Drawing on 20 years of experience developing award-winning software, the Microsoft Flight Simulator team commemorates both the centennial and its own aviation milestone with the release of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight.
Key New Features
- Dynamic weather system based on realistic atmospheric physics, with true three-dimensional clouds that form and dissipate, and automatic real-world weather updates when you're connected to the Internet.
- Weather “themes” that generate a wide variety of stunning—and challenging—flying conditions with just a few clicks of a mouse
- Enhanced interactive air traffic control (ATC), including traffic at all airports around the world (including non-towered airports), altitude changes en route, pop-up IFR clearances, and precision and non-precision approaches to multiple runways
- Interactive 3D “virtual” cockpits—tune radios and operate key aircraft controls and avionics by pointing and clicking in the virtual cockpit view.
- Scenery improvements, including taxiway and runway signs, enhanced auto-gen 3D objects, more high-detail airports, and improved lighting and sky effects
- Garmin 500 and 295 series GPS with color moving maps and airport/facility information
- Improved full-color map view with terrain display
- Improved support for 3D graphics hardware acceleration in multiple windows and across multiple monitors
- Learning Center--a “Web site on the disc” available while the simulation is running that includes a Key Topics visual guide to the features in Microsoft Flight Simulator, direct links to flights and lessons, flight briefings, how-to procedures, aircraft handbooks, and more.
- New and expanded lessons and ground school topics
- Kiosk mode for unattended demonstrations
Core Features from Previous Versions
- Worldwide scenery with accurate 3D terrain and auto-gen objects that fill in the world with appropriate buildings and vegetation no matter where you fly.
- Jeppesen NavData database, including VORs, NDBs, ILS, low- and high-altitude airways, intersections
- Approximately 24,000 airports worldwide (increased from about 22,000 in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002).
- Flight planner to create realistic VFR and IFR flight plans and navigation logs
- Flight analysis to play back a flight on a moving map that shows ground track, key flight data, and a vertical profile
- Instructor's station--link two PCs so that one pilot can observe a Flight Simulator session, change weather, fail systems, and provide comments and help via a chat window.
- IFR training panels for selected aircraft that include all key instruments, avionics, and controls in one window for realistic IFR flights.
- Multiplayer capability over a local network or the Internet.
System Requirements
- Windows PC
- 2000/XP – 128 MB Ram
- 98/Me – 64 MB Ram
- Processor:450 MHz minimum
- Available hard drive space:1.8 GB
- DirectX 9 or later (included with Microsoft Flight Simulator: A Century of Flight)
- Video card: 8 MB/3D with DirectX 7.0 or later drivers
- Other: mouse, joystick/yoke, sound card, speakers/headphones
- Online/multiplayer: 56.6 kbps modem or LAN