kimber.

Have you tried out Valiquette's latest 7e7's (787), they fly very nicely, especially landing them.

[Au_Wozza]

Lordy Kimber if you flew each of your installed aircraft for 5min each,you would be flying for 10.20 weeks :) Non stop
I think you may need to see somebody about your hording problems :D
try too let go spring clean
Wozza

[angels355]

Speaking for myself, I try to fly everything around the world, but on the one hand can't get to them all, and on the other hand more and more I try to focus on the more challenging aircraft. I fly a lot of 747's around the world, and some of the bigger Airbus, and other Boeing aircraft. In a pitch black environment I'll be coming in for a landing during a heavy flight schedule, and I'll be thinking to myself, this plane is awfully easy to fly, and just go with it, and enjoy the greater ease of flight. Then I'll get down and realize that was only a 777-200, sshhh, I'm being too easy on myself, doesn't even have a Space Shuttle attached on top! Yesterday I completed my 237th flight around the world, with more flights in progress. I lost a bunch of sleep last night setting up a 5669 NM flight with a POSKY 747-400, got it going and up to altitude, then went to sleep, but woke up to find that FS9 completely crashed, and I was just looking at the desktop photo of a Gulfstream 5 cockpit! That's never happened to me before. I wonder if it got overheated running at "Medium Low" graphics. Darn! :)

Attached is a screenshot of one of my flights around the world in an F/A-18E flying a leg from Wake to Hilo.

[Kimber]

>Lordy Kimber if you flew each of your installed aircraft for
>5min each,you would be flying for 10.20 weeks :) Non stop
>I think you may need to see somebody about your hording
>problems :D
>try too let go spring clean
>Wozza
>
>

WOZZA!!

There are four names that pop up all the time when people ask
where did you get that plane!!

W Carter
T Conrad
B Lyons
Milton S

This is a large part of my folders!!

I have all of Rey Lopez's planes and they will stay on my HD
as long as I do FS!! I can' fly them for crying!!

[angels355]

Kimber,

Thank you for the aircraft recommendations, I'll have to check them out. I have to download the French website Falcon 50 also by Rob Young updated for FS9. Speaking of files I just installed a small update to KLAX, see attached. When I examine new scenery I put the graphics setting up to "Medium High" to view it, make sure it's OK. Wow, I can't believe how much nicer FS9 is with higher graphics settings. I'm glad I have a second boxed copy standing by for another computer, I'll have to get a few more before FSX. It might have it's faults (haven't been able to exceed FL1000) but I like it any way.

131 gb's for FS9 is not outlandish if you compare that to ordinary mainstream gamers playing the big hit games like Doom, or or, can't remember what's popular outside of FS9! Any way, friends I have that pursue those games tell me wild stories about having 1.2 Terrabytes of storage capacity, and they have installed three games for example that are now about 100 gb's each. And when it comes to gaming, they seem a little more frantic about the whole thing in comparison to us flight simmers.

Of course, those guys even have the chance of competing in big money competitions, one competition with Quake(?) in Los Vegas had a $400,000 top prize. On MTV there was a special on mainstream gamers, and one group of guys, perhaps 10 or more maybe, all rented a house, that was dedicated to gaming exclusively. They had a number of gaming stations (PC or otherwise) upstairs and downstairs, and they would keep crazy hours gaming around the clock. They said that somewhere in the house a game was running 24/7. At that time when prizes were lower like maybe $25K to $75K, one of the guys there was the terminators of gamers and was pulling down $250K, and his car was one of the prizes he won in competition! So it's not just skateboarders that make big money doing what they like.

It's too bad there isn't such a competition for flight sim, but I wonder what such a competition would involve? Maybe performances judged like gymnastics, I don't know.

So I don't see where Kimber's FS9 is that outlandishly large, in comparison to mainsteam gamers it's normal.

This afternoon I'm working on two 747-4XX world tour flights that are each nine pages long, it's the toughest set of world tours I've done so far. I felt I needed to visit each of the major airports that I could think of in the world, as some airports had been neglected in some of my flight plans.

Have a nice flight.

[Au_Wozza]

>
>WOZZA!!
>
>There are four names that pop up all the time when people ask
>where did you get that plane!!
>
>W Carter
>T Conrad
>B Lyons
>Milton S
>
>This is a large part of my folders!!
>
>I have all of Rey Lopez's planes and they will stay on my HD
>as long as I do FS!! I can' fly them for crying!!

:D hmmm Ive got another one for your collection its a personal project
I did to get use to FSDS3 Im pm ya a link ;)
so what your saying is Im slighty responsible for your obsession ..:D
Cheers
Wozza

[angels355]

Wozza, I got your Mirage, it was nice, I'm too sleepy to check it out more. That's a really beautiful GeeBee, I'll have to get it tomorrow. I was very fascinated with the GeeBee when I was very young. Also at that time I had a few models of the Moth and the Curtiss Jenny, but I never thought I would see what they were like to fly, but thanks to FS I can get an idea of what it was like. It's really a rare opportunity to be able to say to a developer thank you for your skilled and artful work.

If I had a request it would probably be the F2G Super Corsair by Goodyear, with I think 3400 to 3800 standard ordinary horsepower, without any mods that would stress the engine. The British have always been praised for their beautiful Merlin, and Griffon water cooled V-12 engines, but we did pretty good with radials. The R-4360 was incredible and I didn't think it looked obstrusive on the F2G at all.

Another interesting aircraft was the Supermarine Spiteful/Seafang, some having the Griffon 100 engine with a two stage supercharger with three speeds.

The Mirage reminds me of the F-102 and F-106. The F-102 was somewhat of a failure, and did awfully in combat. However the F-106 was NASA test pilot Milton Thompson's (RIP) favorite fighter, he wrote that it had the feel of quality that his Mercedes had.

When I was flying your Mirage, I think I stalled it dramatically in a steep (NASA style) approach to the runway, it almost seemed like it had a massive delta wing type stall. I recovered somewhat but it was a hard landing. As I understand it delta wing designs were infamous for their stall characteristics.

Thank you and good luck.

[Au_Wozza]

Hi Angels355
I not sure but I think there is a Super Corsair in the AH package
http://www.theheavenlyhangar.com/READMORE/corsair/IMAGES/GALLERY/gallery
.htm

Its getting so just about every aircraft ever made is now flyable in fs9 ...well maybe not :)

The Mirage is getting a bit dated now (it was when it was released:) )
If you want a rush take the Me-163 I did for a spin,its not the greatest model around but I still think its a lot of fun for a having a quick fly (a quicky around here)before the other half yells at me :D
Cheers
Wozza

[angels355]

Thank you Wozza, you are a very fine gentleman. You're from down under, I fly to Australia very frequently on my simulators. I include an Australian airport in a very high percentage of my flight plans around the world, to every major city there. I think I've been to YPAD but maybe not for a while, I'll have to get that flight plan out, but I've been to Alice Springs a number of times, that's a fun stop.

Over here an acquaitance of mine has her husband do "honey do's" before he can fly his FS9, "honey do" this "honey do" that errands around the house. I haven't gotten married myself yet, but my girlfriends in the past have been very beautiful, so if I ever land one of them, I probably won't mind taking some time off from FS! :+ Of course, I could see that in that possible far distant future that eventually, the garbage will need to be taken out, the furnature will need to be refinished, the fireplace rebuilt from scratch, the house will need new siding, paint, roofing, and that color might not be right so do it again with another color, then of course that future wife's VW bug "chick car" will have to be overhauled...then I'll probably get back to flight simulator! Ha ha! :+

Your aircraft are beautiful works of art, and I sure appreciate your skills. The other day I tried to imagine myself trying to create my own aircraft, and the only image I could come up with was another Santa Claus and sleigh aircraft! Attached is a very nice rendition of Santa and his sleigh, I don't remember the author's name immediately, however he did a better job than I could have done. In this screen shot, Santa is in a hurry departing the old Miramar Naval Air Station, where "Top Gun" was filmed. He's "got the need, the need for speed!" ("Top Gun") It flies like a Learjet. :+

Best wishes and thank you for everything.

[Strider3]

Sweet? SWEET?

She's an animal! Kimber brings to FS what we've always needed in this "boy's club"...a woman. I hope she brings friends!

And remember...be nice...she calls Milton Shupe "Uncle"...NOT someone we want to get on the wrong side of? LOL!;-)

Kimber...I have been dealing with an FS9 "issue" (install, re-install, delete all, format, install XP,install FS9 and on and on)...did you ever get any feedback on your shimmering question? It was at a Texas airport and I never got there to check it out, although I said I would...sorry.

Vic

[angels355]

Vic,

Kimberramalama is very nice. She sure knows a lot of stuff about this FS9 stuff, 'n stuff. But I'm respectful that she's married, 'n stuff.

I gotta get that B-29 that Shupe worked on.

I don't think this boy's club is so bad, actually it's a nice break from all of the butch coworkers I've had that just want to rough me up! Don't get me wrong, elsewhere I like meeting, in person, charming types.

Do you like big iron? I just got through flying an excellent short hop, 1000 NM's, in aPOSKY repaint. It's a 747-236B(F) by Ube, Cho, Peterson, based on original by Daniel. It has an excellent old style panel and great sound, and the flight dynamics are really great. Loved it. For some reason my monster computer (700 mhz) thought this plane was heavy to process, it's about the only aircraft it sees as heavy, everything else no problem.

Try it out, it's excellent, and tell me what you think of it.

The file name is pob74mmh.zip

[Strider3]

I certainly didn't mean any disrespect...I hope none was taken?

I like the "vintage" stuff, CS 707, DF 727 are my favorite jets. Other than that I spend a LOT of time in my MAAM DC-3 or flying our VA's cargo ops aircraft (AC500, FT Caravan, Carenado U206, FSD Porter and the DC3) around the Pacific N.W.

I have had an inkling lately to try a 747 but with all the "issues" I've had, I haven't flown in months. It's a real "Twilight Story", at this point, really weird stuff...but that goes in a different thread.

Thanks for the "heads up" and if/when I'm back up and simming I'll chech her out.

Vic

[angels355]

Hi Vic,

I'm brand new to blogging, to this point I've made 281 blogs in my entire life and only those in the last few months. (About six years ago, my friends sternly told me to PUT, THE CALCULATOR, DOWN! AND GET ON THAT INTERNET!) I should use more smiley faces when I'm kidding around, :) , there's a sort of blogging etiquette that I'm still trying to get used to so I hope that you'll bare with me. Like using more :) smiley's when it's hard to tell if I'm laughing and kidding around. And not use all capital letters unless intending to be blog shouting. Actually I used to do some graphic art for myself, stationary cards etc, and so used to look at a very large variety of letter fonts when composing something. One day I was a little tired of the usual fonts on this website so I used all capitals, true my 747 sound was turned way up, however I was actually looking for some more font variety but someone thought I was intentionally shoutng, oops! One of my old co-workers used to type up extremely boring reports all in captal letters, which would put me to sleep, so from my past experience all capitals doesn't necessarily mean shouting. So blog etiquette is something I'm still getting used to. :)

We've spoken before in the past, you must know I'm a nice guy and very easy going, and I don't take offense easily also. Don't think otherwise.

I'm trying to remember if I've seen some threads about the computer problems you've been having. Is this about the terrain rips? Or texture popping? What kind of problems are you having?

I've been so fortunate, I've had very few problems, and I've just been flying the living daylights out of my simulators. I haven't added up my latest hours yet, but I think I'm coming close to 11,000 hours. My old 486 was haunted, that's a given, running on Windows Me, it had a major meltdown so my original mouse won't work on it any more. It has a hardwware conflict and I haven't figured it out yet so I have to use a USB laser mouse for it which is worth more than the computer itself, and no mouse funcion in safe mode. After that, all of my follow on computers have performed flawlessly. Think about this, around 11,000 hours nonstop in about 20 - 21 months, with absolutely no computer problems! It's a real life miracle! Of course I learned a lot about computer system maintenance from my haunted 486, which may have kept those other newer computers running smoothly.

What is wrong with your computer, or what topic string is it on? Have a nice day Vic, you're a great guy.

[Kimber]

"did you ever get any feedback on your shimmering question? It was at a Texas airport and I never got there to check it out, although I said I would...sorry."

I don't remember this!! I don't recall having a problem??

BTW, you guys are really funny!! Very nice Funny!!

I have a source of information, Brad has been flight simming
since the 80's!! He is into hardware more than flying!!
He helps with airfiles and such also!!

[angels355]

Kimber!

Stop SHIMMERING! We're only MEN, only made of rippling steel muscle and Gatorade! There's only so much we can take!!!


http://nativopartenopeo.blogspirit.com/images/medium_homer_donuts.jpg

[Strider3]

My "Twilight Zone" issue started several months back. I lost my "C" drive and had to do an XP re-install. FS9 lives on it's own WD Raptor (F) drive so after installing XP Pro I moved my FS9 folder to a storage drive, did a "compact" FS9 install to "F" (to register everything with XP) deleted this FS9 install and moved my original FS9 install back to "F". At that time I noticed 2 "seemingly" related glitches with FS9 and ATC text (I have no idea if this behavior started before the loss of the C drive, or after).

1. I can no longer see the ATIS text, in that green bar near the top of the FS9 window, unless I have the "Show ATC Text" setting checked under "Settings | ATC". This setting causes an ATC text box to open, in the middle of the FS9 window, whenever ANY ATC message is transmitted...not just ones directed at me.

I used to leave this setting unchecked and the "Auto-open ATC Text" checked...this would open a window with ATC messages directed to me only. With these settings I used to have the scrolling ATIS text bar. The bar is useful to me because I also receive ACARS messages on it, from FlightTracker. Now I can't use it because the constant ATC text window opening up is too annoying.

Something has made the ATIS text bar unavailable unless the annoying "Show ATC Text" setting is selected.

2. The other weirdness is that the ATIS text, when I DO have "Show ATC Text" selected, in now white?? Not a big deal...but I think it's related??

Anyway...here's the original thread here (please excuse the original tone as I was VERY frustrated at that point!)

http://www.flightsim.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=6&topic_id=157473&mesg_id=157473&listing_type=search

I will be updating it tonight with my latest contortions to solve this problem...with no luck. It get's REALLY wierd when you see what I've done...and the behavior is still the same.

I also posted a question about "popping" terrain textures...but it appears from all responses that I've done everything I can to minimize that...oh well.

Vic