Category: X-Plane - Original Aircraft
B17 Flying Fortress

File Description:
The B17 is arguably the best known heavy bomber from WWII. Followed closely by it's direct successor the B29 SuperFortress it symbolizes the best of WWII's heavy Bombers. The B17 was one of the planes that barely made it into the war. In 1934 the then very small Boeing company had a prototype four engined bomber design called the B-299 but it had not been ordered by the US military. It had suffered several serious setbacks in it's design competition including a crash during a fly-off. Boeing continued work the plane and eventually secured a small service test order and the troubled early history of the bomber began. The B17 and bombers like it were planes created as "strategic bombers". The essential idea was that a strategic bomber should be able to carry a very large payload for long distances. The military had come to the realization that bombing technology was by nature imprecise even with new advances like the American Norden sight, and what was required was a large number of bombs delivered by large number of planes to assure that a target was destroyed. Although the Germans actually had a decent "smart bomb" and the British built specialty bombs, neither was reliable, so it seemed the best idea was just to blanket the target with bombs. An American extension to this concept was that of a self-defended bomber. Bombers could be built so tough and with so much defensive armament, it was thought, that they could simply fly to the target, drop bombs, and if necessary fight their way through fighters to get home. There would be security in the large number of bombers in formations, and the defensive capability would allow bombers to fly during the day for better accuracy in drops. It was to this design concept the B17 was built. Early experiences in the war with B17's and B-24's could only be termed as disastrous. Loss rates of up to 25% showed the concept of unescorted bombers in daytime to be entirely wrong. Escort fighters were a necessity for success. It soon became apparent that with fighter cover the B17 really was an unparalleled strategic bomber. Success for the B17 shot up dramatically, and it's initial design specifications of huge amounts of armor and gunner positions served it well when fighters did make it close in. The Fortress had enough strength to stave off attackers until escorts showed up, and it became legendary for the incredible punishment it could take and still make it home. Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress Wingspan: 103 ft. 9 in. Length: 74 ft. 9 in. Height: 19 ft. 1 in. Engine: 4 x Wright R-1820-97 Cyclone rated 1,200 hp. Loaded Weight: 65,500 lb. Maximum Speed: 287 mph. Service Ceiling: 37,500 ft. Combat Radius: 1,000 miles Armaments: 6,000 lbs. of bombs, 12 x .50 cal. machine guns

Filename:	B17_Flying_Fortress.zip
License:	Freeware
Added:	23rd March 2003, 15:42:16
Downloads:	3,544
Author:	Robert App
Size:	761.49 KB

Category: Flight Simulator X - Aircraft Repaints, Textures and Modifications
P-47D 334th FS "Miss Plainfield"

File Description:
This folder contains a repaint for the A2A Wings of Power III P-47D Thunderbolt, representing P-47C 42-7945 flown by Lieutenant Spiros 'the Greek' Pisanos of the 334th FS, 4th FG, Finschhafen, New Guinea, 1944. Born in Athens, Greece, in the suburb of Kolonos, on 10 November 1919, Spiros Nicholas "Steve" Pisanos, the son of a subway motorman, came to America in April 1938, as a crew member on a Greek Merchant ship. Arriving in Baltimore, Maryland and unable to speak English, Steve found his way to New York City, where he worked in bakeries and restaurants. As he earned money he started flying lessons at Floyd Bennett Field. In August 1940, he setled i Plainfield, New Jersey, his adopted home town, and continued flying lessons at Westfield Airport. He earned a private pilot's license and, although still a Greek national, in October 1941 he joined the British Royal Air Force sponsored by the Clayton Knight Committee in New York City. Steve began his military flight training at Polaris Flight Academy in Glendale, California. Upon graduation, Pilot Officer Pisanos was transferred to England where he completed RAF Officers Training School at Cosford, England and OTU (Operational Training Unit) at Old Sarum Aerodrome in Salisbury. Pilot Officer Pisanos was posted to the 268 Fighter Squadron at Snailwell Aerodrome in Newmarket flying P-51A's. He later transferred to the 71 Eagle Squadron, one of the three Eagle squadrons in the RAF, comprised of American volunteers flyin Spitfires at Debden RAF Aerodrome. When the USAAF 4th Fighter Group absorbed the American members of the Eagle Squadrons in September and October 1942, Pilot Officer Pisanos was commissioned a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Forces. On 3 May 1943, Lt. Pisanos was naturalized as an American citizen in London, England, becoming the first individual in American history to be naturalized outside the Continental United States. Flying his first mission in his P-47 "Miss Plainfield" out of Debden Aerodrome with the 334th Fighter Squadron, 4th Fighter Group, Lt. Pisanos, "The Flying Greek," scored his first victory on 21 May 1943, when he downed a German FW-190 over Ghent, Belgium. by 1 January 1944 he had become an ace with five confirmed victories. On 5 March 1944, he obtained his 10th victory and while returning from that B-17 escort mission to Limoges and Bordeaux, France, Steve experienced engine failure in his P-51B and crash-landed south of Le Havre. For six months he evaded the Germans and worked with the French Resistance and the American OSS sabotaging the German war machine in occupied France. Lt. Pisanos returned to England on 2 September 1944, following the liberation of Paris. Upon returning to the United States, Captain Pisanos was assigned to the Flight Test Division at Wright Field, Ohio. He attended the USAF Test Pilot School and subsequently served as a test pilot at Wright Field and Muroc Lake, California, testing the YP-80 jet aircraft. During his career in the USAF, Steve graduated from the University of Maryland, attended the Air Command and Staff College and the Air War College. In December 1973, after a distinguished thirty years of service in the United States Air Force, he retired with the rank of Colonel. Repaint by Jan Kees Blom, based on the paintkit by Martin Catney

Filename:	P47D_334th_FS_Miss_Plainfield.zip
License:	Freeware
Added:	14th March 2009, 10:55:44
Downloads:	730
Author:	Jan Kees Blom
Size:	7.17 MB

Category: Flight Simulator X - Aircraft Repaints, Textures and Modifications
Consolidated PBY-5A VB-126 #20

Images related to this file:

File Description: A repaint for the Aerosoft PBY-5a Catalina in the colors of PBY-5a #20 (BuNo 7277) of VB-126 as it looked during a rescue operation on the Greenland ice cap in 1943. On 5 november 1942, a C-53 en route from Iceland to Greenland was reported missing off Greenland's east coast. Four days later, a B-17F, en route for England was aked to to keep a lookout for the missing plane, but it crashed on the ice cap. The crew of suffered only minor injuries, and they soon received food and other supplies that were dropped on the ice. Unfortunately, they had landed in a heavily crevassed part of the icecap, making an evacuation difficult. On 28 november, a USCG Grumman Duck, flown by Lt Pritchard, managed to make a wheels-up landing on the ice and brought out two of the crew. The next day, a ground rescue team arrived on the dite as well, and things looked good.... One crew member and a rescuer died when their sled disappeared in a crevasse, and later the same day, Lt. Pritchard's Duck disappeared as well, with a crew of three. On 6 december, an attempt was made to evacuate the B-17's navigator, Lt. O'Hara, who suffered from gangrene in his feet. One member is the rescue party fell into an crevasse, and the motorsled they were using broke down, so the men had to dig in and wait for help. The days continued until over christmas, but morale was kept high with airdrops whenever the weather permitted. A rescue by sled became impossible however due to bad conditions and heavy snows. Lt.Col Balchen, who had used a PBY the previous summer to rescue the members of the B-17 'My Gal Sal' (currently under restoration in Ohio) of the ice, and was now in charge of the rescue operation, proposed to try the same here. The last summer, the PBY landed on a melt water lake on the icecap however, this time he wanted to belly land the PBY, and nobody knew if the hull could withstand such a battering. In the meantime, a ski-equipped T8P1 aircraft tried the same, but dispappeared over the east coast. The crew members were found five days later in a rubber dinghy. The Navy finally gave permission to try an attempt with the PBY. and two PBY-5a"s were send to airfield BW-8, to wait for the right weather. On 5 febuary 1943, Lt Bernard Dunlop succesfully bellylanded BuNo 7277 / 20 (the above paintjob) at the motorsled camp, and the three survivors were taken on board. It has frozen solid in the ice, but after two hours of hard labor, the crew managed to free the PBY and it took off. Now only the three crew members still at the original site needed to be rescued. A ground rescue party was sent to the wreck to transport the survivors to a spot where the PBY could land, but bad weather prevented any flying until 17 march. On that day, Lt. Dunlop landed on the ice, dropping off Lt.Col Balchen and the rescue party, who reached the wreck the following day. The weather closed in again until finally, on april 5th, Lt Dunlop landed his PBY for the third time on the ice cap. All hands were taken on board, but after five attempts to take off, the starboard engine caught fire. The blaze was extinguished, but repairs were necessary. The next day, they managed to take off, but without the rescue party, to lighten the load. 149 days after their crash, the B-17 crew was finally clear of the ice. It wasn't until 18 may that the last member of the rescue party was finally evacuated, making this a six and a half month rescue operation... Repaint by Jan Kees Blom, based on the paintkit by Aerosoft

Filename:	Consolidated_PBY5A_VB126_20.zip
License:	Freeware
Added:	13th July 2018, 20:33:17
Downloads:	135
Author:	Jan Kees Blom
Size:	10.19 MB

Category: Prepar3D V1-4 - Utilities
Flightplan Visualizer 1.17

Images related to this file:

• Flightplan_Visualizer_117_1.jpg

File Description:
Flightplan Visualizer (FV) version 1.17.0. Copyright 2018-2020 by Pelle F. S. Liljendal ([email protected]), all rights reserved. FV comes with 783 pre-imported Commercial AI flightplans (+380 BizJet flightplans are available as a separate download). However you are able to import additional (AI) flightplans yourself. Once imported these (AI) flightplans can be visualized on a map-view, and the user will be able to search accross all these. Hence you can use the program as inspiration as to which routes to fly. E.g. you can search across all imported flightplans to find all flights in an A321 flying into/out from LDDU, or simply to look for all flights in a Boeing 747-8F. Simply run the included installer to install the software. The program will be installed into "C:\Program Files (x86)\Flightplan Visualizer" and all datafiles will be installed into: "C:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Roaming\FlightplanVisualizer". The program comes with a full manual explaining everything, and a 3 page quick manual to get you started. The first 3 times you run the program the quick manual will automatically open. The forum is hosted here: https://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/forum/919-flightplan-visualizer/ Version 1.17 Contains the following changes: - A big Thank You to Alex for the donation, it is appreciated ... You are actually the first one to donate, but then again I never expected to get rich writing this software :-) - Both version 1.16 and 1.17 are mandatory, so if updating from a previous version you MUST install/run both versions as outlined on the forum. Running version 1.17 will forcefully update all flightplans to the latest file-version, as version 1.18 will remove some of the backward comparability. - Added support for importing flightplans from the new .aigfp file-format used by Alpha India Group. Export of flightplans (in aifp-format) is disabled for flightplans originally imported from .aigfp files, because the repaint-info is not imported from these. - Beside the supplied aircraft-types contained in the ("factory") aircraft-database, users can now add their own user-aircraft, both in form of owned (flyable) 3rd party aircraft and aircraft-types (used in flightplans, or as basis for owned aircraft). - Added support for Helicopters (simply created the "aircraft" with the engine-type set to "Heli"). They will be listed/treated as an "aircraft" with a specific engine-type (and in stead of a "wingspan" they have a "rotor diameter"). - Many reports have been added to list "suitable" substitute aircraft based on match-score (a value between 0 and 100, where 100 is a perfect match). Likewise reports have been added to visualize repaints that you have, and those you might be "missing" for a particular aircraft/airline. - In form leg-info you can now "tag" a leg by pressing the new "Tag" button. Doing so will add the leg to the new "Tagged legs" menu-item found in the "Misc" menu. This menu can contain the last 10 tagged legs (flights). Selecting any of these 10 menu-items will open the leg-info form and show the details of the tagged leg. - The AIG flightplan download-form will now only pre-select flightplans with a new season or a new revision, as you have to pay attention to flightplans with status "Not installed" since the reason these are not installed can be due to airlines being defunct or have changed their names. - The AIG flightplan download-form now have 2 numbers above the list-view. The first tells the number of flightplans being listed for the selected season, and the 2nd number in parentheses tells the number of checked flightplans. So choosing a season, you can simply look at the number in the parentheses to see the count of new seasons/revisions to install (without the need to scroll throgh the list). - The "Defunct list" (list of all defunct airlines, as marked by AIG) that can both be displayed in the "AIG flightplan downloader" and the "Enable / disable flightplans" forms, is now both sorted by Name (first) and by ICAO (last), making it more easy to look for a particular airline. - The Leg-info and Edit flightplan -forms now both list the (flightplan) sub-folder name and the name of the original imported filename (in case you need to see the version/revision number that AIG append to this filename). - The same sub-foldername and original imported flightplan filename are also added in the top when generating a leg-info report. - If the departure/destination airports have gates marked as favorites, or gates with comments, therse are added to the leg-info report. E.g. "Gate G47 (36.0): B744F, no-jetway", where "36.0" is the radius of the gate (in meters), and "B744F, no-jetway" is the comment. - Many "behind the scene" changes were made to the Leg-info report, and more data have been added (e.g. carrier/operator-callsign, time-zone/offset, airport-size, rank and traffic-density). - Added a button to the Leg-info form to show list of possible substitute aircraft, sorted by scored (based on how well these match the parameters of the original aircraft). - Internally the program stores- and perform all weight-calculations in lbs, however in settings you can now choose if weights should be shown in lbs or kg. - Using EOW- or MTOW- filter sub-type in the aircraft filter the specified weight will now be according to the chosen weight-unit specified in the settings form (in previous version it was fixed to be lbs). - Obtaining METAR/TAF messages from the internet takes a few fractions of a second, hence the "Show as Report" button on the Leg info form, now contains an asterisk until the METAR/TAF messages have been obtained, as these would otherwise appear as "not obtained" in the generated report. So if you need these messages in the report, you should wait pressing the "Show as Report" button, until the asterisk is removed. - The form for creating user-airlines now contains a "Lookup" button that lets you search for airlines, so you can check if an airline already exists before creating it as a user airline. - Airlines without official iCAO/IATA-codes are sometime created with an artificial ICAO code of "---". Airlines with this ICAO-codes are no longer listed as alternatives. - Reordered the two "fields" in the "Min. Rank" and "Min. Traffic-density" combo-boxes, to make it more easy reading- and picking- the correct. - Improved scanning of readme-files during import (more files are excluded such as "Repaints.txt"). - Changed the default size of the about-form, to make it more easy to being reading the history-text without having to first resize the form. - All forms in FV have been made with a HD resolution (1920x1080) in mind. Some users are running at this resolution, but have chosen to scale the font-size to 125%. If doing so, some forms were not fully visible. Hence there is now a new setting item called "Reduced desktop". If defaults to be disabled, however once enabled some forms will be reduced in their size (e.g. the flightplan-, airline and aircraft- list-views in the Leg Search form will be more narrow, allowing the form to be fully visible). - The country sub-filter no longer supports wildcards (nor partial codes), but now it accepts both 2 and 3 letter (ISO) country-codes. The filter-text will be colored red, if an invalid country-code is entered. - The result-viewer now have a "Save as" button that allows you to save its content. Also an "Enable edit" check-box have been added, which puts the text-box into edit-mode, so you can change its conent (e.g. before copying to clipboard, or saving to disk). - Right-clicking the main-map there is now a menu-item to show country, time-zone/offset (as a hint) at the GPS-position of the mouse-cursor. These information are downloaded from the web, hence there will be a small delay. - Added more logging, to better identify which actions might have led to the program displaying an error-message. Also tweaked the log-format a bit to make it more readable. - Updated all external libraries to the latest versions. - Added release dates for each version in this version-history text. - Fixed: If marking gates as favorites or adding comments to gates these data were not saved unless other user-data were added to the airport (e.g. marking the airport as favorite, setting rank/traffic-density, manually specifying size, taxi-in/out times, entering comments or hint-text for the airport). - Fixed: If changing the ICAO-code of a user-airline, the alternative-list was not updated until next time the form was opened. The form also got a minor optimization in the process. When editing an user-airline you can now press enter in stead of clicking the "Save" button (as long as the Comments field does not have focus). - Fixed: In a few cases the week-number was not calculated correctly for multi-week flightplans. - Fixed: In some cases the week-day was still shown as a "name" (2 letters), even if the user had selected to display these as numbers in settings. - Fixed: Aircraft/Airline search forms would not perform initial search when opening the form, if the search-text was blank. You had to enter a letter, and delete it again, before the search was performed. - Fixed: Aircraft search form did not use natural-sort when sorting by name (e.g. "CRJ1000" was listed before "CRJ200"). - Fixed: Setting core-affinity to a non-zero mask, and change it back to zero, it would not return to its initial state (e.g. all cores selected) until the program was re-started. - Data: Updated a few airports with missing country-code and/or missing time-zone. - Data: A few new aircraft were added and some aircraft were split in dedicate pax/freight-versions. - Data: A few helicopters have been added. - Data: Aircraft-data updated as there were still a couple of freighters with non-zero passenger-count. Also the weight constraints were updated for A LOT of aircraft. - Data: Cumulative aircraft-types (such as "[32S] Airbus A318/A319/A320/A321") are now removed in many views, unless the type is in use by at least one active flightplan. - Flightplans: Compared the list of flightplans bundled with FV to the list of flightplans available in AIG AIM. This meant a few flightplans were marked as defunct (and removed from the installer) and a few missing were added (primarily from 2017). - Flightplans: The first Summer 2020 flightplans have been added (FedEx and UPS). - Flightplans: All new/updated flightplans have been added to the installer, and all obsolete have been removed. A total of 783 active flightplans are bundled with the installer. Pelle

Filename:	Flightplan_Visualizer_117.zip
License:	Freeware, limited distribution
Added:	8th August 2020, 17:44:15
Downloads:	415
Author:	Pelle Liljendal
Size:	29.48 MB

Category: Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) - Utilities
Flightplan Visualizer 1.21.1

Images related to this file:

• Flightplan_Visualizer_1211_1.jpg

File Description:
Flightplan Visualizer (FV) version 1.21.1. Copyright 2018-2021 by Pelle F. S. Liljendal ([email protected]), all rights reserved. FV comes with 1482 pre-imported AI flightplans (of which +690 are BizJet flightplans, the rest are commercial). However you are able to import additional (AI) flightplans yourself. Once imported these (AI) flightplans can be visualized on a map-view, and the user will be able to search accross all these. Hence you can use the program as inspiration as to which routes to fly. E.g. you can search across all imported flightplans to find all flights in an A321 flying into/out from LDDU, or simply to look for all flights in a Boeing 747-8F. Simply run the included installer to install the software. The program will be installed into "C:\Program Files (x86)\Flightplan Visualizer" and all datafiles will be installed into: "C:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Roaming\FlightplanVisualizer". The program comes with a full manual explaining everything, and a 3 page quick manual to get you started. The first 3 times you run the program the quick manual will automatically open. The forum is hosted here: https://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/forum/919-flightplan-visualizer/ Version 1.21.1 Contains the following changes: - Due to a bug introduced in version 1.19 regrading the (automatic/manual) version-check, version 1.20 was skipped and this version was released as 1.21.1 (in stead of 1.21.0). - Beside the season based commercial flightplans, the "Download AIG flightplans" menu-item (found in the "Flightplan" menu) is now able to download (AIG) GA- and Military-flightplans. A big thank you to AIG for granting access to these. - Reorded the download-folders (in the combo-box), so the season-based AIG commercial folders are displayed in chronological order (e.g. "SUMMER_2020" is before "WINTER_2020-2021"). - When scanning for/loading flightplans the program will now automatic look for flightplans marked as defunct or obsolete, and if found these will be move to the "Disabled" sub-folder. Two new settings have been added, so you can disable this feature if you want to. - Aircraft-types can now be grouped in families of similar aircraft (e.g. a group containing all the Airbus A318, A319, A320 and A321). These families can be managed via the "User Aircraft" menu-item. - Removed menu-item "Index of AIG flightplans" in the "Flightplan" menu, as its not needed since the "Download AIG flightplans" was added in version 1.16 (May 2020). - Minor changes to the flightplan-name grooming algoritm (e.g. spaces are inserted before/after ampersand, if not already present) and prefix can be added to indicate the type of flightplan (e.g. for biz-jet, government or military flights). Detection of this prefix can be disable in settings. - Dropped support for the old ".FPL" flightplan file-format. Since version 1.11 (july 2019) FV have been using the binary ".BFP" file-format in stead. - Based on active flightplans, the program will try to detect primary- and secondary-hubs for each airline. An airport must have flights to atleast 10 different airports for that airline, in order to be considdered being either a primary/secondary hub for that airline. This information is displayed both in the airline edit-form and the airline usage-report. - The airline usage-report will also list all destinations served by the airline (ordered by which airports are flying to most different airports). - The airline usage-report will now also contain a list of the routes served by that airline (as carrier or operator). This list is sorted so the routes that are most flown (per week) comes first. - Added an extra tab-page to the Airport-info form that shows which airlines have routes to/from the airport, and which airlines are using the airport as a primary or secondary hub. - Added (right-click) context-menu to many aircraft/airline list-views, that lets you lookup aircraft-/airline -information. - Added power-conversion to the unit-conversion form, to convert between HP (Horse-Power) and kW (kilo watt). - Also added context-menu to the carrier/operator labels in the Leg-info form to show more details for the airline. Likewise the aircraft-labels have a context-menu for showing aircraft-details - Removed a few columns from the form choosing favorite aircraft-types, as this info can now be obtained via the new context-menu. - Added a column with engine-type/count in the aircraft browser. - Minor changes to the airport redirection report (to align some values in columns, making it more easy to read the report). - Added a few hard-coded names to the author-name grooming-method, to unify differnt spellings of the "same names". Also added flightplan/author-count to the "Flightplan per author" report. - Swapped the operator/carrier-count showed next to size-category in the user-airline edit form (now first value is operator and 2nd is carrier). - Minor change to the airline-criteria in the leg-search to simplify selection (removed options: "Carrier only" and "Operator only"). - Fixed: The "Download AIG flightplans" form was not able to download flightplans with an ampersand ("&") in the name. - Fixed: Once again improved importing of AIGFP flightplans where airport data is using different ICAO-codes (observed with 15 or so of the new BizJet flightplans, e.g. "ESAI_Aero-TechServices(GA-C)_Winter_2020-2021"). - Fixed: Issued with the program version-check (both automatic and manual) introduced in version 1.19. Resulting in this version being released as 1.21.1. - Fixed: Sometimes closing (without saving) the form for editing user-aircraft it would sometime report there were unsaved changes, even though it was not the case. - Fixed: Only the active sub fp-folders were scanned for backup files. Now the main fp-folder is scanned for backups as well. - Data: Some of the aircraft-types sharing the same IATA/ICAO-codes have been split into multiple new types (e.g. the Beechcrafts, Cessnas, Pipers and Learjets). This was done to better detect the specific aircraft-types in use (all bundled flightplans have been reprocessed to re-detect the specific types). - Data: A few aircraft can now be detected (during flightplan import) using their millitary designation (e.g. Boeing C-22, C-32, C-40, and Gulfstream C-20 and C-37). - Data: Improved detection of a few "De Havilland" aircraft. - Data: Added a couple of new aircraft-types (Lockheed C-141 Starlifter, Transall C-160 and a few aircraft without official IATA/ICAO-codes, hence using "---" as the IATA-code for these). - Flightplans: Thanks to the new feature to download (AIG) GA/Military-flightplans a LOT of new flightplans have been bundled with the installer (a few government and military flightplans, but mostly BizJet). The previous installer came bunled with 385 Bizjet flightplans, however in this version many of these have been updated and a lot more have been added, bringing the total count of BizJet flightplans to +690. All BizJet are prefixed by "Bz_", all Government are prefixed by "Gv_" and all military are prefixed by "Ml_", in case you want to move these to differnt sub-folders using the "enable/disable flightplans" menu-item. - Flightplans: All new/updated flightplans have been added to the installer, and all obsolete/defunct have been marked/removed. A total of 1481 active flightplans are bundled with the installer (incl. all of the previous mentioned BizJet's). Pelle

Filename:	Flightplan_Visualizer_1211.zip
License:	Freeware, limited distribution
Added:	20th June 2021, 19:45:19
Downloads:	791
Author:	Pelle Liljendal
Size:	36.74 MB