WOW. First impression is amazement at how much money some people will spend on their sims. Saw an advert for a 737 simulator at 65 000 Euros (NZ $142 000), but there were many simmers there who had clearly spent a FORTUNE on their set ups. Saw some VERY big computer set ups, it seems like one 'normal' computer is not enough, and some simmers even had triple fans and watercooling towers as well. Add to that some hi-fi systems that I would be very happy with just to listen to music on, multi-screen set-ups (8 was the largest number of screens that I saw for one sim set up) and some very expensive projection gear as well showing that there was a lot of money in some places.
The most surprising fact was that nearly all the demonstrations were done using FS9 and Windows XP. I came away thinking that FS9 still has a lot of life left in it, having seen what it can do when tweaked to the maximum, and that XP rather than Vista is the way to go. I spent a long time watching one simmer who had an enormous computer set up, but the results on screen showed why. You could even see the flowers in the grass, and the quality was wonderful. Got talking to him, and he showed me some of the tweaks that he had used, and then I realised that it was FS9!!! Wow.
Lots of trade stands as well, including the main ones like Flight1 and Aerosoft. Great place to have the show as well, in the Aviodrome aviation museum, as you could keep popping outside to see the flying and historic aircraft outside. Highlight there was an ex KLM 747 200 which you could go into, and also a Lockeed Constellation. Back inside, the main cinema had been given over to flight simulation, so you could watch giant FS on multi-screens. Combat Flight Simulator looks very impressive when watched on a cinema screen!! They also had real life pilots demonstration FS add-ons, such as the Fokker 70, again on the 'big screen'.
Another very interesting section were the full motion displays, some home built and others commercially available. There are some very talented home builders, who seemed quite happy to design all the electronics to run the systems, up to full 6 axis motion simulator. Made me think that I should have kept my meccano kit (remember those??) as the parts would have been useful. One builder had used electric motors and gears instead of hydraulics, interesting.
A view of one of the halls inside:-
Some of the simmers were very young!!:-
A shot of the 8 screen sim set up:-
The sort of things that were on display:-
One of the full motion displays, this one from flightemotion.com:-
So a great day out, time now to have a look at the goodies that I came away with.....
smooth landings.
Forgot to add....
The girl in shot number 2 did actually land the plane, even if it did bounce a bit!!
smooth landings.
only joking , The'Aviodrome aviation museum' great venue for a flightsim show .
