Here's the latest news from LSZH for those who haven't received it by e-mail (and pilots from other Hubs
)
Hello and welcome to December's edition of the Zurich Hub newsletter!
This month, as the weather gets colder and Christmas approaches, I'd like to suggest a few ways to give your flights a really chilly feel! Many pilots feel that the default Microsoft textures are a little dull in places but happily there are many addon files you can use to make the scenery look more realistic...
For FS9 you could try "snow_textures.zip" by Martin Stebbing and "winterrunways.zip" by Randy Oldfield or there is a wide-ranging texture pack, including hard winter, called "araclsp101607.zip" by Brian Neitzel.
For FSX you might want to try "european_ground_textures_part_1.zip" to "european_ground_textures_part_8.zip" by Adam Mills - this large set of replacement textures in 8 parts should make all your seasons including winter more realistic!
Here in Switzerland of course there are snowy mountains everywhere so you should have plenty of opportunities to practise snowy landings with your new files! And if you want true realism, download "weather3.zip" by Adrian Shortall and try his winter weather themes - the wind and icing should test your skills nicely (all downloads on "www.avsim.com").
Of course, the reason I want you all to practise smooth landings, whatever the conditions, is that the newly repainted EuroBusiness fleet is due to be rolled out this month! Zurich, with its numerous international banks and successful businesses is a hugely important Hub for Business flights. So if you believe you have superior piloting skills, you can take out a shiny new EuroBusiness plane as soon as they are released - don't forget our clients have very high expectations! And if you haven't flown EuroBusiness recently, I think you'll love the new fleet- so give it a try and join the "creme de la creme" of the aviation world!
Many of you will have noticed that the Hub statistics are back online - if you haven't yet, why not check out which planes and routes are most popular at our Hub and also which pilots have been aloft the most recently? You might even spot your own name there! If you haven't seen these before, click on 'Company'on the main page menu, then 'Hubs' then scroll down to Zurich and click 'View statistics' - there's lots of interesting information there and it's updated every day!
The reappearance of these stats gives me, as Hub Captain, a chance to thank our most active pilots for their continued dedication to the success of our Hub - so particular thanks go to Dan, Evan, Franz, Iain, Scott and Stefan who have all flown a huge number of hours for EuroHarmony's Alpine Hub! Keep up the great work gents!
As always, let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions for the Hub and I look forward to seeing screenshots from some of your winter flights on the Forum or screenshot library soon!
Enjoy your flights!
