Flight Sim Blog ala Paul (P-12C): General Flight Sim

Are We Missing Airports?

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:41:56 GMT

We get our airport data from a well known data provider, but I know we are missing some airports, primarily outside of the United States.

We are looking into and making efforts to get a more complete set of airports in the eastern regions of the world where we don't have much data in FSX, but we don't yet know how that will pan out.

So that leads me to my question. Are we missing entire airports and/or seaplane bases where you live or fly?

I'm definitely not asking if we have bugs or errors in FSX airports. We know every airport isn't perfect and with so many in the product it is virtually impossible to make them perfect. In most cases the data defines the airport for us and if the data is incomplete or outright wrong, then it has more problems in the simulation.

So please don't send a list of airports that have an error, are missing a new runway, has the fuel in the wrong spot or any other current bug.

For airports that are missing, please tell us the name, ICAO, and location (Lat, Lon if possible or relative position to another airport or landmark if you don't know the lat lon). If you know of a good source of data such as an internet link or book, let us know that as well. We don't have heliports in FSX, but we hope to have them in the next version, so if you know of key heliports in your area that would be good to know too.

Just post a comment to this blog or use tell_fs@microsoft.com (if you choose the e-mail route I can't guarantee it won't be lost in the piles of e-mail we get everyday).

Thanks for you help on this. If we are able to get enough data, and have enough time, we will try to get these missing airports into the next version of the product!

Looking for Mission Talent Again

Mon, 26 May 2008 15:55:06 GMT

With the advent of missions in FSX, the opportunity for a new cottage industry has started. Unfortunately it's quite difficult to create high quality missions by yourself as a hobbyist. The tools are difficult to use, it's hard to learn how to be a good actor and record voice over dialog, and it's difficult to build custom art objects to use in new missions. We have an advantage because we have experts to build this supporting material for the missions we make.

Thankfully Jim Keir built his FSX Mission Editor tool which lessens some of the burden building mission XML, and several hobbyists have gotten the hang of building missions resulting in several entertaining missions out there in the various libraries.

We used a couple of vendors for FSX Acceleration missions (Kevin Greene and Things to Come), and we will likely use vendors again for FS11. Vendors don't work on-site at Microsoft, but rather work wherever they are. Unless they are a viable company with business ID and tax records to prove it we can't setup contracts directly, but we do have the option of processing individuals though a vendor agency which takes care of settting up a contract and making sure the person gets paid and making sure we get what we need. The difficulty with the vendor agency is that they can only process US citizens.

The other way that we staff up for mission development is by using contingent staff (temporary work). These reources work on-site at Microsoft Aces and fulfill specific roles helping us get the product finished. We don't just bring in anyone for these roles, we only bring in very smart people that can demonstrate strong skills and knowledge. Some of them eventually work out for permanent positions (most don't as we don't often have permanent openings). We used two people in this capacity during FSX Acceleration development and one of them is now a permanent member of the team (Brandon).

If you are interested in building missions for us, have used the mission system and have built missions before (that we can see and tryout), then drop me a message (see the comment below about setting up your live account). I'll post something on the public boards as well so it's it's easier for you to respond that way, we can do that. Also, it would be very helpful if you have some experience with scripting languages. Check out this scripting language, as it would be VERY useful to learn it...

The Flight Sim Team isn't the only team that needs help though. The Trainsim team is also building missions which they call "activities." They really need someone that is familiar with the mission system and can hit the ground running. Although it would be very helpful to know something about train operations, such knowledge isn't as important as knowing how to build missions. You can learn about trains along the way. If you are interested in opportunities there, send a comment from the TSinsider site or drop a comment or message on Rick Selby's blog. If you send a message via his blog, be sure to setup your live account so that it allows messages to be received or you'll never hear back from him...

Thanks for Feedback!

Mon, 26 May 2008 14:50:28 GMT

Thankyou to everyone that made the effort to provide feedback regarding favorite FSX and FSX Acceleration missions. I was hoping to break the 100 mark and you easily pushed past that, especially when considering the feedback generated on various public forums as well.

We have finished our rough draft of what missions we will be building for FS11 and many of the ideas expressed have been incorporated into the list. Hopefully some of the ideas will make it past our Geopolitical review (where a special group at Microsoft reviews content for material that could potentially be objectionable to users in some of our markets. A couple of our ideas may be on the fringes of acceptable...

Now that we have a list, we are defining the art objects, AI objects, and scenery areas that we need to develop to support these missions. Of course the world of free flight will benefit from these efforts as well. With that planning taken care of, we can start building these missions out. It's this later part of the process where we will need some help... I'll make a separate post about our needs for mission builders.

Thank you again for your feedback!

Favorite Missions?

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:11:29 GMT

I'm sure you are aware that we aren't just sitting around wondering what to do with ourselves following the release of FSX Acceleration. We are planning, and planning, and oh yeah, doing some more planning...

Part of our planning efforts are focused on the missions we might want to make next time around. Although we have a pretty good idea of what missions we would like to create, I thought it would be worthwhile to hear from you, our users, what your favorite missions are in FSX and FSX Acceleration. Just as importantly, we are also interested in what types of missions you would like to see us create.

Please take a moment and add a comment below to tell us what your favorite missions are, and if you have the time, let us know what you would like to see us do.

Thanks for your help!

Paul Vs Matt Reno Battle

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:54:55 GMT

In my last post I described the events at the Reno Championship Air Races last year and the virtual races we did in FSX Acceleration. Here are a couple of screen shots taken at the event showing the finish times for the race I was in as well as the race/lap time for Matt later in the week. BTW, these races were run with high realism, engine damage on, terrain crashing on, but aircraft to aircraft collisions off.

Susan took the photos below before and during our race (the same photos are in the Reno 2007 photo album).

Here is Matt (in the Voodoo hat below) getting psyched up for the race and a shot of me chatting with the Leeward family (owners of Cloud Dancer) before the race.

In the pictures below we can see Brandon racing on the far left next to the Six Cat team member (sorry I can't remember his name) and the other very fast racer in the blue shirt (I can't remember his name either). In the photo on the right Ryan Leeward is getting ready for the race.

The two screen shots below show the results of the race taken shortly after crossing the finish line. Brandon was disqualified early on so he watched the race on the cameras placed around the course which he said was just as fun as flying the race. Matt finished second in this race.

Below are screen shots from Matt's practice run the next day where he beat my best time. Great job Matt!

BTW, the top racers at the Reno event won some great prizes for their efforts!

Visit from Lotus

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:34:18 GMT

I've been very impressed with the quality and creativity in the various videos that have been created from Flight Simulator 2004 and now FSX. One of the best film makers and story tellers in this space is Lotus, who has created several amazing videos using techniques that not only require a great eye for videography but also great flying skills to actually get the shots. He flies with several friends that have been flying in multi-player for many years that can pull off the maneuvers to get the shots he's looking for.

Anyway, Lotus was in town and I invited him to tour our office, eat some lunch, and talk shop a little. He has worked in the game industry for several years and is now a professional photographer. His knowledge of the industry helped him understand the processes we go through to create Flight Simulator, and the challenges we face on a daily basis. He also shared some useful feedback about some of the problems he faces as a film maker using FSX that we can hopefully leverage to improve the sim going forward.

You would have to be living under a rock (or not visiting forums or searching youtube for FSX videos) to not know about Lotus' work. If that is the case with you, by all means check out what you have been missing by going here. The video forum on Flight Sim World is also a great place to see what other film makers are up to. You can find tips on making videos in FSX and if you want to give it a try, just ask the experts there.

Dale "Snort" Snodgrass prowling our halls

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 22:40:04 GMT

Dale is certainly a famous pilot in aviation circles being a Tomcat pilot with the most traps on a carrier, having flown a wide variety of aircraft from multiple eras, and for his amazing airshow routines flown in his F-86 Sabre.

He will be more famous to a much wider audience assuming ATG Reality TV show takes off (American Top Gun).

I don't want to talk about why Dale was in the office, but I have had the pleasure of meeting Dale as well as Sean "Pinball" Carroll in previous meetings and at Reno this past year. These guys have a lot of amazing stories to tell and it's great fun talking airplanes with them.

As an example of one of Dale's stories (although he can tell them much better than I can), he was commanding a carrier when one of his crew departed off the catapult in a Hornet. For whatever reason the pilot was having difficulty with pilot induced oscillations following the launch and ejected from the aircraft (if I remember right I think he had his hand on the control stick during the launch which pulled the stick back due to the G forces of the launch). Had the pilot simply let the fly-by-wire system take over by letting go of the stick, the aircraft would have assumed a 1 G attitude and recovered. But since that didn't happen, once he ejected, the aircraft was in such an attitude that in order for the fly-by-wire system to maintain 1 G, it entered into a shallow climb. As it so happened, the aircraft continued on it's own and flew a giant loop. Dale, being the smart and decisive guy that he is, ordered the crew to turn the boat because he knew the aircraft would loop all the way around and could hit the carrier. Good thing he did too because the aircraft did just that and impacted the ocean exactly where the carrier would have been if it hadn't changed course.

Anyway, check out the ATG websight, especially the pictures they have posted. There is an awesome series of shots of Dale buzzing a photographer in his F-86!

Dale was giving Brandon some flight lessons in the F/A-18 with Mike Singer looking on (above), and decided to take the controls himself to demonstrate some maneuvers. Brandon told me that Dale critiqued his landing on the carrier and only had a couple of very minor errors to note. Pretty cool to get first hand lessons from a Tomcat legend.

Fokker D-VIII Audio Session

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:10:56 GMT

The recent release of the fantastic freeware Fokker Dr.I Triplane from the neoqb team inspired me to write this up about my experience with a Fokker D-VIII. I have downloaded the Dr.I and I think it's fantastic (and there are several repaints available already as well)! Check it out - you won't regret it.

A few years ago, when I was still the "Aircraft PM," we went to Florida for the second time to work at Fantasy of Flight collecting photo and audio reference source material for several aircraft. Based purely on my own memory (and reference to their website), the aircraft we went to photograph were the: P-51C Mustang, B-26 Marauder, B-25 Mitchell, B-17 Flying Fortress, B-24 Liberator, L-4 Grasshopper, Fi-156 Storch, and the Avro Lancaster. I'll write a separate blog post about some of these aircraft later and post some sample photos if I can find the images I'm looking for...

While there we also shot images of any aircraft that might be interesting to someday create for Flight Sim or some other product. As a result we shot detailed images of a Grumman Ag Cat, Antonov An-2, Grumman Duck, Lockheed Constellation, Grumman F3F Flying Barrel, F4U-4 Corsair, Gee Bee Z, Bachem Ba 349 Natter Viper, Bucker Jungmann, Short Sunderland MK5, Supermarine Spitfire MK16, Thomas Morse Scout, Fokker DR1 Replica, and the subject of this post, the Fokker D-VIII replica.

Not all of the collection of aircraft are operational at any one time, so not all could be run while we were there, but we recorded several aircraft including the P-51C, Grumman Ag Cat, Antonov An-2, and the Fokker D-VIII. Each aircraft audio session took several hours and it was too hot in the afternoon to do much, so we captured audio of one aircraft a day.

The D-VIII is the only rotory engine aircraft I have personally heard operate and it was amazing. It was running a Gnome 9N engine with 160 HP which is not the correct engine for the aircraft (should be the Oberusal Rotary with 110 HP), but it sounded awesome just the same. See this link for info on the aircraft in question and a photo of the cockpit. Some might confuse a rotary engine with a Wankle engine as used in some Mazda cars and trucks. The rotary in WW1 aircraft are unique in that the entire engine rotates and the prop is firmly attached to the engine and turns with it. These early aircraft weren't very fast and keeping the engine cool was a problem, so they invented the idea to have the engine spin and provide it's own air cooling action. The invention worked good but there were some downsides as well (see below).

It took some serious effort by the restoration crew and chief mechanic just to get the aircraft started. There is no throttle and I'm not even sure there is a mixture control either. What it does have is a fuel shutoff, mag switches, ignition timing lever (advance or retard the spark), and a four position switch to control how many of the cylinders receive an ignition spark. This later control provides rudimentary power control as the engine puts out less power when fewer cylinders are firing. Some of the earlier rotary engines didn't have 4 positions, but only had one, on and off... When the engine is running on fewer than all cylinders the non-firing cylinders are spewing raw fuel and castor oil out the bottom of the cowling (which is why it's open). It's quite a fire hazard and the castor oil is an excellent stool softener which explains why WWI aviators had loose bowels. When I took photos, the amount of oil on the underside of the aircraft, on the landing gear spreader bar "wing" and in the fuselage behind the engine made for interesting imagery. It was thick and very sticky.

What took awhile was finding the magic combination of spark advance to get the engine to fire and they had never started it on their own (Kermit usually started it up when he would perform flying displays). So it was a long process of turning the engine through a few times, turning the mags on, calling back and forth to each other to make sure the mag switches were where they are supposed to be, hand propping, then starting all over again.

Once the engine fired, it took a few tries to get it where it would stay running, but eventually it ran really well and for as long as we wanted to record. It's a fascinating sound and it's very different sounding at different engine settings. At the lowest power setting where only one cylinder is firing it has a very putt-putt like sound and the rest of the sound is all mechanical (gears, prop, etc). Clicking the switch to the second and third positions with three and five cylinders firing, it sounds rough and the distinctive "multiple chainsaws running" sound starts to manifest. In position four with all cylinders running all out (remember that at each position whatever cylinders are firing are running at full throttle), it sounds like an angry swarm of bees running on chainsaw engines! It was absolutely awesome.

Running up the engine for recordings.

To keep it running at the lower settings, they would have to "blip" the power on periodically to clear the oil away from the plugs, and the entire aircraft would rock back and forth from the enormous torque of the spinning engine and large prop. These things are beasts to handle on the ground and with all that torque, small control surfaces, and slow airspeeds make precision maneuvers interesting to say the least.

Later in the day Kermit made a demonstration flight in D-VIII to a crowd of museum attendees. He is quite a showman and really interacts with the crowd before making his demo flights. This time it fired right up on the first pull and he taxied very carefully out to the end of his very long grass strip (he lands WWII bombers on it) blipping the engine periodically to help make turns and keep the engine cleared. He flipped the switch to the fourth setting lighting up all the cylinders and away he went. The takeoff run was pretty short and I looked to me like he had to concentrate quite a bit to keep it straight and he climbed out like crazy! He did several low passes and on one pass he shut the engine off and hooted and hollered as he passed in front of the crowd. Then he came around and did a nice landing and taxied back to crowd center. What a cool thing to watch. Check out the videos!

Kermit flying the D-VIII

Behind the Scenes Photos

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 01:14:23 GMT

I've posted a few photos of some behind the scenes material that I will add to periodically. Check out the Behind the Scenes album to see them.

The 747 and 737 sim shots were taken when we spent about 3 hours photographing them in detail for FSX. When Pete and Chris weren't busy taking care of the photography duties, Mike, Scott, and I were flying the sims. The 747 was actually pretty easy to fly and I landed just fine at Moses Lake. I asked if you could do aerobatics in the sim, so the instructor turned off the motion platform and I did a barrel roll in the 747. Quite fun... When it was Scott's turn to fly the 747 I conspired with the instructor to throw some nasty failures at him (Scott used to be a regional airline pilot). He did a pretty good job and managed to get it on the ground safely. I found the 777 to be the easiest to fly as I took off out of Boeing Field and landed somewhere else (I can't remember where). I was there until 3:00 AM and didn't want to leave.

The audio sessions for the Spirit of St Lewis NYP and the Ford Trimotor were at EAA headquarters in Oshkosh Wisconsin. The weather was cold but perfect for us as the fog kept the airport quiet. Although I didn't get to fly either of them, several team members did get stick time. I had only been on the aircraft team for a couple of weeks at that point, so I had no standing to get time in the pilot's seat.

The audio capture sessions for the Beaver were great as Kenmore Air really went out of their way to help us out. They are a really class act! We spent all day getting setup for the primary recording session then they took us flying for some general reference material. The photo session was a different day-long event.

The studio session to capture video for the Acceleration trailer was pretty grueling. It's frustrating to wait around for technical issues to be ironed out and then spend several hours flying precision formation around a Red Bull course for a couple of days. Of course this was all before SP1 was ready so we didn't have the performance gains to help us out. When a particular shot went really well, it made it worthwhile.

We have worked with the Fantasy of Flight in Polk City Florida on two occasions. The first was to get source material for the Lockheed Vega plus some additional source for the Trimotor, then we went on a second trip to collect source on many different aircraft for a product that was never announced, much less released. Some of you can probably guess which one that was... I'll write more about that another time. Let me tell you that Florida is really hot in the Summer! The shot of Pete working in the very cramped cockpit of the Vega has him sweating like he was in a sauna and the aircraft was inside a hangar and in the shade.

Between FS2004 and FSX, we have shot photos of at least six different Cessna Caravans, and captured audio on at least 2 of them (wheeled and amphib). Considering our Lead Aircraft Tester Mike flies the Caravan jump plane at Harvey Field and flies a Caravan for Kenmore now, he has a wealth of information about the aircraft. The Jump plane with the Red stripe which was our primary source aircraft for FSX, was tragically lost in an accident and all souls on board were killed. Thankfully Mike wasn't the pilot on that trip but he knew all of the people and it was a very difficult time for everyone.

There are a few shots in the office where we work as well. Pat is particularly good at Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and he doesn't hesitate to show us just how good he is. As a bit of trivia, the cards on the wall behind Pat are features we are evaluating for a yet to be announced title..., and no I won't tell you what the cards say or anything more about them.

What's with all the UFOs?

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:41:09 GMT

We are occasionally asked why we have missions in FSX and Acceleration that involve UFOs.

Based on polls I've seen, most people believe there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Combine that with many pilot accounts of UFO and flying saucer sightings makes the subject matter kind of interesting for a flight simulator. Although most of our missions are based on real-world events, many of them are influenced by pop culture, especially movies. With all of these factors considered, I think UFOs are fair game when included in moderation.

Coincidentally, I noticed this article on MSNBC today regarding UFO sightings in Texas.

Just to add fuel to the fire, I have had personal sightings, some closer than I'm willing to discuss openly. Sounds mysterious doesn't it? I think it will stay that way too.

A little addendum to this post: I forgot to say that most users that have provided feedback about the UFO themed missions really like them, because they are a fun break from the norm.

I like the new digs

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 06:14:37 GMT

Well, I've done it now and made the jump to Windows Live Spaces. I must say I like it here! I've been jealous of Hal's fantastic blog, and the many blogs that made the jump after him. I thought it would be difficult and take too much time, so I put it off and held off on writing new posts to my old blog until I also made the jump. Well, I can't make that excuse any more as I'm getting to know the new suit and need to figure out what I want to say.

I really like the way I can easily add photo albums, so now I will have to get my various images web friendly so I can post more of them. I have some shots from our various aircraft source trips for FS 2004, FSX, Acceleration, and even CFS that you might find interesting so I guess I better look around for those. I'm not a great photographer, but some are pretty cool. Although I haven't blogged about it yet, I have some photos of the boat my Dad built from 1963-1967 that we are slowly restoring now as well as pictures of real P-12s and the one my Dad is building right now. I have more up-to-date images for both projects that I will need to get posted soon.

I tend to get in the mood to post to my blog in bursts and will make several posts at once, then ignore it for awhile. I'll try to spread it out a little and be more consistent.

Every once in a while I will ask for opinions on what flight sim fans would like to see in the future (when I'm allowed to), so when those rare occasions happen, don't hesitate to add comments!

I don't like having to say this, but I'm not a good technical support person, so if you use this blog to send me questions about how to fix FSX or set it up for great performance, I won't respond. There are far better resources for that sort of information than me (such as the various forums about Flight Simulator).

I included a link to my old blog in the blog list, so if you want to check out any of the posts I made during FSX and Acceleration development feel free to check it out.