 Flight Unlimited III Flightsimulator!
Hardware: RAM 512 MB,
Page 3(3)
|
In FU III the guys from Looking Glass Studios brought back a sailplane for me, the elegant Stemme S10-VT motorglider. Although I would have preferred the more traditional two seater Grob 103 (or even the ASK-21), I acknowledge that using a motorglider, makes it easier to get airborne in a legal way. I like to fly the Stemme as a real glider without power applied. Although I don't know this aircraft from real life, it still gives me the sense of a real glider. Thanks to the Looking Glass people!
Weather features has been developed further, but to be honest, I did prefer the weather adjusting possibilities in FU II, while they felt more stringent to me. Ok, the weather is now more amusing, but only because of the many gimmicks. Concerning clouds, the previous edition felt better. The guys need to develop a cloud generator that is much more convincing. Just compare with the state-of-art clouds in FS2002, where they all are extremely beautiful and always looks differently. They will never ever need any improvements. The ocean looks very good. The colour is convincing, but there is too much 'cut and paste' in it, which reminds me, that this is not a real world. I wonder why I fly so much from Half Moon Bay in California. Maybe the reason is that it sounds exotic to my (danish) ears? I like to make ridge soaring in the Stemme from that airport. And opposed to the FS 2002, one really finds lift where lift is expected to be, as in the real world. Great!
A good adventure in the Stemme S10-VT is to make some ridge soaring under the following circumstances: Adjust weather conditions and wind speed, so you have a westerly headwind composant equal to, or just below your indicated airspeed. It has to be extremely windy that day, say 52 kts (96 km/h). In such a situation it is interesting to make some ridge flying just east of Half Moon Bay. You can stay up forever but, at lunchtime, when you try to reach Half Moon Bay airport, you realize that your groundspeed is Zero! So how can you actually get back to Half Moon Bay? Well, push the stick forward to increase your indicated airspeed. Finally carry out a landing on the runway. The question is - how would you implement that, without seriously damaging the plane? Is it at all possible to land the sailplane in a crosswind that size?
Concerning framerates, I find the FU III to be terrific. With 1024x768 resolution and in mountainous areas I have above 160 fps. In cities with many buildings around I have above 115 fps. But less aggressive hard-ware will be fine too, since framerates exceeding 30, frankly speaking, is enough.
|
     |
In the glider I still miss a variometer with an acoustic output, so I can do thermaling, without paying too much visual attention to the panel. In the real world I guess all gliders are equipped with a variometer with audio out. It would increase the 'real thing' feeling by several hundred percent. It's so easy to implement, but why have nobody done so yet?