Preview
Microsoft
Flight Simulator 2004:
A Century of Flight - Part 2
by Jim
"Hornit" Campisi
Microsoft
has come a long way since the early days of Flight Simulator.
Those who have been around a bit can attest to this. The first
editions were DOS based animals with stick figures and cartoon
graphics, yet we thrilled
to the ability to fly on our desktops. As the years have progressed,
things have improved mightily. In my first preview I touched
on a few brief areas concerning the weather and the basic
elements of the simulation and some first impressions. With
this look I will get a bit more specific and concentrate on
the learning and media aspects of the sim.
Each
version of Flight Simulator
has been familiar to those who have used the versions prior
to it, this is a good thing. As we move along in its evolution
things have changed subtly and usually for the better. With
this version of Flight Simulator, the helpful aspects of simulation
have really blossomed. The flight lessons and learning center
are truly well done and make it easy and enjoyable for the
neophyte on their road to the sky.
Getting Started
John
and Martha King greet us as always (or at least in the last
few versions) on the front page of Getting Started.
Here you can view some nice videos of Flight Simulator and
all its new aspects and features. Included here is your introductory
flight and a few words about it and what to expect. On this
page is the familiar menu system as used in earlier versions
on the left side of the screen with the same old options.
All the tweaking and reading can be found accessing this menu.
From this menu you can click on A Century of Flight and read about all the new vintage and historic aircraft.
Lane Wallace, a popular and excellent aviation writer introduces
and provides anecdotes and stories about the different aircraft
and its nicely done. Lane writes for Flying magazine,
and if you don't know about her already I suggest you pick
up a copy here or there and check her writing out. She is
a gifted aviation writer and I have really enjoyed her obvious
passion for aviation and the love of the sky.
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The Learning Center
The Learning Center is the
meat and potatoes section for all documentation available
for FS2004. It's basically set up like a PDF manual, but it's
easier to use and everything is integrated very well. Everything
has a more polished look and it just seems to flow and function
a whole lot better. The content is all very similar, some
of it may actually be identical, but there is much more here
now. It's more relevant and its presented in a logical and
easy to use manner. You no longer open up Adobe documents,
but rather use a nice looking html type interface. The interface
is sharp and laid out in an organized fashion. Everything
is reachable from a main screen as before, but now its enhanced
with some nice graphics and screenshots. The learning center
can be thought of as basically a manual of sorts. It's an
in-game menu from which you can choose just about anything
to do with Flight Simulator. Want to learn about graphics
settings and how they affect performance? Or how about how
to use ATC and all the new features involved with it? It's
all right here in an easy to use format. Again, a lot of this
is familiar, but there is more content and its much better
done this time around. As the top of the first page says,
it's your one stop shop for everything in Flight Simulator.
What I found that's a whole lot better
this time around is that the articles and tutorials are much
better illustrated with overall a more professional feel.
Its really not a bad alternative to not having a printed manual.
After all it's not a combat sim, where you have to have the
manual in your lap while trying to figure out how to designate
that radar target marching down the scope.
For instance, clicking on the "Navigation" section inside the learning center takes you to its own page
with several topics. Here you can learn about pilotage, charts,
maps and how to use the tools in FS2004 to do all of this.
The really rich part is this extra stuff, the part on pilotage
was particularly well done. Each section has these nice enhancements
making this a much more well rounded and complete product.
Flying Lessons
Here
is where our good old buddy Rod Machado greets us with all
his wit and wisdom. Rod is back in A Century of Flight to be our mentor and entertainer during our road to becoming
a pilot. As far as I can tell things are done pretty much
identically to the earlier versions. Truthfully I have not
spent a whole lot of time prior to this "learning"
in flight simulators of any kind. I spent a lot of money and
time in the real world learning this trade! I can say
that the audio portions of the lessons are much nicer with
crisper and better quality audio. The content seems just about
identical and even the locations for flights and training
are the same. A big improvement has been done to the reading
and ground school parts of each lesson. This coupled with
the better resources make learning to fly really enjoyable.
I would submit that this is a really good tool for someone
who wants to become a real pilot. It's not just a game anymore.
In
several places it's noted that FS2004, while still not FAA
approved for meeting hourly requirements, is being used for
flight training and ground schools in many areas. It's a great
tool for visually engaging students for many concepts related
to flight training and ground schools.
I did a sampling of lessons and I
have to say it was an enjoyable experience overall. There
are limitations to what can be done but it does a good job
of teaching fundamental skills and Rod is a fun and enjoyable
companion on your flight training journey. What happens if
you stray from the lesson plan? Well, its kind of funny but
Rod starts to have trouble with correcting you while trying
to also teach what's in the lesson. It can rapidly deteriorate
into a "your too low", Not so much left bank",
Your too fast, reduce power" session. All this while
poor Rod tries to tell you about a VASI or how the glideslope
for an ILS works. I got a few chuckles out of this. For what
its worth, its very well done overall and while a bit too
hard at the higher learning levels like ATP etc., its a real
challenge and will give legs to the sim and hours of fun to
those who get into this stuff.
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As before there is a flight analysis
section and it remains pretty much unchanged except for the
enhanced functions available with the map display. With
the new map you actually get terrain from the sim world as
a background now instead of the standard white background
from previous versions. Also you get to see airports and airport
info like its depicted on a real sectional chart with airport
symbols and it's information displayed as you mouse over the
airport icons. Its a nice touch and I like using it.
That's enough for this time around!
My next preview will concentrate on the new environments,
the autogen features and a look at some of the new high detail
airports we get in this new version of Microsoft Flight Simulator.
The Microsoft
Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight official
web site is here.
Video downloads showing different
aspects of Microsoft Flight
Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight are available here.
The Microsoft
Flight Simulator Insider web site is located here.
Click here
to go to top of this page.
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