As I mentioned in my update post from yesterday, I have been spending some of my free time flying. It helps me destress and gives my mind something to focus on. The title “COVID-19 Relief Flight Series” has dual meaning. First, yes…in my imagination I’m flying some form of relief supplies from point A to point B. But secondarily, these flights are providing me a bit of relief from the stresses of everything that is going on in the real world. I hope you enjoy this series.
Flight Details
The first flight in this series (and I have no idea just how long this series will be) is a relief supply flight from Miami, Florida to Brussels, Belgium. Why Miami? That just happens to be the last location I flew to. Why Belgium? Well…why not? By the way, I realize Fedex doesn’t routinely fly between Miami and Brussels.
For our flight today, Fedex is transporting some much needed relief supplies from Miami, Florida to Brussels, Belgium. We’re flying in the beautiful Boeing 777 Freighter and we’re heavy! Very heavy today. Our ZFW (zero fuel weight) is just below the limit at a whopping 550,000 lbs. and with our planned route, including weather along the way, we took on 171,000 lbs of fuel for the 9 hour flight.
Our route takes us up the east coast of the US/Canada. We begin our North Atlantic crossing at St. John’s Newfoundland and fly eastbound to Shannon, Ireland then across England and finally enter Belgium airspace.
Route:
Brussels Bound
Again, for you hard core virtual pilots who might read this and blow a gasket because Fedex doesn’t routinely fly between Miami and Brussels, just relax or close your browser. Nothing in our world right now is routine. Either way, today…this Fedex Boeing 777 Freighter is virtually flying today between Miami (KMIA) and Brussels (EBBR).
Our B77F is being loaded with all sorts of relief cargo which is needed throughout Europe. Our departure time is 19:35 and we’re on schedule.
An extremely low ceiling makes the airport directly behind almost unrecognizable. The condensation and immersion effects compliments of Parallel 42 777 Immersion.
Love the immersion of the condensation.
As the sun sets in the distance, we turn to join our northeast route along the east coast of the US.
Here comes the sun. With less than two hours to go, the sun is beginning to rise.
Making great time as we’re down to our last hour of flight and just leaving Ireland behind us. It’s all business here on the flight deck as we begin to plan our descent and arrival into Brussels.
The west coast of Wales.
Beginning our descent as we’re crossing the North Sea and headed towards the Netherlands.
Making our turn over Antwerp. The airfield just in view over the wing is EBAW (Antwerp International Airport). I’ve flown into this airport many times in real life.
On final approach into Brussels. Nice green fields.
Cleared to land runway 25R.
Slowing this heavy girl down.
Time to unload the cargo.
This was a fun flight. For those that may not be in the know. The main PC based flight simulators (Prepar3D and X-Plane) are both based on a real world scale. Unlike American Truck Simulator or Euro Truck Simulator 2, where the distance and time is compressed, flying a flight in flight sim will take just as long as a real world flight would take. Everything from the aircraft performance, weather, fuel burn…everything is “As Real As It Gets”.
If you’re looking for a true “simulator”, look no further than either Prepar3D or X-Plane to give you the absolutely best simulation experience you can get on a PC. Remember, this is not a game…this is a simulator!
Thank you for reading!
Until next time…
Happy Flying!!!
Jerry
Credits
Flight Simulator: Prepar3D v4.5 (hotfix 1) Aircraft: PMDG 777 Airline: Fedex (FDX) ATC: VATSIM Airport Scenery: KMIA LatinVFR, EBBR Justsim Terrain Scenery: Orbx Global Base, Orbx Vector, Orbx openLC North America Sky/Cloud Textures: REX 5 SkyForce and REX 5 Environment Force Immersion Effects – Parallel 42 777 Immersion Weather Generation: ActiveSky (ASP4) Flight Planning: SimBrief, Navigraph, FlightAware, FlightRadar24
Yes, it’s true! The brand spankin new Audio for VATSIM is live. Since I participated in the beta test last June, I bet I hadn’t logged more than 10 hours on VATSIM. While life has been busy the past few months, to be honest I had very little desire to fly on VATSIM until the new audio was available.
As I’ve stated before, I’ve been a VATSIM member since 2001 and over the past 18 years very little has been done to improve the audio. As I’ve aged, my hearing is starting to pay me back for all those rock concerts I attended in my younger days and I just don’t hear as well as I did in my younger days.
The new Audio for VATSIM is truly magnificent. Now we wait for Microsoft to release Flight Simulator 2020 and the virtual aviation world might just be perfect.
If you haven’t flown on VATSIM for a long time and if part of that reason was due to the poor audio, then you really should give this new audio a listen. I’m absolutely loving it.
For as long as I can remember, the desire to eke out another frame or three has been the desire for many who constantly stress over FPS (Frames Per Second). I’ve stated my opinion on FPS many times and will do so again. Basically I tune my P3D setup for maximum smoothness. I don’t have stutters, I don’t have blurries (at least not many) and I don’t lose sleep at night over a few FPS here and there. About the only time I even check FPS is during initial setup of the sim or after installing a new airport scenery and my own curiosity gets the better of me.
Snake Oil Everywhere
For nearly as long as we’ve been chasing the near unobtainable 60FPS in FSX/P3D, many have developed solutions and/or come up with tweaks to the .cfg file claiming/guaranteeing more FPS if you buy this or if you change that. While I’ve tried some of these over the years, I’ve just learned to laugh the rest away as simply being snake oil. If you’re unfamiliar with the term “snake oil”, it originates from far simpler times, when someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods or who is himself a fraud, quack, charlatan etc. etc. Unfortunately, there’s just very little that can be done to P3D to increase FPS other than lowering graphics settings or investing in higher performance hardware.
Even with the 4th generation of Prepar3D finally taking advantage of the performance advantages of a 64 bit architecture, the application itself continues to be much more CPU intensive than GPU and still struggles to take advantage of multithreading at the CPU level. This means if you simply look at task manager/process manager, you may very well see core 0 is 100% maxed out with the other cores simply appearing to do nothing. Would you go to the grocery store and queue up behind a long line of customers standing at check-out lane #1, when other check-out lanes have no wait? But I digress…
Hyperthreading and Affinity Mask
Depending on what you’re reading, where you’re reading it and who is discussing it…you’ll find different schools of thought regarding hyperthreading and affinity mask settings. With regards to hyperthreading, the term hyperthreading is a technology developed by Intel which essentially doubles the cores on the CPU. I’ve tested with hyperthreading enabled and disabled. At one time I myself believed turning HT off was the better solution. However, as P3D has evolved, the development team at Lockheed Martin have done a better job at getting P3D to utilize multithreading and I personally believe with P3D v4.4 and v4.5 you are better off with Hyperthreading enabled.
Affinity Mask is another tweak/buzz word from many years ago. The tweak was made directly to the .cfg file and was based on the number of CPU cores. Like previously mentioned, there’s very little need with the latest version of P3D to make ANY changes to the .cfg file.
Back to the original question
The subject of this writing was supposed to be about Process Lasso. To be honest, in the late days of FSX and the early days of P3D, (before P3D v4 64bit) the above mentioned tweaks and the use of Process Lasso was something I held in very high regard. Applying these in just the right way would often mean the difference between a smooth running sim (yes, with optimal FPS rates) AND less likely to run into OOM’s or out of memory errors versus throwing your hands up and heading to the corner to cry. However, with my most recent gaming machine build, I’ve found these to be more problematic than not. I’m also not the only one who once swore by all these tweaks to abandon them.
But….but, yes if you have a less powerful PC and struggle to get the most out it then I would strongly suggest giving Process Lasso a try. Process Lasso can be downloaded for free from the bitsum.com website and it’s a 100% safe website/download. Once installed, Process Lasso is easily configured.
In the Process Lasso application, click on the Active Processes tab. With P3D (or FSX) open along with all the normal add-ons you typically during a flight.
The first suggested change is to classify P3D as a High Performance Process. Right-click on the Prepar3D.exe process and select the “Classify as a High Performance process”.
Again, P3D on some CPU’s might gain some performance by setting the CPU affinity to dedicated cores. Typically we would reserve cores 0 and 1 for all other applications and set P3D to the rest.
As you can see below, I’ve set P3D to cores 2 – 11.
The screenshot below is how I set up all other running applications I use alongside P3D.
It’s really that simple. Process Lasso will automatically start and apply these settings each time you startup the PC. I would highly suggest you first establish some performance benchmarks. In other words, load up your sim at an airport and try to setup the exact same conditions for each test. Then apply the settings I’ve suggested above and test again. If you’ve gained a few FPS and all seems to be stable, then leave it and enjoy a few flights.
Bottom Line
Most likely if you have a similar beast of a machine like I do, then most likely these tweaks really aren’t necessary. As I’ve stated above, I’ve tried all the tweaks which once worked to give a slight increase with earlier versions of P3D and FSX, but didn’t see any performance gain on the new machine. As a matter of fact, I’ve experienced some issues during testing and come to find out, many others experienced the same issues.
While P3D v4.5 is still somewhat built on the old ancient FSX foundation, the developers at Lockheed Martin have truly moved the chains in the right direction and I’m confident one day soon we’ll get to where we need to be. Thanks for reading.
For well over a year, we’ve been hearing the news about the new Audio for VATSIM project. We’ve all watched and listened to videos covering this brand new audio system which promised to replace the very much outdated audio system currently in use. Some of us have also been granted early access to experience it for ourselves. I participated in one such beta test back in early June and couldn’t believe my ears. You can read about my experience here.
After I experienced the new Audio For VATSIM first hand, I struggled to enjoy the old VATSIM audio. While the last two months have been hectic and rarely left anytime for my hobbies, 14 October can’t come soon enough as I’m truly looking forward to spending some time flying on VATSIM and enjoying both the sights and SOUNDS.
In addition to sore, tired muscles from a weekend of major DIY work (see photo below), I also woke up to some really awesome news about the upcoming (sometime in 2020) Microsoft Flight Simulator. More about this in just a bit.
Major “Honey Do” list work
One of the reasons why I haven’t been very active posting articles on my blog site has been primarily due to the fact that most weekends since I’ve returned from my European Vacation, I’ve been either up a ladder or crawling around on my hands and knees. Long story short, we returned from vacation in early August to find an upstairs leak that had ruined our kitchen ceiling. While much of the work to repair the kitchen ceiling was covered by insurance (and performed by contractors), we decided to also repaint and redecorate much of the rest of the house in the process. After all, new paint in the kitchen will just make the 12+ year old paint in the rest of the house look dingy.
The above picture is me working on painting the edges where the wall meets the ceiling.
The second photo is me preparing to install a new light fixture in the entry hall way.
We still have a few more weekends of work before it’s all done. But once it’s done, the entire interior of the house will have a fresh, new coat of paint. But enough about this. I’m getting tired just thinking about it.
Microsoft Flight Simulator News
You may recall, I discussed the new Microsoft Flight Simulator which we all first heard about back in June. You can find these two articles here and here. In both articles, I expressed my guarded reservations but tried to be as optimistic as possible on this news which hit the flight simulation community by complete surprise. After all, many of us are still bitter about Microsoft turning their back to the community not once, but twice and we all questioned why they would want to re-enter the flight simulation space.
Watch This Video
If you have 32 minutes of spare time, I would like to direct you to a video by FroogleSim. Pete discusses his recent trip out to Microsoft to see and experience the brand new Microsoft Flight Simulator which has been in development for the past 5 years. Unlike some of Pete’s other videos on this subject, he actually did a very good job and he admits he was initially wrong about the opinions he first expressed back in June. Again, if flight simulation interests you…then the video below is a must-see.
My Thoughts
OMG! Yes, literally…Oh My God! Bottom line, we still just have to wait and see. But I’ve seen enough and heard enough to realize that 2020 is going to be an amazing year in flight simulation. We don’t have all the answers to the million and one questions yet to be asked. Initially this new sim from Microsoft may not be able to tick all the boxes (multiplayer, third-party add-ons etc.), but I believe Microsoft Flight Simulator will once again regain its place at the top and re-write history. I personally don’t see it immediately replacing P3D/X-Plane, but once we can begin to have access to a wide range of study level aircraft, online multiplayer (VATSIM) then I believe both P3D and X-Plane will begin to see a decline.
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I hopefully will return soon to posting more content about flight simulation and other simulation based game topics here. Until then….
I recently compiled a My Top 10 Payware Aircraft for Prepar3D v4 listing where I ranked my favorite ten (plus an honorable mention) payware aircraft and why. This list will be similar in style, but will obviously focus on payware, add-on airports. I would encourage you to read my latest article titled “Why Consider Payware Airports” as it answers some of the questions as to why we spend the extra $$$ to add extra scenery to our flight sim.
For the record, I have a fairly large amount of payware add-on airport scenery. Sometime last year I compiled a Google map so I could (at a glance) see what I owned and where I might want to fly so I can enjoy this add-on scenery. At the time of this writing, I own a total of 63 add-on, payware airports and over the course of this article, I’ll give you the rundown of my favorite ten or so. Let’s get started!
#10 – UK2000 London Heathrow (EGLL)
Actually, Heathrow is one of my favorite places in the world. I absolutely love to plane spot here. Both my wife and I enjoy our time we spend in the English Countryside and arriving at Heathrow is truly an awesome experience. Generally on our way back home we’ll arrive a bit early so I can stand in awe and watch Boeing 747’s, 777’s and Airbus A380’s land and take-off to/from destinations all over the world. I’m always amazed at just how efficient this airport operates with the volume of traffic and only two runways.
#9 – FSIMStudios Cancun International Airport (MMUN)
Cancun is one of the newer add-on airports to land in my collection. While I’ve never had the opportunity to visit Cancun in real life, it’s certainly a place I wouldn’t mind going. The team at FSIMStudios have done a fantastic job with the scenery and I’m looking forward to their future work.
#8 – Imaginsim Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (KAUS)
Austin-Bergstrom is another newly acquired add-ons which I picked up a few weeks ago. This is a great airport in real life and it’s nicely modeled in the sim. I really like the work Imaginsim puts into their sceneries and also own Atlanta KATL.
The second largest airport in Bavaria, Nuremberg is beautifully done and is a great airport to pair up with flights from London Heathrow or London City. For the level of detail this add-on also performs really well with little to no impact on sim performance.
#6 – Drzewiecki Design Seattle Airports X (KSEA, KPAE, KBFI and KRNT)
If you’re like me and often enjoy taking delivery of your favorite Boeing aircraft direct from the manufacture, then you’re going to want to add Seattle Airports X to your inventory. Obviously Seattle-Tacoma (Sea-Tac) KSEA is the primary commercial airport servicing the greater Seattle area. A major hub for Alaska and Delta airlines, you’re sure to find lots of flight opportunities into and out of KSEA.
Paine Field, KPAE is the home of Boeing’s Everett Assembly Plant and home of the largest building in the world and where the largest planes in Boeing’s fleet are born including the 747, 767, 777 and the 787 Dreamliner.
Boeing Field, KBFI is where Boeing conducts final preparations for deliver of the 737 aircraft.
Renton Municipal Airport, KRNT is located adjacent to the Boeing Renton Factory that manufactures 737’s. KRNT is the initial point of departure for airplanes produced in the Boeing Renton Facility.
#5 – My Dangerous Airport Collection EGLC, LPMA, LXGB, LOWI and TNCM
I’m grouping these five airports together and calling it “My Dangerous Airport Collection”. Each of these five airports have very unique landing criteria and in the real world some of them require special certification and frequent training.
London City, EGLC Along with Heathrow, this is another airport my wife and I use every 18 months or so as we connect from London to Antwerp, Belgium. Much like Heathrow, this is a great airport to plane spot. London City Airport features a single 4,900 foot runway and only certain aircraft are certified to operate here. This includes ATR 42, ATR 72, Bombardier Q400, BAe 146/Avro RJ, Embraer ERJ 135/170/190 and the Fokker 50. The largest jet aircraft that can operate here is the Airbus A318 which British Airways operates from London City to New York, JFK (with a brief fuel stop in Shannon, Ireland). The return flight operates non-stop from JFK to London City. Aircrew must be certified to fly the 5.5° steep approach. If you’ve never flown into London City and never in that steep of an approach, let me assure you that you can feel the difference. London City, EGLC is developed by UK2000.
Madeira Airport, LPMA this airport is ranked 9th in the world of Most Extreme Airports due to its location and spectacular runway construction. Much of the 9,124 runway is built on stilts. The cross wind action at this airport will test your skills like almost none other. Madeira Airport, LPMA is developed by Aerosoft.
Gibraltar International Airport, LXGB is another one of my favorites. Gibraltar was ranked 5th in the Most Extreme Airports of the world. Just like Madeira, you have the possibility of strong crosswinds, terrain all around you and to top it all off, Winston Churchill Avenue intersects the short 5,511 ft runway and consequently has to be closed every time a plane lands and departs. Gibraltar, LXGB is developed by Aerosoft.
Innsbruck Airport, LOWI The Innsbruck airport offers something for everyone. The airport can handle aircraft up to the size of a Boeing 767 but you’ll most likely see smaller aircraft such as the Boeing 737 and Airbus A319/320/321’s operating in and out. The approach can be both difficult and also breathtaking. Innsbruck, LOWI is developed by Orbx and they have done a fantastic job with both the airport scenery as well as the surrounding area. Of course it blends in with the Orbx Global products.
Princess Juliana International, St. Maarten, TNCM You’ve probably watched videos of aircraft departing and arriving into this extreme airport. Folks hang onto the fence just behind runway 10 and try to keep from being tossed backwards from the jet wash. TNCM features a 7,546 ft runway and until just a few years ago handled Boeing 747’s operated by Air France and KLM on a regular basis. Perhaps today the largest aircraft flying into TNCM is the Airbus A340. St. Maarten, TNCM is developed by FlyTampa.
#4 General Aviation Favorites by Orbx 7S3, WA56 and WA79
Another, but the last grouping of favorites. This one is some of my favorite general aviation favorites by Orbx. I just love loading up my A2A Cessna 182 or Cherokee and exploring the countryside. Each of these airports is within the Orbx FTX regional system so the everything just blends in so nicely. Plus each have a little extra eye candy to enjoy.
Stark’s Twin Oaks, 7S3 is located in Oregon and is a privately owned, public use airpark. I believe this was the first of these I purchased. Developed by Bill Womack, it’s a classic.
Israel’s Farm, WA56 is located in Washington State and you’ll certainly experience the thrill of skimming over the trees, avoid clipping the fence and stopping before you run out of grass.
Walter Sutton’s Private Strip, WA79 I often fly between Israel’s Farm and Walter Sutton’s place and it’s only a short hop from Stark’s Twin Oaks. Another grass strip airfield which will certainly test your skill and nerve.
#3 FlyTampa Las Vegas McCarran International Airport KLAS
When I began identifying the payware airports I owned for this “Top 10” list, Las Vegas wasn’t included. Keep in mind that it may take me a few days to write an article and I often find a creative burst and I’ll start the framework for many articles at one time and then work on them a bit here and a bit there. In the meantime, a new version of KLAS was released by FlyTampa and OMG…it’s amazing. If it weren’t for the reasons I’ll later mention for my #2 and my #1 entries…this airport scenery would be #1. Without a doubt. FlyTampa has completely raised the bar and in my opinion snatched KLAS away from FSDreamTeam. I love FSDT scenery, but what FlyTampa has done with Vega is just simply amazing. Buy it! You’ll thank me later.
#2 FSDreamTeam Dallas/Ft.Worth International Airport KDFW
If I had any way to track the number of flights into or out of a particular airport, I would honestly believe KDFW would be at the very top in the ranking order. In the real world and starting at the age of a young boy, I have very fond memories of going plane spotting at DFW. I saw the Concorde back in the 70’s when it was being operated by Braniff Airways and I’ve watched the airport grow (and the surrounding area) into what it is today. As I became older and began my IT career, DFW was a common sight for me on Sunday afternoons and late Friday evenings for many years.
In the virtual world, FSDreamTeam’s KDFW was one of the first add-on airports I purchased and the first from FSDT. In my mind, FSDT’s KDFW has stood the test of time and is still pretty accurate. One of my favorite routes to fly in the sim is between #1 and KDFW.
#1 FlightBeam Denver International Airport KDEN
For those who know me and/or those who are regular readers of my blog content, it should come as no surprise that I would list Denver International Airport (DIA) as my #1 payware airport. After all, DIA is my home airport and I fly out of DIA both in the real and virtual world often. In just a little over two months, my wife and I will board a British Airways 747-400 and travel to London and I frequently fly out of Denver on American and Southwest. If I’m not careful, I may surpass the number of flights into/out of KDEN in the virtual world as I do enjoy simulating both American Airlines and Southwest Airlines flights. As I previously stated, my favorite route is between Denver and Dallas/Ft. Worth flying the PMDG 737-800 for American Airlines.
In Summary
Most likely (and just like “My Top 10 Payware Aircraft for P3Dv4” list), I could re-write this posting a year from now, two years from now…perhaps 5-10 years from now and items #10 – #3 would/could change. But I wouldn’t anticipate either of these top 10 lists changing the #2 and #1 items.
While it was easier to compile the aircraft list, it was truly difficult to pull this list together. When I began the framework for the article, I had noted over thirty different airports and through process of elimination I began whacking that list down to what you see here. It truly was a struggle as I own so many really top-notch airport sceneries.
Episode 13 picks up where we left off with episode 12 and is the final leg of our trip. As always, thank you so much for reading.
Flight Details
Welcome to Southwest Airlines flight 1031 with service to Atlanta, Georgia. We’re in the same B737. Our block time for this flight is 1 hour, 55 minutes with a flight time of 1 hour, 27 minutes. Our planned fuel is 14,842 lbs. and our take-off weight is 132,041 lbs. Our cruise altitude is FL380.
This the final leg of a three leg journey will have us back in Atlanta before sunset. We seem to be running slightly ahead of these storms and that’s a good thing. We’re hoping to get out of Fort Lauderdale before a ground stop ruins our day. With all passengers/bags loaded, the aircraft is ready to pushback for another on-time departure.
Taxing out to 10L.
Blasting out of FLL
Making our left turn to join the departure.
The view off the starboard side. The combination of REX SkyForce, REX Environment Force and ActiveSky is doing an amazing job of providing the eye candy for this trip.
ATC vectoring us around the strongest of storm cells. We’re keeping the seatbelt signs on until we get above these clouds. The turbulence is bouncing us around as we continue to climb up to 38,000 feet.
Between cloud layers things have calmed down a bit. Just a few more thousand feet and we should be in the clear.
Smooth skies at last. We’ve turned off the seatbelt sign and released the cabin crew to begin cabin service.
I quite like the new Southwest livery.
Beginning our descent into the Atlanta area.
Joining the approach for runway 27L
Clear to land, runway 27L
Touchdown imminent.
Parking up at C6 at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
Our day is done and what a day it’s truly been. Once we turn the aircraft over, I have about 90 minutes to grab something to eat and head to gate C14 to take a jump seat flight to Chicago Midway. Tomorrow I will serve as Sr. First Officer for a flight out of MDW to Detroit and back. Then I jump seat out to Oakland where I’ll have three days off before another full day of flights on the west coast. Fun times ahead.
Before I close out this report, let me just show my APL progress thus far. As you can tell from the image below, my total XP is 395.66 and climbing. I have just over 254 XP to go before my promotion to the rank of Captain and the move over to the left seat. As previously discussed, I’m earning $40.25 per hour at Southwest as a Sr. First Officer and now that I’m getting the hours I need, I’m content to stay at SWA for the near future.
With the last payday, I purchased a headset which along with the mobile phone and flight bag is earning me an additional 25% XP on each completed flight. While I really don’t think there is any right or wrong way to build your APL career, in my opinion (at this time) earning extra XP is more important than earning additional money bonuses. So all my salary earnings has been going to building up the XP bonuses.
See you next time.
Credits
If you are interested in experiencing your own “A Pilot’s Life”, I highly recommend the A Pilot’s Life, by SimBitWorld add-on for Prepar3D, FSX and X-Plane. You can learn more about the A Pilot’s Life by visiting the SimBitWorld website and/or purchase APL at SimMarket. Also, please read my full review of A Pilot’s LIfe here.
Flight Simulator: Prepar3D v4.5 (hotfix 1) Aircraft: PMDG 737-700 Airline: Southwest Airlines (SWA) ATC: VATSIM Airport Scenery: KFLL FSDreamTeam, KATL Imaginsim Terrain Scenery: Orbx Global Base, Orbx Vector, Orbx openLC North America Sky/Cloud Textures: REX 5 SkyForce and REX 5 Environment Force Weather Generation: ActiveSky (ASP4) Flight Planning: SimBrief, Navigraph, FlightAware, FlightRadar24
Episode 12 picks up right where we left off with episode 11. After a quick turnaround, we’re set to fly the second of three legs today. Thanks for reading…
Flight Details
Welcome to Southwest Airlines flight 2098 with service to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We’re in the same B737 we arrived in from Atlanta. Our block time is 2 hours, 10 minutes with a flight time of 1 hour, 43 minutes. Our block fuel is 15,480 lbs. and our take-off weight is 133,369.
Route: DCT BLVNS Y290 BAGGS JINGL6
Let’s Go
I mentioned last time how quickly the MSY ground crew unloaded bags, they are equally as fast in getting them loaded.
With bags loaded, the catering crew is quickly dropping off drinks, ice and some of those wonderful Southwest FREE snacks. Yum
Push back underway. We’ll be in the air again shortly.
We’re not wasting any time…..on-time departure? Check!
Making our turn with the Mississippi River off the left wing.
We look to be running from another approaching storm.
Climbing up to FL370.
Leaving Louisiana direct Gulf of Mexico.
Watching and monitoring a storm over the Gulf.
Land ho…That’s Florida down below.
More lightning down below. Shouldn’t be an issue on the arrival. However, this storm might be a consideration for our third leg up to Atlanta. Time will tell….
On final approach
Short final for runway 10L
On the ground in Ft. Lauderdale.
As was the case in New Orleans, we’re on a tight schedule to deboard our passengers and get the aircraft turned around and headed back to Atlanta. Tune in next time for the 3rd leg of this journey.
Credits
If you are interested in experiencing your own “A Pilot’s Life”, I highly recommend the A Pilot’s Life, by SimBitWorld add-on for Prepar3D, FSX and X-Plane. You can learn more about the A Pilot’s Life by visiting the SimBitWorld website and/or purchase APL at SimMarket. Also, please read my full review of A Pilot’s LIfe here.
Flight Simulator: Prepar3D v4.5 (hotfix 1) Aircraft: PMDG 737-700 Airline: Southwest Airlines (SWA) ATC: VATSIM Airport Scenery: KMSY LatinVFR, KFLL FSDreamTeam Terrain Scenery: Orbx Global Base, Orbx Vector, Orbx openLC North America Sky/Cloud Textures: REX 5 SkyForce and REX 5 Environment Force Weather Generation: ActiveSky (ASP4) Flight Planning: SimBrief, Navigraph, FlightAware, FlightRadar24
It’s sometimes funny how articles are born here on my blog site. I began the framework to a “My Top 10 Payware Airport Scenery” article which more or less started off with a question as to why we purchase payware airport scenery and showing examples. I realized this would become a seriously long article, so I decided to split them into two different writings. So let’s get the why out of the way first, then in a few days I’ll release my top 10 list.
Why purchase payware airport scenery?
If you are new to the hobby of flight simulation or perhaps a complete stranger to it, you might wonder why we spend additional money on airport scenery. After all, this is both a valid question and a very good question.
Unlike other simulation based games in my library (FS19, ATS, ETS2) Flight Sim (and this includes FSX, FSX: Steam Edition, All versions of Prepar3D and even XPlane) does include the entire map of the world. As is the case with American Truck Simulator where we either have to wait for SCS to release a new US state DLC or rely on a mod developer, Flight Sim includes an open world to explore. This means that out-of-the-box, you can start up at just about any default airport in the world and fly to just about any other default airport in the world. Most default airports will include all runways, taxiways and buildings which exist in real life. Some of the buildings may even very closely resemble their real-life counterparts. However, as is the case with FSX/P3D…these airports (including runways, taxiways and terminal buildings) are seriously outdated. Let me give you an example of just how outdated some are.
Example – Chicago O Hare International Airport – KORD
As you can see from the chart below which is dated 2006 versus the second image which is more recent, a lot has changed. By default, even in Prepar3D v4, KORD is outdated by over 10 years.
As you can see, Chicago O Hare looks much, much different with some runways removed and others added.
But by default, if you fly into KORD you’ll be landing on runways which may not exist today and this truly confuses things when you are flying online with other pilots and ATC.
To overcome these obstacles, many of us will purchase add-on airport scenery which will update the airport based on what it looked like at the time the add-on was developed. Of course, even these add-on airports can become outdated rather quickly as KORD is once again due to make changes in 2020. So as you can see, it’s almost a never ending struggle to stay 100% current.
Unfortunately, as is the case with Chicago O Hare…the FSX/P3D community finds itself in a holding pattern awaiting an updated version of this awesome airport. The best current add-on version available today for KORD is based on what the airport looked like in 2011 timeframe.
Maximum Immersion and Eye-Candy
While the main reason to update might be to ensure airport accuracy, another reason is what I refer to as maximum immersion and eye-candy. Denver International Airport (KDEN) by default is modeled based on what the airport looked like around 2006. It’s recognizable in FSX/P3D by its iconic tent looking main terminal. But DIA has undergone some radical changes since it first opened in 1995, replacing the old Stapleton Airport.
Is the image below real or a screenshot from P3D? Hard to tell the difference huh? It’s a screenshot compliments of FlightBeam who developed the most recent version of my home airport. This image is from the vantage point of just north of terminal A. Overlooking the international arrival/departure gates used by Lufthansa and British Airways. You can see the iconic tent roof structure over the main Jeppesen Terminal building and directly in front of that the newly opened Westin Denver International Airport Hotel. Maximum immersion – CHECK! Eye-Candy – CHECK!
Photo Credit: FlightBeam KDEN
More than just the airport
Sometimes payware airports come with a little and some with a lot of additional features other than just a detailed airport. As is the case with the brand new Las Vegas McCarran Airport (KLAS) which was recently released by FlyTampa. In this example, not only do we get a highly detailed representation of the Las Vegas airport, but we also get bonus bling of the Vegas Strip. I personally can’t wait to do a nighttime approach into KLAS with this beautiful scenery. Can you say “Viva Las Vegas”?
Photo Credit: FlyTampa KLAS
Photo Credit: FlyTampa KLAS
Photo Credit: FlyTampa KLAS
In Summary
I recently read a Facebook comment from someone who said something along the lines of “This isn’t airport scenery simulator” when commenting on a post regarding payware scenery. The great thing about this hobby is there’s literally something for everyone. One can simply purchase the flight simulator platform of their choosing and have a ton of fun flying around in the vanilla or default state. Or you can enhance the immersion and take it to a completely different level. The flight sim world is big enough and welcoming enough for all types of individuals. Enjoy the hobby on your terms.
Until next time…
Thank you….Thank you very much (read this in an Elvis accent).
As a beta tester for A Pilot’s Life, I needed to change airlines to test new features which debuted with version 1.33 which was released in late June. These new features (including multi-hub and multi-leg routes is a very nice addition to an already wonderful add-on application. If you’re not a user of A Pilot’s Life, I encourage you to check it out. You won’t be disappointed. Links can be found below.
Present Day
I hit the breaking point with Alaska Airlines. While I truly enjoyed my time both in Seattle and San Francisco, I just wasn’t getting enough flight hours. I’m hoping to eventually make Captain and of course I still need to earn a living. After arriving back to SFO from Palm Springs, I was told my next flight wouldn’t be for another week. So I went home and called the recruiter which had contacted me with an offer from Southwest Airlines.
At this point I was getting pretty desperate. While each of my career moves have been working my way up both the career ladder as well as the salary scale. I just wanted to work and fly. Southwest Airlines wanted to meet with me and they flew me down to Dallas. Things just clicked and soon I was offered a position as Sr. First Officer and they even bumped by pay rate up to over $40.00 per hour. WOW.
While I still hope to land a job with American Airlines (at some point), I’m willing to wait until I reach Captain if necessary. Southwest has assured me that if I’m willing to work, they’ll certainly keep me busy. The other exciting them I’m looking forward to with SWA is their multi-leg route structure. I’ll be honest, after a while of flying hub/spoke flights, one gets a little bored. While some SWA flights are hub/spoke, the majority are multi-leg routes and I’m really looking forward to this. So for now, I’m going to keep my apartment in San Fran and see how things unfold over the coming weeks.
Flight Details
Today we’re operating the first of three flights out of Hotlanta (Atlanta). Yes, it is HOT, HOT, HOT today. Our first leg will have us flying down to the Big Easy (KMSY) then over to Fort Lauderdale (KFLL) then back to Atlanta. I guess when Southwest said they could keep me busy, they actually meant it.
For the first leg, we’re operating Southwest Airlines flight 5716 with service to New Orleans, Louisiana in the Boeing 737-700. Our block time today is 1 hour, 45 minutes with a flight time of 1 hour, 10 minutes at a cruising altitude of 38,000 feet. Our block fuel is 12,736 lbs with take-off weight of 126,715 lbs.
Route: ATL5 POUNC DCT GRGIA DCT SJI SLIDD2
It’s Time to Feel the Love
I’ve gotta say, I enjoyed my time with Sun Country (gosh that feels like ages ago) and I did enjoy most of my time with Alaska. But I must admit that the folks at Southwest are some of the friendliest I’ve met.
After a quick walk-around inspection, we’re all buttoned up and ready to roll out of here. I think the captain knows what might happen with these storm clouds and he’s not wanting to waste anytime.
The Atlanta airport is HUGE and a very busy place. Usually….
Taxing out to our active runway 27R.
Cleared for take-off, 27R
Wheels up, my inaugural flight with Southwest Airlines is underway.
Making our left turn direct POUNC and climbing up to 10,000.
Cleared up to FL380
After a relatively short cruise, we’ve started our descent. The Gulf of Mexico is just in the distance.
The Gulf of Mexico is normally not this blue.
Nice clouds
The Huey P. Long Bridge which spans the Mississippi River and the New Orleans skyline.
Lake Pontchartrain just off the right wing.
Clear the visual for runway 29.
Seconds from touchdown
The ground crew and baggage handlers working hard to get us turned around quickly.
This was a wonderful first leg of what I’m sure will be a fantastic trip. I’m really excited about the opportunity fly for Southwest and build my career.
Credits
If you are interested in experiencing your own “A Pilot’s Life”, I highly recommend the A Pilot’s Life, by SimBitWorld add-on for Prepar3D, FSX and X-Plane. You can learn more about the A Pilot’s Life by visiting the SimBitWorld website and/or purchase APL at SimMarket. Also, please read my full review of A Pilot’s LIfe here.
Flight Simulator: Prepar3D v4.5 (hotfix 1) Aircraft: PMDG 737-700 Airline: Southwest Airlines (SWA) ATC: VATSIM Airport Scenery: KATL Imaginsim, KMSY LatinVFR Terrain Scenery: Orbx Global Base, Orbx Vector, Orbx openLC North America Sky/Cloud Textures: REX 5 SkyForce and REX 5 Environment Force Weather Generation: ActiveSky (ASP4) Flight Planning: SimBrief, Navigraph, FlightAware, FlightRadar24
For nearly as long as we’ve been chasing the near unobtainable 60FPS in FSX/P3D, many have developed solutions and/or come up with tweaks to the .cfg file claiming/guaranteeing more FPS if you buy this or if you change that. While I’ve tried some of these over the years, I’ve just learned to laugh the rest away as simply being snake oil. If you’re unfamiliar with the term “snake oil”, it originates from far simpler times, when someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods or who is himself a fraud, quack, charlatan etc. etc. Unfortunately, there’s just very little that can be done to P3D to increase FPS other than lowering graphics settings or investing in higher performance hardware.
