Registered users of Jeppesen’s SIMCharts received an e-mail stating “….. This email is to let you know that the sale of our SIMCharts 4.0 service which works in conjunction with Microsoft Flight Simulator version 10 (FSX), will end on April 1, 2009. There is no new version being planned at this time. Support for the SIMCharts 4.0 service will continue for 1 year thereafter or until March 31, 2010. Access to the service after March 31, 2010 will no longer be available…..”.
Sources at Microsoft have confimred that the link to the ‘real weather’ servers at Jeppesen which are used in FS will continue for at least a few years longer.
Thats very unfortunate, as I’m a regular user of SimCharts. With this sunsetting of SimCharts, and the future predicted sunsetting of the weather server at Jeppesen for use in base FS9/FSX, it seems to be a pretty good indicator that whatever form FS is reconstituted in, it will no longer be anything like it historically has been.
Don’t forget that you can get any US approach plate here for free:
http://www.pilotfriend.com/flightplanning/flight%20planning/approach_plates.htm
“We appreciate you as a customer and encourage you to visit our website, jeppesen.com, to view the full breadth of services and offerings Jeppesen has available to you.”
What they really mean is: We’re not interested in MSFS, it no longer pays – TOUGH!
“Sources at Microsoft have confimred that the link to the ‘real weather’ servers at Jeppesen which are used in FS will continue for at least a few years longer.”
I can’t see the link lasting much longer than a year. Do any of the Wx add-ons for FSX connect to alternative “real-time Wx servers”?
I have heard some buzz about this new site chartvalet.com that is supposed to integrate actual approach plates into MSFS.
They haven’t released anything yet, but the site says something is coming soon. I don’t know what “soon” means, but I am anxious to see what it looks like.
Unfortunate as some of the support from 3rd party addons disappears. I don’t know what the future of MSFS is. However, there are other possiblities based on open source platforms that may eventually prove viable.
http://www.myairplane.com/databases/approach/
http://fswidgets.com/screens/efb2004/target3.html
http://www.reality-xp.com/flightsim/gns530/index.html
I hope this can help you.
ChartValet is on the horizon from the guy who wrote http://www.vataware.com. Stay tuned to http://www.chartvalet.com for details!
Raz
Sorry. I didn’t drop in a link earlier.
http://chartvalet.com
If you want something similar to Jepp, this seems to be the only thing out there that promises to incorporate charts into FS.
If you want to print off charts and use hard copies, then I agree with Dave’s post. Pilotfriend is the best in my opinion for downloading and printing copies.