Inside the cockpit

Flight Simulator has always provided a flat area of the screen on which is placed all the gauges, instruments, switches and other things to control the aircraft, tune radios, etc. Known as the 2D cockpit, this metaphor continues to be used to this day. Flight Simulator 2002 (FS2002) introduced the concept of the virtual or 3D cockpit. Unlike the 2D cockpit, the 3D cockpit gives you the sense of being in the aircraft since you can see all around the cockpit in addition to the instruments. What was lacking in FS2002, however, was the ability to touch the controls--a major limitation. In FS2002, all you could do was look at things in the virtual cockpit. To change anything, you had to switch back to the 2D cockpit or pop up a 2D panel window.

Beautiful detail inside the virtual cockpit of the Douglas DC-3	Virtual cockpits enable you to look all around, not just out the window	Controls such as the radio can be adjusted directly in the virtual cockpit

Now, in CoF, radios and key aircraft controls in the virtual cockpit are interactive. Need to change the COM1 frequency? Simply move the mouse over it and click or spin the mouse wheel. Want to put the landing gear down? Click on the gear lever.

Weather themes can really shake up your world

One of the most significant additions to CoF is the weather system. Fans of Looking Glass' Flight Unlimited, like me, have always had dynamic weather. Until now, getting varying weather conditions in Flight Simulator required downloading weather updates over the Internet via the built-in "Real Weather" system or with a third-party weather tool. In CoF, the weather is finally able to change on its own over time through the use of realistic atmospheric physics and 3D clouds. No more white cardboard cutouts to fly through. Rather, clouds form and dissipate and even move across the sky, just like in real life.

Choosing the weather you want to fly in can be accomplished in several ways. If you have an Internet connection, you can download actual weather data, just like in FS2002. However, you have a choice of whether to use the data statically or to continually update it by downloading new data every 15 minutes. To make use of the new weather system, you can simply select from one of several weather themes. Themes are pre-defined weather scenarios such as "Fair Weather", "Major Thunderstorm" and "Winter Wonderland".

If you really want to get specific, you can customize the weather. As with FS2002, you can set parameters such as cloud types and layers, wind layers and speeds, visibility, temperature, and pressure. In addition, you can specify weather parameters for the entire world as a whole, a group of weather stations, or even just a single weather station. Being able to create such micro-climates you can customize the weather along your entire route from departure to arrival.

Tinker with a variety of weather parameters to make the skies your own	Apply the weather globally or down to a single weather station

It's a dreary day in the neighborhood

Unfortunately, although the weather map indicates the location of fronts when using real-world downloaded weather, there doesn't seem to be a way to specify the location of a storm front for custom weather. Perhaps fronts are taken into account based on the pressure, tempurature and wind direction between areas you customize but it wasn't apparent and the online help didn't mention anything about creating or placing fronts.

There are some other very welcome improvements to the sky in general. No longer is the color of the sky the same color of blue all the time. Gradient variations in color, especially at sunset, truly add realism to the world. Also, rain no longer appears to be coming from a sprinkler head placed just above the aircraft. Even when viewed from outside at a very wide angle, the rain appears to be all around.

Some of the weather effects such as rain running across the windscreen looked peculiar but I'll reserve final judgement until I see the final version.

With a total of approximately 24,000 airports in CoF, up from 22,000 in FS2002, getting around can be a daunting task. To help, CoF includes the Garmin 295 and 500 series GPS with color moving maps and airport facility information. Even the regular map view in CoF is now in full color with terrain information. No more getting lost from trying to decipher the primitive black and white lines used in FS2002.

Garmin 500 GPS	New full-color map

Once you reach your destination, you'll find that airports finally have taxiway signs. I've been used to seeing signs in Looking Glass' Flight Unlimited since the 1990's so it's about time they arrived in Flight Simulator. Now, when the ground controller tells you to go to taxiway alpha, you'll know when you get there.

Taxiway signs and improved markings help you get around on the ground

The taxiway markings themselves have also been improved over FS2002 to make them easier to navigate as well as look better.

Speaking of air traffic control, it has been enhanced with features such as the ability to change altitude en route, pop-up IFR clearances, and precision and non-precision approaches to multiple runways.

A sunset over Chicago shows off the gradient colors in the sky

Since this is a preview of a beta version, I won't say much about performance since a lot can change by the final version. However, I do want to point out that this version of CoF runs as smooth as silk and loads faster than FS2002. Frame rates depend on how advanced your video card is and how much eye candy you turn on. If you want the new 3D clouds, you should have a reasonable video card (e.g. GeForce 3 or Radeon 8500). Fortunately, you can use simplified clouds to run CoF pretty much the way FS2002 currently runs. All in all, CoF looks promising in the performance department.

Here are some more key features in CoF: