Unbroken Software

Review by popular YouTube channel Sim Hanger Flight Simulation. The review starts at 6 min 39 secs. One slight correction is necessary, the flight plan IS accessible in flight by bringing up the default map display (default key 'V'). If you want to see the NAVLOG within MSFS, you will need the Microsoft Markeplace editions, which were not published at the time of this review.

Andorra lacks an airport, so we take off from the nearest which is La Seu d’Urgell LESU at Catalonia in Spain, just 6 nm S of the border. LESU is a spectacular airport in it's own right, being positioned on a plateau.

Sydney's second largest airport, Bankstown YSBK, Custom scenery by Impulse Simulations.

Highly recommended. Many enjoyable details. Really brings the standard airport to life. I particularly enjoy flying past the radar and radio installations, the light towers and even the perimeter fence!

Looking at some of the custom objects in this scenery package.

Looking at some of the custom objects in this scenery package.

Comparing the standard MSFS 2020 scenery with the enhanced scenery offered in this package. You can see the startling transformation. The airport is very frame-rate friendly, I noticed no discernable difference.

" ... the largest war memorial in Italy and one of the largest in the world, housing the remains of 100,187 Italian soldiers killed between 1915 and 1917 in the eleven battles fought on the Karst and Isonzo front. Italy's fallen in World War I are commemorated at Redipuglia on 4 November of every year, by the President of the Italian Senate." - Wikipedia

Fortification dating back to A.D. 490.

14c.fortification located in the village of Duino on the cliffs overlooking the Gulf of Trieste. - Wikipedia

Principal church in the town of Aquileia, built in the 11c.

"25-metre tall monument and observation tower, harbouring precious treasures of history and art. This magnificent architecture is located at the heart of the natural amphitheatre, offering splendid views of all four points of the compass, namely of the Adriatic Sea, the Friuli Plains, the Julian Alps and the Vipava Valley."

""That Sierra 3-D Helicopter Simulation is so rare that no one at Sierra could find anything pertaining to it for me. Only one or two people even remembered hearing about it." - READ ON

Athens, Cradle of Democracy | Visit the the cradle of Western Democracy in sunny Athens. Marvel at the Acropolis, Parthenon and Theatre of Dionysius. Take a run on the beach at Marathon.

Flying a mission from "Slovenia 1".

"Hey... who needs texture mapping? Who needs colour, come to that!"

Dam Busters opened the bomb bay door to a new experience in Microsoft Combat Flight Sim 2, that of the bomber pilot. You need a different mindset than when flying the fighters. In the bomber accurate station keeping is everything on the final run.

My first experiment in flying the a/c by remote control, with a system kindly loaned to me by Q, "Kindly return it in the same condition", that Q! This turns out to be quite difficult, still, I felt I had to try some of the moves described in the F-14 TomCast on YouTube!

My first experiment in flying the a/c by remote control, with a system kindly loaned to me by Q, "Kindly return it in the same condition", that Q! This turns out to be quite difficult, still, I felt I had to try some of the moves described in the F-14 TomCast on YouTube!

The AA radar allows real intercepts to be made, commonplace in combat sims but a first for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004.

A lot of fun to fly in MSFS 2004. The fantastic cockpit made me feel like Microprose's legacy F-117 had been brought into the 21st century.

The F-14D Tomcat was released in September 2023 by DC Designs as a free upgrade to their F-14A/B product.

The F-14D Tomcat was released in September 2023 by DC Designs as a free upgrade to their F-14A/B product.

The F-14D Tomcat was released in September 2023 by DC Designs as a free upgrade to their F-14A/B product.

The F-14D Tomcat was released in September 2023 by DC Designs as a free upgrade to their F-14A/B product.

Note the name of the RIO.

The opening scenes to this 1990 flight sim from Activision are an accurate time capsule! The PC hardware of the day was only capable of displaying a limited number of polygons and colours, and the sound made good use of the latest sound card technology. Note that in the game you could also fly in cockpit view.

" Imagine Falcon - Imagine a few hundred square miles of fantasy. Imagine F-29. Imagine a few thousand miles of fantasy. Fly F-19. Fly over 409,600 square miles of reality. Fly fast. Fly the real thing. Over 3,300 missions possible. Graphical detail and depth of gameplay are claims made by others. Here they are reality. Fly F-19 soon on your Atari ST and Commodore Amiga."

"I wondered if this old Genesis sim F22 Interceptor at the Genesis Project was ported from a PC or Mac version?"

Total Air War (TAW) is an aptly-named product. More than a combat flight simulator, it offers a strategic component based on modern air warfare theories first applied in the 1991 Gulf War. It sported a spiral bound manual which included more than one hundred pages of detailed information on both allies and adversaries weapons platforms and systems.

Flying the "Beach Bonanza" mission from "Carribean 1".

Just over the border into Victoria, from New South Wales. | Su-57 by Deimos Inc.

Just over the border into Victoria, from New South Wales. | Su-57 by Deimos Inc.

Just over the border into Victoria, from New South Wales. | Su-57 by Deimos Inc.

Michael Woodley reported: ""In 1984, I was hired as the 4th engineer at subLOGIC Bruce Artwick, Dave Denhart, Charles Guy and myself were the entire engineering department there. I was hired specifically to develop scenery for all the Flight Simulators. | READ ON

World Airports 2 from Just Flight (2002) added scenery to the world's busiest airports in Microsoft Flight Sim.

The promotional material for this product was the epitome of design, really capturing the experience of being a private pilot.

El Gran Tour: Take off from Los Roques Airport and check out the many small islands of the Federal Dependencies of Venezuela.

El Gran Tour: Take off from Los Roques Airport and check out the many small islands of the Federal Dependencies of Venezuela.

El Gran Tour: Take off from Los Roques Airport and check out the many small islands of the Federal Dependencies of Venezuela.

Mach 1 photo session over lovely Ljubljana.

Mach 1 photo session over lovely Ljubljana.

Mach 1 photo session over lovely Ljubljana.

Promo video supplied by Ubisoft.

Promo video supplied by Ubisoft.

Promo video supplied by Ubisoft.

Promo video supplied by Ubisoft.

Contained an overlay for the Saitek PC Dash.

What a missed opportunity. The PC sim crowd expects more, especially from a sim with the Janes name attached.

" The following comments are added to give some idea of the depth of thought that was put into producing this amazing simulation and as a salute to the people who brought it to life. This is a simulation for those who are prepared to work, who enjoy success and the feeling of pride in achievement." - Don "Splash One" Beckley.

This expansion pack was presented in what is surely the apogee of retail packaging design. Besides being eye-catching and taking up little shelf space, opening it was an adventure in of itself!

MiGMan gave a Flight Sim Masterclass on the November 14, 2006 episode of Good Game which is presented by ABC - Australia's National Broadcaster.

Twin engined transonic jet trainer originally developed with Yaklovev. The Yak-130, with a similar form factor, entered service with the Russian Air Force in 2010. | M-346FA is the multirole variant pictured here. | A/c by India Fox Techo.

M-346 in Yak-130 livery

M-346 in Yak-130 livery

M-346 in Yak-130 livery

M-346 in Yak-130 livery.

Stills from our second Tiger Meet!

MiGMan and Flying Singer flew in Algeria and Greece, practicing station keeping and formation skills while talking about the state of flight sims.

Livery by Donka.

Cruise ~ 250 kts | Fitted with 4-way wide angle recon cams | Stable and reliable, has recorded over 700 videos for MiGMan’s World Tour and taken over 5,000 images. | Ac model by India FoxTecho. Livery by Donka.

Practicing formation takeoff, landing and cross IFR (I Follow Roads) with two MB-339's in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

I did make a couple of my own walkarounds, but you just can't beat the lighting and camera angles that MSFS gives us in the hangar view. No commentary, just an opportunity to admire this gorgeous aircraft!

"Make sure you go into Options->General->Realism->Flight Model and select “Modern” for the flight model."

The most popular operating system on home compters. Most flight sims resisted running inside windows until the late 1990's, but it soon became the norm. For developers and users alike WIndows obviated the need to deal with custom device drivers.

The bare metal livery beautifully reflected the sky, water and runway colours.

Weathered, realistic gauges and complex modelling. A 5 star workplace!

The external modelling is in the 4 to 5 star range, with the metallic livery pushing it more to 5 star, ACE!.

A 5 star aircraft for MSFS 2020.

Exploring regional N.S.W. in the MiG-29 by Deimos.

Bowral, Berrima and Mittagong are at the junction of greater Sydney and the Southern Tablelands. The area is a favourite weekend destination for Sydney-siders with it's charming manors, wineries, antique shops and tulip gardens.

Bowral, Berrima and Mittagong are at the junction of greater Sydney and the Southern Tablelands. The area is a favourite weekend destination for Sydney-siders with it's charming manors, wineries, antique shops and tulip gardens.

Kosovo Border Patrol | Wave the flag at Kosovo's border crossings with Montenegro, Albania and Macedonia.

One of MiGMan's wobbly test flights! I made this video back in The-World-Before-YouTube, when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
MiG-29 Fulcrum came out in 1998 bundled together with F-16 Multi Role Fighter. The idea was to promote dissimilar air combat at Novalogic's BattleSpace server.

It's hard to keep up with the MiG... very easy to get behind the aircraft.

I was busy as a one-armed paper hanger on final approach! Quite tricky to get the recommended 10 degrees AOA... more practice is the answer I feel.

This was tough... they shot at me (with live ordnance) ... I thought it was supposed to be a training sortie... ; -(
Check out the next video where I (hopefully) PASS this mission.

I think I only just scraped through this mission because the MiG-21's couldn't find me!

I passed the bombing, not elegantly but nonetheless, then a rudder failure meant trouble on landing... I mean WHO or WHOM parked a tank there?

I did escort the fighters successfully. My wingman did most of the work as I directed him via voice command. And then I took out the enemy AWACS (scratch one MiG-29...).
This is the first video I've made with voice control, using Voice Attack. I make so much more use of the wingman when I can simply talk to him rather than hunt around in the dark for keys!

A simple NAVEX turns into a Badger hunt!

Flight testing my ridgy-didge state-of-the-art hotas voice-controlled Fulcrum!
1. Pan view working and mapped to the HOTAS. Not TrackIR but pretty good for a 20 year old sim that doesn't support mouse look.
2. Voice control for control surfaces (flaps, gear, chute), wingman.
3. Draw distance? Can anyone help? I doubled the draw distance in the MIG29.INI file, but every time you enter the sim it overwrites it back to 26.
4. Low speed, high alpha
5. and... I didn't take the situation at the threshold seriously enough...

In this action packed and punchy edit I refly the mission which is becoming somewhat of a nemesis! But it's still a lot of fun.

Night flying! - - - Dangerous - - - Exciting! - - - Even more so when you're being shot at...
Actually the graphics in MiG-29 Fulcrum look stunning at night, and of course draw distance becomes irrelevant.
Enjoy this one!

Some Tu-160's turned up and put on quite the show with their four afterburning engines! ... Then we shot them down.

Second attempt at this bombing mission. The bombing is very forgiving in this sim... but then we ran into the most 'Top Gun' helo pilot of all time!
Then I shot him down. Eventually I shot him down.
I found the explanation for the 'Top Gun' helo pilot in the documentation for the mission editor. Flight models and aircraft models are independent... and the manual warns not to assign an F-16 flight model to a chopper... which is exactly what some wag at Novalogic did here!

Although not entirely representative of the graphics in-game, this video gives a good sense of the sort of action the sim seeks to engender.

It doesn’t get any better than this! Total realism as I flew under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Except for the bit about flying under the bridge. Previously to get anywhere near this level of detail for a particular locale you would have to purchase a 3rd party scenery pack and then suffer abominable frame rates. Not any more!

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 came loaded with historical aircraft covering the first 100 years of powered flight. Aircraft: 1903 Wright Flyer, Curtiss "Jenny", Vickers F.B.27A Vimy, Ryan NYP "Spirit of St. Louis", Ford 4-AT-E Tri-Motor, Model 5B Vega from Lockheed, Douglas DC-3, deHavilland DH-88 "Comet" and the Piper J-3C-65 "Cub".

A short flight by MiGMan created on the release of the sim in 2004.

A short flight by MiGMan created on the release of the sim in 2004.

A short flight by MiGMan created on the release of the sim in 2004.

Nearly every notable pilot of the day flew the Vega, using the theretofore unprecedented combination of speed and range to set record after record. A short flight by MiGMan created on the release of the sim in 2004.

Transcontinental Air Transport made headlines in 1929 when it reduced the travel time between New York and Los Angeles to a mere 48 hours.

A short flight by MiGMan created on the release of the sim in 2004.

I did some virtual barnstorming in 2004. In terms of fun this was as good as it got, and that was pretty good!

"Today we can easily imagine the exhilaration of that first flight, but we may not at first pause to consider the realities of the airborne experience: wooden propellors driven by bicycle chains, muslin-covered wings, an engine generating 12 horsepower. Takeoffs and landings are unpredictable at best, and the first successful flight lasted all of 12 seconds. The elegance of such astonishing success belies a crucible of self-sacrifice and daredevil perseverance."

The Comet carried all of its fuel in the fuselage ahead of the cockpit. This allowed for very thin, dagger-like wings...and very limited forward visibility.

A look behind the scenes at how artists and programmers create the clouds in the world of flight sim.

This is one of the most entertaining and clever ads I have ever seen for a software product.

Demonstrating just two of the many thousands of free 3rd party add-ons available for the Microsoft flight sims.

Breaking every rule in the book I fly under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, through a football stadium, and frighten the diners 60 floors up in Centrepoint Tower's revolving restaurant! Oh, and it's at night in a Vought Corsair, which Microsoft thoughtfully provided for us in every copy of Flight Sim 2004.
And then I land at Sydney International Airport... probably in the wrong direction...

I saw this beauty at Wellington aiport in June 2021.

I spotted a local MiG-29 at the airport. Also took a few shots from the lofty peak of Mount Ararat.

"This is a modification to the MSFS 2020 default Microsoft Pilatus PC-6/B2-H4 Turbo Porter aircraft, including all of the G950, Floats, and Skis variants. It is primarily aimed at improving the aircraft flight model to make its overall performance more closely match the actual aircraft, providing a much closer experience to flying the real aircraft. Multiple changes have been made to the flight model and engine parameters, as well as the weight and balance, which are all detailed in the Change Log file in the Documentation folder. A PDF copy of the actual aircraft POH is also included in the download under the Documentation folder."

Compare this to the same flight in Microsoft Flight Sim 2002.

The press kit at the launch of FSX contained some special items...

Demo trailer for Microsoft Flight Sim X show at the 2006 E3 trade show.

Acquired this in December 2022 and I am really enjoying it. The virtual cockpit scales nicely with my physical cockpit and it gives a really most immersive "you are there" feeling to the whole experience.

Tathra Beach is near Merimbula on the south coast of N.S.W.

Tathra Beach is near Merimbula on the south coast of N.S.W.

Tathra Beach is near Merimbula on the south coast of N.S.W.

In Mexican Livery at the gorgeous waters in the tropical quay of Santa Maria on Cuba's north coast.

Superbly modelled inside, outside, flight modelling and cockpit/systems functionality.

Superbly modelled inside, outside, flight modelling and cockpit/systems functionality.

Exploring the local environs.

Checklist from the sim.

5 star aircraft modelling by Asobo.

10 Real world Civil and Military paint schemes, Including Development model and Swedish SK61 and Youtube's "ALBA SKYS" G-ASAL

The developer has added all the fuel tanks available in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. This is a free upgrade and a gift to flight sim cockpit builders!

In early 2021, when I was developing the MiGMan’s World Tour series the MB-339 was my trusty steed. Reliable and stable in flight, and with good visibility, it helped me created hundreds of videos and take tens of thousands of photographs.In these images I used OBS to overlay my physical cockpit over the sim view. All the displays were constructed with the fantastic and user-friendly Sim Dashboard software, which I still use in late 2023 to display 5 pages of custom readouts.

I received this press release from Graph Land on Oct 28,1998:

I received this press release from Graph Land on Oct 28,1998:

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5 star aircraft modelling by Asobo.

If you aren't doing this all the time, it's difficult to remember the axis assignments.

Back in the early eighties a couple of Englishmen left their programming jobs with the Royal Air Force and in 1984 established their own company called Digital Integration. Their goal was to develop complex flight simulations for home computers that would be very advanced in flight modeling accuracy, graphics and attention to detail. MiGMan thanks their experience developing simulations for the RAF the enterprise got off to a very good start.

Flight sims based on concepts from the 'father of the techno-thriller', Tom Clancy. Promo video supplied by Ubisoft.

Promo video supplied by Ubisoft.

Promo video supplied by Ubisoft.

Promo video supplied by Ubisoft.

"The Enhanced Reality System is the core of the HAWX flight experience: aircraft interception trajectories, incoming missile detection, anti-crash system, damage assessment, tactical map, and weapons trajectory control. E.R.S. also allows players to issue orders to their squadron and other units." Promo video supplied by Ubisoft.

Promo video supplied by Ubisoft.

This series of add-ons created more realistic traffic patterns and density in the Microsoft Flight sims.

This was the "Save Boris Yeltsin" mission which was typical of the fun to be had in this series. The footage was shot in the 1998 Windows collection Fighters Anthology.

I nest these in each sim profile, as most comms are selected via a drop down menu with a numbered list.

I use them in Voice Attack to mimic the sounds of radio comms, with a bit of static and crackle!

My first impression of the TR160. Still at the unpacking and inspection phase.

View from the driver's seat in my F-14B cockpit. NOTE: The sound is not too good as my mobile phone was overwhelmed by the sound level. Apologies for that!

My view as I fly my MiGPit / F-14B variant over Muscat, capital of Oman.

Overview of my 5 MFDs. This may be useful to someone thinking of going this route with MSFS.

Specs for the sixth version of the MiGPit. a project that has been running since 1992.

Specs for the sixth version of the MiGPit. a project that has been running since 1992.

Added to the MiGPit in 2020.

Which.. I found rather confusing, so I made my own.

"I composed this fanfare in 2006 to promote a proposed Television series. "MiGMan Fanfare" (c) 2006 Peter Inglis. All rights reserved."

Peter "MiGMan" Inglis gave a Flight Sim Masterclass on the November 14th 2006 episode of ABC TV's 'Good Game'.

Some people have talked about the 1mm play in the joystick centre position as being a flaw. To my style of flying it's a bonus feature!