FSX: Steam Edition - Early Years of Flight Add-On DLC

you need to turn down your gfx to min otherwise objsect apear in the runway making you unable to take off

It is the WORST GAME because I could not get the engines started. Did your simulation need to be that realistic that you made the engines sooo hard to start that I just give up on playing this game? NO making the engines impossible to start only makes it ANNOYING. ps i wANT MY MONEY BACK

dissapointing, firstly only 3 missions, 1+2 are very long and boring ,(Mission 1 is fly a circuit at 2mph whilst struggling to gain altitude so probably very realistic , Mission 2 is fly across the channel as Louis Blériot , 1 mph and in a haze so not even much to look at) , Mission 3 was so easy my dog completed it whilst i was out of the room

I like aviation history, so I decided to try this add-on while it is on sale. The planes are good choices, but a few of them are very fragile if you use full damage and don't pay attention to their KIAS (by using Shift-Z). I hate to say it, but in addition to their fragility, they are rather limited and very slow. Most of them turn terribly even with my rudder set to fully sensitive. I have been spoiled by modern planes' cockpits, and I must admit that I don't find the ancient planes fun to fly at all. Those who want their aircrafts even more minimalistic than the default Trike Ultralight (with no altimeter, compass, or any other navigation aid) may like the offerings in this add-on, though. The missions are poor. None of them give rewards (not that I find them to be deal breakers) and you don't even get that green check mark after you complete them. -The first mission is intermediate-level, NOT beginner level. It gets boring to manage the throttle to keep the KIAS low that you may want to turn off aircraft stress to complete that mission. The Dayton area scenery is not very interesting. Gliding the Model B to its landing was the most fun part. -The second mission (probably the selling point for this add-on for me) does not indicate where you are supposed to take off, and as other reviewers said, they didn't test it so you need to turn off collision to avoid that building to your left and also an invisible building a few feet in front. You will want to save once you are over the water if you want to turn damage on. What really stinks about it is that the mission indicates that you will land on the other side and see some guy waving a French flag, but the mission completes as soon as you fly past the marker. -The third mission was the best one. It is even more fun with full realism so it forces you to manage your throttle and land back on the runway after you fly over each obstacle. I have to admit this add-on makes me appreciate how good we have with modern aviation compared to what the pioneers went through. I would have given this a thumb-up if a bit more work and polish had been put into the missions.

It's a good and fun add-on, but the engine thrust is a little degraded/weak, making the Wright Brothers' Model B and the Santos-Dumont 14-bis unable to sustain flight and, therefore, the 1st and 3rd missions pretty challenging. I also own this same addon for FS2004 and FSX (Deluxe version, on CD), and here's the weird thing: the aircraft fly fine (sufficient engine thrust) with those versions of Flight Simulator, making the missions easier. As other reviewers have said, in order to get through the missions, you might need to turn off the "aircraft stress causes damage" feature in "Realism settings" and reduce scenery quality to "low" to eliminate trees, terrain, or buildings in your way. For anyone who wants to try it, I posted an easy fix on the STEAM Forums under FSX-SE Add-Ons for each of the aircraft.cfg files that makes the missions completable and the planes more enjoyable to fly (while maintaining the challenging flight characteristics). The planes look good, and the challenge of flying them is fun. It certainly gives me more appreciation for how little the early pilots had to work with (few/no instruments, very limited maneuverability), and how sensitive they had to be on the stick. Overall, I like the add-on. Admittedly, I bought it during a 50%-off sale so there was less risk with trying it.

I'm dissapointed with this add on for FSX. The old airplanes are fun but the missions that are included just don't work. I tried "The Circuit" and the airplane can't make it out of the field over the trees. When "Crossing the Chanel", the mission starts with the airplane in a position such that when you begin to taxi, you immediatly hit a building. I tried the "Steeplechase" where you are to go down the runway and hop over objects with the strange tail forward aircraft. It gives a "aircraft overstressed" failure every time. Is there something I need to know to make these missions work?

I haven't tried the missions but... The planes are interesting, and seem believable enough for me concerning how they fly (on the brink of falling out of the sky!) Its amazing any of them actually flew to me. They look heavy for their sizes by today's standards, under powered surely. Basically, these craft seem to fly just fast enough to evade stalling, and without gadgets - you need to figure out when it might stall on your own! I like them but I recommend if the slow climb thing is too frustrating or you otherwise get bored or whatever - try landing a heli on snow covered mountain, then change to one of these OLD planes and snow sled as long as you can then take off - then you had some fun yay and you have altitude to play around! Those designs are not that bad (more rudder needed) when you have altitude to play in (or an engine that has some power!!) (BTW - ITS fun to sled in heli with skids down snow covered mountains too - peace)

Works fine for me. Beautiful ancient airplanes. Try to cross the channel without falling asleep.

Very good add-on, but the Wright Flier is very hard to get off the ground and actually stay up. Wondering if this is really how it worked in real life? Anyway, You will need to set your throttle at about 15 to 25 percent thrust to keep the motor/engine started and running. Do not expect to get too much height and speed with these vintage craft. I am still happy with these planes overall. Now I am hoping that Dovetail will partner with AlphaSim/Virtavia and release their B-24 Liberator on Steam as well. :-)

I honestly wish that there was a neutral rating that I could give. The new planes are pretty fun, but the missions leave much to be desired. I honestly bought this very quickly when I saw that it had positive reviews....before realizing that it only had ONE review. The new planes are everything you could ask for in these older planes...seem like they perform realistically, though I get an overspeed warning pretty frequently. The missions, though, are pretty subpar. I'm happy that we actually have real missions rather than flight plans, but if you play with realistic settings and collision on then you won't be able to complete at least two of the missions. The Wright Brothers mission is either very difficult or impossible, due to the trees around Wright Field (which probably weren't there when the brothers actually did fly their model B). That one could possibly be just me. However, the mission to fly over the English Channel (referred to just as 'The Channel' by this mod) is completely broken. If you have collision on, it's impossible to start the mission because as soon as the plane starts taxiing, it will collide with the building that it is parked next to. Turning collision off fixes the issue, but it is still an annoying issue. Even if those collision issues are completely due to my skill/computer/whatever, this pack still leaves something to be desired for 17 dollars. Hopefully the next few packs will have more content and more in depth missions.