Here's a copy of the news from the 'Flankers Anonymous' pages. Apologies for the copying of the text, but i think it's important enough to share around with others. The following article was posted on the russian flight-sim newsgroup by Valentin Loginov (aka CoValent, editor of www.sukhoi.ru). Agent Loginov paid a visit to Eagle Dynamics HQ and flew a 'development version'. Thanks to Vilius for posting it on the mailling list...

QUOTE:

"As usual today I went for some flying and testing of the latest version (November 09). I will tell you at once what my system was: iPII-300/64/Intel740/Suncom F-15.

Well, impressions were the most joyful on this machine and this... accelerator... if we can say this... I had stable 25-30 FPS. At the time of maximum "workload", however (when there were about 10 aircraft in the air hunting for each other and I had another Su-27 in my flight, and we were firing in all directions and performed aerobatics at the same time), FPS was down to 15.

For the sake of justice I must also tell you the resolution of our entertainment - 800x600x16 (maybe I confuse colours and they were higher). (16 bit colour perhaps - VK). I must also remind you it's not even the alpha version - it is development version. The optimisation and streamlining is still ahead.

Su-33, my marine love, flies just wonderfully. It responds to joystick just nice and everything works - ailerons, flaperons... Tailerons work differentially, as required. Remember these are my words, not the info from the developers: it will be possible to shoot even a single aileron, and the flight model will change accordingly... :-)

Missiles are launched properly - some of them blasting off the rails, others just separating. Flying became more difficult - anti-aircraft defences and missiles are more intelligent. Chaff and flares will be painted this week. Now only their flight trajectories are visible. So we chased a pair of F-18 :-))). Anybody wanted to try polygon graphics?

So - all our planes were textured except this F-18. However, everything worked fine, the lightning and shading were correct, detail level was just stunning - even inscriptions on the missiles were visible. As far as textures of foreign aircraft are concerned - we'll see in the future, though models are very precise even now. BTW, burned patches are clearly visible on Sukhoi planes near cannon.

I tried some aerobatics and got lost at the height of the third floor between Sevastopol buildings, lost airspeed and crashed on the embankment right in front of the Naval Officers' House. If anybody still has not found the airport in Sevastopol, beloved by all virtual pilots: the historical truth is restored, and the airport is in the right place now - in cape Kherson.

Just for interest we blasted some ordnance into the runway corner (checked the combination of concrete and grass). The explosion is beautiful, of course, or more precisely - the explosions (each of them is modelled as real one but with random elements). Besides, they behave according to the rules of aerodynamics and meteo - smoke is blown by the wind, shortly.

But the most exciting thing about those explosions was that several subsequent explosions gradually deepened the crater. After the tenth explosion the crater became enormous - and most remarkably - it spread according to the laws of physics.

The Internet play is already completed and after some finishing touches testing on the Net will be started. Later free Russian server will be launched, for 1.5 initially, and later..." END QUOTE...