This is an IFR logbook that solves the problem I just described above. It has space for everything I need to jot down, including basic information (departure, destination, callsign), ATISes (departure and arrival), Arrival briefings, squawk codes, cruise level changes, frequency changes, and similar. It really has increased the realism in my flights, and is so useful, particularly in high-traffic high-stress situations on VATSIM. I highly highly recommend this book, and I hope that if you decide to buy it that you find it as useful as I did.

Any opinion on the AivlaSoft Electronic Flight Bag software for FSX?

Thanks.

Stanner

No human being to talk to, tried phoning the published UK number in the hours supposed to be open, spent 45 mins in queue with the answer machine telling me I was No1 in the queue, didn't change, hung up, tried again, same outcome. Slow customer response once you have jumped through the hoops and filled forms in online, I then had to send photos of the wrong item, upload them. Radio silence since.

Terrible customer service. If anyone intends to purchase direct from Thrustmaster just be aware.

Great product, terrible customer service.

I am still awaiting a resolution to sorting this out after a week.

Squawk 7600 radio silence, its all gone quiet!!!

will appear along with the wheel chocks. When I advance the throttle I notice that as soon as two knots, the safety cones disappear. Then when I

coast to a stop, no brakes used, those cones will show. The MDL file shows those cones, so I guess they are baked in, but I would think that

when the plane shuts down that those cones would then appear. Kinda strange and not realistic IMHO.

Failing that, which one is the best, as far as you know?

1. There is no support for supersonic flight. The aerodynamic modeling seems to behave as if Mach 1 is an impenetrable wall. Even aircraft like the TBM or Cessna Citation, that should be easily able to exceed Mach 1 in a full-power vertical dive from high altitude, will not do so. They get very unstable and shake violently, but will not exceed about 740 mph no matter what. If MSFS is ever going to accommodate military aircraft like the F-18, that are so popular with FSX pilots, the flight model will have to be radically altered to account for supersonic flight. Importing FSX military aircraft into MSFS is possible, but they will not fly at supersonic speeds, and behave like a Lear jet would, only worse, as aircraft like the F-18 aren't really stable at slow speeds.

2. There is no modeling of thermal updrafts, so no sailplane is provided with MSFS, and there is no command to call for a tow plane as there is in FSX. Perhaps this will be included in a future release. Lightweight aircraft with high aspect ratio wings, like the Pipestral, which should be able to glide fairly well, seem to have too high of a rate of descent even with no fuel or payload. It looks to me like the flight model isn't accurate for non-powered sailplanes.

3. The game will not load unless there is a live Internet connection, even if the owner has downloaded and installed the Digital Ownership certificate. This is unreasonable; the game should still be able to run locally if the owner doesn't have an internet connection and doesn't need to stream scenery data or run in Multiplayer mode. And at odd intervals, it asks you to "insert the game install disc". WTH? This game is only available as a digital download; there's no such thing as a "game install disc" AFAIK.

4. If you try to run on hardware that only meets the "minimum system requirements", the frame rate in high-density scenery areas will be very low, 6 frames/second, even with the scenery settings all on "minimum". It's nearly impossible to land any of the big airliners smoothly with a frame rate this slow. MSFS doesn't need a CPU with more than 4 cores, but it absolutely needs the best GPU card you can afford. I am running an AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, and can barely get 24 fps with "medium" scenery in any high-density region like the San Francisco Bay Area. If you are building a machine specifically to play MSFS, spring for at least a Radeon RX 6800 XT, you will need it to get MSFS to look anything at all like the ad trailers for the game. You also don't need more than 32 gB of DRAM. The game runs best on an SSD, but be aware that it writes a lot of cache data, and I suspect that MSFS will wear out a typical SSD in no more than a couple of years. You will have longer load times with a conventional hard disk drive, but it will probably last longer.

5. The worst part of MSFS is it's stability issues. It's very prone to CTD (Crash-to-Desktop) errors. These are almost impossible to diagnose the cause of. I have plenty of DRAM - 64 gB in fact - and a Ryzen 5-3600 6-core CPU, so it is unlikely that my CTD's are being caused by lack of memory or CPU capacity. I've never seen more than 25% CPU utilization running MSFS on my Ryzen 5, but the GPU is always right at the upper limit. For some reason, the 747-8I will simply not run at KSFO on my machine: As soon as I click "Ready to Fly", I get a CTD. This feels like a memory error, but I have more than enough DRAM, and 8gB of VRAM on my GPU. Trying to load a previously recorded flight plan at start-up almost always causes a CTD, especially on the 747 and 787. The game runs my RX 5500 XT GPU right up to 98% most of the time, and even with the scenery turned down to "low", I can't get better than 20 FPS on approaches into KSFO, KJFK, or any other big-city airport. You really do need a $650 or better GPU card to run this game at anything like the image quality levels of the ad trailers.

8. In addition to the CTD problem, MSFS has an annoying habit of "forgetting" that I purchased the $120 Premium package, and for the last few days, every time I load the game, I am only seeing the basic aircraft in the hanger. This is the third time this has happened to me, and the last two times, the only "fix" that worked was to completely uninstall the game and download all 200+ gB and re-install it from scratch. This is completely unacceptable, considering that I have only DSL internet, and it takes 72 hours to download  MSFS on a 10 mbps DSL line. Hundreds of people who bought the $90 and $120 Premium packages are reporting this bug, and the various "fixes" that Microsoft has come up with only seem to work for about 1/3 of the people with this problem.

9. No support for multiple view windows. This is bad news for people who invested in multiple monitors. You can drag the Camera View Control dialog box and the Map window over to a secondary monitor, and you can place the SDK dialog boxes (for scenery design) into a secondary monitor, but there can be only one pilot view window. You can be looking out of the wind screen, or a side window, or at the instrument panel, but you can't put the straight-ahead view on the center monitor, and a view of the instrument panel on another view window on the secondary monitor. MSFS is way behind FSX in this respect. One can only hope that Asobo has plans to greatly increase the versatility of the view system on a future release. MSFS can be very frustrating and limited to experienced FSX pilots because it's view windowing system has so much less capability.

10. The SDK for scenery design is still full of bugs and missing features, and the documentation for it is about 75% "Page To Be Added At A Later Date". It works well, when it works at all, but the SDK is also plagued by CTD's. To use the SDK, you almost have to know the basic structure and syntax of XML, so that you can de-bug the code yourself, and add things that are missing, like VOR's and NDB's. Yes, this software was released with no way to add them within the SDK Object Placer itself. If you know the proper syntax. you can manually code a VOR or NDB into the Scenery XML file for your airport, and the built-in compiler will produce a BGL file that has the VOR, and it will read correctly in any aircraft that has a VOR, but the Object Library doesn't include VOR's or NDB's.

It's a lovely sim, well worth the $60 entry price, but I have to take both Microsoft and Asobo to task over the stability problems: this software should have spent at least another year in Beta test, and been tested on a much wider variety of hardware, before it was released. If this was an office productivity software suite, for example Microsoft Office, and it was released with this level of instability, no one would ever trust Microsoft again with a contract for commercial software.

I don´t have that airplane and will never have. But I want to thank Roger Curtiss for a very good review. I have read so many reviews of the FS add-ons which seems to be more like advertising. So many reviewers praises the products with out any negative comments. And when we buy them we find they are far from perfect. I have bought some products which are frenkly useless after reading those "This is stunning, developer has done real great job"- reviews.

In a good review we (readers) get to know also the negative sides of the products. I hope other reviewers (in Avsim and else where) will do they job as Roger Curtiss did his!

So what do I think of the BayTower RV-7 and RV-7A?

I think it is a fantastic add on. It has numerous outstanding features, many of them I found and highlighted in the review. It looks good, sounds good, has a nice solid feel, the panel has a clean layout with easy to read gauges and instruments. It is easy to fly and is predictable in its characteristics. I like it a lot. And did I mention it is fast? Yes, really fast, near 200 mph cruise and 64 mph stall speed with STOL capability with a solo pilot. It takes off and climbs like an elevator.

As expected of all high-end add-ons nowadays, the Garmin 530 can be traded out for the Reality XP should you own one. If not, the installed version works just fine. A panel knob or two is mislabeled but corrections have already been made and are just waiting for an SP1 or Patch to get it out to everyone. The manual and POH will be finalized and updated within a month or so.

The developer is active at the forum, repainters are aplenty, and it comes in the Flight1 wrapper with a 30 day money back guarantee. I expect a lot of the Van’s Air Force members to be flying the BayTower edition while they are completing their kits and maybe a few of those hard core simmers will end up building a real one.

A few final thoughts about the BayTower Studio’s Van’s RV-7.

This doesn’t look like any kit built plane I have ever seen – it looks way more professionally built – fit and finish is excellent.

The FSX version costs less than $40.00 and you can be flying in a few minutes, the real world equivalent will cost you well over $100,000 and take years to build. All Van’s RV-7 aircraft are Experimental and all are homebuilt. There are no two RV-7s that are exactly the same.

I doubt you will find a real world RV-7 with the same level of fit and finish, instruments, gauges, and avionics with an interior as well appointed as the BTS edition.

I would like to see a follow-on floats and amphibian version. It’s Experimental; you can do anything you want as long as the FAA signs off on it.

After a few hours of flying around, it starts to feel like your old Lazyboy recliner – nothing special that you can put your finger on at the moment but nothing to complain about either. Just that easy, comfortable feeling - I guess that’s where the RV Grin comes from.

This one is a slam dunk for the Avsim Gold Star recommendation.

As a reward for those of you who were interested enough to read this review to the end, BayTower Studio and Flight1.com are offering a $5.00 discount coupon (a 15% savings) towards the purchase of the BTS RV-7 / 7A. This is for a very limited time so here is your chance to save a few bucks.

The magic words are SLAMDUNK.

Intel Quadcore i7- 870 2.93 Ghz

8 GB Installed Memory

Win7 – 64 bit OS SP1

2 TB SATA II HD, 500 GB USB HD

nVidia GTX-460 w/1GB Graphics

Dell 24 WS, Dell 18 LCD monitors

Logitech Z-5500 5.1 Speakers

Realtek HD 5.1 Audio, Grado SR-60

Newly added Saitek Cockpit items

- Pro Flight Cessna Yoke & Pedals

w/ Quadrant &Trim Wheel

- Pro Flight TPM Panel, Switch Panel

System Requirements: Microsoft FSX with SP2 or Acceleration; DX9 or DX10 - BTS Van's RV-7/7A: Purchase Price: $38.95 USD

Credits

BayTower Studio for providing the download and input.

The small photos or images of the RV history was downloaded from www.vansairforce.net or www.VansAircraft.com. No copyrights observed.

Richard Luycx (Ricardo) and Ron Attwood for the many repaints shown or maybe waiting to be installed. Most can be found at www.baytower.ca Paint forum and many at our www.avsim.com library.

Repaint credit to “knack” for the 7A devil NC67951 and TJ Stanley for RV-7 N69WP Slider.

Those unnamed artists and painters of the ones that I used in the screenshots but didn’t find your name. If it is not in the aircraft.cfg description after installation or in a readme file in the texture folder, I can’t find you name for credit. I delete the downloads after installation.

Screenshot of the LoPresti Fury and P-51 is from the LoPrestiFury.com web site gallery. http://www.loprestifury.com/ media use.

Those that provided comments that I used in the quote boxes.

Ray Marshall

http://www.avsim.com/pages/0306/SR22/SR22.htm

First, let me say that the SR-22 appears to be a fantastic, superbly designed aircraft simulation. I might find myself agreeing with everything the reviewer says about the product, had I actually had an opportunity to buckle in and fly it.

Instead, I uninstalled it and am in the process of requesting a refund.

Here's why:

I have enjoyed a few of the more sophisticated aircraft sims on the market for the MSFS platform, and all of them have shipped with rather extensive documentation of on-board systems and avionics. This has always been helpful in understanding how to competently operate the aircraft. They also have shipped with basic operational documents, such as a Pilot's Operating Handbook or Aircraft Operating Manual. These are crucial documents for a pilot keen on learning a new type of aircraft, and how to correctly operate it according to manufacturer recommendations.

The Eaglesoft product ships with neither. Instead, after purchase, download and installation, this new customer was disappointed and rather frustrated to discover that neither of these documents existed. The accompanying readme text file included a dated link to a page on the Cirrus website that no longer exists, where one could have in the past, presumably downloaded either of these documents. Currently, Cirrus requires an aircraft serial number in order to download this documentation.

Bummer. So begins my experience with "Support". Note to CEOs: Don't handle customer support directly. Chances are you'll be pretty bad at it, Ron.

Anyway, I initiate contact with Support, hoping that maybe I've just missed something, and there actually is such a basic piece of documentation somewhere in the product installation. I'm a bit flustered at this point because I'd spent 20 minutes or so looking around the Internet to no avail, and I really want to get this thing airborne.

The first response was to point me to the documentation directory, which I already knew only contained avionics documentation.

Having pointed that out to "Support" in my reply, their suggestion was to "drop over to Cirrus Design for a real world AOM".

I then responded that they do not distribute those documents without a valid aircraft serial number. I'd noted that the link provided in the readme 404d, as I mentioned above in this post.

Support responded that they are "not allowed to distribute real world aviation documents, so my best bet would be the Internet.

Wait, what? Because I don't want to misrepresent anything here, and hide the fact that by now I was a bit hot under the collar, my response to that was:

"Interesting.

Both my PMDG 747 and my FSD Seneca come with detailed operating handbooks. Is this a copyright or intellectual property issue? I would find it odd that, assuming you've obtained permission from Cirrus to reproduce their IP and trade dress in the form of a 3D model, you couldn't also distribute even a basic POH. If it's an FAA issue, the others seem to get around it by including prominent notices in the documents that the information is presented for entertainment and desktop flight simulator use, not for real world operation. Also, in either case, how did you manage to include such detailed documentation for the avionics equipment? What makes a POH so different?

Basically, I purchased a product with the full expectation that it would be well documented. Not including a POH with your product makes it far from well documented. That is a purchase decision consideration that your customers are entitled to prior to purchase.

I have run into a couple of problems that might be answered if such a document were available. After start, cylinder temps go quickly into the caution area, RPM is abnormally high. Running the throttle up even moderately pegs RPM to the red, and the cylinder temps go well into the red. EGT seems normal, but again, how would I know without operating information for the engine? The aircraft will not move at all, even at full throttle. I cannot locate anything remotely resembling a condition/pitch control for the prop. I don't know if this is automatic or fixed in this aircraft, or if I'm missing something. Lacking an operating handbook, I cannot determine if something is wrong with the product, the installation, or if I'm missing something somewhere in the process of operating it.

The Internet would be a good source of information for a freeware airplane that is understandably lacking in detailed documentation. Telling a customer who just payed you $30 for a premium product that they'll have to find documentation for it on their own reflects an extraordinarily poor customer service attitude, and frankly means that this will be the last product I purchase from you."

Well, this set "Support" off. So much so that he didn't really endeavor to actually read what I had written. "Support"'s response:

"Tim, it is obvious that you are not well versed in simulator operation or possibly unaware of throttle operation limitations in the simulated environment. Mixture and Prop levers should be full forward in the sim environment and brakes must be released. Sorry to disappoint but we state clearly that our products, while quite realistic, are aimed at and built for entertainment purposes only.

If dissatisfied for any reason see our refund link and policy near the bottom of our FAQs Page here: http://www.eaglesoft...dg.com/faq.htm"

It just got ugly from there. If the person manning that "Support" dialog was actually Ron, then.. wow.

In fairness, as the conversation escalated beyond this, I myself said things in frustration that I regret having said. I sincerely hope Ron is not actually the pompous I TRIED TO USE A PROFANITY HERE - AREN'T I STUPID! I accused him of being. I, after all, am not the incompetent idiot he accused me of being.

It was just a very unpleasant exchange, and I'd never in more than 15 years of flight simming had such an experience.

Is there no bloody condition lever in the cockpit of the SR2x? If I'd have found it the other night, I'd probably be flying it right now.

Documentation. You can produce the most badass, complete, accurate simulation ever. If your documentation is shoddy, as this clearly is, you're going to from time to time come across people like me.

One more thing; In your "What's wrong with this picture" game, you overlooked the fact that the compass is mismarked as well as backwards. They have the 150 degree mark labeled "250". In fact, I thought that was the 'answer' to the screen shot until I read the paragraph below it.

I recently purchased the Razbam Harrier and must say that it seems much more consistent with what I've read about the Harrier and its FD. However, Razbam's sound file will drive you mad if your in the cockpit! I just don't believe that the real thing sounded that terrible, (very high whining pitch), and if it did, those poor pilots are probably all insane by now.

That said, if you haven't already, check it out. It's really some top quality work. I have a freeware sound file that I found in FlyawaySim for the Harrier and plan to replace the Razbam sound file with it. Even if it's not as precise as the Razbam's files when outside the cockpit, I'll still be happy if the insane whining is ommitted within the cockpit. Then I can resume learning what to do with all those buttons!! lol

Rich

After two days, he solved the problem for me and he was determined to fix it. In this day and age, it's refreshing to find a small company that stands behind their product and stays with you until you are satisfied.

By the way, their planes are great and probably the most realistic handling of any general aviation planes available.

Tom palmer

I'm happily flying it around the Australian outback in P3D and FS Economy  and it's well suited to the rough strips you find around those parts. As noted the sounds need beefing up but a small investment of around $10 will sort that out.

Thanks again

Loved the review, but I'm assuming you've never flown the Wilco airbus product?

It's not the fact that Blackbox is releasing an unfinished product for us to buy with a promise of finishing it that disturbs me, it's the fact that you're review was so good in pointing out their flaws that disturbs me. No pax or fuel loader? Even Wilco has one. No cold or dark mode? "FS9 like" VC?

No thanks. I'll wait for the FSLabs machine. If it's anything like their concord people rave about it will be a thing of beauty.

Thank you, Sir for the great review.

Do the reviewers take requests at all? Not sure if it's appropriate to ask...

(If it is appropriate to ask, I'd love to see a review of the FlyJSim 727 for X-Plane 10. If it is inappropriate to ask, don't read the previous sentence.)

Obrigado Caiomarques

I am still a little new to AVSIM so please if this is not the place then please direct me to the proper place to ask.

I have read as much recent review matierial on both so far as I could find. A friend of mine has REX but I think an earlier version. We were looking at it via skype today.

THAT SAID,

I would like such a program however the reviews I have read elsewhere say that Active Sky has less drop in FPS so I am leaning that direction.

I am looking for something that will give me realistic weather. THANKS in advance.

http://forum.avsim.net/index.php?app=ccs&module=pages&section=pages&id=19

Clicking the title brings back the message below. Looks like your files index went bust.

Lost File (Apache Error 404)

AVSIM Error Alert

The document you were searching for has either expired or migrated elsewhere. To find documents which have moved, we suggest you start at our main page or drop us a quick note.

You may also search for the document with our site's internal search engine.

Not a big sweat as one can go through Google which brings up the file ,with the same address BTW. But I thought I'd let you know

What's with that?