xxmikexx

Installing addon aircraft is a manual process but a simple one. Here's what to do, assuming that you've done a standard installation ...

1 - Go to the author's website, accessible via the Help menu item.

2 - On the left side, scroll down to "Model, Scenery and Other Downloads".

3 - Download the zip file of interest.

4 - Using Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\Program Files\Transcendental Technologies\PRE-FlightSEJ\models

5 - At that location create a folder, giving it the same name as the downloaded file, minus the zip extension.

6 - Copy the downloaded zip file to the new folder.

7 - Do an "extract to here".

8 - Click on the "model" menu item and then click on "load".

9 - Open the folder you just created by double-clicking on its name.

10 - Select the .3dm for the downloaded model. This will add that model to the list of models available under the "model" menu item.

This sounds complicated but, trust me, it's really not, and after you do it once you'll remember the procedure.

I’ve had a life-long interest in radio-controlled model aircraft (R/C) but I’ve never done anything about it in the real world other than to a) continue to read R/C magazines, and b) occasionally visit, as an observer, an R/C club based in nearby Boulder, Colorado. Nevertheless I’ve been aware of the PRE-Flight simulator of R/C aircraft for several years though I didn't buy it until yesterday, 28 July 2010. (From this point on I'll refer to PRE-Flight as PF.)

What prompted me to finally act was the PF developer’s announcement of his Gee Bee Model R racer addon. You can read about it here, https://www.flightsim.com/main/notams10/pref0728.htm. This is just one in a long line of free addon simulated R/C aircraft created by the PF developer.

Last night I bought the download version of the product from the Pilot Shop, https://www.fspilotshop.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=226&products_id=1721. In spite of minor product problems I was so delighted with it, and so convinced that other people will want to work with it, that this morning I asked webmaster Nels Anderson if we could have a forum dedicated to this unique product. He agreed, and here we are in that brand new forum.

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The product isn't perfect -- no product is -- and making it work with a joystick sometimes will take some hacking, and addon aircraft must be installed by hand (it's very easy). Those things said, if you want a program that will teach you how to fly R/C model aircraft from the simplest to the most advanced, PRE-Flight is for you. Not only does it work with joystick+keyboard, if you buy a certain expansion module from the developer you'll be able to drive PRE-Flight using actual honest-to-goodness real R/C transmitters, as long as they have USB capability.

This means that PRE-Flight solves the long-standing problem of learning to fly R/C without having an unaffordable series of crashes. In the past, a beginner usually would partner with an experienced R/C flyer. Today, after using PRE-Flight for a while, you would be able to solo with confidence on your initial flight in the real world.

A free PF demo is available at the developer's website, http://www.preflightsim.com/. (I have not used the demo and don't know anything about it.) The developer's own free downloadable aircraft also are available at that site. While you can purchase the base system at this site, I hope that you'll instead buy it from the FS Pilot Shop, see the link above, since this will help support FlightSim.com while also helping support the PF developer.

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All those things said about R/C, PF today goes beyond basic R/C simulation. Scenery addons are available, and a free one from the developer models a small region on the surface of [a moon of Saturn?]. Similarly, one of the free "aircraft" available is a simulation of the Apollo program Lunar Lander.

Furthermore, if you like hand flying, PRE-Flight presents a challenging but fun flight simulation environment even if, like me, you have no plans to do R/C in the real world. Trust me, if you intend to land on the same "runway" you took off from, this is usually more difficult than in FS because in PRE-Flight

If you edit or plan to edit .air files, to avoid certain seemingly mysterious error messages you should read the following article ...

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Newcomers and others,

I've been hanging out at FlightSim.com since, I think, 1997, shortly after the site opened. However, for the better part of a year (maybe a couple of years) I was a "lurker", unwilling to make any posts or ask any questions for fear of being attacked the way I saw other people being attacked. That should never happen to you in this forum, and if it does happen I will see to it that the offender receives a private nastygram from me or, if necessary, from site management.

This forum exists precisely because a) I remember my own fears as a newcomer, and because b) I want other newcomers to have a better early experience than I did. None of us was born knowing this stuff, and 99% of what we veterans know about FS we learned from other people, either directly or as a result of things they wrote earlier, just as you will learn from other people. So the arrogant people really have nothing to be arrogant about, do they? :)

So ask any questions you like because it is truly the case that there are no dumb questions, only dumb answers.

The moderators of this forum were proposed by me and approved by webmaster Nels Anderson exactly because they combine depth of knowledge on many FS-related subjects with a concern for the well-being of newcomers. This is a wonderful hobby and we don't want people walking away from it because they were afraid to ask questions.

Don't worry that you don't yet know how to research a subject. That skill will come as you gain knowledge. In the meantime, you have questions and the mods and other members have answers.

Don't be shy,

There may be more to life than FS,

But there isn't a lot more :),

eightline,

I should have mentioned that the list of military sims I own and like is much longer than the list of military sims I have installed at the moment.

So Mig Alley is one of my all time favorites, but for a variety of reasons I don't have it installed at the current time.

Disneyflyer,

I own a number of military flight sims, purchased partly for purposes of testing my erstwhile utility program product, and partly for fun. The ones installed on my flight computer at the moment are ...

IL-2 Sturmovik 1946

Falcon IV

LockOn

Pacific Fighters

Combat Flight Simulator 3

I'm just getting into the Sturmovik game, on behalf of which I've applied for membership with an online multiplayer squadron named Aces High, not to be confused with the massively multiplayer game of the same name. I will be flying with them this coming weekend.

I have not looked into the multiplayer capabilities of any of the games, and even my single player combat time is low. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to formation flying, team ground attack, blah blah blah.

Hi Folks,

This is an experimental forum. It's purpose is the discussion of military flight simulators in general. Let's kick things off by listing the military sims we each own at the moment ...