Hi guys, I'm still a new blood to flight sims and I was hoping you guys could help me out.

I plan to purchase the FSX gold version here in the next day or two and there are a number of things I'm a bit lost on.

First, beautification addons/mods. Are there any out there, are they free, where do I get them, which are the best to get etc.

Second, I'd like a Piper Cub to fly first and foremost, it's the one civilian plane I'm really interested in. I've think there's more than one Cub addon though so I'd like to hear opinions on which is the best version.

And anything else you'd suggest for a newcomer would be greatly appreciated; I'll be going through the FSX stickies and posts around here and I'm sure I'll find plenty of information from those as well.

Thanks.

Welcome to FSX!

First, try this performance guide:

http://www.simforums.com/forums/topic29041.html

Reading through the above stickies is a good start too.

As for pay-ware, must-haves are IMO REX2 HD, GEX and UTX. If you like flying in the NW USA and Canada or Australia, you can skip GEX and UTX and get the great ORBX sceneries. Both would be great terretories for flying in your Cub. I don`t have one, so I can`t comment on which is the best one.

If you like to have real-life airlines as AI planes, you might want to get one addon like TrafficX or the free WOAI.

For freeware, avsim.com is a good start.

Greets

Karsten

The A2A Simulations Piper Cub with Accu-sim is superb . The FSX/FS2004 addon resource thread has every freeware/payware site you will ever need !

I echo the Orbx PNW and AU recommendations for scenery.

For Piper Cub A2A Accusim is a good one and I have also heard good things about the Flight Replicas Supercub if you want your Cub with more power and other features like bush tires etc, that one is actually on my buy list soon.

Piper Cub:
A2A Simulations store--includes video overview and downloadable product manuals. Splurge and get the AccuSim expansion pack at the same time.

Yeah, $45 (USD) for the bundled package seems expensive--especially since FSX already comes with a Cub--but this is payware that is truly worth the admission price. Watch the videos and I think you'll be impressed.


Beautification mods:
After years of saying "the default clouds are good enough," I recently bit the bullet and purchased Real Environment Extreme and I've been very pleased with it. FSX simply feels more organic with it installed. The real-time weather engine has turned me into a budding weather nerd.

A good place to start for scenery is the free ORBX FTX demos. Both are well suited for exploring in a Piper Cub. Also check the Freeware tab for some additional toys.

Speaking of free sceneries, Take a look at the OZx forum for The Grand Canyon and other scenery packages.

I haven't committed to buying any of the ORBX FTX packages yet although they all are tempting. I'm currently using Ground Environment X for ground textures combined with Ultimate Terrain X for more detailed coastlines, waterways, roadways and night lighting. I also use the Scenerytech North America landclass because I like how it represents the region of the USA where I live.

Thank you guys, been looking at lots of stuff today and I think I'm starting to get it.

I'll be getting the ORBX north west stuff and the A2A or accusim cub, not sure which but I do want the bush tires.

"AccuSim" is a realism expansion for the A2A Simulations "Wings of Silver" Piper Cub model. The basic package is very good and comes with versions equipped with Tundra tires and with floats. The AccuSim expansion adds realistic engine behavior, physics, artificial intelligence for your passenger, etc. to the experience and really gives it 'soul.' If you buy both parts together at the same time you get a small discount.

btw. I you like bush-flying I recommend using fseconomy. It`s a web-based free app which adds economy to FSX (works with x-plane and FS9 too). You can rent and own a/c, pick up jobs (Pax or freight), get v$ for it and have to maintain fuel and maintenance.

If you want, you can run your own network of FBOs and getting a member of a group or found one yourself, the possibilities are endless.

Adds a lot to flying and the long-time motivation. It`s a little confusing at the beginning, but it finally gave a meaning to flying for me. If you have questions, feel free to ask.

All you have to do is requesting a account on the forum and installing the small client.

www.fseconomy.com

Is this like an external app or is it a mod in game? Sounds like a good way to keep me entertained after I learn to fly the cub.

This is a small app, which only transmits the data of your flight ( from x to y, monitors the fueluse and the endurance of the flight and the load etc.) to a server, where the database of FSE is running.

When you have configured your flight in the client (or in the browser, IMO more comfortable), which has to be started seperately from FSX, you have to start the flight from within FSX (there is a only a new menue point in the addons section, where you have to click "Start Flight"), fly to your destination and set the Parking Brake. At this point, the client submits where you landed and calculates the renting costs, the fuel use, the income etc.


Here is the manual:

https://sites.google.com/site/fseoperationsguide/

Okay thanks, I'll read up in the manual and check it out.

Can anyone recommend some other payware aircraft I should check out? The only civil aircraft I know I want to fly is the Cub, I'm not interested in airliners, jets or military aircraft but helicopters and smaller propeller driven planes are what strike my fancy if anyone has some recommendations.

If you are interested in Cessnas and stuff, Carenado is worth watching I think (I haven`t any though).

A good workhorse for FSE is the F1 Pilatus PC12 (10 Pax, can carry a lot freight, is fast and land and take off on short runways, I often call her a big Fieseler Storch. Not too demanding on the Hardware too: http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=fsxpc12

Then I own the DA Piper Cheyenne, nice A/C with buil-in weather radar and good sound, also not too demanding on the hardware: http://www.digital-aviation.de/site/?page_id=5

The best twin-engine Turbo-Prob on the market right now is IMHO the PMDG BAe JS4100 Jetstream, very good VC, very good modelling of the systems, but hits the Hardware hard: http://www.precisionmanuals.com/pages/product/js4100.html

may as well take down this thread lol

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3282414/FSX_FS2004_addon_resource_thre.html#Post3282414

It is a good resource Dave, it just seems every once in a while we get a thread which has the added input about which add-ons each of us find most useful and we want to help new people get on the right track.

I've actually been thinking about that recently, asking what add-ons other hardcore FSX users would not fly without, I sometimes wonder if there is some really good one I don't know about or don't use... should we do that kind of discussion on the resource thread? or on it's own?

Yeah on it's own imho. If anyone knows of other sites i'm all ears or post in that thread and let everyone else know.

The list in that thread are sites i've been to and majority of i've downloaded something great from.

RealAir Simulations has a good reputation. You should look at their site as I see some products there that might appeal to your interests:
http://realairsimulations.com/list_box.php?page=products

Just got the game and installed everything I got for it, can someone tell me how to start free flight with the engine off and everything.

Go in game and shut engine down ctrl-shift-F1 then exit. Next time you go back into free flight the engine should be off.

I just spent the last 2 hours trying to get the cub to start, no matter what I do it will not go. Even if I click auto start the engine won't stay going for more than a second. I followed the instructions on the site and even followed a video step-by-step and it will not fire. I've got auto mixture and everything the manual says to switch on/off as it should be but it will not start.

Help us to help you. Are you using the default FSX Cub or an add-on Cub like A2A's? If you are using the A2A Cub, do you have AccuSim installed?

And do you have the Acceleration expansion installed?

It seems to be working now, I'm not sure what was going on but I exited out and selected a different cub and it worked out fine, I shut the engine off, set all controls to off and then redid the startup procedure and it started right up so I don't know what was going on.

Maybe you can tell me how to turn on V-sync though?

Nope, now it's not working again and I keeping getting a "please restart FSX" dialog in red on screen.

Also it seems like my controls sometimes just get disabled somehow when I start a free flight and I have to end the flight and restart to get them to work again.

Oh forgot to answer your question, I'm using the A2A cub and the accusim expansion, I have acceleration too.

My question about whether you have Acceleration installed was actually so I could know if you are updated to FSX SP2. Acceleration automatically installs the service packs' material, which is necessary for the A2A aircraft to work correctly. You should be good there; I don't think this is the source of your problem.

First, be sure that you have the realism settings marked exactly like the Cub's instructions suggest, especially the part about disabling the automixture. The AccuSim aircraft bypass a lot of the stock FSX coding and with some of the AccuSim planes the engines will wheeze and pour smoke and even catch fire if you leave the automatic mixture enabled.

The AccuSim aircraft have persistent maintenance states between flights; if you broke your engine early on the plane will still be broken the next time you load it. To fix this, open the Maintenance Hangar panel (Shift+7) and click the overhaul button. That should reset your plane to a 'like new' condition.

Next, make sure you have gas in the tank. I think the load manager panel is Shift+3. I don't know why you'd have an empty gas tank so soon but this is an easy thing to eliminate as a problem so you might as well just look.

If the above conditions are met (Acceleration installed, realism settings not using automixture, the engine is overhauled and in good order, there is gas is in the tank) you should at least be able to autostart the aircraft. If the autostart (Control+E) doesn't fire up the plane, try switching to a stock plane and then back to the A2A Cub.

By the way, there is a 1.1 update patch for the Cub. If you haven't downloaded it yet, go to the A2A Simulations forum.

Erm, I just read this part. It seems like a larger issue is going on and FSX is not playing nice with your computer. I don't know what is causing this.

Okay so I figured out what was wrong, I forgot about the deteriorating engine part so I apparently did something wrong earlier on that damaged the engine and didn't know I could reset it in the Shift+7 menu; now that I have it starts up fine so problem fixed there. (I see you mentioned that in your post)

The error I'm getting reads "SimConnect has encountered an error, please restart FSX" It only seems to happen after I load into free flight multiple times in a row and after I restart all is well. It also seems that when this error happens it causes my controls to cease functioning, atleast the last time it happened it did.

Another question, are any of the default FSX planes considered realistic? I've certainly never flown before so I can't say definitively but everything from the stock game I've flown seems really weirdly floaty, the Cub is able to go into a steep climb right after take off and recover no problem like I've seen a Super cub do in videos and when I first loaded it up I nearly passed out laughing at how ugly the stock cub is compared to the A2A cub.

As I understand it, SimConnect is Microsoft's own interface that allows other developers to 'plug in' to FSX and fully use its features. See this thread about 'SimConnect Error' and the A2A Cub.

I can't speak to the realism of any of the FSX planes as I've never piloted a real aircraft either. I do agree that the stock Cub has an ugly interior and that it seems to have a questionable flight model.

It's too bad the A2A cub doesn't have cockpit shadows

btw.

there is a trick to avoid strange problems especially with complex A/C:

Choose one of the default A/C f.e. the Cessna, and start a free flight, bring A/C to the wanted condition f.e. cold and dark. Then save this flight as the default flight.

When you want to fly your addon A/C, load the new default flight first and do flight planning from within the flight, read when 3D has loaded. Then choose your addon A/C.