This fits in nicely with my recently acquired Chipmunk, and the VSkyLabs Falke.
Flying Iron have just released their Grob 109b/Vigilant. I flew the Vigilant at RAF Henlow in the late 90’s for a short time, giving air experience flights to Air Cadets. Fun times…
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I think you’ve surpassed even me in your shoe collection habits…! Good on ya’…!
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A guy has to have an addiction or two 
.
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Looking at the screen shots and write up for the ORBX Northern California…looks fantastic! I especially liked:
- Many marinas have hand-placed 3D boats added
I can finally combine flight swimming with sailing! 
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I think I may have figured out your Viggen problem… Swimming and Viggens just don’t mix well. 
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fricken-fracken spell correct! 
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Thranda have released a pretty big update to their Quest Kodiak…
Version 2.0 (November 20th 2019)
Completely overhauled SASL to become SASL3
Added expansion pack to base pack
Added de-ice and exterior surface ice visualization
Added optional TKS de-ice equipment and switches, can be toggled via the 2D pop-up
New oxygen system and simulation
Completely overhauled sound to take more advantage of improvements in FMOD
Completely overhauled flight dynamics and water dynamics
Added custom indicated airspeed error, compared to calibrated airspeed
Added mud flap option
Added ability to select between G1000 in-bezel autopilot and S-TEC 55 autopilot.
Added synthetic vision
Made improvements to VR configuration
Improved custom annunciator system; the background scales with the number of items
Improvements to custom annunciator triggers and logic
Environmental system electrical draw is dependent on heaters and fan speed now
Rewrite of weight and balance module
Weight and balance weights can be saved and automatically loaded for the next flight
“Simplified” engine mode now has correct engine reverser behavior
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Sweet…! That and Air Hauler 2…dream combo!
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Finally, de-ice. 
Synthetic vision too!
ThresholdX has news that there is a REP (Reality Expansion Pack) in the works for that one too. That adds some nice features like the walk-around and paying some attention to maintenance. I am going to add this one to my list
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I think it is going to become a normal feature for aircraft that use the G1000. If I am completely honest, I prefer the TBM900/Pocket Rocket rendition because it looks more like the actual G1000 Synthetic Vision that I remember, but this is still very good.
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2020 is going to be an interesting year for us! I don’t see X-Plane withering on the vine just yet.
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Neither do I. I mean…I’m very excited about MSFS 2020…but…my X-Plane is looking, very, very good these days…
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I think they did a good work after 11.30 was initially released. iirc I had like 25-40 fps after initial release and am back in around 50 fps in 4k on medium-high settings.
There is still lot of tweaking / money needed to make it look that good. Hopefully move to Vulcan will help in this regard.
There was also some Q&A with LaminarR. Didn’t have time yet to check it :
at how many fps?
The main news on ATC this side of 2020 is “we haven’t forgotten it”, according to Chris.
Actually, you have. You prioritize a mobile version over usable ATC? (…and just a couple of paragraphs earlier you tout XP as the answer to RW pilot training? …on a tablet? Seriously?)
Then there was this about ATC—they want to avoid “getting vectored straight to your destination"
Ummm…the current IFR flight planning system hooks into the ATC…so you don’t get vectored direct. Doesn’t he know that?
IMHO this is a travesty. If they would only concentrate on a few “low hanging fruit” items they would be the undisputed masters of the PC flight sim market.
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I’d like to avoid being vectored directly into a mountain. I think that’s more important than not going direct to my destination lol.
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I haven’t tried Pilot2ATC, but it probably is more in-depth than anything Laminar would put in the sim.
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I have tried it and it is very robust …perhaps a bit to robust for me, not being a trained RW pilot. But I really like it.
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This is the problem sometimes with our hobby. Some want it to be as realistic as possible (to the point where it can end up being tedious), some want it very simplified, and some (probably most) want it somewhere in between. One of the things I like about having 3rd party addons is that I can build my X-Plane experience pretty much as I want it. That does end up costing more money though. I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t have any kids to put through college!
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