JimMack

She is definitely no a Scot, drinking pink champagne. Any Scottish lassie would be drinking Ironbru for breakfast, McKewens at lunch and whisky in the evening. Like your poem Crazy-Canuck! Happy Christmas all

If it is of interest, we have tested Black Shark with the MRCV, and it works brilliantly, if you can afford Ј1,500, but that cost includes pneumatic feedback etc. There are other cheaper options, see work being carried out by Urze.

A couple of comments about the cost of development. 1. Greystork's analysis of the tasks involved is a good summary for developing an AI aircraft, but do not underestimate the research work that is necessary even before even one line of code is written for a new aircraft. 2. The cost of development is not the base salary x manyears. If any of you are thinking of running your own business, and charge your time out at salary, then you will go bankrupt very quickly! As a rule of thumb you need take (salary+employment costs) x 2 in order to pay for all the overheads:- offices, management, sales and marketing, administration, taxes etc etc. Example: EA's financials for the last announced quarter (June 2007) Sales $395M Cost of Goods $137M Development $250M (note: in addition some development is charged to the Balance Sheet) Admin $153M [EA made a loss in that quarter, but will make it up in the next 2 quarters - holiday season) 3. A new AI aircraft does not make any revenue, unless the community would like to pay for it! 4. Russian labor costs for high quality programmers may ten years ago have been much cheaper than in the West, but now it is not significantly so - Try taking a shopping trip to Moscow to see what goods cost! 5. Game Development costs are now typically $5M-$15M spread across 1 -3 systems (PC, PS3, XBOX 360). Unfortunately not every title can get into the world top ten and sell 1M+ units, it is a risky business!

Have a look at the News section.

Have a look at the news section on the website.

My mistake in the interview, it was a bit busy at the show! Next aircraft is planned to be A-10, not Apache.

I have tried emagin which is 800x600. These are less resolution. Regarding emagin, I felt were OK for first person shooters, but for flying, the resolution was too low to read instruments accurately. However higher resolutions cost $X.000s, see http://www.stereo3d.com/3dhome.htm

Number of switches? Hi Trigger, In your plan for the Ka-50 pit, what is your estimate of the total number of active switches that you will be implementing? Jim

Great job Urze, you captured the mood of the show. For me, this was a very interesting show, as it was the first showing to the public in Europe of Black Shark. All categories of the public attended, experienced real fixed wing and rotary wing pilots, experienced "virtual" pilots of fixed wing and rotary, as well as the general public, adults and youngsters, who had probably never seen a flight sim on a PC. But the very interesting thing that we all noticed (Groove mentions it at the end of his interview with me), was how quickly youngsters of between 8 and 12 years old instinctively undertood how to fly a helicopter. It took them about 2 minutes to understand the use of collective, cyclic and pedals to change speed, height and direction. Much quicker than adults who had pre-conceived views/opinions. Admittedly I was manning the PC on the right that was set to "Easy" mode, but nevertheless, impressive. Must be the "console" generation that we all hear about!

Oops - quite correct! 3.4GHz!

I do not know if this is of any help, but I am testing on a laptop with the following spec, and am getting 20 fps:- Intel 3.4Ghz, 1GB, Geoforce 6800 256Mb. Of course there are still many goodies to be added to the code/graphics so I will have to see what happens when we go code final.

There is no research work on this to my knowledge, but it can cause major spacial disorientation after a certain amount of time. Do a google search to check research work.

We have tested military spec Virtual Reality Kits - $25,000 to $50,000 each. Obviousely not as good as 360 degree domes that cost $Xm. Marginally better than 3 screens with TrackIR!

The US box has an ESRB rating. The UK box has a PEGI rating

To reinforce the comment made by GGTharos. On UK TV there was a program concerning the training of helo crews. Practice exercise was Merlin v Hawk. SOP for the Merlin was to hide in a valley, and if necessary land and evacuate! Similar situations happened in the Falklands - Wessex avoiding Pucara.

The spread pattern of rockets is like a shotgun. Useful against infantry to keep their heads down. Chances of hitting a particular vehicle is low. Check research sources on the internet of actual combat results.

I think it is possible that you are also interested in art. My wife and I visited Moscow in May, and visited the Tretyakov Gallery - fantastic. If you have local contacts for advice on hotels and restaurants, Moscow is not so expensive, certainly cheaper than London! Regards

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As you know, The Fighter Collection has many contacts throughout the world who are enthusiasts for restoring and flying 2ndWW aircraft. Many of these contacts are also interested in flight simulators. I have had an approach from South Africa, seeking to set up a community which will be interested in 2ndWW aircraft, LockOn and Black Shark. If anyone is from South Africa on this forum, and is interested in becoming involved, please could you send me a pm with your contact details. Jim Business Development TFC/ED Forgot to mention, contact in South Africa has a Tiger Moth, so if you want to experience real flying (not the simple fly-by-wire stuff of the modern generation!), join the South African community! Update: The South African community leader is SAtigermoth so pm him.

Our South African leader has now joined the community. SAtigermoth Please welcome him and those in South Africa, please contact him. Jim

As you know, The Fighter Collection has many contacts throughout the world who are enthusiasts for restoring and flying 2ndWW aircraft. Many of these contacts are also interested in flight simulators. I have had an approach from South Africa, seeking to set up a community which will be interested in 2ndWW aircraft, LockOn and Black Shark. If anyone is from South Africa on this forum, and is interested in becoming involved, please could you send me a pm with your contact details. Jim Business Development TFC/ED Forgot to mention, contact in South Africa has a Tiger Moth, so if you want to experience real flying (not the simple fly-by-wire stuff of the modern generation!), join the South African community!

Rich, as always, this is outstanding. I have flown the original mission several times, but only spotted 50%. It makes me want to visit the Crimea. Seriously, have you sent this to the Crimean Tourist Board, if such a body exists? With the historical commentary it is a great advert. Caucasus to come next? Jim

You can place a FARP for taking off and landing, only need about 100metres x 100metres of flat ground.

This option for a FAC has been available from day 1 for multiplayer in Flaming Cliffs. Create a mission where an object is placed near the target - I usually use a Pill box (so I cannot be killed - put a killable object, say a Hummer, then you will be killed if in line of sight of the enemy). In Multiplayer, choose the option for Observer. View the pill box with F12. Then press CTRL F11, and you get a view from the Pill Box. You can move around the Pill Box. You can then call in air strikes etc to your team mates flying aircraft.

Agree that changing mission parameters on the fly (during a mission) is a desirable feature. However the bubble concept is a no-go. The strength of the old Flanker/LockOn and the new DCS TFCSE (The Fighter Collection Simulation Engine) has always been that every object is tracked and recorded, down to individual cannon shells, and the results can be reviewed. This means in a complex mission, one can evaluate what is happening in a mission, even if it is not within the players/pilot "bubble". This is a very important feature, both for serious game sims as will as military simulations, when evaluating tactics and results in a complex mission. Accurate AAR (After Action Review) is an essential part of training and performance evaluation, both of pilots and commanders. I worked with Gilman Louie on the original Falcon (pre 1986), as the company I was running (Mirrorsoft) bought his company (Nexa, which was merged with Spectrum Holobyte to form the company Sphere). It was first published on the Mac, the PC (CGA graphics and then SVGA), Amiga, ST, and the bubble decision had to be taken right from the beginning, though we would have preferred otherwise, as we did not have CPUs or RAM that could cope with a non-bubble implementation.

Not certain about E for All - I was referring to European shows!