[SkyBuffalo]

With all the recent hoopla about the new Il-2 1946 PC game, I wandered out to CompUSA and BestBuy to look for it. No luck, but I ran into this (which I didn't even know existed) :

"Aircraft Powerpack" for Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Flight Simulator 2004 or Combat Flight Simulator 3.

It basically just adds in a bunch of extra aircraft (all WWII - real or experimental) onto which ever Microsoft Flight Sim. you already have installed on your PC. Plus there are a bunch of extra missions you can fly with the new aircraft (though I haven't tried any of those yet).

There's quite a list of planes, including :

B-17 Flying Fortress ; B-29A Superfortress
B-24J Liberator ; Avro Lancaster
P-40N Warhawk "Desert Camo."
Heinkel He-162 Salamander
Arado Ar-234B2 ; Dornier Do-217
Dewoitine D.520
Messerschmitt Me-410 ; Focke-Wulf Ta-152
Several other odd german experimental planes and etc.

I just did some free flight, intercept missions and dogfights to try it out. The new planes are way cool. I went after a B-24 with a flight of Ta-152s. The Ta-152 is wicked cool to fly and the B-24 is nasty to shoot down. Then I tried going after Lancasters. They seemed to fall out of the sky if you looked at 'em funny. Then I took some Hawker Tempests after some Me-410s. I either got awesome enemy pilots or those Me-410s are darn good planes, 'cause there were nasty hard to shoot down. Had a 20 minute dogfight with 'em. Then tried a dogfight with British P-40N Warhawks against Dowoitine D.520s in the south of France. From that, assuming the game modeled the P-40N flying realistically, I can see why the Warhawk was used as ground support and not a fighter. It stalled and spinned if you farted in the wrong direction.

So basically, If you already have Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3 (like I do) or one of the other Microsoft Flight Sim. games, this tacks on a whole bunch of new planes you didn't have before. I guess it might be cool in the Flight Sim. 2004 to take some WWII fighters after a Boeing jet or something (isn't anachronism fun!?!).

The game seem to be made by "shockwave" and is from 2006. I picked it up for $30 at BestBuy. It's good if you liked CFS3 like me, but were dissapointed in the limited number of aircraft in the game. Now you got a bunch more!

I'll report back more once I try out some of the missions and such.

[mustangdriver]

I have this as well. It is great. I use it on Flight Simulator X

[SkyBuffalo]

Back for an update after checking out the missions folder. These are new added in missions for the new planes :

3 missions for the Arado Ar-234
50! missions for the B-17 - Seems to be different bombing runs to different locations and for different targets
3 missions for the Dewotine D.520
6 missions for the Dornier Do-217
3 missions for the Avro Lancaster
3 missions for the Me-410
3 missions for the Me-334 (this seems to be a theoretical/experimental plane)
3 missions for the Focke-Wulf Ta-152
3 missions for the P-40 Warhawk
3 missions for the Ta-154 (this seems to be a theoretical/experimental plane)
3 missions for the Ta-183 (this seems to be a theoretical/experimental plane)
7 additional "Instant Action" missions under the training missions folder

Tried a Ta-152 missions going against a B-17 formation. They're not too hard to shoot down individually, but there's so freakin' many! OY!

Tried a Do-217 night mission taking on DeHavilland Mosquitos. That was WAY COOL!

Tried a Me-410 mission against allied shipping. The poor Me-410s had one of those HUGE 6 foot long cannons anchored to the front end like the Henschel Hs-129s. Made the poor bugger darn hard to fly, but she really packed a WALLOP!

Both the Do-217s and Me-410s have awesome camo schemes on 'em. I pretty much thought I was done with CFS3, but this is definitely gonna pull me back in big time!