The Owl's Nest - Recommended Aviation and Flightsim Sites

Projekt Transall has made a magnificent model of the C-160 Transall with many liveries and extras. The model is for FS9, and sadly it has been made absolutely clear that the model will not be remade for FSX. The good news is that it can be tweaked to work perfectly with FSX SP2 Acceleration in DirectX9 mode. The problem that needs to be addressed is a see-through hole around the squadron emblem. I have fixed this with a texture which you can download here (link to be provided).

The C-160 Transall has a 28.50 € price tag. But every cent is given to the charitable society "Gemeinsam helfen e.V." to support ill and disabled children. So far more than 50.000 € could be donated. Every customer receives a very good printed manual and the aircraft model on CD. Liveries and AI models can be downloaded from the support forum.

--> Update !!

The FSX version of the C-160 Transall is officially announced. An unbinding release date is mid of 2010.

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The Mid-Atlantic-Air-Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania, is host to a great and beautiful collection of military and civil aircraft from the Golden Age to early 1960. Known for its ambitious projects, they currently restore one of the four remaining Northrop P-61 Black Widow to flyable state.

To financially support these activities MAAM has released three extraordinary fine flight simulator models: the North American B-25J Mitchell, the Douglas C-47 Skytrain and the Grumman TBF Avenger. The details of the simulations are impressive, e.g. oil dripping engines. All models are for FS9, but the B-25 and the C-47 can be tweaked to work perfectly with FSX SP2 Acceleration in DirectX9 mode. In the MAAM support forum you will find a description how to do that.

Hopefully MAAM will re-release their work for FSX in the future. The models are in the range of $30, and every penny goes into the museum.

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I like to mention Air-to-Air Simulations, formerly known as Shockwave Productions, because of their unique product portfolio. Their WW-II aircraft are extremely beautiful and, according to the forum feedback, show very accurate flight behaviour. I can not comment on that, but fact is the models are fun to fly.

The "WW-II Heavy Bombers and Jets" package contains: Boeing B-17, Boeing B-29, Consolidated B-24, Consolidated PB4Y-2, Avro Lancaster, Arado Ar-234, Focke-Wulf Ta-183 and Heinkel He-162. It sells for $20 plus shipping. The "WW-II Fighter" package consists of: North American P-51, Supermarine Spitfire, Republic P-47D, Messerschmitt Bf-109 and Mitsubishi A6M5. This package has a $30 price tag. Many aircraft are available as separate downloads, e.g. the Heinkel He-219 or the Curtiss P-40. These separate downloads are between $25 and $33 each.

Like everybody else A2A has shifted their focus to FSX. Most of their older models can be tweaked to work flawlessly in FSX SP2 Acceleration in DirectX9 mode. But in addition A2A will lay hands on some of their older products like the WW-II Fighter Package and rework them as native FSX models. This is what I call excellent customer care.
April 2010: The Accusim B-17 is just unbelievable. For once the saying is not exaggerated - this aircraft lifts your flight simulator experience to a new border.

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Airliners.Net is an aviation website with over a million aircraft photographs. Supported by a good database engine, you can easily search for specific tags like aircraft type, airline, country and more. All photos are commented and usually of high quality.

Access to the photos can be gained with a free account. If you want to participate in the forum of the Airliners.Net community, you need at least a Premium Membership, which means a one-time payment of $25. The First Class Membership cost is $5 per month. The benefits are no advertising, photos without watermarks, webspace and access to the news service.

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Helicopters in Microsoft's Flight Simulator are somehow special. There is no separate flight concept and model for choppers. They are treated like fixed wing aircraft. You need a bag of tricks to at least come close to realistic helicopter AI. That we have this knowledge today we owe to Holger Sandmann, who discovered how to treat helicopters and floatplanes the right way.


There is one special place to go if you are interested in helicopters. Jordan Moore's Hovercontrol not only hosts his stunning models, but many others as well. Hovercontrol hosts a friendly and competent forum. If you want to master helicopter flight in the flight simulator, there is no better place to go.

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While military traffic is most obviously missing in the FlightSim skies, civil traffic can be improved as well. Several groups have gained a high reputation of making excellent freeware AI. While one opts for most detailed aircraft with the least possible frame impact, the other aims at most realistic real world flight plans.

If you only know Microsoft's default AI, have a look at the work of the groups mentioned above. You are in for a surprise. If you feel uncomfortable with the installation of these packages, but you still want to improve your artificial traffic, check out the commercial alternatives MyTrafficX and Ultimate Traffic.

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FSX Follow-Me Car is an add-on that allows you to be guided either to the runway or to your parking location on every airport where Air Traffic Control is available and can assign you a taxi route. You request the car by either hotkey or via the tools menu.

A nice yellow-black car appears and guides you across the airport. For the next version Daniel van Os is working on some cool enhancements. I have added a military livery on the wish list.

You can buy Follow-Me Car FSX at simMarket for 9.98 €.

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Nick Black is one of the great designers in the MAIW project team. He has published a personal web site, which gives me the chance to point you to it. Go there to see which of the MAIW aircraft were done by him, and what he is currently working on.

You will also learn how he happened to become an AI modeller and some bits about his life.

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Tony Smith has compiled a very detailed and excellently structured compilation of important and interesting FS links. If you want to find out what flightsim related sites you might have missed so far, this is a good point to start.

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After two years the scenery design team that were part of UKMil decided the time was right to start an own web appearance, completely dedicated to military airfield creation. As usual you will find a friendly place with lots of competence and helpfulness around those guys, no to speak from the great sceneries.

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Since the launch of the Scramble Magazine website in 1997, it has been visited over 15 million times and it currently welcomes more than 10000 visitors a day. And that for a reason. Open to non-subscribers as well, you can search in several online databases. Provided is e.g. information about military and civil aircraft registration numbers per country.

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The Alpha-India Group, founded 2008, is a team with excellent civil AI competence for the Microsoft Flight Simulator. They create flight plans, ai aircraft models (Antonov AN-124, Boeing 757 or Dornier 328 to name just a few) and airports (both for FS9 and FSX).

Beyond that, they host a very friendly forum which is a great place to gather knowledge and find friendly, helpful people and which I highly recommend to visit.

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Global AI is currently a one man show. Drew, usually going by Dark Morelia, has made some outstanding flight simulator AI models. His Antonov AN-225 Mriya and the Antonov AN-124-100 Ruslan models are as stunning as when you see them in real world. Get a first impression by watching the logo above carefully.

Drew is currently working on three projects where I know that a whole forum is waiting for with watering mouths (including me). This would be the de Havilland Canada DHC-4A Caribou, the General Dynamics F-111C Aardvark and the McDonnell Douglas/Boeing C-17A Globemaster III.

Go for it, Drew!

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Some time ago Ray Parker started to astound people with very good repaints. It was not only the superior quality (check out his Tornado special livery in the logo above) but as well the amount of his work that made him a big fan base. Today he is not only repainting but has gone into modeling as well.

On his web site you can see and download everything he has released and get a sneak preview on what he is currently working on.

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Graham King is another remarkable aircraft painter. He is member of the MAIW team, which keeps him very busy. Therefore he is rarely doing single aircraft repaints today but mostly packages.

On his web site you can see and download from his repaint portfolio.

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Two sites serve the FlightSim Community with all aspects. They offer uncountable free flightsim downloads - aircraft, repaints, scenery and tools - for every version since FS98. They review new free and commercial products. They host tutorials and forums where you find help and new ideas. They offer information. They are institutions.

AVSim and FlightSim.Com are the answer for every flightsim novice who has played two weeks with his original Microsoft Flight Simulator setup and then asks ... and now?

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While an increasing number of great western military AI aircraft have become available over the last years, there was practically no representation of their Russian counterparts. This has changed for good, thanks to the great contribution of Sergey Bunevich (sib2217), who has released (among many others) stunning models from Antonov (An-8, An-12), Mikoyan (MiG-25, MiG-29), Sukhoi (Su-27) and Tupolev (Tu-22, Tu-22M). I know more is coming, and I very much look forward to his next releases.

He has now a dedicated website where he presents his work. Don't shy away from the fact that web site is in Russian - you will find your way around.

At this point I like to say thank you to AVSim.Ru who now offer an English language interface to their web site. Check out their site, and find yourself the gorgeous Su-24 of Sergey Ivanov (scorpio9999) and many other great downloads.

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