Canadian Xpress November 2022 Monthly Challenge: 40 Years of Flight Simulator Part II

[Marc Wheeler]

November marks the 40th year of Microsoft Flight Simulator. In the late 1990s, Microsoft was releasing a new version of Microsoft Flight Simulator every 24-30 months.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 was released in late 1999, with high expectations, as it moved beyond the limited 3,000 airport database with FS98 to nearly 20,000 airports. Worldwide navigational points were also added, which allowed for real world flights, detailed airports, and AI traffic.

In the end, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 was a big disappointment for most users due to the minimum specs requiring a Pentium 166 MHz computer, although 400–500 MHz computers were deemed necessary to have any good frame rates. However, even on a high-end system, stuttering was a real problem, especially when performing sharp turns in graphically dense areas.

New aircraft in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 included the supersonic Aerospatiale-BAC Concorde and the Boeing 777 which had recently entered service at the time.

One other change that is overlooked today is that Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 was the first Microsoft Flight Simulator not to use Meigs Field as its default airport. Boeing Field was set as the default airport, mostly due to the release of the Boeing 777 and the expanded airport database. It was felt users would move to the larger aircraft more often, so a larger airport was chosen.

Your mission is to depart from Boeing Field (KBFI) and fly to Calgary (CYYC) with the Canadian Xpress Boeing 777-200, Boeing 777-300 (or Boeing 737-700 if you do not have access to the B772 or B77W) freeware or payware aircraft which are available to all pilots regardless of rank, but only for the challenge.

Join Canadian Xpress today in order to participate as there are some great prizes to be won including any Aerosoft download product from https://www.aerosoft.com/

The November 2022 Monthly Challenge is open to all Canadian Xpress pilots from November 1st until November 29th, 2022 so join Canadian Xpress today by visiting  https://canadianxpress.ca. 

*Canadian Xpress accepts 50% of your VATSIM, IVAO or other virtual airline hours with no limits.