When Microsoft shut down the old Flight Simulator development team and program (FS1 up to FS X, not including the new MSFS2020,) they licensed the commercial version of the platform to Lockheed Martin, who took over development and kept it going as Prepar3D. Lockheed's biggest contribution to the platform over their years of stewardship was to port the codebase to 64-bit and to modernize for DirectX 11.

There is still a very rich library of add-on software for the old MSFS, including some very detailed simulations of airliners, that today are flown on Prepar3D.

Since Lockheed Martin doesn't want to be seen as a video game company, the $60 license is an "academic license." However, this is what most people looking simply for a modernized FS X engine will buy for their home use.

How does it compare w/ the new MSFS, or the other big names w/ commercial "gaming" development efforts behind them, i.e. Xplane, DCS, etc?

The base game is very very sparse compared to newer offerings like XPlane or MSFS.

Due to its long history of development it has some of the most well received third party aircraft add-ons, but be warned, these will cost more than the sim itself.

If you want a video game, you should get the new MSFS. If you want something more realistic you should get P3D + third party aircraft for airliners or XPlane for GA aircraft (+ setup ortho scenery for XPlane), but much of the ecosystem is slowly releasing MSFS ports too.

I am a little worried for what will happen to hobbyist flight sims after MSFS though. A large part of its appeal is the bing maps powered streaming of good terrain and other map features, and I suspect Microsoft won't maintain that forever. If they lose interest for a similar length as between FSX and Microsoft Flight or between Microsoft Flight and MSFS, that could be a bad time for the flight sim world if they've gotten too used to MSFS.

---

If you do get into the P3D third party ecosystem, be warned that many of the developers are older hobbyists turned devs which have been in their own universe and so can have weird ideas from time to time. Like a support system that is a public forum where you must manually sign your real name at the end of each post or get banned (PMDG), or uploading the chrome username/password DB of suspected hackers based on a check for username (FlightSimLabs).

X-plane 12 is currently in Alpha and Looks pretty interesting. I think there's no need to worry about that going away. MSFS is of course looking pretty good; but in terms of rendering capabilities, X-plane 12 looks like a big update as well.

I think when it comes to simulation fidelity, it still has a nice edge over the Microsoft ecosystem. Though that did improve with their latest version. In terms of third party aircraft, there are interesting products for both simulators. Probably more for MS; but there are a few nice ones for X-plane as well.

P3D seems like it has served its purpose. It was a nice upgrade before MSFS 2020 became a thing for users stuck in the MS ecosystem without meaningful updates to their simulator for a decade or so. Now that they have released (and given how great it is), there probably still is a niche market for people with older setups that are happy to keep on using that; especially those that invested in third party aircraft. Of course, most relevant aircraft are probably also available for MSFS 2020 at this point and possibly in an improved or nicer version.

Other than that, I don't see any good reasons for new users to want or need this. Correct me if I'm wrong.

AFAIK the flight model of MSFS has always been trash, it's a bunch of lookup tables that kind of approximate a real plane in the most standard situations - there are no real aerodynamic calculations. MSFS can be used for serious training in navigation, procedures, cockpit instruments and such.

Pilot here. The MSFS flight model is so bad that I found it actually counterproductive. Also, the avionics are awful, they basically have a dozen of the most basic functions and that's about it. It's more like a game, not a sim. And yet, I do find myself using it still. Why? The graphics are insane. If I'm doing a flight to somewhere new, I like doing a simulated flight first in order to get a better understanding of the terrain and more importantly, layout of the arrival airport and visual cues. I still find it very useful for flight planning in that regard.

The MSFS flight model is so terribly bad that people have 'successfully' landed absurdly too-large craft from 757 all the way up to Antonov-225 size at Saba and also taken off from the same airfield.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juancho_E._Yrausquin_Airport

Your mistake is using default aircraft - most consumer simulators will have poor renditions of aircraft that ship with the base game, mainly because the majority of development time is spent on core mechanics and the game engine. Download some high quality 3rd party aircraft and it’ll change your mind.

This is how basically every simulator before/other than X-Plane does it, though.

Most modules for DCS use lookup tables computed in a similar way to X-Plane. (The lookup tables are essentially a computational cache of the element modeling.)

I recall Flight Unlimited[1] made a big deal of their flight model which incorporated "real-time computational fluid dynamics". I'm not a pilot but I found it very compelling. It was groundbreaking for its time.

None of the rest of Looking Glass' flight sims used the first game's fluid dynamics model.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_Unlimited

I’m sure you could make a deep learning model approximation of the computational fluid dynamics that would be much computationally efficient. Allowing form more detail and or faster execution.

If you care about computational efficiency, build a lookup table and cache it. Flight models generally deal with a known, bounded problem space rather than novel inputs.

Sure, if a lookup table works for your problem then use that. Im specifically talking about an optimization of CFD.

MSFS is actually improving this though: https://stormbirds.blog/2022/02/17/msfs-aerodynamics-takes-a...

In FSX and previous editions of Flight Simulator this was true. However, MSFS uses blade element theory, the same technique X-Plane uses, and recently introduced CFD. Load into the sim, turn on developer mode and enable the aerodynamics debug options to see it in action.

Can't edit anymore - I was actually thinking of the old MSFS, pre product cancellation and resurrection. I didn't know much about the new one except that the graphics are great.

> A large part of its appeal is the bing maps powered streaming of good terrain and other map features, and I suspect Microsoft won't maintain that forever.

There's a mod that makes it use Google Maps instead. In many places, it is better by leaps and bounds.

My hope is that FS2020 will be the basis for many more real world sims as the technology improves.

I imagine a ship, train sim would go over quite well. Would be great if they were all in the same in game session.

Can also picture tycoon and enterprise type games doing well here.

And of course eventually there will be weapons, it is bound to happen.

If you've ever flown really low in MSFS outside the specially crafted cities like SF you'll see that it's not really up for a ground level sim level of detail yet. I guess you could do with street view images what MS has down with satellite photos, but it's also exponentially more data.

>I guess you could do with street view images what MS has down with satellite photos, but it's also exponentially more data.

Unless every street in the world is scanned quarterly, or more frequently, the data would be laughably stale. That said, people would still flock to GTA World, or even GTA USA if it got made.

  > uploading the chrome username/password DB of suspected hackers

This sounds like a serious bug in Chrome, not a problem with a specific website.

These addons are effectively desktop software running as your user, just like Chrome. If Chrome can extract your saved usernames/passwords, then another program can replicate that functionality. They could require a master password and encrypt, but then people would use it less. They could also push it to a cloud service and only pull down relevant passwords at usage time, but is that good for user control of data?

It seems like GP is talking about a website, not a Chrome addon.

GP is replying to my comment about flight sim add-ons.

Yes, I'm aware they mistook these add-ons as being web applications, that's why I described the difference.

I see, thanks.

Those are games that can be used for training. Prepar is a military and civilian training tool that can be used (against its license terms) for gaming. It’s the only direct to consumer product that Lockheed has - so it’s basically their military trainer that they’ve been nice enough to make available to us. The motivation behind this was probably for the dev ecosystem it would bring. The non-entertainment term in the license is a legacy from their deal with MS when they bought it.

Prepar3d uses the MSFS X engine, so 90%+ of mods/add-ons for MSFS X/10 work for Prepar3d.

MSFS X is, like a lot of games, a warmed-over version of a previous game engine, with improved directx support and tweaked to run on the latest (at the time) version of windows. I forget if it has it's roots in MSFS 3.0, 4.0 or 2002, but it was a pretty old engine in 2006 and has gotten a few updates over the last decade but is pretty crufty and when you play it, unless you have $300 of after-market add-ons, is very obvious it's old, especially compared to x-plane etc

As the other guy said, the people still heavily invested and running the modding scene for a 20 year old video game are... esoteric.

Playing MSFS X as a newcomer at this point in time is mostly to inspect a historical artifact, but it's a very detailed simulator if you want to take off in a 747 from LAX and fly it to London or Moscow non-stop.

Here's a YouTube livestream where someone hooked up Prepar3D to an ADS-B receiver and created a virtual planespotting system at LAX:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0GrpAgdBFI

On a related note, Foreflight integrates really well with MSFS and when you combine that with PilotEdge it's a great learning tool. Works with Prepar and X-Plane too.

Yes, perfect for IFR and procedure training. The lack of control loading / feedback in home simulators makes it not a great choice for primary training. I've had to teach some simulator enthusiasts in real aircraft for primary training, there is a lot to unlearn. Especially in terms of trimming, fine gained control and looking outside.

But for IFR training if you already know how it fly it's amazing what home sims can do. Add in Navigraph to get up to date data / procedures and Jeppesen charts and you get a better real world representation than some of the certified simulators used in flight training.

Love fs2020 and navigraph. Just not sure about the flight path calculator.

Question for you both. I’m using ForeFlight in sim and real. Does Navigraph replace FF in sim or supplement it? Visited their site and it’s not immediately clear. Thanks.

Navigraph runs on the computer with the sim on it, while you can use ForeFlight on your ipad (or phone) next to the sim while connecting to it for position data.

That's brilliant! It took me a few minutes to understand what I was looking at... realtime data, hooked into a flight sim, live streamed.

It seems like there's of potential for synthetic displays like this in other areas or industries - the buzzword du jour being "digital twin" but that's more for simulation, maybe this is more augmented reality? But you need a really solid set of incoming data to make it happen. The openness of ADS-B is the huge advantage here.

Thats so cool

Really like airplane flying in.

I think it should be noted that Prepar3D exists for 12 years now [1] and has been heavily used by flight sim enthusiasts after FSX development was stopped and before MSFS came to the market. It is somewhat unclear were exactly this is used for professional training. The US Air Force apparently uses it for their pilot training [2], and some sort of F-16 simulator seems to exist [3]. I assume their F-35 simulators are also based on Prepar3D.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator#Loc...

[2] https://youtu.be/NMLg7THwhAI?t=164

[3] https://www.lockheedmartin.com/content/dam/lockheed-martin/r...

I believe Perpar3D powers the Redbird simulators [1] some of which are accepted by the FAA as AATDs (Advanced Aviation Training Device), meaning they can be used for a portion of the training requirements for the Private Pilots Cerficate (often called a license), Instrument Rating, etc. I've trained using one and while they're not perfect, they do save you some money and time with certain procedures. They're also great for more accurately simulating subtle systems failures.

[1] https://simulators.redbirdflight.com/

I'm pretty sure RedBird is based on X-Plane. I flew one a few weeks ago and the functionality was very familiar.

I wouldn't be surprised if they supported both, but the pictures on their website all show Prepar3D.

The Warthog Project on YT is worth mentioning here as an example of what happens when passion meets technology. Been watching since the second vid. Never disappointed. [0]

He uses Digital Combat Simulator (DCS) from Eagle Dynamics SA. They also sell commercial versions of their simulator software. [1]

Getting the terrain right is one thing. Getting the cockpits right is another matter entirely. [2]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJq3cq9N6xYF0fAvTgpwoBg/vid... [1] https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/ [2] https://www.rferl.org/a/u-s-deports-russian-convicted-of-smu...

Other cool related resources are OpenHornet and /r/HotasDIY

> Prepar3D furthers the development of Microsoft® ESP™ while maintaining compatibility with Microsoft Flight Simulator X, allowing many thousands of add-ons to be used within Prepar3D. [1]

Interesting. Microsoft ESP? First time I hear about this Microsoft product. Furthermore the simulation is based on Microsoft Flight Simulator X, 2006 software.

[1] https://www.prepar3d.com/product-overview/

I worked on this product for a year back in the day. The cool thing about MS ESP was that we used the FSX Engine for the "1000 foot experience". Everything looked great from far above, but not close by. The solution to this was that MS Train Simulator 2 made tons of improvements for the "1 foot experience". The idea was to include a "world editor" with world-wide geospatial data, too. https://youtu.be/GXzE1Yb54xU?t=406 The physics models of the planes and the trains were great, but obviously to be a generic simulator you needed to include physics engines for other types of objects like Cars. So we grabbed the physics engine of Forza and included it there. These things combined were honestly beautiful - and add to that the backwards compatibility with all the 3rd party FSX plugins/adds ons. Bummer that this is exactly when the iPhone came out and the cloud-based strategies were taking over "classic" enterprise software. Re-org and bye bye FSX/TrainSim2/ESP. I had left before this happened, but was really a bummer not to see the full potential of ESP :-(

ESP was an effort to turn Flight Simulator into a general purpose commercial and military sim. They assembled a great team to do that, then shut it all down in the aftermath of the 2008 crash. Balmer decided some part of Microsoft Game Studios needed to be shut down to save costs and the Flight Sim team had always been an outsider with the weakest political connections into the core of MGS, so even though the ESP business plan was much more sensible than most of the MGS products, it was the piece that ended up getting killed.

> Balmer decided some part of Microsoft Game Studios needed to be shut down to save costs and the Flight Sim team had always been an outsider with the weakest political connections into the core of MGS, so even though the ESP business plan was much more sensible than most of the MGS products, it was the piece that ended up getting killed.

Worse than that.

This was relayed to me by someone who worked on the flight sim team.

So flight sim wasn't actually part of Microsoft game studio, they were in the middle of transitioning over when the shit hit the fan. The head of the organization that they were a part of (I forget what it was called), blocked the transfer so he could keep the flight sim team around as that org's sacrificial lamb to be laid off.

ESP seems to be the commercial platform based off Flight Simulator X:

https://news.microsoft.com/2007/11/14/microsoft-esp-debuts-a...

I would love to learn about the software development side of the US military/industrial complex. I read the Pentagon Wars [0] last year and it was fascinating. Read Skunk Works a while back [1].

What I found really interesting about the Pentagon Wars, is how the incentives don't really parallel what I see in "normal businesses". I wonder if it's the same for software?

Is there anything more recent with the focus on software? If not, I'd love to read more about the design/development/testing of hardware as well.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon_Wars

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk_Works#cite_note-16

You should be warned, Pentagon Wars is mostly fiction and written by a guy who had a serious bone to pick. He's a member of a troublesome ground known as the reformers who get an outsized share of the attention in popular media while being pariahs in the defense industry.

Source, I used to work in the defense industry and people like Burton and Sprey are loathed.

Such is the nature of any sort of reformer and institution. You wouldn't be a "reformer" unless you thought the institution needs to be "reformed". That sets you up in opposition to everyone inside the institution, who are presumably inside the institution because they believe in the goals, processes, and structures of the institution.

Having watched Russia completely fail to execute complex air combat operations in Ukraine of the sort we take completely for granted from the US, I think maybe you are underestimating US air combat performance?

EDIT: Hmm I guess you edited out the part about saying the US has been losing for 60 years.

Yeah, I edited it out because I knew discussion would rathole on whether or not the U.S. military is effective, while the larger point I'm making is about institutions (in general) and their ability to change. Russia's performance in the Ukraine war is a good example: they have all the war materials [1], but they suck at waging war because the institutions are so corrupt that they suck at waging war [2].

[1] https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/03/world/infographic-uk...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9i47sgi-V4

The problem is that the "reformers" were trying to go back to the previous paradigm. They thought that putting in expensive electronics and radar into the F-16 was a waste and that instead it should rely on guns. They loathed the M-1 Abrams and instead called for a return to the M60's for which they could buy 3 for every one. They advocated for effectively a return to WW2 style of things, generally having a distaste for technological developments which have since arrived. The Gulf War with America's high tech superiority completely and utterly refuted their core thesis and they're basically considered jokes who in their late years would show up on Russia Today to spout the same nonsense they previously had against now battle proven systems but this time about the F-35.

The reformers actually weren't about reform at all really. They didn't have new, innovative ideas that were shunned for being dangerous.

They were and are luddites who thought warfare hadn't moved on from the 1950's and investing in new technology and capabilities was a waste of time. They claimed the M1 Abrams was less effective than previous tanks such as the M48 Patton. They though radar and guided missiles were useless to put on a plane and that the ideal fighter had more in common with the F-86 than the F-15. While at the same time claiming credit for designing the F-15 when they didn't have a thing to do with it.

I did not know that. I thought the book was mostly factual, as far as these things go. The program he references though, are real programs. The budgets and overspending were also correct (where I checked). Do you have a link to any rebuttals? I will google myself, but if you have something that you find convincing I'd love to read it.

> The budgets and overspending were also correct (where I checked)

I haven't read the book, but in the movie, it claims that the army had spent $14 Bn at the time of the Congressional Committy on April 24th, 1987 where as it had only spent $8Bn out of the $12Bn allocated.[1]

Beyond that simple fact check, sure the programs did exist but there are numerous other issues.

The most significant were the subjects of the destructive tests, in which Col. James Burton insisted on destroying many fully functioning combat loaded Bradleys by firing RPG's at them from multiple different angles. The Army thought it would be worth while to do some tests but not to the extent which Burton demanded. The Army filled the ammo shells with sand and the fuel tanks with water as to be bale to measure damage done to them from sharp metal. That way you could actually account for the damage done.

According to the Col, this was a bad faith cover up that the Bradley wouldn't survive and instead be a flaming wreck. A Bradley would indeed blow up and be turned into a flaming pile of melted aluminum from an AT weapon hit, but that was always known - it wasn't designed to be able to resist such weapons. Neither did the previous troop carrier it was replacing. Nor did the Russian equivalents do so either.

[1]: Capability of the Bradley fighting vehicle : hearing before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, One hundredth Congress, first session, April 24, 1987 (EBook version): https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=6VhyQC11xEAC&pg=GBS....

The Bradley program is real and Burton was briefly involved. That much is true. The sequence of events and the actions of the characters in his story are fictional.

The oft referenced scene from the film where Army Generals keep sending the designer back to make stupid changes is completely fictitious. The book and film portray the Bradley as a victim of design by committee and the whims of out of touch generals.

The couldn't be more far from the truth. You see, Burton thought the Bradley was a replacement for the M113, an armored personnel carrier. But it wasn't and was never supposed to be. It was supposed to be an Infantry Fighting Vehicle.

This is a class of armored fighting vehicle that the Soviets introduced with the BMP-1. Instead of being a battle taxi that would drive the troops to the front and then leave like an APC, the IFV would stick around and fight with the troops. Adding more firepower.

This is a good idea and the US Army wanted one of their own. They had several successive projects starting in the 1960's that culminated in the Bradley in the 80's. It was always meant to have a cannon and ATGMs. It was always going to carry fewer troops.

Well, if the claims in Pentagon Wars are even half true, the author would be loathed by the defence industry.

The Pentagon Wars' claims are nearly entirely false and mostly self aggrandizing by Col. Burton.

Well whistleblowers in banks are loathed too (and pharma, oil, government etc.), exposing and destroying a very finely balanced machinery of theft, corruption, bribery, massive egos, big cocaine/prostitute parties, you name it.

That doesn't make them any less right, does it.

Burton isn't loathed because he was a whistleblower. He is loathed because he is a liar and was difficult to work with.

> I would love to learn about the software development side of the US military/industrial complex. I read the Pentagon Wars [0] last year and it was fascinating. Read Skunk Works a while back [1].

Judging by Ghidra, America's Army and BRL-CAD, it's amateur hour over there.

Ghidra and BRL-CAD are absolutely high quality pieces of software. They just don't have time put into shiny UI. The UX isn't really that bad once you learn them though.

Also BRL-CAD's continued existence really should speak for it's quality considering it's the one of the oldest VCS tracked pieces of software and is the oldest public one. It's leagues ahead of a lot of gov and corporate tooling I've seen on both sides of the fence.

But otherwise yes, the mil-industrial complex often leaves something to be desired with development practices. The money all goes towards feeding systems engineers, mechs, mats, and sparkies. Software is usually the last consideration and is for holding together all the stuff the teams couldn't figure out how to do without it.

Things are getting better but it's a slow process and it almost entirely depends on software engineers sticking around long enough to get into leadership rather than leaving for better paying corporate or research jobs. While I'm on my way out now for a number of reasons, the industry is finally starting to get good at software practices and where it absolutely mattered they for a long time have tended to get it right.

I thought people were generally pleased with Ghidra. Is this not the case?

I am enormously happy that Ghidra exists and usually can be made to do the job, but it is still quite rough around the edges. Polished with 10 grit sandpaper, as the saying goes.

I don't get it, Ghidra is one of best RE tools, what's the problem?

are these bad? asking as someone who knows nothing of any of them

America's Army is one of a few video games the DoD has put out as recruitment tools. They're a little weird (both sides always see themselves as US troops, fighting an unspecified opposing force), but I'm not sure how successful they've been over the years.

Another interesting one is what Bohemia Interactive does -- they develop and commercially release simulation-style shooters in the ArmA series, and they developed the original Operation Flashpoint back in the early 00s. But Bohemia also has a product they sell to armed services around the globe. It's gotten them in trouble before -- a few developers were detained in Greece while gathering reference material for the fictional island of Altis in Arma 3.

> Bohemia Interactive

They develop Virtual Battlespace which is heavily used by the UK MOD amongst others. The underlying engine supports a wide range of tactical simulations and there is a huge array of available reusable assets (e.g. vehicle meshes, textures, and behaviour models) that create a good moat to new market entrants.

I'm not sure how sucessful the games were as a recruiting tool, but Americas Army 2.x was a well received game. Pipeline and Bridge brings back some good memories. I believe theres still an active community for it.

Its popularity tanked once Americas Army 3 was out.

One time I found a bug that doubled the size of the America's Army download, back when downloads like this took a day (* retries) on a typical DSL connection. I reported it to them so they banned me for hacking (they banned me from the forums, mind you, not the game) and didn't fix the issue. Lol.

Ghidra is fantastic, it has some issues and is obviously missing some still-classified components but even still it's competitive with IDA and Binary Ninja.

Are the obvious omissions obvious enough to be able to name any of them? E.g. are there any languages that would be expected to have decompilation support, but don't? Or any static-analysis passes that are clearly relying on underpowered prebuilt datasets only supplied to make the pass function in a nominal sense, where there's clearly some much larger prebuilt dataset used in the classified version?

A lot of the "type libraries" are missing (you can make your own).

Some specific processors are noticeably unsupported (you can fix this yourself by writing definitions).

The extensions for analysis of mobile applications and debugging mobile targets are missing.

Parts of the debugger are still missing (eg: syncing debugger with disassembly/decompiler).

Some features are extremely poorly documented (eg: importing source code).

A lot of bits that otherwise seem missing are likely proprietary scripts and extensions/tools that probably can't be released due to either being classified or owned by a defense contractor.

there is an old made-for-HBO movie called The Pentagon Wars... I presume it is accurate enough, although it was turned into a comedy so I'm sure they took some artistic license with it. Highly recommended. It's available for free on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir0FAa8P2MU

Both the movie and the book are complete BS, they're funny but not accurate reflections of reality.

Yeah, that was a book adaptation.

Slightly off-tangent, but i really wish there was a good, freely available, decent-quality dataset of the world surface (like Google Earth but anyone can use it). I obviously don’t expect everywhere to be fully mapped but even popular cities like Boston don’t have very good models. And it would be amazing to even have models of some of the more rural places.

It would make a great scene for games and animated movies. The world is a beautiful place and seeing places you’ve been is nostalgic.

It always makes me a bit sad to see how much time, energy and money is wasted on mapping and 3D modelling the same place over and over again and everyone accumulating all this data in their own silos.

Google Maps, OSM, Apple Maps, Bing Maps and all the work that Microsoft Flight Simulator is doing by building 3D models of every airport and city from scratch.

MS at least have a good way of utilizing Bing maps in the game and probably have data flowing both ways in case they improve something but seems like a giant waste of resources.

"Google Maps, OSM, Apple Maps, Bing Maps"

One of these things is not like the others.

I wonder if the NGIA might release their radar mapping of the Earths surface at some point. Kind of like the mapping databases available from the census dept.

Search for SRTM DEM for global elevation data, and Microsoft building footprints for buildings. That will get you pretty close

They have flight simulator centers here in Beijing based on Prepar3d. Very impressive. My kids have flown a Cessna in those several times to teach them the basics.

Google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cKimjW...

What's interesting about this is that they are using Microsoft's Flight Simulator X's codebase, and I think plugins that work in FSX will work in Prepar3D.

Until Prepar3D version 3 it was somewhat true. Since V4 it is 64-bit and it broke the compatibility with most older plug-ins.

It's veeeeery hit and miss as to if an FSX add-on will work with P3D. One reason is that FSX is 32-bit only whereas P3D is 64-bit as of v4 - they've changed a lot of stuff.

Wht a fascinating EULA stipulation:

Prepar3D is not to be used, offered, sold or distributed through markets or channels for use as a personal/consumer entertainment product.

https://www.prepar3d.com/product-overview/prepar3d-license-c...

Microsoft sold off the rights to FSX to two parties. Lockheed got the rights to the "professional" version and Dovetail the rights to the "consumer" version. Same starting codebase, Lockheed released Prepar3d and Dovetail the somewhat successful Flight Simulator X Steam Edition and later the unsuccessful Flight Sim World.

I'm sure this is a CYA clause to show they're not stepping on dovetail's license and little else.

Lockheed Martin just doesn't want to be in the "video game" business. They'll still gladly take your money, though.

It might possibly also have been one of the contract stipulations when Microsoft licensed the FSX code to Lockheed.

Its almost an obvious stipulation if you’re intending on continuing the franchise.

Didn't even think about that angle, but it makes a lot of sense.

Funny thing is... they used to be.

https://segaretro.org/Lockheed_Martin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real3D

From https://prepar3d.com/product-overview/ :

> Prepar3D (pronounced “prepared”) is a visual simulation platform that allows users to create training scenarios across aviation, maritime and ground domains. Prepar3D engages users in immersive training through realistic environments.

For me the site slowed and then returned only database access errors. It seems they were not prepared.

Is there a way to run a demo version or otherwise try this out to make sure I want it before buying a full-fledged license?

On a related note-

Recent HN submission covering Geo-FS: a free, web-based, global satellite imagery flight simulator

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30345760

Am I missing something - what exactly makes this HN worthy? AFAIK Prepar3d has been around for a long time, and the headline is from 2021.

Does anyone have experience with its API? I use Microsoft AirSim for drone simulations, but it lacks fixed-wing aircraft physics. Having skimmed through Prepar3D SDK docs it is not clear if I can get images from the engine, not sure if it is possible to control aircraft from external code. Does anyone know if it is possible?

I play MSFS a lot with realistic add-on planes like the A32NX or the PMDG 737, even though the flight model isn't quite "as good" as XP or P3D, the visual dominance of MSFS adds so much to the immersion for me.

Well, I honestly put flight modelling over graphics every single day. X-Plane 11 might not be as good as MSFS in terms of graphics but everything else (i.e. the really important things) is.

For me, I am not a real pilot (yet) and can't really tell the difference in 99% of cases. Also, the fidelity of 3rd party addon planes in MSFS is just as good if not better than in XP.

Maybe I should give it a try again, then.

I heard somewhere it can be counterproductive to learn stick and rudder skills in sim, that sim time is better spent learning how to use instruments, automation, fly complex procedures like DME arc, etc. So maybe the fidelity of aircraft system models (vs aerodynamics) is also really important?

There's some amount of the physical feedback you get in a real plane (from resistance in flight controls to actual physical sensation of the movement) is not something you can get without a lot more sophisticated sim setup than most people will have at home and then also as you mention the model of the flight characteristics not matching the real airplane

There was a "flight simulator" ported from SGI GL to OpenGL+Windows when Microsoft embraced OpenGL. There were a small variety of aircraft in this program. I could take off in the 747, kill the engines and glide to a safe landing. Considering I have no experience whatsoever with real aircraft, that's probably not realistic.

With the successes of F-22/F-35, PAC/Patriot and HIMARS/M270 (each is an obvious top of the shelf product in its category) - is Lockheed now going after Boeing's professional flight simulator supremacy?

This looks about as good as heavily modded battlefield 1942. That's not saying it's bad sim software, but its look is behind the times.

It's based on an old version of MS Flight Simulator from around 2009 or 2010 or so.

The graphics aren't any worse than most multi-million dollar full flight simulators used for pilot training. Even better compared to some of the slightly older simulators.

Thing about multi-million dollar full flight simulators used for pilot training is, I doubt they're as concerned about having the latest picture perfect beautiful graphics.

This is corroborated by research into training for expertise. Simulations don't need much visual fidelity to be useful. At no point do you need to be fooled into thinking you're doing the real thing.

The important thing is that your mind and hands go through the right motions.

(This is useful knowledge! I have trained system administrators with simulations that basically amount to pen-and-paper role-playing with some screenshots interspersed.)

Indeed, in the older ones the graphics for any enroute flying are even completely missing. They'll by default get you into the clouds at 400 or 1000ft above ground level and come out at similar heights on landing. In between the front windows just turn white.

That's fine for learning to fly a 737, by that time it doesn't matter much anymore. But for earlier training it's too easy, because in the real world partial visibility and light effects in clouds cause much more disorientation than zero visibility.

the point of these expensive simulators is such that you can practice all the emergency procedures in the manual.

>This looks about as good as heavily modded battlefield 1942. That's not saying it's bad sim software, but its look is behind the times.

It's a modified FSX engine. So yes, about the same vintage as BF1942.

Not to be used for fun? Aww dang it

If you've bought a license, who's going to know? "Developing Mission Scenarios" is indistinguishable from "Flying the Cessna under the Golden Gate Bridge".

The question is more "Is it worth buying a Dev or Academic license"?

I’ve not got an edu license :/ so a dev one is one I’d have to do

"Accurate topography with regionally and culturally appropriate textures"

What does that mean?

They won't auto-generate thousands of replica KFC restaurants in rural Mongolia, as they did in Flight Sim 2004. If Google Image Search worked anymore, I'd link a screenshot.

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?48720-Giant-ch...

> culturally appropriate textures

'Culture' in the sense of human artefacts (buildings, etc) laid down on an underlying terrain. Such culture will be specific to particular regions of the world.

I would think things like roofs. If you're flying over Florida, make it "culturally appropriate" by making the roofs look like they are made of that tile rather than regular shingles.

Edit: There's a Florida joke in there somewhere but I'm not going there.

That's no fun, especially when I don't really know where you're trying to go with this one?

Speculating, things like crops and building decorations (if they have 3d buildings anyway).

Does it have crash/collision physics?

No, most modern flight sims refuse to implement them because they don't want to be branded a 9/11 simulator when someone would inevitably make a youtube video of them crashing into buildings.

Also the ones that use real planes have licensing from manufacturers to deal with, who don't want their planes portrayed being destroyed (similar to limited damage modelling in modern driving games with licensed cars).

You'll want a combat sim.

it’s not implemented because it’s a lot of work and doesn’t add to training value.

The time would be better spent on improving damage models

It's the new new economy when "Lockheed Martin" features a YouTuber to promote its commercial military software...