Over 3 Years in the Making
The VRS F/A-18E "Superbug" for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 & FSX, is the culmination of over 3 years of work by some of the add-on industry's most talented artists, programmers and flight dynamics gurus. The F/A-18E is painstakingly modeled in every detail; From avionics to weapon systems, if it's in the real aircraft, it's in this simulation!

Avionics Designed from the Navy's NATOPS Flight Manual
Avionics are the heart of this "glass" combat aircraft, and no compromises in realism were made to bring you the first truly accurate simulation of this aircraft's combat and navigation systems. Four digital displays provide data for navigation, stores management, targeting, sensors, fuel systems, engine systems, and flight advisory. With over 40 individual interactive displays, nothing was left to the imagination.

Highly Realistic Sensor and Targeting Simulation
Short of actually shooting down AI aircraft, sensor and targeting systems are simulated just as their real-world counterparts. You can lock up AI aircraft and receive feedback to the HUD, radar and early warning systems, just as if you were in an electronic military exercise -- the only thing missing is the lethality. The radar simulation takes a number of factors into consideration, including signal strength (range), aspect angle, closing velocity (Doppler shift), and more. A total of 8 radar modes (4 primary and 4 ACM sub-modes) are simulated.

Unmatched Virtual Cockpit Quality & Speed
Although the simulation is heavily focused on avionic systems, we haven't ignored little indulgences like "eye candy". The VRS F/A-18E sports a stunningly beautiful  and completely "flyable" Virtual Cockpit in which 100% of the controls are functional 3D components rather than "projected" 2D maps. The VC and external models feature a set of extremely high resolution textures for the ultimate in visual clarity. Gauge update rates in the VC are optimized for the fastest possible response. Four types of interior lighting including panel transillumination, flood, and night vision modes provide a completely immersive environment. Animated shadows for many of the controls further enhance the "suspension of disbelief".

Extensive Hand-Drawn, High-res 2D Sub-panels
Although VCs are becoming quite the norm, we also realize and appreciate those who prefer their "office" in 2D. The aircraft features over a dozen 2D panels in native 1600x1200 resolution, all hand-crafted and extremely clean. A unique "Panel Navigator" pop-up can be used to quickly find the system you need.

Professionally Designed Aircraft Management Application
A very comprehensive Aircraft Manager application is included for loading out an extensive set of weapons and pods, as well as configuring fuel, failures and preferences. In total, the number of combinations of stores which can be carried is in the thousands. Schematics for all major systems including electrical, environmental, fuel, and hydraulic are interactive and show you exactly which systems will be affected by the failure(s) you've chosen. Failures can be immediate or randomly generated for any system.

Procedural Animation System
A single model file with procedurally animated components handles all firing, jettisoning and dropping. Each of the 11 loadout stations can be individually dropped/fired with a corresponding decrease in weight and drag. The external model features folding wings, tailhook, avionic bay doors, ECS auxilliary duct doors, complex flight control system-slaved primary control surfaces, opening nosecone with working (and tracking) radar dish, deployable boarding ladder, and much much more. We've also designed a procedurally animated air-to-air refueling system, or "Buddy Store", which can by carried on the aircraft so that it may act as a tanker. The entire refueling process is simulated in intricate detail right down to the cockpit-installed aerial refueling panel. This is quite simply the most advanced animation system you're going to find on a combat aircraft for MS Flight Simulator.

MSFS is generally a CPU-bound application. This means that above a certain point your GPU (graphics processor) becomes less important than your CPU (system processor). The following figures for Minimum, Average and Ultimate frame rates should only serve as a guide. There are far too many variables associated with Flight Simulator and the VRS SuperBug to make accurate predictions. Think of them as percentages.

A word about performance: The VRS Super Hornet is a high-end simulation of a high-end aircraft. Obviously is not a Cessna or a Spitfire, loaded with relatively simplistic analog gauges and control systems. The real aircraft contains many hundreds of thousands of mechanical and electrical parts. Our simulation, albeit to a lesser extent, also contains many thousands of "parts". These systems don't come free; the price is CPU power. In terms of multi-core systems, the number of cores is completely irrelevent since FS is not multi-threaded. However these newer Dual and Quad core CPUs ARE much faster per clock cycle than the previous generation of processors, even running FS under a single core.  A much cheaper dual core processor with a faster clock will beat any quad core at a slower clock when running FS9 or FSX. That $999 Extreme Quad Core running under 3Ghz WILL be slower than a $150 3.16Ghz Dual Core when running FS, as will be the case with most current generation games.