Microsoft Flight Simulator X

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

I have mostly shown American and British planes, but now I would like to show some planes from other countries.

Firstly France. France is a completely independent nuclear power. Like all nuclear powers they relied on a bomber to deliver The Bomb. America had a variety of Nuclear capable bombers including the supersonic B58 and the B52, Britain had the sub sonic "V" bombers, the French had the Dassault MIrage IVb. It looks like a Mirage but it is bigger and has two engines, giving it a top speed of Mach 2.2. Again this is Freeware.

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

I live in the south east of France, The defence of southern France falls mainly on two airbases, Istres to my south and Orange to my north. As a result I have seen a variety of planes flying overhead, including Mirages and the Alphajets of the Patrouilles de France. I am not very good at distinguishing the different Mirages from a distance, but one about 20 Mirages flew low over my house heading to land at Orange. This only happened once.

 

Anyway here is a MIrage IIIC. The Mirage III was a huge export success, countries from Australia to Switzerland bought them (they were actually produced under licence there). Israel also adopted them and they performed well in the six day war against Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

 

This particular texture is of Jaqueline Auriols 1962 womens airspeed record plane.

 

 

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Still sticking with french aircraft, here is the TBM 850 Socata. This is payware by Carenado who make a lot of general aviation models for FSX and Pr3pared. The TBM850 is a very capable plane it can cruise high, far and fast. Here it is en route from Tarbes in the south of France to Glascow, the first leg of a flight to Florida via Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland and Maine.

 

It is a nice Turboprop GA plane, but I think I prefer the Pilatus PC12,

 

 

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Next up the freeware Mirage 2000.

 

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

And now the plane that meets pretty much all of Frances air force combat plane requirements, the Dassault Rafale.

 

 

 

A touch and go off of the Charles De Gaulle Aircraft carrier, yes the Rafale also replace all of France Naval combat aircraft as well.

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Frances Super Etendard, also freeware.

 

 

Don't know why this texture has tiger camo tanks, but its different.

 

Moving away from the planes, I have been practising low visibility landings. I can navigate using instruments, but I have never been to good with ILS (Instrument Landing Systems) landings. Of course not every airport (or plane for that matter) is equipped with ILS beacons. Unlike VOR and NDB, ILS is shorter range and the cone of operation is narrower, You need to be far enough away that the plane can manoeuvre but close enough to capture the signal. You can do a full autopilot landing* or manual using only the instruments to manage height and direction.

 

*Stock planes do not manage altitude, flaps and speed, but good payware airliners have flight management computers where every aspect of the flight is input prior to take off.

 

Here I have configured the sim with zero visibility and landed safely a number of times, experimenting with approach angle and speed. I cannot describe how disorienting it is to have no horizon out of the windshield.

 

This is the view out of the window,

 

 

and here is the landing.

 

 

 

Next up practising this while hand flying the plane.

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

I have more freeware french planes but we shall move on to Italy. We have already seen one of my favourite plane, the Piaggio P180 Avanti, I have just learnt that MilViz (a maker of addon aircraft for flight simulators) is working on a P180, but I do not know which version. They are just finishing their King Air and then they will move onto the Piaggio, I will be buying both.

 

Here though is a freeware FIAT G91Y, made by the same guy that made the Lockhhed F104 I showed earlier. If anything this model is better inside and out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a surprisingly fast plane and performed well on the canyon run that I put all planes through, It caught me by surprise twice as I tried to make hard turns not realising she had gone supersonic.

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Here is the excellent Aermachi MB236 by Dino Cattaneo

 

 

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

To round out the Italians

 

The Aermacchi 205

 

 

 

The Caproni Vizzola

 

 

The Marchetti S.79 T Transatlantico

 

[GySgt~SPARTA~]

nice..i wish i had the time to check out this game been spending some time in arma 3 well not lately i have bean busy...

Edited May 17, 2017 by GySgt~SPARTA~

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

I am happy to showcase the wide variety of planes, your all lucky I have a shitty upload rate or I would be making videos!!!

 

Anyway moving on from La bella Italia we're off to Sweden. Sweden is a small country with a population of 9.8 million. They have been a neutral country for a long time, but like Switzerland, they can defend themselves. Their Aeroplanes are SAABs. Many of you are aware of SAAB cars, but SAAB stands for Svenska Aeroplan AB and they have a history of making interesting planes. Here is a plane I remember from my youth the SAAB Draken.

 

 

It has a well modelled intererior. Most plane in FSX can be started with a shortcut (Ctrl E), but that didnt work here. Pretty much all turbo props and jets have a simple starting procedure.

 

Electrical power (Battery or GPU)

Fuel valves/pumps

engine start

 

Usually modern planes are organised so these things are grouped together, so its just a question of finding the groups. But this is a swedish plane used mostly by the swedes (It was sold to Finland, Denmark and Austria), so all of the buttons, knobs, switches and levers are labelled in swedish. Till means on, luckily when you hover the mouse over a button it gives you its name in english, however there are many buttons. Still after an hour I did manage to start the engine and flew it for 15 minutes.

 

 

 

 

This is a very nice model and challenging and enjoyable to fly. The swedes and the french really committed to tailless deltas. In 2015 on of these mach 2 fighters was for sale for $425,000 with updated avionics. The engine is made by Volvo.

 

 

One of the things about jumping from plane to plane is the different operating envelopes. The Draken has a fast landing speed because it has no flaps and can only take off on afterburners for the same reason. Most planes use knots and feet, some use meters and kilometers. Its good to know this before you fly.

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Going further back here is the SAAB 21 which first flew in 1943. I believe it is one of only 2 planes that were converted directly to jet engines. A bit ungainly but she is fast

 

It has a very nice cockpit, in swedish using meters and kph

 

 

 

Too fast so the flaps did not deploy fully, still not bad.

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

The previously mentioned Draken operated from, 1960 to 1985. This was replaced by the Viggen which was operational from 1971 to 2005.

 

 

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

The Saab or more correctly the JAS Gripen (Griifin) was introduced in 1997 and is still in service. It has been sold to South African, Czech and Hungarian air forces.

 

 

 

Annoying the neighbours at mach 1.

 

 

Hard turns in the Gripen

 

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

The Saab A340

 

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Right moving on to Germany, The Grob Spn

 

 

 

[Cent~SPARTA~]

nice

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Now the Dornier 328 Turbo prop. Dornier was part of Deutsche Aerospace but was sold to Fairchild in the USA. This plane and the next one predate the sale.

 

Not a fantastic virtual cockpit but useable

 

 

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Dornier 328 Jet

 

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

This is the Junkers JU87 "Stuka", it was payware by MilViz but is now freeware. It is not pleasant to fly but it is very nicely detailed.

 

MilViz started off creating stuff for the movie industry (I think) then expanded into simulation for the masses. Certainly this plane is quite realistic.

 

 

It has a very detailed cockpit

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

This is the only 4 engine plane I know of in the Luftwaffe inventory during the second world war, the Focke Wulf 200 Condor. It was originally designed as an airliner.

 

 

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

I'll come back to the Germans, but here is the Mooney Bravo. Its a really nice plane to fly and makes me feel like a good (virtual) pilot.

 

 

This one has a Garmin G1000 glass cockpit

 

 

One of my best landings

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Back to the Germans. There are few german aircraft manufacturers left, But they still make Gliders and are a big participant in Airbus. Having said that here is the Me BF110

 

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

And now for the nice looking Dornier DO 28

 

 

 

 

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Junkers Ju 88