Just Flight & Just Trains blogs

Forgive me Simmers for it has been a while since my last confession… In my defence I plead absence rather than neglect. Over the last few weeks I have enjoyed a splendid holiday in the Lake District and endured a weeks First Aid training in a grubby little community centre.Firstly to some simming matters. It came to light via our user forum that the 747-200 Ready For Pushback software was released as a freeware package by the developer. I have to say that this news came as a total surprise to us. After much talk of whether we should pull it off sale or carry on selling it we have decided to keep it on sale but at a reduced cost. As this title features more models, liveries and tools than the freeware version not to mention the highly detailed 300+ page printed manual, DVD media and technical support that you also get with the payware version, we hope you agree that it still represents value for money? Answers on a postcard I guess?

Traffic X - Latest info

Knowing that I couldn’t possibly make a blog posting without mentioning Traffic X somewhere (you Trafficophiles wouldn’t stand for it), here is an expansion on my comments from a few days back.
In answer to various questions posted on our user forum, yes, ALL a.i. aircraft will be compiled using the latest FSX SDK (software development kit) to achieve the best possible results. The most important being a very substantial increase in frame-rates over FS2004 spec a.i. aircraft. A typical example being a snapshot of Heathrow airport. Using FS2004 spec aircraft the average FPS was around 15fps whereas the reworked FSX spec versions were giving a steady rate of 28fps. Certainly not to be sniffed at I’m sure you would agree.
This is something that should really set Traffic X apart from other similar products currently on the market. All others currently on the market, including those requiring you to pay out for an upgrade, simply dump the old FS2004 a.i. models into FSX. Many even cause problems such as ship/boat traffic to be disabled (anyone thinking of complaining about the FSX version of Traffic 2005/Traffic at this point should visit the support page at www.justflight.com and download the update for this :-)) .
As I’ve mentioned before we are going to have an upgrade version available for existing Traffic/Traffic 2005 users. We haven’t yet made the details known as we are waiting for a firm date from the devs.

Martyn’s holiday - Back in the saddle

Tis the season for everyone to pack their bags and head off in search of some sunshine, lets face it - finding any around these parts has been an impossible task for most of this year.
As an aside, trying to get anything done at this time of the year is an uphill struggle. Worse in my opinion than Christmas. It seems like every time I pick up the phone to give someone a call the result is invariably that either the person I am trying to get hold of is away or that they are unable to get anything done as so-and-so is away from the office and they are waiting on something from them before they can help. Similarly, any email involving more than three reciprocates seems to result in at least one “Out of Office” reply.
If I was boss then all holiday leave would be cancelled… and Christmas to boot!
They biggest impact on me is that due to Martyn being away and with Simon busy flying up and down the coast of Wales (virtually) whilst debugging VFR Real Scenery Volume 3, I have found myself reprising my role in the technical support department. Its always nice to keep your hand in and its been a good chance to get back down amongst the nuts and bolts of customer support in order to re-evaluate the things that we could be doing better and also to remind myself of the things we do well!

Duxford Airshow

This weekend (8th & 9th September) brings the penultimate airshow of the season at Duxford. If you haven’t any plans for the weekend then I would highly recommend taking a trip over. Not only are the Red Arrows and the BBMF going to be there but so will Just Flight. Hope to see you there!