FSX Sport Class WIP

I am working on a sport class aircraft inspired by the Lancair 360. The goal is to turn this into a fully functional FSX aircraft.

This is only the exterior work. I am working on a fully functional virtual cockpit as well.

FSX Mission Work Begins

After about a week of work I have made quiet a bit of progress on picking up the missions building language of FSX as well as defining how VARO will run future events. To keep things manageable I decided to setup the F1 course at Reno so that it could be raced in both single and multiplayer missions. Luckily the guys that put together the scenery at Microsoft included all of the pylons at Reno so setting the physical course was just a matter of going out and looking for the pylons. After all the pylons were found is was a matter of setting up the course in the mission language and tweaking from there. I still have some work to do before I would call the mission ready for release but the lap timing and scoring works like a charm. Below is a video I shot recently of a lap around the course in the default Extra 300s. The Extra may become the aircraft of choice for the track because its fairly easy to handle on the course and everyone has one, we may need to create some liveries.

Pilots Wanted!

That's right, VARO is coming back from the dead. With a new philosophy on producing excellent Online Air Racing events. In the past we have tired with little success to bring Virtual Air Racing back to the Flight Simulator community but I believe that we were just not ready, the software was not ready....Whatever the excuse was I think that we are not in a better position to offer the events that we always intended on having. So, why the change? Why all of the excitement? Well I am going to get to that...

VARO Return to Flight Plan 

• VARO will use Microsoft Flight Simulator X with Acceleration Pack.
  To me this is a no brainier at this point. FSX+A give use everything we need to stage awesome events using in game missions and content. Gone are the days of testing a lap timing app its all just in the system.
• Events will be run on a monthly basis.
  We got to a point in the old days were we ran every two weeks and it got to be a little crazy. So now we are looking to run a major event every month making sure we account for any other major events in the Flight Simulator Community. The goal is to make each event unique so people look forward to the events.
• Pylon Racing the main attraction but not the only attraction. 
  Pylon Racing is our bread and butter, we made it work back in the day even across multiple flight simulators. There are however other types of racing out there, I am particularly interested in some cross country racing as well as Acrobatic Racing found in the Red Bull Air Racing series. Expect to see an event set in Reno for Unlimited and Sport class aircraft to kick us off.
• Custom Multiplayer and Single Player missions
  We have been working toward this for years. Each and every event will come with at least one and hopefully many custom missions that will allow for easy timing and scoring as well as other niceties such as practice against other aircraft and automated pace planes for true pace lap flying starts.
• All Aircraft will be available as freeware aircraft.
  VARO is out of the Aircraft creation business, not to say that we won't build a one off but the days for VARO's custom aircraft are over. Now we are going to focus finding quality freeware aircraft that meet our expectations of quality and fairness.
• Racing Series for the Future
  VARO use to be about a points series were we kept track of race points and we all raced for an overall championship. That is very possible and I am working toward that goal right now its for the future. The focus for now is to host great events. Heck even the National Air Races are only one a year.

In The Next Month

• I am still working out the date for our first event but I can say that it will be a Sport and Unlimited Race at Reno using the standard missions and course from Flight Simulator.
• The website will be ramping up with content as I put together the new event rules and select aircraft for the Sport Class race.
• We will be running some multiplayer tests to sort out our procedures and to make sure the server we will be hosting on is sufficient. I will be posting in the various Flight Simulator Community sites when we will be testing so that we can get some pilots up and running
• A new forum will be going online very soon the old forum will remain in place but will not be linked to the site.

Stay posted to this site for additional updates and news as it develops.....It's good to be back.

Joel "Sryth" DeRossett

FSX Acceleration

So I finally picked up the Acceleration Expansion and I have to say if this had been out years ago VARO would be huge today. From the "Reno Racing" to the "Red Bull Air Racing" everything seems to be spot on, and the missions are incredible. I wasn't really sure what to expect but when I loaded up the Pylon School mission which started my on the ramp at Reno with three or planes and a pace plane I was sort of impressed then the planes started taxing and the next thing I new I was flying in formation on the pace lap being guided over the radio from the pace plane. If that wasn't cool enough the racing was spot on as well with myself and the three simulated planes screaming around the course you could see and hear everything as expected. All the little details are there from dealing with engine stress to managing ADI needless to saw I was impressed.

After tooling around in the Mustang I decided to check out the Red Bull Air Racing. I have to say I love the way everything looks and feels but it could use an update to the latest rules and procedures...more on that in a minute.

Finally I loaded up a multi-player mission and to me this is where this version of FSX really shines it does everything that I would ever want it tracks everything right there in the game and the mission can be setup to do just about anything. As for the racing I wasn't racing against anyone but the potential is more than massive.

So how does all of this effect VARO, well for the first time I think that all of the tools are in place inside Flight Simulator to make air racing available to everyone with that said though its all in the missions. Now I experimented before with mission building with very little success but the new system is easy to use and very powerful so my current plans are to build a set of race missions based on the 2009 Red Bull Air Race World Championship. I am not 100% sure how I am going to do this but its a learning process. I am currently working get the SDK up and running on my development machine. I will post more on this as it becomes available.

For those of you not inclined to racing around in circles. Microsoft has released multiplayer missions for the T6 and Sport courses at Reno along with the build in Unlimited course(visit FsInsider for download links).I would be up to bring back some race nights.

A New Look

A New Look
With a new direction and new website. I felt it was time for a new logo to go along with it all. So without further delay check out our new logos.

Expect to see these logos on this page along with many other VARO publications and sites as well as racing aircraft.

Aircraft and Software Testing
Last night I was able to get the last 3 Flight Simulators loaded on my machine last night to begin testing. I am primarily focused on FSX because none of the old VARO stuff was designed for it and I can say though preliminary testing the Transponder works as it did before. The scenery work but there is an issue with the pylon guides which I believe has more to do with the fact that they are not textured. I think that the scenery will possibly need some work but the Transponder is ready for release and as soon as I get it re branded I will post it up to the blog.

Now that I have a working Transponder I am going to begin testing production aircraft to find a set of aircraft that are well matched and competitive. Once I have the 1st wave of testing complete I will be posting my findings.

Fly Fast Turn Left...and Sometimes Right(only in Oz of course)

Lead Race Organizer

Sryth

VARO Update May 14 2009

Welcome Back, or better yet welcome to the new an improved home of VARO

There are probably a few people out there that have wondered what happened to VARO some may not care, other may wish that we would just stay down. Rest assured I wouldn't be bringing VARO back unless I felt that we could put on solid fun events that are both challenging for experienced pilots but accessible for even the greenest pilots. In an effort to provide the best experience possible we have made some change some that people will like and some that some purists will call me out on. Overall I feel that the changes make for a better experience.

So What has changed?

No More Points Series(for now)

We are no longer in the business of running a racing series. At least for the time being all races will be self contained events. Each event will run one possible two classes that will be dedicated around a particular course. Now with that said there will be some form of points awarded after each event that will go toward a "Pilot of the Year" or say the "Pilot of the Summer" award. This way pilots that want to be competitive can race for a larger goal and bragging rights but pilots that only wish to race occasionally can do so. With all of that said I would like to in the future run a F1 series at some point for now however the concentration will be on each event and providing the best possible experience for each event.

Race Format

Gone are the multiple heat knock out style racing, now each event will consist of a qualifying session and three races. Qualifying is something that VARO attempted many years ago very unsuccessfully I may add, now with the current timing system qualifying has gotten dramatically easier. Qualifying will take place 15 minutes prior the the scheduled pilots meeting pilots will have an open course and must submit there time to the Race Organizer before the time is up, Simple. Qualifying will then determine the starting order for the 1st Sprint race. The 2nd Sprint race will see the field starting order inverted based on qualifying. Finally the best time between both Sprint Races will determine the Start order for the Feature Race will be considerably longer. I believe this format will give everyone the most "bang for the buck" so to speak allowing pilots to race in all races with the option to sit out a Sprint Race if they so choose.

Aircraft Development

In the past VARO has developed our own racing aircraft primarily due to the the serious lack of aircraft out in the flightsim community. Today there are many options out the for racing aircraft including aircraft for many classes. What does this mean for future VARO aircraft development? For starters all unlimited style aircraft are going to be replaced by aircraft already produced by very talented aircraft designers. T-6 and Jet aircraft will remain pretty much the same however I am looking to replace them as well. All in all the only development the VARO will be doing is for the F1 aircraft and that will be based solely on the interest of pilots to race in an F1 series. Bottom line developing aircraft takes a lot of time and distracts for the over goal of VARO which is to put on great events.

Software Development

As some of you may remember the last time we race I have finished up the Transponder RC 3 which turned out to be a very solid and user friendly program. The program is still in existence will well only get better as I am already begun to work on new features to make the program even better.

Scenery Development

Before we closed the site down the last time I announced plans to expand our courses to Hawaii,Europe and Australia and I intend to continue with those new courses, I am working to create even more with the goal to hold events in many new and interesting places all in the effort to get pilots out of there normal comfort zones and to see all that Flight Sim has to offer.

A New Flight Sim

I am not sure how many of you have upgraded to Flight Simulator X but I can say that I have and really enjoy the simulator greatly. Now that doesn't mean that VARO has abandoned our FS2k2 and FS2k4 pilots. Thanks to the folks at Chocolate Software and their FSHost server all 3 versions of the game can connect to the same server and see each other. Now i am still working out the details and some research may be involved but I cannot see a reason why with the Transponder and FSHost we cannot have all 3 sims racing against each other. The only possible issue we may run into is aircraft but that should not be an issue.

Keeps getting better with Age

VARO was started some seven years ago and yes we have had our ups and downs we even had a bit of a feud going there for a while but in the end it comes down to having fun and doing something that we love to do and for most of us do not have the means to do in real life. Stay posted for more updates to this site as they will be coming as fast as I can get things together. Hopefully everything will be in place to start turning laps in a few weeks I would really love to be on course with our first open practice before Memorial Day here in the states.

Fly Fast Turn Left...and Sometimes Right(only in Oz of course)

Lead Race Organizer

Sryth

VARO Back Online

Virtual Air Racing Online.....

Back In the Air Soon