FlightSim Software

Vroute has sent us the following press release regarding their Vroute.Info application:

vroute today announced the launch of its long awaited product vroute.info premium, the ultimate flight simulation pre-flight and in-flight information tool. Now anyone interested in serious flight simulation can find a huge route database, comprehensive airspace maps, flight progress cards, map and scenery links as well as VATSIM online traffic data all in one place.

The successful predecessor, the vroute.info application, has been installed by over 20.000 flight simulation enthusiasts worldwide. The route database has over 64.000 entries which makes it probably the largest one in the world. Every evening over 1.000 people begin their flight simulation experience by checking where to fly, what waypoints to follow, what weather is to be expected and printing out their flight progress cards which help the sim pilot have all important information at hand. Even VATSIM flight/ATC booking is fully integrated, delivering an accurate overview of traffic over times.

The new premium product adds another dimension of useful features to the well-known predecessor. The mapping capabilities where greatly improved with a completely new module, delivering high-resolution airspace maps with a pseudo-3D terrain layer. The map display shows the flight path area with stunning detail not only depicting the basic navigation aids, but also showing airspace sectors, routes, fixes and airports below. All this is overlaid on a high resolution terrain image, showing important geographical features of the Earth below. The map is built of over 700.000 tiles hosted on vroute’s powerful server a total of over 5 gigabytes of data. It takes full advantage of high resolution computer screens by being fully resizable and offering a wide range of zoom levels.

Another great feature of the new release is a vertical flight path calculator and fuel planner. It delivers a reliable answer to the well known problem of how much fuel one should load to get safely to the destination. The fuel planner is so accurate that it even takes into account the weight of payload and the selected cruise flight level. Vertical flight path provides a graphical overview of the route with terrain elevations and vertical airway boundaries, which is especially interesting if someone plans to fly a turboprop aircraft over mountainous terrain. The fuel calculator provides accurate fuel level estimate for each waypoint, which helps keep track of the consumption and detect problems early.

For those who use advanced cockpits with sophisticated Flight Management Computers, vroute offers export feature which enables direct entry of route information into the aircraft’s FMC without having to retype the waypoints. Most popular add-ons, such as Level-D 767, Flight1 ATR, PIC 767 and PMDG 737/747 are supported.

Vroute premium also includes a day/night mode switch, which reduces the brightness and contrast, and is especially helpful for someone using the program in a dark cockpit at night. Last but not least, there’s even a free Sky Blue Radio player to keep the pilot entertained on long haul flights.

It all started three years ago when I had to cancel an interesting flight to Paris because I couldn’t find a suitable flight plan. Vroute.info was designed from a perspective of someone who wants to get the right information fast, without browsing multiple websites and launching different programs for different elements of the pre-flight preparation said Micha Rok, the company founder and lead programmer.

Up-to-date navigation information

Vroute closely cooperates with Navigraph, a Swedish company delivering up-to-date navigational data to flight simulation enthusiasts worldwide. All pilots who have purchased Navigraph’s FMS Data product can download an access code which will enable the same realistic and accurate information in vroute.

Availability

The product retails at 24.95 Euro and is available for instant download from www.vroute.net.

Flight Simulator is not required, so one can also use vroute.info premium on a secondary PC without having to invest in any additional software or network connections.

Exciting Simulations has issued the following press release regarding an update to Space Shuttle Mission 2007:

Exciting Simulations is delighted to announce that Service Pack 1.27, which is scheduled for release very soon, adds to the Space Shuttle Mission 2007 simulator full support for Matrox TripleHead2Go and Nvidia nView dual monitors in Horizontal Span mode. The support for the new resolutions is generic and designed to benefit from higher resolutions when supported by the hardware vendors.

The support is especially effective in the 3D Virtual Cockpit, external views and during Extra Vehicular Activities ("space walks"). The 2D panels also benefit from the extra display surface by showing more panels on screen and thus reducing the need for scrolling. Preview screenshots can be viewed at the official SSM2007 forum here.

I mentioned vaBase in an earlier post. It’s an off-the-shelf virtual airline package running on PHP and MySQL.

They’re currently running an offer of 30% off the usual price for the first 10 orders (well, 9 now, as I’ve just ordered one), which means you now only pay £19.99 (plus a £1 surcharge).

As I’m sure you’ve managed to work out, you can look forward to a FlightSimX Virtual Airline coming your way soon!

If you’d like to have a go yourself, get in quick

Exciting Simulations has announced the first add-on for their Space Shuttle Mission 2007 - Space Shuttle STS-122:

Exciting Simulations is proud to announce that work has started on the first add-on to the Space Shuttle Mission 2007. The add-on will add the Space Shuttle STS-122 mission – which has begun on February 7 with the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis and ended on February 20 with a perfect landing at the Kennedy Space Center.

The goal of STS-122 was to expand the scientific capabilities of the International Space Station. This has been achieved by delivering the new module Columbus. Also Astronaut Daniel Tani who has been on the ISS since STS-120, returned home on the Atlantis, while being replaced by the European Space Agency Astronaut Léopold Eyharts.

You can find more information about STS-122 at the official NASA website.

The STS-122 mission add-on will be FREE and will include all the operations performed by the Astronauts in the real mission, from liftoff, on orbit, docking with the ISS, performing EVA, deploying the Columbus module by using the RMS arm etc.

gamedevelopment.com has posted an interesting article about Microsoft Flight Simulator and their new ESP simulator.

I thought one of the most interesting comments was that MSFS was basically a 25 year long beta test for ESP!

You can read the whole article here.