Hi Alistair,

I still have SOTS installed and I used to use it often. I haven't used it
since I got Silent Wings (www.SilentWings.no).

When the SOTS Gold upgrade came out I made a backup of my entire SOTS folder
before applying the upgrade. For me the elevator response in Gold was
unacceptably small (using any glider), making maneuvering difficult and
highly unrealistic. I went back to using the non-gold version.

Indeed the man who programs and supports SOTS is usually unresponsive
because SOTS is his hobby, not his main source of income. We can all dream
of such a successful hobby (smile). Silent Wings is made and marketed by a
team of programmers; the cost is somewhat higher than SOTS but the support
is excellent. The online discussion forums are active and helpful.

The flight realism and online competition in Silent Wings has been so
attractive I just haven't run SOTS in months. They put up new tasks
frequently, and everyone logs in to test their skill. The top ten finishers
for each task (by glider class) are posted on their website. The primary
online language is English, with strong German/Swiss and French contingents.
The two-week free trial was enough to get me hooked.

The SW lift (thermal and slope) and turbulence is quite good. We regularly
do 200+ km FAI tasks in mixed thermal and slope. They're thinking of adding
wave lift.

I understand that the Condor soaring sim also has online live competition,
but I have not tried it because they don't have a free trial.

Cheers,
Marc

"Alistair Wright" wrote in message
...
Does anyone else on this list run this software? If so have they downloaded
the so-called 'Gold' patch? I have had a lot of trouble with this sim since
I tried adding this patch. The designer is not really being very helpful
right now but there may be expertise here which could explain and perhaps
fix the problems (there are several). Contact me off list (to avoid boring
everyone) at Thanks.

Alistair Wright
Melrose
Scotland