A big deal for a small price!
One of the many clever innovations within FSX is the
interactive mission. It gives the virtual pilot an
immediate fix for something to do and a challenge to beat
the machine. This new feature has opened the door to
countless FS fans and developers to genuinely put their
stamp on the program. With the release of the SDK
and subsequent update the information is there for
anyone to exploit and is leading the way for many new
smaller developers to be able to offer a product to the
voracious flight sim market.
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The overview
screen, setting the objectives |
EuroFSX is
one of these companies, when I saw the release of this title from I
thought yes! it sounds like a great idea for Ryanair,
737 and
missions fans.
The
program is advertised as having 30 missions on Real
Ryanair routes, 4 Ryaniar repaints for the default 737
flyable in their own right, detailed charts and airport
images.
The program is available from SimMarket as a CD or
download (71Mb) all for the very reasonable price of €15
+ VAT if applicable. The installation was painless
enough, using the familiar
Clickteam install creator that also installs an
un-installation option too.
The
missions are stored in their own subfolder along with
the flight plans and en-route weather files. The
aircraft is a copy of the Microsoft default but is
loaded into it's own folder called Ryanair_737 so does
not interfere in anyway with the default.
The
program runs seamlessly within FSX using the Missions
interface. All the flights are classed as "Expert"
skill level, I think this is an ambitious
description, I think they could be classified mostly as
"Intermediate" or "Advanced" with maybe one or two being
expert. Even for my moderate flight sim skills
some of the missions were a little too easy. I
suppose these shuttle flights would be quite easy in
real life too with a short hop over from Dublin to Leeds
Bradford taking under an hour.
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30 missions to
choose from, don't be daunted by the "Expert"
rating. |
Nice Google
interface, with map of destination, handy if VFR. |
Anyone
familiar with the missions interface will be at home
with the set up, Flight numbers, title and skill level
to the left and a picture and description of the mission
to the right. Some of the descriptions were enticing
such as the FR5203 flight from Milan to Frankfurt-Hahn.
"FR5203 Ryanair Orio Al Serio (LIME) to
Frankfurt-Hahn (EDFH). Its back to the winter here. An
early morning flight with bad Snow fall and winds. This
will intale a very tricky approch." (I have
left in the spelling mistakes). To the more mundane
"FR7072 Dublin to Porto Fly from Dublin to Porto.Depart
09.20 arrive 12.00" OK will do.
We move
onto the briefing, Nice picture of Ryanair 737 with an
estimated time to complete and the flight objective. On
the details tab you get the destination airport facility
information which can be re-called in the flight and an
approach and ILS chart with some nice detail. On the
Maps and Charts page the same approach chart is shown
and a snazzy little feature that interfaces with a live
feed to Google Maps (So long as you are connected to the
internet) and shows a satellite image of the destination airport
environs, this is scalable as it would be if you were on
the website. Also, there is a link to the
destination airport website, for some interesting info
on your destination, you can even use the hyperlinks on
the page to go off elsewhere. I landed up on Ryanair's
own site where I checked the time tables. Sadly,
although the flight numbers and destinations are real
they are not matched in a true to life combination.
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Radar and radio
frequencies overview. |
In flight arrival
check. |
So we move
onto the flight, you are given the mission overview and
the flight is commenced after releasing the parking break.
The aircraft engines have to be started, this can be
done whilst listening to the pre-flight check list and
the route is automatically entered into the GPS.
From here
on you start using the standard FSX ATC, asking for
clearance etc IFR to your destination. There are taxi
checks whilst on your way to the active, pretty much
real life stuff.
Once in
the air you follow the ATC vectoring most of the way to
your destination. Once on approach she will guide you in
automatically if that's what you want. On one flight where I was following
the ATC commands, I noticed that I was nowhere near the
GPS route, the system was happy for me to keep on a
course without warning, part of the Missions SDK
does allow interaction from the mission to tell you you
have gone off course but this did not happen so I had
wasted a little time. I chose to divert to a nearby
airport.
This does
highlight some of the shortcomings, the missions are
fairly bare bones, there's not much interaction back
from the mission. In flight you get some of the captains
announcements but most of the chatter is with the ATC.
Of course there are the check lists before descending to
keep you occupied. Another small niggle was the ATC id
was "Boeing 925" which I thought could be better if it
read "Ryan FR125" so I edited my aircraft config as it
is in it's
own folder to "atc_airline=Ryan" "atc_flight_number=FR125" and I was much happier.
The
mission ended once I had touched down although in the
initial spoken briefing it said I had to taxi to the
gate, I did that anyway.
When the
flight had ended and the mission successful page is
shown you are not given any award, initially I felt
deflated but then thought hey, what the heck I'm a Ryanair pilot it's my job!
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Another mission
chalked up! |
Hertz, once of the
4 supplied re-paints. |
I have
flown a few of the missions and now that I am used
to it I have the bug for for more missions!
I had to
contact the developer on a couple of occasions as the
review copy they supplied had several cosmetic faults,
they supplied a upgraded version extremely quickly and
were very helpful in their support.
So in
conclusion, it's a fairly basic package with a few odd
frills to keep you happy. I was rather annoyed at how
many spelling mistakes there were as it distracted my a
bit from the task in hand, but that's me, I proof read
every thing I see!
I think
what would perk it up a little would be the odd
diversion or failure but I never came across one. What
we have to keep in mind is that this is very good value
for money.
The future
for EuroFSX, well they have just released Air Lingus
Airbus 321 with 24 missions and 10 747 missions in early
90's livery. I think I may just go along and pick
this one up too!
Mutley's slide show, click on the images for a
full size view. |
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The missions
screen
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Mission overview
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Runway and radio details
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Maps and
Charts page |
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Google Maps interface
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Leeds Bradford Airport web
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ATC window before edit of aircraft.cfg |
Radar
information
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Taxi checks
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Short hop over the North Sea
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In-flight check on arrival data
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Descending
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Gear down on finals
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Bump and plenty of smoke to let
everyone know we have landed! |
Another successful mission
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No reward :(
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Liveries:- Ryanair standard
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Hertz rental
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Kilkenny (Yum Yum!)
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Vodafone
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My review machine
specs: |
EuroFSX
737 Links: |
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Self build:
MSI Intel 975X PCI Express Motherboard
Intel E6600 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo
4x 512Mb DDR2 667Mhz PC5400
Nvidia 7900GTX 512Mb DDR3 PCI-E
Windows XP Pro SP2
FSX with Photoscenery Fix |
EuroFSX web site |
737 Missions page |
SimMarket product
page |
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