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.
