Here we are at it again rounding-up the news from the last several days with some of the stories that I haven’t yet written about. That includes lots of detailed looks at DCS: F-15E Strike Eagle, a price reduction for the Freedom Fox and Fox 2 from Parallel 42, and more!
X-Plane’s Ford Class gets some ‘deck-orations’
The Ford-class carrier in X-Plane 12 has been a bit sparse when it comes to the on-deck objects. No more as these latest images show the sim getting plenty of static objects on the deck. Should make for nicer carrier ops for those who are flying those in X-Plane. Have a look!
Lots of F-15E Strike Eagle detail updates
Ron Zambrano and RAZBAM artist @Metal2Mesh both were active this week with new images of the F-15E for DCS World. Ron reminds us with the first one, featuring the Israeli F-15I, that 2023 is the year of the Strike Eagle.
Then we get into some detailed images. A recent trend has been to add under the hood details for DCS World aircraft. Eagle Dynamics has done this with their recent DCS: Black Shark 3 release and it looks like the F-15E is the next one to get the feature. In these follow up images we can see the maintenance hatches all open and on display as well as close looks at the landing gear bay.
Impressive levels of detail. This is mostly an artistic expression but it does give us a good sense of what’s under the hood of these sleek fighter jets.
Ron also gave us something with more systems depth and substance. A drifted INS will, for example, lower the quality of image for the radar on the Strike Eagle. Fascinating!
VR headset use is up
FSA, reporting on the recent flight sim survey, indicates that for the second straight year the HP Reverb series (both G1 and G2) are the most popular flight sim VR headsets. Oculus occupies the second and third place spot with the Quest and Rift series.
F-104 DCS mod is now available
Some DCS World mods are really impressive looking and VSN’s F-104 mod is among them. Check out Skyward Flight Media’s images and coverage of the F-104 here.
Parallel 42 price reductions, scenery updates
The folks at Parallel 42 have provided a couple of key updates this week with news that their well known FreedomFox and Fox2 BASE are live on Orbx with a reduced price.
Customers can purchase Fox2 BASE at a reduced price of $14.99 and FreedomFox / Fox2 COMPLETE at a reduced price of $24.99. New pricing will also be reflected on the Marketplace.
Parallel 42 website update
The recent trend with many offerings in Microsoft Flight Simulator these days is to reduce prices which seems to lead to increased purchasing. We saw that start not too long after the sim released and this is the most recent example of it. This is also a reminder that I need to get to the FreedomFox for review soon.
Parallel 42 have also released an update for their recently released 42HB Hogsback Ranch scenery update. Most of the updates appear to be focused on what happens when the scenery is faced with snow – a rare occurrence in its location in California but something that happened recently.
Stormbirds 
Aside from the clown show roll out of the F-15E, I’m still looking forward to the plane, and the imminent(?) big patch due soon. Rumours on Deephack’s podcast today has the Normandy 2 map coming out with the update. We’ll see.
I already have a DCS F-104 mod, not sure who made it. I’ll check this one out though. Love me some F-104!
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