I’ve resurrected my Flight Simulator 2004 (FS9) install!

I purchased a large collection of addons back in 2009-2015 for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 of a large variety and with much money. When FSX was released, all those addons were not compatible with it and became obsolete. Back then, FSX required very powerful computers and the poor performance made me return back to FS2004.

Later on, Lockheed-Martin picked up from where the ESP platform was left from Microsoft and released newer and improved versions as Prepar3d. The software was continuously updated breaking the addons that were purchased for the simulator.

Whenever an upgrade was released for the addons, developers often made users pay an upgrade fee. This is assuming that the addons are not abandoned by the developer.

I eventually moved on to X-Plane 11 by Laminar Research at the time where the addon market for it was starting to boom. Many simulations were very in-depth, study-level and so realistic that even pilots could use it for training. I purchased a couple addons for it. I was confident that I didn’t need my old sim anymore and deleted all my installers for FS2004 mods. My backup hard-drive failed and lost everything. I wasn’t upset because I thought I would only play X-Plane from now on.

When Flight Simulator (2020) came out, it revolutionized the way scenery was generated using photogrammetry and satellite imagery to generate a world so accurate that you could see your house in the game. However, this game is still in it’s infancy without a proper SDK. Hardly any serious addons have been release for it.

I realized that I was stuck with a bunch of addons purchased a while ago that I wasn’t using anymore. A sense of guilt ran through me because I felt that I spent money on nothing. I didn’t want to keep spending so much money (addons are getting more expensive these days) every time I upgraded. Therefore, this year, I decided to resurrect FS2004 and get all my addons back. It wasn’t that easy.

Screenshots

Finally! I’ve managed to resurrect most of my FS9 addons on Windows 10. The reason I did this was because I bought so many addons for FS9 back in 2009-2015 and I feel like I was putting them to waste if I didn’t use them at all. It took me two days to get most of my addons installed. I still have more to go. It's about 55 GB so far.

This time, I made backups for all the installers and keys on OneDrive and on an external hard drive. Despite all of this, I figure some addons are going to be eventually out of date.

Difficulty of Installation

Here’s what I discovered installing such an ancient flight simulator on a modern system:

  • Most FS9 products disappeared around 2016 from stores.

  • Addons with plain and simple installers that don’t phone home still work.

  • Flight1 Wrapper doesn’t always work with Windows 10. This is a known issue. Therefore, I’ve lost some addons.

  • Some vendors don’t provide downloads for legacy products anymore.

  • I had to contact some developers to get the legacy installers.

  • Manually generated keys are not done by the developers anymore.

  • Many products aren’t supported anymore (this is understandable).

  • Some activation servers are no longer online.

Due to the above, I had to resort to piracy to use products that I actually bought. I had to go through shady websites often in languages that I don’t understand. I sought refuse with VMWare, uBlock Origin, Sandboxie and VirusTotal to hopefully catch any malicious software. It made me reflect our reliance on online services these days. Once they’re gone we lose the software and our data.

What I miss from FS9:

  • 2D panels which are really easy to read and navigate through. They look ugly compared to virtual cockpits but they’re so much more practical and pragmatic.

  • At this point, after more than 20 years of hardware evolution, frame rate is incredibly high. I can run it at 4K at 60 fps all the time in any scenario.

  • Excellent and busy AI traffic with the proper addons. Easy to spot with labels above them.

  • Probably the simulator with the most freeware addons.

  • The collection of payware addons is much more varied, you can essentially find scenery for any location on the planet and a huge variety of obscure planes.

  • You can have windows of other views and put them on a separate screen.

  • You can have windows of some gauges and put them on a separate screen.

  • No VAS issues. Still need a patch to increase it to 4GB because by default, with more demanding addons, the sim still crashes.

  • Flight Path view and Replay.

  • Planes for early history are there such as the Wright Flyer.

  • Flight Lesson material is in depth and well documented.

  • Incredibly fast load times and startup.

  • Meigs Field

  • The graphics look way more natural than modern FSX and F3D. I find that the addons for the latter tend to look more cartoony and too vibrant.

What I don’t miss from FS9:

  • Gauges refresh rate is terrible, especially compared to X-Plane’s ultra-smooth panels. It’s even worse in VC where some planes where the refresh rate is probably 2-4 FPS.

  • No good camera tool for moving around and effects. There’s only F1View and Active Camera but they leave a lot to be desired.

  • Flight Dynamics are absolutely terrible. It feels like you’re flying on rails and turbulence doesn’t do much.

  • The virtual cockpits look so bad. Almost everything is 2D and you can really tell.

  • So many separate executables for load management and other features. They’re integrated into the sim in new simulators.

  • Comparing to the amazing scenery from MSFS, FS2004 looks extremely dated and horrible. Autogen is utterly terrible. Terrain resolution leaves so much to be desired. I can’t believe one pixel is used for 4 meters squared. Scenery drawn further away is blurry mess and mesh looks terrible.

  • Mesh is so low resolution outside of the US. Addons that add extra resolution are buggy because of improper airport altitudes and flat airports.

  • Almost all decent scenery is payware.

  • Again, it’s ancient software now.

  • Compared to modern addons, system depth isn’t that deep.

  • Need an external tool for flight planning. Forget about SID and STARS with the default one. I use SimBrief as an alternative.

  • The incredibly invasive anti-piracy mechanisms. Some they even detect false positives and do something like delete folders in your FS9 install or delete the addon. I had to use virtual machines to test some of them. I’ll leave this detailed in another post soon.

  • Need to run as administrator for most addons to work.

  • No HDPI support. Everything is tiny.

  • Selecting aircraft don’t always work

  • Default ATC is useless. (I mean, it still is in X-Plane 11 and MSFS2020.

  • The game is unstable and needs constant restarting.

After being spoiled by X-Plane and even more with MSFS, the FS9 graphics are really really starting to look dated. 

Conclusion

It feels like quite an achievement to get all this running and definitely worth the time. I now have access to most of the software that I purchased and learned to love in the past. Looks like this will keep me busy for a while.

I still play and enjoy X-Plane and MSFS and have a collection of addons for them too. I don’t believe that you should pick one simulator and live with it. There’s nothing wrong with having multiple ones as long as you have the disk space!

Recommended Addons

  • Level-D Simulations - The 767: This is a good balance between a study level and a casual simulation. Very easy to learn with nice documentation and example flights. Quite old but a classic.

  • iFly Jets - 737NG and 747: The old PMDG airliners have been discontinued. This is a good replacement and up-to-par with the current PMDG simulations.

  • Leonardo - Fly The Maddog SP2: Probably one of the most complex simulations for FS2004. It is a discontinued but if you look hard enough "online" you'll find it.

  • PMDG - MD-11: This is probably my favourite airliner simulation. You can find DVD of it on eBay but also "online". PMDG discontinued it because apparently, it didn't sell really well. I call bullshit on this and believe that it is due to a developer debacle. The main developer (Lefteris Kalamaras) of the plane left and they couldn't support it anymore. Here’s some help.

  • SSTSIM - CONCORDE: Very detailed Concorde with a very immersive feel. Simulates the majority of systems but not all of them. This is more in-depth than the PSS one.

  • Aerosoft - Piper Cheyenne: A really in-depth dual turboprop simulation.

  • RealAir: Citabria/SF-260 and Spitfire: Simple planes but very realistic flight dynamics. Plane rolls-over in stall and probably the only simulation that I've tried that simulates sideslips.

  • VRS - F/A-18E Superbug: If you ask the developer very nicely, you will get a copy for FS9. This is the most in-depth military aircraft even more than the DCS version.

  • PILOTS - FS Global Real Weather: This is a great replacement to ActiveSky Evolution. It's still supported and works with FS2004.

  • Matthias Neusinger - FS Recorder: A million times between than the integrated replay in FS9. Much smoother.

  • Pablo Diaz - HDEv2: This is freeware, you can find it on AVSIM. It enhances the sky colours and clouds dramatically. I find it to be less cartoonish and subtle than REX.

  • FSAddon - Glacier Bay Alaska/Canada: Another freeware that you can find on AVSIM. It replaces a good portion of Alaska and Canada with more detailed mesh, textures and landclass.

  • Flight One Software - Ultimate Traffic: My favourite AI traffic enhancement. I find it stable, provides good density and good performance. There are many freeware alternatives on the Internet.

  • Flight One Software - Ground Environment Professional: Replacement ground textures. Looks much better than the default but it won't work around the terrible ground resolution in FS9.

  • Flight One Software - Ultimate Terrain: Highly improved landclass, rivers, roads, etc for Alaska, Canada, USA and Europe.

The Sad Demise of Propulsion Controlled Aircraft

Sioux City Crash

In July 1989, a DC-10 chartered by United Airlines, Flight 232, crash-landed in Sioux City after a disastrous loss of all hydraulics rendering the plane uncontrollable. One-hundred and twelve souls lost their lives in that accident considered one of the worst air disasters in US history. The hydraulic fluid, which actuates the flight controls based on pilot input, leaked out after an uncontained failure of the tail engine severing the lines.

The hopeless last moments of United Airlines Flight 232

One off-duty training captain, joined the cockpit after hearing the explosion from the back. Through experimentation, he discovered that by manipulating the throttle controls, he could control the plane slightly and attempt a safe landing. While everything seemed under control, at the last seconds before impact at Sioux Gateway Airport, the plane banked hard and flipped over and burst into flames.

The terrifying final moments of JAL123 recorded on CVR.

Japan Airlines 123 Disaster

Four years before, in August 1985, Japan Airlines 123, was the subject of the world’s worst single aircraft disaster in aviation. An improper repair of the rear bulkhead caused it to rupture after several cabin pressurization cycles over hundreds of flights and slowly tore the rear tailfin. All the hydraulic pipes ran through the tail and their breakage caused again, all the hydraulic fluid to leak leading to the subsequent loss of all flight controls.

Again, the pilots followed the technique of the Sioux City flight. They wanted to fly back to Haneda airport but despite all the heroic efforts to control the plane for an incredible 30 minutes, fate was against them and they crashed into the mountains near Mount Fuji. As the single worst aircraft crash in history, 505 people lost their lives.

DHL Takedown

It seemed at this point that the aviation industry still didn’t learn their lessons after two similar crashes. Years later, in 2003, a DHL Airbus A300 cargo took off from Baghdad, Iraq towards Bahrain and shortly got hit from by a man-portable surface-to-air missile from Fedayeen terrorist group. It struck the left wing causing damage to it and subsequent fuel leak. The hydraulic lines ran through the damaged wing and all three leaked and failed. Again, the pilots lost all flight controls.

Captain Éric Gennote was forced to improvise again using the same technique as in the previous incidents. He managed to turn back to the airport but had to make two approaches because the first final was too close. As an incredible feat of flying, they managed to land the plane safely with a damaged wing, leaking fuel and no flight controls though they went off the runway. It was the first instance of a plane crippled by lost hydraulics managing to land safely at an airport without injury.

Other Incidents of Flight Control Failure

Many more incidents occurred over aviation history counting over a dozen. Wikipedia lists a comprehensive compilation of these types of incidents.

Throttle Only Control

All the pilots in the flights above learned that by controlling the throttles they could slightly control the plane with throttle commands alone. To climb, more power would be needed to increase the speed of the plane thus increasing lift. To descend, the opposite would be done dropping lift. Turning was done through asymmetric adjustment of the throttles while the engine with more power would cause the plane to lift from that side to turn in that direction.

However, despite the effectiveness of said technique, the flight paths tended to be erratic with constant pitching movements would cause a phugoid cycle. The plane would climb until it lost enough speed and pitch down and lose altitude. During the descent, the plane would gather up speed until it started climbing again. This rollercoaster ride made it hard to stabilize the aircraft and be the cause of quite the terrifying maneuvers.  

An amazing demonstration of a flight control-free landing in a simulator.

PSX Simulation

The developer of Aerowinx PSX, a Boeing 747 flight simulator, has created an excellent demo where they manage to control an aircraft with only throttle commands. As seen in the video on the side, we can see the first landing attempt to be aborted (go-around) only to return back for another approach and make a successful landing. While this is only a simulation, it shows that it is possible to control an aircraft without flight surfaces and only throttle control instead.

PCA Tests

Little did these pilots know, there was already software in development that would save the plane in cases like these. In 1993, NASA with the cooperation of McDonnell-Douglas, managed to create a system that would control and land the aircraft safely without any flight controls. It was dubbed Propulsion Controlled Aircraft (or PCA). The principle was similar to what the pilots in the mentioned incidents above attempted to do (by moving the throttles up and down) but done so systematically and automatically. However, since the system was run by software, it could be more precise and generate a more stable flight.

It was first implemented on an F-15 tested in the Dryden Facility and was demonstrated to safely land the plane that looked exactly like a normal landing. The increased stability was dramatic and the increase in control would be impossible to replicate by even the most skilled of pilots. They also tested the system on a passenger MD-11 aircraft with similar results. The MD-11 has its third tail engine set at idle to mimic the more common two-engine configuration found on most aircraft.

NASA’s demonstration of PCA

The system works through the autopilot with the pilots setting the heading, altitude and vertical speed that they desire and instead of manipulating the trim and flight controls, it would send the commands to the engines. No new sensors would need to be installed simply relying on the already existing ones.

PCA had an excellent success rate and landings were not only survivable but looked a lot like a normal landing. In fact, with PCA, I believe that none of the above accidents would have ever happened ending up being but a short NTSB report.

FAA Rejection

To me, the system seemed like a really trivial installation and with the software already developed, not very costly. However, the future of the technology was looking bleak. From Bill Burcham’s rough sketch to a prototype fully developed along with engineer Tom Wolf at NASA, lead to a system that seemed integral to future aircraft. However, that did not happen.

The FAA which oversaw the project concluded that it wasn’t financially worthwhile to implement such system. Their reasoning was that complete hydraulic loss was so rare, 1 in 100 million, that it wasn’t worth installing PCA onto the aircraft of the future. Enthusiasts of the technology such as Dave Hayes, from the Airline Pilots Association, and Dennis Fitch, one of the captains who survived the Sioux City crash, were thoroughly disappointed when this technology was thrown out.

Conclusion

No matter how rare that such incident apparently is, it’s happened so many times in aviation history. We can’t say it’s unlikely anymore. The 632 people who died from said failures certainly agree. Aviation is known to be the pinnacle of safety but recent times have shown that manufacturers have chosen a culture of profits and the consequences might cause even more incidents. Isn’t it enough that I mention the MCAS on the Boeing 737 MAX that resulted in the destruction of two aircraft and hundreds of deaths?

The above flights have been dramatized by the excellent Mayday documentary series: