Oz Flight Sim Expo 2009

It has been two years since I blogged about the last Oz Flight Sim Expo. It was on again this weekend, this time in Brisbane, running over two days at Kelvin Grove. The venue was really easy to find and we parked in free carparking out the front. Entry was only $10 with my son getting in free.

The expo this year was a lot smaller than the last one at the Gold Coast. Maybe a fifth of the size. There were around five stands and the simming groups in their pits. It was pretty busy with the PC Aviator and Flight Sim Store stands selling flight sim software, books and controllers seemingly doing very well with large crowds around them and plenty of people spending money. It was actually pretty difficult to get to the Flight Sim Shop stand due to the crowd and it's immediate proximity to the entrance. Lots of people seemed to be buying the DVD version of the Orbx Australian scenery. It's great and Aussie made so that is really good to see. There also seemed to be lots of people snapping up Track IRs and the Saitek Pro Flight Switchboard. One bloke I bumped into when leaving had an unboxed CH Products Yoke he said he'd picked up in a very good deal. With my son in tow and big crowds around everything, I just didn't have much of an opportunity to talk to anyone unfortunately, something I really enjoyed at the last expo.

There were two multi-screen setups, one with the Saitek X52 PRO, the other with the new Logitech G-940. I had two objectives going to the expo - to have a play with a G-940 and to pick up a replacement TrackClip.



I did get to have a play with the G-940, it seemed pretty good but not as good as I was expecting. I really noticed the plastic feel and the lack of resistance including the buttons and hats compared to my Cougar. The dual throttle was pretty cool though. I couldn't get a Trackclip by itself unfortunately.

The highlight of the expo for me was the guys in their home made Akers Barnes pits - the VAAF running Black Shark and the 62nd Fighting Falcons running Falcon 4. There were projectors throwing up the gameplay all around the walls that was really eye catching and kept everyone's attention. My dodgey video:



Ruprecht from the VAAF had his very impressive pit with a lot of enhancements since the last expo including a triplehead setup and a monitor dedicated to running the ABRIS moving map for Black Shark. Something that worked really well was Mike Goldman from Channel Ten hosting the expo. When I was there he interviewed Ruprecht about his pit and that was great to listen to. Having something interesting over the PA was really excellent.

Here is Ruprecht's pit, sorry for the elbow, I'm the world's worst photographer:



There were the RAAF Virtual guys out the back flying F-18 in FSX, CKAS had some info but no working demo of their motion platform and Holdsworth Airline Collectables had diecast plane models for sale. Airborn computers had PC components for sale and there were some guys in pilots uniforms that must have been with Fly-a-Jet selling time in a airline Boeing 737 simulator.

While the expo was a lot smaller than last time, I'm really thankful to Ross Farquharson to have it on at all. I hope it comes back next year bigger and better. I'd really like to see Simworx, Iris Simulations. Orbx and Melbourne Flight Simulators come back into the expo with some stands. What would really rock is if all simulations were included and we saw people like Bohemia Interactive Australia get involved and some racing sims too.

Alice Springs to Ayers Rock

My second VAAF FS9 multiplayer flight was Alice Springs to Uluru (Ayers Rock).

Outback Australia is pretty empty, even with the VistaOz terrain. The Piper Warrior was way, way too slow for this sort of distance. It took bloody hours!! Definately a job for a fast jet!

VAAF Flight

The guys from the VAAF let me fly along with them last last night in a FS9 multiplayer session, my first FS9 multiplayer experience. Hamel from the VAAF came up with a really interesting flightplan, flying the Cloud9 Phantom in RAAF colours from RAAF Richmond, over Sydney, Woollongong, Nowra and landing at Canberra. Then down to Albury, Melbourne and ending at Avalon. The VOZ scenery makes the trip look absolutely fantastic with detailed airports and terrain.

Leaving Canberra

Down the coast

Meeting up with GY towards Avalon

I'm a FS9 novice and only bought the Cloud9 Phantom that day. I had a lot of trouble getting used to it - it requires you to make changes to power settings a while before you need them. And when the power is on it really starts to get going. Also when I applied power too fast on takeoff one engine slewed me to the right.

The VAAF guys were great navigators, using VOR and running instrument approaches. I'm really in awe of their skills and patience. I got a lot from the session - I got a good feel for what FS9 multiplayer is like and it provided a lot of motivation to learn the sim. I need to sort out my hardware and do a lot of practice in FS9 to do a better job next time.

The Cloud9 Phantom is excellent, it looks fantastic with a great set of textures, detailed 2D and 3D pits and well done animations including drag shute (U key with throttle off). We discovered the animations of dropping stores aren't visible to other aircraft in multiplayer.

OzFlightSim Expo

Ozflightsim expo at the Gold Coast last weekend. A two day event held at Jupiters Casino, I got down there on the Sunday early after a two and a half hour drive and pacing impatiently outside for half an hour till it opened. When I walked in to the hall the first thing I saw once my eyes adjusted to the cave-like darkness was a Simworx commercial F-16 sim pit. I did a double take and really said "holy shit!" out loud. I must have looked like a real goose with my mouth hanging open but honestly it was a whole lot more than I was expecting. Beside it was a Matrox TH2GO triple head LCD/Saitek X-52/Saitek pedals equipped flight sim pit, a copter pit complete with skids and a driving pit - and that was just Simworx stand!

Only problem with the F-16 pit was they were flying a F-18!

I was really surprised just how compact the F-16 pit is.

Tripleheaded LCD Microsoft FSX goodness.

The Simworx copter pit.

There was some awesome tech to get hands-on with and great people to talk to. I had good fly in FSX on the stand with the new Saitek yoke and throttle which confirmed that a yoke definitely isn't for me. I'm lucky enough to already have a Saitek X-52 and a stock Thrustmaster Cougar. I used the Saitek pedals for the first time and using the rudder and the differential braking using both feet took some getting use to - to my embarassment I managed to drive off the runway into the sea after pulling off a good landing in front of a lot of people watching. That stand was also using the Roccaport2 gaming desk.

There were many Matrox triplehead head to go (TH2GO) triple LCD setups (most running FSX) I flew two, one with a Buttkicker bass shaker (the type that attaches to the chair stem). The TH2Go was driving 22" or 24" widescreen monitors at a resolution that must not have been native (given the resolution limits of the TH2GO) but still looked great. I've got my own TrackIR Pro, but using it with a triplehead LCD configuration for the first time I thought it works even better as it felt more natural because you could actually look to the sides. One of the setups I flew the owner said was driven by the PC with "the sixth highest 3DMark score in the world". It had everything in FSX at max looking and flying very smooth, but it was flying the standard terrain - no scenery addons unfortunately. On my own PC I prefer FS9 with VistaOz to the current visuals of FSX, especially with the poor performance of FSX on my PC with details turned up.

There were several commercial flight and driving pits and SimKits gauges. I had a very close look at the Simkit gauges and software thanks to the very helpful Mike Speekman from Melbourne Flight Simulators on the Simpits stand. The stand had a complete Cessna replica pit like the one on the SimKits website.

The "Vipers Nest" had guys including the 62nd Fighting Falcons, 69th Wildcats and the VAAF running Falcon 4:AF multiplayer with their Akers-Barnes portable pits with a big screen showing the action and some great commentary from Michael "Loophole" Barnes of Akers-Barnes pit fame. Ruprecht from the VAAF had a highly customised AB pit with switches and a borrowed replica F-16 ICP (that link has his photos of the expo too). The elevated height of his pit compared with the stock AB pit seems like an excellent idea. I took photos and some video, but the hall was very dark and I didn't like hitting people with the flash, apologies for the poor quality of this vid:

Rupecht's Pit at the Vipers Nest

Vipers Nest

There was also a completely awesome Awesimulation COTT racing pit running the Bathurst race circuit in Rfactor with a 1500 watt Buttkicker and 2500 watt 15" woofer behind the seat. The Awesimulation CEO was a great guy to talk to very friendly and very knowledgeable on simming tech. He told me Awesimulation are modding the Rfactor physics and developing custom high-fidelity controllers to build pits for professional racing race drivers. For example they want to accurately reproduce the heaviness of steering at lower speeds and the exact feel of a real race shifter. I have to admit that when he got into the exacting detail of how the plates in the shifter works he lost me as I'm a auto-mechanical n00b!

There was lots of software for sale including every FSX addon imaginable including Flightdeck 5 released at the expo from the FlightSimStore and PCAvaitor stands. The FlightSimStore had a Buttkicker (I believe being used in the adjacent cockpit) and was taking pre orders. There was a demo of the upcoming Orbx TerrainX for FSX by the VistaOz guys (looking like an absolute must-buy) running on a huge curved screen. There were stands by VATSIM, RAAF virtual and virtual airlines (including Transload Virtual Airlines) amongst others from the flight simming community. The stands were staffed with very friendly people passionate about their simming.

IRIS Simulation had a stand showing off their range of FS addons. The founder and lead designer of IRIS David Brice was there working on the new PC-9 trying to get it done. He was nice enough to have a talk with me showing me around the PC-9, the reference materials he uses and even offered me a fly of the PC-9 on his PC (that I wasn't game to take up). The guys from VATSIM had what they told me was a complete replica air controller console setup and one very enthusiastic VATSIM guy encouraged me to sign up as a virtual air controller on the spot - "you can join up now on this PC right here!". The VATSIM controller had two large screens one showing the virtual airspace around Brisbane and one showing an overhead Brisbane airport in detail. There was also a small touchscreen display with a button pad to issue commands and the controller was issuing verbal commands via his headset mic:

VATSIM controller

For a first time event it completely exceeded my expectations in every way and I'm very grateful to the organisers and participants for delivering a really interesting event.

It cost only $10 to get in to the expo and I ended up buying a Trackclip Pro from the PCAviator guys that I got cheaper than I could buy it online. More on the Trackclip Pro later. There were a few things I was very keen on buying that weren't out yet. If TerrainX had been released I would have definitely snapped that up immediately. It really makes FSX look amazing and is supposed to improve performance over the normal FSX autogen scenery. There will be four separate zones to buy just for Australia and the first zone is $24.95 USD. The IRIS PC-9 looks very detailed and David Brice was nice enough to have a chat so that is on my gotta get list when it comes out. I've eliminated yokes from my PC flying future as I 've discovered I prefer a joystick and I might try resurrecting my dodgey homebrew rudder pedals before saving up for a Saitek pair. I was surprised that the CH Products MFD panel was nowhere to be seen. I guess it is just too early.

If you can make it to the expo next year I'd really encourage you to go to see great tech and have a talk with great people!