P3D

Happy new year everyone! It’s January and we’re continuing our effort to explore the communities favorite add-ons for flight simulation. This month we want to know your all-time favorite top 5 GA aircraft for Prepar3D. We have listed many in the poll but if your favorite is not listed please select “other” and let us know what it is. Please select your 5 personal favorites from the list. From the results, our video team will produce a top five video featuring your favorites!

If the iframe above does not work please click here to complete the poll.

Part of the reason we want to do this is to help those new to the world of flight simulation find community-rated quality products for their simming experience. We feel the community’s input into what products to buy is incredibly important to help those new to the hobby, so we hope that these polls enable this to happen.

The poll will run for one week from January 18th to midnight of January 25th. Please note that you should only vote for your top 5 once. Any votes we feel have been abused we will disqualify.

Remember your vote only counts if you take the poll above!

FS2Crew is widely known for their virtual copilots, and now we have a virtual ground crew from them as well. Ultimate Ground Crew X has been in development for many years, and now we are finally able to get our own first look at the product. Let’s dive right in and see what Ultimate Ground Crew X has to offer.

Ultimate Ground Crew X, or UGCX for short, is a new ground crew utility that offers a number of services for your aircraft. First thing we are going to check out is the options the are within the UGCX menus.

UGCX mainly uses the native P3D style of menus for selecting which service you wish to use. Selecting the options button will bring up more options to customize your experience with UGCX. You are able to choose from 4 languages which is something FS2Crew is really proud of. Within the aircraft profile settings, there are many different options to customize. Switching the tug used for that aircraft, switching between voice and menu control, how far the marsaller is from the plane, and so much more is available in this menu. The options also let you customize the location of the wheels on the aircraft so UGCX has a better understanding of how to properly push the aircraft. Other options available are airport chart viewer, audio options, reload scenery data, and display the current settings.

Moving on to the hand signals and marshalling. Just like you would expect, a ramp agent will marshall you into the gate of choice, telling you when the correct position to stop is. A follow me car can also be requested to guide you to the gate. With the hand signals, these include engine starts, disconnecting GPU, removing wheel chocks, and more. These same commands can also be done with an intercom system.

Jumping over to the towing feature. This will allow you to reposition your aircraft to any parking position without having to start your engines. UGCX will automatically plot the shortest route from your position to the parking of your choice.

UGCX also features an emergency services option. This will spawn an airport fire and rescue vehicle which will come up to your aircraft and spray it with foam.

Last but not least: the pushback feature. When selecting the pushback, you are greeted with two options: design a custom pushback, or let UGCX design the pushback for you. For custom pushbacks, an airport map is opened which allows you to plot out your pushback. Its as simple as right clicking to make nodes. Once you have created a route and selected a pushback point, you can save the route and activate it. Wing walkers follow the wingtips just like they would in real life. 

Voice controls can be used instead of the menu controls.

We hope you guys have enjoyed this first look. More is coming in the future.