From the creators of the original FSX and Acceleration missions comes Air Alaska —the first release from TakeFlight Interactive. In this challenging, story-driven mission pack you’ll work your way up the ranks of a quirky Alaskan air charter operation.
Before you set forth into the Alaskan wilderness, you’ll put your stick and rudder skills to the test. You’ll climb into the cockpit of the iconic J-3 Cub, and learn to land just about anywhere.
As you take the controls in five challenging missions, you’ll experience Flight Simulator like never before. Highly interactive, authentic, and educational gameplay combine with cinematics, music, AI aircraft, and custom scenery to transport you into the world of an Alaskan bush pilot.
Hauling people and freight as a rookie new hire, you’ll get to know your co-workers (including Rosie the gossiping dispatcher and Martin the grumpy bush flying veteran). You’ll learn the tricks of the trade and become part of the team ... and ultimately the hero.
A custom interface makes it easy to get started and immerse yourself in your new job—with an interactive map, custom briefings, automatic detection of usable add-on aircraft, and more.
TakeFlight Interactive is a new studio formed by former Aces designer Brandon Seltz, along with other Microsoft Flight Simulator alumni. With this first release, they bring deeply interactive mission-based experiences back to the world of Flight Simulator.
Leave the comforts of home behind and head north! Challenge the wilderness while flying over incredible terrain, facing unexpected emergencies, and making harrowing rescues. Do you have what it takes to be a bush pilot? Find out in Air Alaska.
Features:
Custom User Interface – Launch missions from an interactive map to keep you in the experience.
Deep Interaction – Get feedback as you fly, learn how to make short field take-offs and landings from a professional flight instructor. Over 350 lines of dialog included.
Mission Progression – Completion of each mission unlocks the next in the series.
A2A Cub Compatible – Designed for the A2A Simulations J-3 Cub with tundra tires (not required, but highly recommended).
Cinematic Experience – Cut scenes complete with music increase sense of beauty, danger and accomplishment.
Custom Liveries – Air Alaska liveries for the default and A2A Cub included.
This five-mission pack is clearly made by skilled people. The thing I don't like about them is that you can't start them the normal way (from the FSX Missions page), but have to go through a special desktop icon. Maybe this is so that the pack's unlocking function works as intended. You must fly the missions in order, and when you've finished one you'll get the key to unlock the next one.
If/when you save the missions under way (always a prudent thing to do), the saves will end up just anywhere in the missions list.
That said, the mission are very good and extremely varied. You fly mostly in the Piper Cub, with one Beech Baron mission.
I would easily have awarded five stars, hadn't it been for the cumbersome installation and start-up process, but it still is reasonably good value for money (approx. 17€).
I was surprised about the negative reviews. I had no problem installing it (I did when it came out). There was an issue of incompatibility then with ORBX scenery which was addressed and solved. Support was great and there was great communication then.
About the software itself I will only say this: I wish it was longer, I wish there was a sequel or even a neutral adventure where you could fly around alaska just listening to the random dispatch comms between Air Alaska's dispatcher and other fellow pilots. Those random comms alone were worth everything. The adventures themselves were interesting and exciting. Like I said, I only wish it wasn't over so soon. I hope for more of this in the future, with more variety and visiting other places.
After 5 days of battle I have it running. At the end I removed FSX complete from my system and made a reinstall. Now everything work perfect. So on the end I was my own system that gave me the trouble.
To be fare I rate it now 5 out of five.
Nice collection of missions. Everyone who loves Alaska will love flying these. The only thing that was a bit unnerving was that once you leave the missions FSX shuts down too, but that was just a slight nuisance. Apart from that I can fully recommend it!
What a pleasant surprise from some ex-Aces developers for bush pilots running Prepar3D 2.5 or FSX.
You are based northeast of Anchorage at Birchwood airport in Chugiac, Alaska. Initially, your stick and rudder skills will be put to the test with a lawn mower engine and sticky, fat tundra tires... and later in a Beech Baron twin.
If you have the A2A Piper Cub it fits in seamlessly and if you don't the default cub is used.
Works with FTX Southern Alaska or Global/Vector or UTX/GEX or default.
There are some rough edges hear and there but the developers have an open, friendly and responsive forum and are actively fixing whatever bugs and nits that get discovered by the intrepid few.
Though the missions tend to be short they're well worth the $15. I look forward to more from Takeflight soon.
I had been watching their website for some time waiting for the P3D version to be released. It was well worth the wait. I should say up front that I don't own the A2A J-3 which is what the missions are based on. However, with a little assist from the folks at TakeFlight I was able to sub in my L-19, and I understand now that they have a comprehensive tutorial available to show you how you can use similar aircraft if you don't have the J-3 or simply wish to fly something else. Fair warning though, whatever you choose to fly, the missions are designed around the systems and general characteristics of the J-3, so speed-wise it needs to be in that general area or you'll find yourself outflying the narrative.
I was pleasantly surprised with the way the flights are put together. . .nice voice work, nice interaction between other aircraft and "home base" and certainly some interesting characters for you to interact with as you go about making deliveries, picking up passengers and searching for downed aircraft. The weather files supply a nice mix of weather variations but nothing so outlandish that you find yourself overwhelmed. As this is an Alaskan Adventure, you have the mountainous terrain to contend with and landing, away from the home field can be trying, but not impossible.
Overall, this get's lots of stars, lol. I like these types of interactive missions because after being in Flight Sim for so long, I tend to run out of things to do or places to go. . .these are perfect get-away missions that will test your skills, supply a few laughs, induce a bit of "pucker factor" and give you a sense of accomplishment as you head home for the day.