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Fly!
...continued

There are five primary scenery areas, each covered with 25 meter Landsat imagery. The engine then selectively inserts 10 meter and five meter imagery at major airports, or other areas where ground activity is critical. "Our ground elevation model can support post spacings anywhere from every 256 feet up to over 10 kilometers per post," Harvey explains. "We scale the coverage around the world and place higher resolution post spacings within our scenery coverage areas, and broader spacings outside these areas. In time, particularly once we release our file formats, users will be able to import high detail elevation data wherever they want."

Something that is stirring up a lot of discussion among general aviation enthusiasts is the meticulously detailed cockpit interior. It is more than wallpaper; it is a powerful interface augmentation that includes fully functional avionics and radio stacks in the original manufacturer configuration and layout. Pilots will now have total control over all aircraft systems. "Real pilots will tell you the FAA could care less if you have fun looking at scenery when flying an aircraft," Harvey stresses. "The primary study of flying an aircraft is learning radio navigation and instrument use. Many students even practice with shielding visors so they are not able to look out the window for visual reference. They must learn to fly on instruments alone."

Given the critical importance of the instruments, Terminal Reality thought it would be clever to do them in detail, particularly in the radio stacks. "Our competitors feel some items in the original aircraft are more important that others," Harvey continues. "We feel that if the manufacturer put something on the primary panels, it is probably there for a reason, and should be usable by the pilot." This also means that, in many cases, one panel is not enough. Most of the larger aircraft offer a combination of panels, including primary, overhead, floor, and side. Each of these can be fully scrollable with any number of interactive knobs, switches, and gauges. Without a doubt, no product has come as close to matching the look and detail of FLY!'s cockpits.

With its inherent complexity, it is obvious the simulation will appeal to serious general aviation pilots, but will it be approachable by novices? Harvey promises that although the sim doesn't have a built-in flight trainer, the designers do offer many shortcuts and help items so beginners can slowly become accustomed to the aircraft. "A beginner would probably be insane to jump into the turboprop or business jet and try a full start-up sequence without first training on the single and twin engine aircraft," he warns. To help beginners learn the basics, FLY! will offer built-in scenarios that place each of the aircraft in pre-defined states, such as starting on the runway with the engines on, or in the air, or in final approach. The product will also come with a comprehensive printed manual that covers the basics and theory of flight, and focuses on using the various systems.

All of this detail and interactive realism has a strong pull on the processor, and a rugged system will be required to get the most out of FLY!. In fact, the minimum specifications call for a mid-level Pentium PC with a 3D accelerator. The product will support a variety of APIs, including Microsoft Direct 3D and 3Dfx Glide, and take advantage of AGP-based video cards. The programmers are adding polish to the visuals as time allows, including lens flares, beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and full environment mapping on the planes, enabling the sun, clouds, and ground to reflect off the surface of the fuselage and wings. As if that were not enough, the correct moon placement and phases have been modeled, and the 400 stars brightest to the naked eye will be in their correct positions for the time of day, year, and viewer location.

The remainder of the core technology will be just as solid. There will be force feedback support, as well as full Internet multiplayer support. In addition, all components, including the scenery, aircraft, cockpits, imagery, and more are designed to be modifiable. Terminal Reality will release the file specifications and editors to the public shortly after the initial release.

During a recent visit to TRI, I asked their marketing director, Jeff Smith, to explain the goals of the design team. He motioned to a stack of opened game boxes that included all the top notch flight simulation titles. "That is our competition," Smith admitted. "We are not shipping until our simulation is better than each one of those titles." The team has worked diligently to bring the various components of the flight experience together in one product. Based on what I have seen, FLY! will give both the beginner and the advanced enthusiast a great flight experience, one that focuses on the details sorely missed in other PC flight simulators.

 

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