Hind Giveaway Winner Selected Coinciding with the launch of the Mi-24P Hind-F by Eagle Dynamics for DCS World, Skyward started up a Twitter only giveaway between June 17th-24th, 2021. One winner has been randomly selected using a random number generator. Exactly how our 1st anniversary giveaway was done. The winner of our Mi-24P Hind giveaway has been selected! Congratulations to Twitter user Mouaz Osama. They will be contacted via direct message on Twitter to work out the final details needed to get the prize to them. Congratulations! In July 2021, Skyward plans to run another giveaway which will be somewhat larger than this month's giveaway. More information on this next month. Flight Sim Expo 2021 Media Partnership Confirmed Skyward Flight Media is proud to formally announce that we are a media partner for Flight Sim Expo 2021. Our co-founder, Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza, will be in attendance in person with co-founder Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos and other Skyward members participating in online events. Skyward Flight Media plans to publish a series of content related to Flight Sim Expo leading up to the event. Flight Sim Expo (FSE) is an annual flight simulation conference and tradeshow designed to showcase the power of flight simulation to pilots, air traffic controllers, students, simmers, and industry developers. In June 2019, the second-annual Flight Sim Expo welcomed 1,650 simmers and pilots to Orlando. Flight Sim Expo 2021 takes place on September 24th-26th, 2021, at Town and Country Resort in San Diego, California, USA. As North America's community-driven flight conference, Flight Sim Expo is proudly produced by active participants of the flight simulation community. Today the initial exhibitor list was made public with more than 25 confirmed sponsors and exhibitors. Gleim Aviation, Honeycomb Aeronautical, Prepar3D/Lockheed Martin, RealSimGear, SKALARKI electronics Ltd, Sky Blue Radio, SoFly, TFDi Design, Thrustmaster, VATSIM, X-Plane, and Yaw VR Ltd are some of the many organizations involved with this hybrid online and in-person event. Though Microsoft has yet to be confirmed as of the time this article has been published, the organizers of FSE 2021 have released the following statement: "We invite Microsoft to join flight simulation developers like GeoFS, Prepar3D, and X-Plane, along with more than 25 confirmed sponsors and exhibitors, at this year's FlightSimExpo, in-person or remotely. The release of Microsoft Flight Simulator has had an incredible impact in our community. We know the show won't be the same without their participation." Following delays related to public safety due to the effect of COVID-19 on the world, FSE co-founder Evan Reiter made a point to address this directly, saying: "We know people are excited to get back to travel and events[.] We're looking forward to meeting face-to-face at what might be the only large flight simulation get-together this year! But we also know there is still uncertainty around global travel that may preclude some exhibitors from participating in-person. Through weekly social media updates and our upcoming YouTube Live Q&A, we'll keep the community completely up-to-date on attendee and exhibitor participation rates so everyone can make an informed decision." With that being said, it is highly recommended anyone interested in attending this event or learning more about Flight Sim Expo to visit the official website while following either their Facebook or Twitter profiles for more information about the event schedule and updates directly from the event organizers. On June 28th, 2021, a Q&A livestream will be held by the co-founders of the event to discuss various parts of this year's expo. This is a good opportunity for people with more pressing questions about the venue, travel or the expo in general. We want to thank our viewers for their continued support of Skyward Flight Media and our endeavors to cover flight games and simulators across all levels of realism from past and present. Becoming a media partner for FSE 2021 is a significant achievement for us and it is the support we receive that propels us ever forward. Skyward Flight Media Staff

In one week, Skyward Flight Media will be celebrating its second anniversary. As usual we will be doing a giveaway! This year's giveaway will be more flexible in how people can enter the giveaway and the type of prize they can win. TIMELINE This giveaway will run from March 17th, 2022 to March 24th, 2022. The giveaway winners will be announced on March 24th, 2022. PRIZES With the AH-64D Apache for Digital Combat Simulator World now released, it is certainly being offered as a prize, however winners will have options to convert that prize to something else. There will be two (2) winners. First Winner Eagle Dynamics AH-64D for DCS World OR 65.00 USD Steam Gift Card. Second Winner Eagle Dynamics AH-64D for DCS World OR 65.00 USD Steam Gift Card. HOW TO ENTER This year we have two ways to enter this giveaway. Follow SkywardFM on Twitter and like our pinned 2nd anniversary giveaway tweet. Retweeting is not required, but helping spread the word is appreciated. For those that do not have a Twitter account, they can fill out the Contact form on our website. Please include your Name and/or Screen Name, email address and that you are entering the giveaway so we can contact you if you win. Skyward Flight Media will announce the winners publicly in a tweet and blog post on March 24th, 2022. Winners will also be contacted via direct message or email as well to receive their prize. Thanks for joining our giveaway and supporting our two year celebration efforts, Skyward Flight Media Staff

​ Ace Combat: Northern Wings was released in December 2011 as game for mobile phones. After this game was no longer available for download commercially, Northern Wings resurfaced by way of Java J2ME emulators. With fans of the Ace Combat series now pursuing emulation to experience this game, we reached out to the Northern Wings Game Vehicle Artist, Costin Benescu for an interview. Our social media manager, Growler, conducted the interview. First and foremost, can you introduce yourself and your team? Hello to everyone reading this! So I am Costin Benescu and my very small team at Namco was composed of: Dan Oprea (Senior Art Director), Daniel Horia (Junior Art Director), Adrian Ichim (level design art and icon design, FX, UI and we worked together on porting), Alexandru Borcanescu (Lead Designer) and Daniel Ciocilteu. (Game Designer), Cristian Boghina (Game Developer) and Bogdan Bodistean. (Game Developer). Some people came and went but this was the core team hands on working on the game most of the time. I truly hope I did not forget anyone important! ​ Can you tell us how you got involved with this project? How I got involved with the project was kind of interesting. Usually at Namco Bandai Networks Romania people work on multiple projects at the same time. But for this project they wanted a dedicated team, so I was asked something like “hey do you want to work on this airplane simulator game?” And I must have replied: “Airplanes, hell yes!” Before I helped on production for Puzzle Quest 2, Galaga, Pac Man Party, Final Fantasy 2, Soul Calibur Mobile so this was an interesting change.  ​ Did you have any experience with Ace Combat series before? Do you have a favorite Ace Combat game? No previous experience and no favourite AC game, sorry to disappoint, I am not an avid gamer. My father worked in the Romanian army and he always dreamed of being an airplane pilot. So he used to bring a lot of model kits at home back in the 80’s. I vividly remember working on a Huey helicopter kit with him back in the day… so my excitement slash nostalgia pumped me up to work passionately on this game. ​ Why did the dev team choose a Norse Mythology theme for the game? (title of the game, name of the protagonist's squadron, name of the plane, etc) I honestly don’t remember. Might have been a discussion where I was out of the loop. Many of ACNW's aircraft designs take cues from real aircraft such as F-22, Su-47. As the game's artist, was it difficult to design those planes? What is the hardest part of the job? ​ ​ Yes it was a difficult experience for me but I got a lot of help from my team and outside it. Alex (Lead Designer) was very knowledgeable about all things aircraft so that helped immensely! I think the hardest part was figuring out the pipeline. I ended up modeling and texturing, rigging, animating and rendering in 3DS Max then bringing the renders in Photoshop, indexing the sprites to a limited color number BMP files and then clean-up the artwork to a pixel perfect asset for multiple resolution sets. ​ Did you need to study real aircraft designs first before making those models? What's the most complicated model of the game that you made? ​ Yes, I had to study models and blueprints and learn 3D modelling, rigging and rendering to make this happen. I am not sure what was the most complex model but… it’s a close tie between Arvakr V-55 and the super weapon (the big ground boss crab-like with the force shield). Talking about planes, what's your favorite aircraft both in the game and in real life? ​ Hm, that’s a tough one! I really love the Arvarkr V-55 (so F35) for the functional coolness of it but for looks I think the Vargr P-46 (inspired by the Su-47 Berkut) is my favourite, has such a beautiful profile! What was your most memorable moment when designing vehicles for the game? ​ Hm, I think the most memorable moment for me was when I showed my first draft renders of the boats and planes and the Art Director was “…so these are placeholders, right?” That’s when I decided I need to learn a lot more about rendering! ​ One of the most unique moments of Northern Wings is the mission where you control the Arkbird, the superweapon from Ace Combat 5. Why did the dev team choose to bring it into the game and let player control it? ​If I remember correctly Alex (Lead Designer) was really pushing for this multilayered gameplay that is rarely seen in a mobile flight simulator. So I think choosing to let the player control to Arkbird but also fight against it through the levels added much more depth to the gameplay experience! ​ About the gameplay, ACNW has some familiar gameplay features from  such as Air Strike mode, Countermaneuver and Flares. Why did the dev team choose to implement these features in the game?​ I think I can answer this one same as before, to offer a rich gameplay multilayered experience.​ ACNW's gameplay is very similar to other shoot'em up games such as Aero Fighters and Strikers 1945. Was inspiration taken from these games? ​ To be completely honest I don’t know, was not part of those discussions. I personally did not get inspired from any other games except previous Ace Combat games for visual reference on the airships. Besides ACNW which other games have you worked on? Do you have any ongoing projects at the moment?​ So at Namco I also worked on Soul Calibur, Final Fantasy 2, Puzzle Quest 2, Pac Man. After leaving Namco in mid 2011 I worked on a freelance Facebook game project Love Factory. It was condom factory management game, I learned much more about rendering and texturing with various materials. After that I also worked at King helping them adapt Bubble Witch Saga to mobile (2012-2013). Since 2014 to mid 2016 I worked in Malta as a Game Art Manager for a small Swedish company called Yggdrasil. There I art-directed a bunch of video slot games like Magic Mushrooms, Cazino Zeppelin, Fruitoids, Pyrons, Draglings etc. Since 2016 I started to work in the toy industry as a Concept Designer in Denmark, I helped with the 2018 re-branding of LEGO Friends. But my most recent project is MechXhibition - a curating effort that brings together kit bashing, 3d prints, VR art, sculpture, painting and digital art. If you are interested in what I am up to just check out my instagram! ​Thank you for having me for this interview! Image Gallery

The ever-advancing VRChat aviation community continues forward. As mentioned in our previous articles on this subject, the worlds vary in many ways. All of them shaped by the intentions of their creators. These creators usually try to balance authentic feeling aircraft controls with enough space for fun, arcade flight sim style air combat. However, a particular world in the VRChat aviation scene has set itself apart by pursuing a more realistic presentation of combat aviation. Developed by world creator Leopard (れおぱぁど, VRChat, Twitter), the F-35B FlightSimulator is probably the most realistic and advanced military aviation flight world in VRChat at this time. Released to the public on December 26th, 2020, from the start, its inclusion of a working Panoramic Multifunction Display and the F-35B's conversion to short take-off and vertical landing configuration were immediate attention grabbers. While there is a launch trailer for this world, a more recent advertisement for an air combat tournament in June 2021 is a better representation of its current build: In this case, "realistic" is defined by systems made available to the pilots and other external systems present within the world itself. Ultimately, all of this exists within a platform that's not tailor-made for these types of flight simulation, making all of this world creator's work that much more impressive. As I explain the details of this world, how advanced it is will become more apparent. Starting with the surroundings, the primary launch point is from an amphibious assault ship with a full-scale airport and a short landing strip. The player spawn points include information boards in both English and Japanese languages. The boards present introductory information for basic flight controls, cockpit system operations, and credits for the materials used and people that assisted in creating the world. Settings for wind, gusts, weather conditions, time of day and radios are also available. Outside of player vs player combat, there are a number airborne and surface targets and non-combat challenges. Fast travel between all three locations is possible with aircraft spawners available, giving players the option to immediately perform land-based operations if they wish. While there are no navigation or landing assistance systems on the short airfield, the airport and assault ship have a tactical air navigation system (TACAN), improved fresnel lens optical landing system (IFLOLS), precision approach path indicator (PAPI), and instrument landing systems (ILS). When used in conjunction with weather and wind settings that players can adjust, these systems are accurate enough to reliably land a Lightning II even in the worst possible conditions, day or night. Flight characteristic-wise, the F-35Bs feel heavier and less maneuverable than most fixed-wing combat aircraft in other VRC aviation worlds. It's a noticeable difference compared to the more arcade-style flight handling found in a majority of the other aviation worlds that let aircraft pull high energy and post-stall maneuvers and quickly recover from them with just a few seconds of afterburner. Other notable flight characteristics include the moments of instability transitioning to and from short take-off and landing (STOL) configuration. During mid-air conversion, the engine is swiveled to angle downwards, the lift fan door is opened, and flaps and gear are lowered. The change in how the aircraft handles is immediate and requires careful management. Initiating a conversion at the wrong altitude, speed, or altitude can result in loss of flight control and lead to a crash. A picture in picture example of landing in the VRC F-35B is shown below with audio and video of an actual F-35B landing shown in the smaller screen. Vertical landing is possible when certain conditions are met. First, the aircraft must have less than 25% fuel onboard with any external JDAMs (bombs) and missiles expended. At this lightweight, the F-35B can come into a hover. Its throttle now controls minor changes in forward speed, and the flight stick controls roll, yaw, ascent, and descent commands. Two other unexpected functions to see working is an Auto Ground Collision Avoidance System (Auto GCAS), which allows the aircraft to take control from the pilot to bring the aircraft back to safety. Even in full-scale combat flight sims, this is a function that's hardly seen. The example below shows side by side video and audio from the simulated version and a real Auto GCAS incident. There's even an interpretation of the F-35's highly advanced ability to "look through" the aircraft with the assistance of information from the aircraft's Electro-Optical Distributed Aperture System (DAS). To dig deeper into this world's portrayal of the Lightning II would best be done by looking at its 19-page manual (available on Google Drive as of June 9th, 2021). It is only available in Japanese but has been written in a way that can easily be translated by software services like DeepL or Google Translate. The user manual covers everything for symbology displayed on the PCD, heads-up display and helmet-mounted display, and cockpit layout. Attack and defense systems are also explained with radar max and minimum ranges, bearing-range-altitude readouts, and IFF information. A loadout diagram shows all possible configurations the F-35B can equip while it is landed in a serviceable area. Sections near the end of the user manual describe how to use the anti-craft weapons onboard the amphibious assault ship and personnel held FIM-92 Stinger systems. Everything described in this article truly comes alive with a virtual reality headset and a pair of hand controllers. While even users with full body VR setups can move their feet to control the rudder pedals, users that have a monitor and keyboard-mouse can still give it a try. While this simlite world is an outlier in the whole of #VRChat Aviation, it is the wonder of seeing aviation brought to this unusual platform that frequently brings me back to it. In a place where passion, hard work, and willingness to learn can enable creators to materialize their visions, it's energizing to see aviation enthusiasts from around the world create things like this. To end this article, I reached out to the world creator for a statement to let their own thoughts be expressed: "Hi, I'm Leopard (れおぱぁど), creator of the F-35BFlightSimulator. I've been visiting Sacchan's Test Pilots quite a few times since I started VRchat. This flight system is very realistic, and I'm very impressed with it. "One day, I thought to myself, "If the instruments worked, could I make a more realistic flight simulator?" So, while gathering materials and studying programming, I created this world. I changed the concept of this world from a "fighter jet game" to a "flight simulator" and adjusted the game to achieve realistic behavior and systems. We have recreated every aspect of the aircraft, from the basic navigation system to the systems using the latest technology found only in the F-35." "I hope that by playing in this world, you will be able to experience the fun and difficulty of flying. The VRchat aviation community has developed from Sacc's Flight and Vehicles [Prefab] to include acrobatic teams, battles in science fiction worlds, and many other fields. I'm very happy to see that many VRchatters are interested in airplanes, as I was too. I look forward to the further development of the aviation community in VRchat." About the Writer Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. A lifelong aviation enthusiast with a special interest in flight simulators and games. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating aviation related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He continues to explore past and present flight games and sims with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. | Twitter | Discord: RibbonBlue#8870 |

Hello, Thank you for your interest in Skyward Flight Media and supporting us. Starting in January 2021, we have created a Ko‑fi account for viewers that would like to back us financially. First, we think it is important that we take a look at how Skyward came to be. Our core team was initially active under the name Project Lighthouse (2017-2019). What had started as a group of international Ace Combat fans writing about their beloved series began to evolve into something beyond focusing on a specific aviation game series. Following our interview with Ace Combat series brand director Kazutoki Kono and covering the launch weekend of Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown at PAX South 2019, we felt inspired to go for something more significant. But to achieve that, we felt as though the way to branch out beyond our single series focus and open possibilities for future ventures was to rebrand. This is how Skyward Flight Media came to be. Following our rebrand in March 2020, we have elevated our content frequency and variety to levels we did not reach during our first years of operation. Today our content includes interviews with developers and other creators, thoughtful pieces on current and retro aviation games, reviews of software/hardware, and many other different and unique articles about digital aviation as a whole. As we continue to expand both our content and viewership, supporting us through Ko‑fi is one of a few ways you can help support our efforts. Funds gathered via Ko‑fi will be used for website operations and efforts to expand our variety of content. For example, one of our main goals this year is the start of video creation efforts. From simple recordings to more elaborate videos on topics that deserve them. We would like to make clear that none of our primary content will ever be locked behind a paywall. It will always be accessible for you; be it one of our articles, reviews or our videos. We might create some secondary content for our backers but that content will never detract or reduce the quality of our primary content. Thank you for your interest and consideration.

As you might have seen, we always like decorating the aircraft that we fly with the colors of this website. Our co-founder, Cubeboy, started making them as soon as the website became public, two of these have been available to download for quite a while now. We would like to present something that we have been wanting to do for quite a while now but haven't gotten to it due to time constraints. More DCS World liveries! They are still only for the F/A-18C Hornet and F-16C Viper modules, but they have now been overhauled. The designs are pretty similar but now they come in three flavors which should make it easier for you to use them with your friends. We now include more military-oriented designs with Cube's spin like the use of dark blue instead of Air Superiority Gray (ASG), if you want to download them, they are publicly available right now: Here are a couple of screenshots of each so you can judge them yourself, more screenshots are available by clicking the button above which redirects you to the download page. 1. Airshow and Original F/A-18C Skyward CAG Original F-16C Skyward Airshow Livery 2. High visibility/CAG bird-style F/A-18 Skyward CAG New F-16C Skyward CAG New 3. Low Visibility F/A-18 Skyward Low-Vis F-16C Skyward Low-Vis

With 95 posts published to our website which is around double of what we managed to put out in 2020, media partnership with Flight Sim Expo, sponsorship from Fox 3 Managed Solutions and our ever expanding coverage of flight games and simulators, 2021 was an immensely productive year for Skyward Flight Media. Our end of year video shows some of these highlights and gives a glimpse into our flying adventures this year, with what we feel were some of the most significant titles we touched upon. We are feeling confident as we look forward and want to push things even further. Happy Holidays, Happy New Year and see you in 2022! Regards, Skyward Flight Media Staff

Skyward Flight Media is excited to announce our official sponsorship with Fox 3 Managed Solutions (Fox 3 MS) for our Digital Combat Simulator World server hosting needs. While this sponsorship opportunity is brand new, one of the Skyward co-founders has privately used Fox 3 MS services since July 2021 as an everyday paying customer. Skyward has accepted the sponsorship offer because of this positive and unbiased experience. Fox 3 Managed Solutions is staffed by individuals with over 30 years of tech industry experience and countless hours in Digital Combat Simulator World. The result is a company specializing in hosting DCS servers from the point of view of people that fly in DCS World and are familiar with what is required for a stable server experience. Fox 3 MS currently has data centers in Europe, North America, and the Asia Pacific region recently. Skyward first heard about Fox 3 Managed Solutions from a few Spudknocker videos. Before this, we searched for DCS World hosting services that were relatively easy to access. We had minimal experience with hosting and managing a server for this simulator. After ordering a subscription from Fox 3 MS, the company's co-owners began direct communication. Within less than 24 hours, the server was up and running without the customer needing to lift a finger. Admittedly feeling a bit daunted by somehow messing something up, we found it easy just to ask questions and receive responses that were straight to the point and easy to understand. For example, after initially inquiring about how to upload missions to the server and run them, one of the Fox 3 MS owners did a brief screen sharing session to demonstrate a few things. Besides that, the staff has assisted us with answers or video demonstrations with even our most minor questions and hypothetical scenarios. The Skyward team has operated the DCS server with little to no assistance from Fox 3 MS staff for months now. A testament to how accessible they've made things. Customer service wise the past five months have been smooth sailing. We've had two to three short periods of downtime, each lasting a few minutes, throughout our Fox 3 Managed Solutions servers subscription. These disruptions were caused by an open beta patch being in the middle of a download, a slight hiccup at one of their data centers that was resolved just by rebooting the server, and a self-made error caused by one of our staff members changing a mission while using an unstable mobile connection. When talking about hosting services in general, these downtime instances are hardly worth mentioning. After reading the documentation and understanding the user flow, uploading a mission and running it on one of their DCS servers takes no more than a few minutes. Switching missions already uploaded to the server is as simple as clicking "run" on the desired mission and giving it a minute or two to start up. Users can upload third-party mods, support Liberation Missions, Tacview, and LotATC with Simple Radio Standalone (SRS) added as a default to all of their server plans. Skyward has used our server for many things so far. Photo and video shoots for content creation, running open-ended PVE missions with friends, training sorties for players new to DCS World, experienced players wanting to practice in a controlled environment, and sharing server time with mutual friend groups. The capacity to have private and semi-public sessions in DCS World has been helpful in ways we did not expect. While we choose to use a smaller service plan for our needs, Fox 3 MS has more extensive server options for communities of all sizes. There are also extended services for livery uploads and one-time event servers. For more information on all of their services and what's possible with their servers, we recommend visiting their website or sending an email to talk server details and capabilities that may suit your exact needs. In the future, Skyward Flight Media will continue using the stable servers of Fox 3 Managed Solutions for our DCS World content creation and operations. We would like to thank Fox 3 Managed Solutions for this opportunity and their services.

We would like to thank everyone who has followed us on Twitter, regardless if you have been following us since the Project Lighthouse days or if you just followed us recently. As Twitter is our main way to interact and grow, we really appreciate the fact that we have now reached 4,000 followers. It might not sound like much in a world where some individuals and groups have hundreds of thousands if not millions of followers, but for us it means a lot. The more people that know about and care for flight games as a whole, the better! Here's to more. To celebrate this milestone, Santiago (Cubeboy) created the skin below: If you would like a copy of this fancy A-4E aircraft livery for yourself, please message us via direct message on Twitter, Discord, website form or to our email (staff@skywardfm). It's free, of course. 4K Follower September 2021 Giveaway in Planning Phase Additionally, we will most likely be doing another giveaway in September 2021. Keep your eyes peeled for that! Aesthetic and QoL Improvements for the Website By now you must have noticed that the website has received an aesthetic overhaul! Aaron (RibbonBlue) has been tweaking it here and there but the design is mostly final now. It should be easier now to find the content you come for thanks to a few key features. First, we're using lightboxes to bring users to see all of our tags and sort our content by the title of whichever flight game or sim you're interested in: Second, the related posts section being implemented at the foot of every blog post allowing you to jump in and read articles related to the one you were already reading. You have probably noticed it about the featured content section of our posts: Further more, the mobile version of the website has a quick access function to important website features, as shown below: We hope you like the new style and if you have any suggestions, let us know by contacting us on our About page or leaving us a message through Twitter. We take feedback into account for all of these changes.

From August 9th through August 16th, 2021, we will be having our second giveaway of the year. With Skyward Flight Media planning to creating content about Microsoft Flight Simulator this year, we are now offering two winners the chance to win either a copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator: Standard Edition (any platform) or a single (1) DCS World module (any platform). This giveaway follows our standard social media format of following us on Twitter and liking the giveaway Tweet below: