The Falcon BMS team congratulates to the 50th anniversary of the F-16.
Long live the Falcon!

Backstory:

The first flight of the F-16 was not initially planned but resulted from a high-speed taxi test. Phil Oestricher, the test pilot, was conducting the taxi test when he decided to continue accelerating. Due to a combination of factors, including a slush-covered runway and a lack of braking action, the aircraft became airborne, and Oestricher decided to take it into the air. This unplanned event occurred on January 20, 1974, and marked the first flight of the F-16 Fighting Falcon.

Falcon BMS Holiday Xmas 2023

The BMS Team is wishing you happy holidays and a merry Xmas 2023!

Enjoy your BMS presents…

Hi Everyone:

As noted elsewhere, MicroProse has acquired the copyrights in the Falcon 4.0 Intellectual Property (IP) from former owners, Tommo. [For completeness, Tommo still owns the associated trademarks.]

The BMS team has been working with MicroProse to formalize a working relationship and understanding around use of the IP. The goal for this is to ensure that work on Falcon BMS releases and updates can continue with a minimum of friction.

I am happy to bring you all the good news: The BMS team has now concluded a formal Agreement with MicroProse.

I won’t bore you with the minutiae of the conversations that led up to the Agreement or its final form but I think it’s important to share the broad strokes of how this will work.

The Agreement codifies the following:

The BMS team has the rights to use MicroProse Falcon 4.0 IP to continue making Falcon BMS releases

These rights are essentially perpetual meaning the BMS team’s work can continue working on the code and data with no end in sight.

Falcon BMS will continue to be a free-of-charge binary release for non-commercial purposes as it is now. And also as it is now, a licensed copy of Falcon 4.0 will be required to install and run Falcon BMS.

The BMS team has the ability to become the source of licensed copies of Falcon 4.0 in the event that no other source supplies that on a substantially equivalent basis to that on which it is available now. We also have an avenue to explore more and different distribution paradigms for future Falcon BMS releases.

MicroProse may become a Contributor to Falcon BMS work. When and if that happens, the Contributions will be handled the same as any other contribution taken into the BMS body of work – the BMS team will have the non-exclusive right to incorporate such content and/or modify it as needed to meet the needs of future Falcon BMS releases.

I think you will agree that this is a very significant step for the Falcon community overall. Certainly it is a significant step forward as far as the BMS team is concerned.

We are very pleased to be working with MicroProse, an IP owner who both appreciates the value of and strongly supports continued work of the BMS team on making the best possible Falcon BMS.

And of course the BMS team wants to take a moment to appreciate all of you, the community. Without your enthusiasm, passion and engagement none of the above would even be possible. In that context, congratulations to us all: clear skies are ahead for Falcon BMS!

Maintenance Over

NOTE:

For those wondering where dark mode went, it was not compatible with that new version so you’ll have to set the custom skin you want:

Check that WEBSITE to see the skin list…

Just head on your avatar and select:

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SETTINGS

And then:

4ce5f9fd-ce29-49e7-ace4-28fe517d438d-image.png

(Message form @Micro_440th and @ohommes )

Hello community!

The BMS Interactive Maps are going to the next level.

From now on, it is possible to have a collaborative session with multiple users (details in manual).
The falcon BMS team provide you a 24/7 server where you can host your own sessions (pick a non obvious session name 🙂 ).

But not only that. Now its possible to download real time weather, import it to the Interactive maps and/or save it as an .fmap.

For more information, check the Interactive Maps manual.

Enjoy!

PS: this is open-source so feel free to contribute and report bugs there: github maps / github server

Hi Everyone:

You may have already seen an announcement from MicroProse that talks about BMS. I’m happy to confirm the details here.

Benchmark Sims are delighted to announce that the Falcon Series has returned to its original home at MicroProse, and we at Benchmark Sims are excited to continue our work with their full blessing and support.

Our team is committed to delivering the best possible experience to our fans of Falcon. With MicroProse’s endorsement and support assured, there is no end in sight for the BMS Mod or the Falcon Series. We would like to thank the community for their continued support, and we look forward to sharing more updates with you in the near future.

Stay tuned for more exciting news from Benchmark Sims and MicroProse!

Merry Xmas BMS 2022

source: https://www.falcon-bms.com/news/happy-holidays-and-merry-xmas-2022/

Dear community,

While the team has been working hard and “crunshing” those last week to bring 4.37 development to a gold state, it is time to celebrate this end of year with joy, family and loved ones!

2022… What a year to remember!

While the world just recovered (almost) from COVID, we are struck again by events that impact us all… But… We stood united!

While we had a lot of changes internally (people, tooling, infrastructure, …), we did not forget our aim to deliver better and faster. We look towards the future more than ever (you’ll see that soon enough don’t worry!)…

Falcon entering a new era

While we keep some surprises under the hood, 4.37 will be our first VR ready release!

We also consider this version a sort of transition to prepare the ground and fondations for 4.38 which will bring our new terrain engine…

The team has focused a lot on fixing bugs, optimizing and parallelizing a lot of our code to bring even faster experience. This was mandatory for VR but also for the future…

4.37 will thus keep the strong base of 4.36 while giving you a good glimpse of our future!

Prepare to be amazed and shocked as we made a lot of choices that we think are long awaited by the community…

We hope that we will be able to release our 4.37.0 soon™ and let you enjoy our work!

Happy holidays and Merry Xmas from BMS Team

Enjoy the new release!
https://forum.falcon-bms.com/topic/23377/falcon-bms-4-36-u3-incremental-installer

Enjoy the new release!
https://forum.falcon-bms.com/topic/23247/falcon-bms-4-36-u2-incremental-installer

Dear pilots,

We have now opened the interactive map for BMS:

https://maps.falcon-bms.com

Enjoy!

Dear Pilots,

Very happy to promote the podcast episode from the Air Combat Sim Pocast covering the launch of Falcon BMS 4.36
You can find the related news HERE

Very big thanks to our host @Tricker and the participation of @MaxWaldorf and @Mav-jp from BMS!

source: air combat sim podcast

Enjoy the new release!

https://forum.falcon-bms.com/topic/22228/falcon-bms-4-36-full-installer

Falcon BMS Xmas 2021

Year 2021 is coming to an end and everyone is taking a well deserved holiday!
In this time of sharing and presents, we wanted to share with you a small present that hopefully will rejoice everyone!

Yes, we have seen Santa and here is a living proof:

After refueling his reindeers, he left us some goodies for the F/A-18C patrolling the area.

Soon after, fog started covering the region announcing snow for the evening!

This has been an awesome year and we’re exited to move on to the next with the same will and ambition!

Merry Xmas everyone and see you soon in the virtual skies!

Benchmark Sims Team

Original News: Link

Dear community,

As part of the new asset refresh BMS Team has done, we are happy to offer you a brand new forum based on a modern interface and fully responsive (mobile / tablet / computer).

We are sure you will love the new experience!

Falcon BMS Forum

So what should you do now?

Well 2 options:

If you were member of the old forum, just request a password reset here: Password Reset If you don’t have any account, just register a new one by visiting this link: Registration

We hope you’ll enjoy the new assets!

Now your turn to help BMS reach the next level.

PS: Please check your spam emails before you complain 😄

#maintenance

Dear BMS Follower,

Please find the current state of migration process:

[Preparation phase]

0800Z: User Registration is closed. If you haven’t activated your account, please do so or you’ll be deleted…

0925Z: Opening non private forums for guests (except download section and other topics).

0935Z: Attachments cannot be posted anymore (read-only).

0945Z: Database maintenance and optimization (low impact on forum).

1008Z: Database optimization over.

1030Z: Last warning sent to non activated accounts before deletion.

1200Z: Remaining pending users without email activation deleted.

1240Z: Zero post accounts have been deleted. (don’t worry, you’ll be able to recreate them later…)

[Migration Start]

1600Z: Forums in read-only mode

1610Z: Database export

1645Z: Import process started (this will take a while!)

1840Z: End of first migration phase (user import)

1920Z: Second step done (topic import). Starting post import…

2145Z: Post import finished. Finalizing features imports.

2150Z: Text encoding conversion starting

2205Z: Conversion done. Starting configuration (lots of manual work 😞 )

0000Z: Surprise coming!

[WARNINGS]

Accounts without email confirmed will be deleted. (1200Z) 0 post accounts will be deleted (1200Z) No attachments will be able to be uploaded (0935Z) No messages will be able to be posted (1600Z)