Wow that commercial check ride.
Docked because the taxi path it gave me was obstructed, and I went around the planes instead of hitting them.
There was also some sort of glitch where it started flashing at me in red that I had entered an active runway when I was supposed to be holding short (even though I had already stopped in the highlighted blue box). But then those penalties didn’t show up at the end.
So you do a 7nm “cross country”, again just flying through the boxes. I was kind of wondering if they were going to make me tune ATIS, ground, tower, and SoCal Approach all on my own. Nope, just hit enter and hear somebody else talk on the radio and pretend it’s you. The mission description said I would be using dead reckoning following a given heading and landmarks to fly a cross country solo. Nope, just the boxes again with a guy sitting next to you.
No tuning approach or getting a squawk for the class charlie. One of the radio calls you had to do was to tell the tower that you just took off?
I know I know it needs to be accessible for every day gamers. But I’ve done this flight on PilotEdge and man it is a day and night experience.
Longer thoughts on career mode after getting some sleep:
Overall, it’s not what I had hoped for, but it’s about what I expected. There’s no real way to correctly quantify airmanship or aeronautical decision making without setting up rigid metrics that are often antithetical to the decisions pilots have to make. In some places, it’s downright nonsensical, especially if you don’t meet the right sequence of hard-to-communicate/understand prerequisites. And of course, this being a global simulator, it’s an amalgamation of the various regulations, practices, and procedures you’ll find all over - it’s not going to be right for any one country, much less when you get to how things are interpreted and taught by individual instructors (or schools).
I get that.
Some specific areas in which the career mode could be improved, based on my interactions so far:
-
Use of private airports. Many airports are not required to meet standards of the regulatory jurisdiction, thus not meeting standards that are set forth in the sim (regardless of how correct they are or aren’t). Things like trees or obstructions in the way, hard-to-find soft runways, and the fact that hold short lines sometimes (especially on soft fields and private airports in general) don’t exist. Heck, sometimes the airports we can select don’t exist.
-
Use of AI-generated routing. As I mentioned above, the demands of the “customers” are quite nebulous - I’m having a hard time finding them to begin with, but when they’re revealed they don’t make sense or would be illegal in several ways. This results in the command decisions being taken out of our hands in order to “game” the system and garner reputation and credits. If I flew in real life the way the sim expected me to last night, forget reputation, my certificate would be on the line.
-
Passenger banter and demands. The passenger banter is sort of okay - not totally unrealistic, and kind of funny, though it’ll get old. However, there’s no way to “hush” them when they’re talking over ATC or during sterile cockpit (big problem here). But where I absolutely draw the line is the unrealistic, consistent whining that we’re too high or too fast. That is the “E” - external pressure in the PAVE checklist that we’re are taught to mitigate or avoid entirely when making good aeronautical decisions. Basically, sure, they’re the customer and I will try to give them a good sightseeing flight where they want to go, but it is my call how we get there, how fast we go, and how high we go. There are many regulations and overall practices that dictate that, especially considering loss of power, etc, and I did NOT see any of that on display last night, which is SUPER disappointing. There should be more of a way to plan the flight on my own - to still reach their objective area for a requisite amount of time, but the route, altitude, speed, ADM, that’s up to me and NOBODY else, and if they don’t like it, too bad. We can’t manage their expectations in any way, and that’s a serious flaw. When I take people up sightseeing irl, there’s some serious briefing that’s done (and required!!!).
-
Use of guide boxes and overall pathing. This is distracting. It causes a ton of tunnel vision and objective-meeting rather than flying the plane. I found myself out climbing the boxes because I know how to lean at high density altitudes. Also, are they fixed in space to the point where wind doesn’t affect them? If I have a strong headwind on climbout, you bet that increases my climb angle, and vice-versa for a tailwind. It makes for poor, distracted flying. They need to be turned off, but further, they need to not be so stringently enforced. And some of it is dangerous - the insistence of climbing 500’ above the pattern while still in the pattern is a setup for a midair. 1 mile wide patterns in a single-engine is asking for trouble. And either I interpreted something wrong or it is wrong, but it felt like the pattern at Sedona was asking me to stay at 6000’ (which is almost 1200’ agl) all the way to the downwind to base turn instead of a 1000’ AGL pattern where you start your descent abeam the touchdown point. That’s a setup for bad flying.
-
Use of ATC. Sigh. First, we generally do not call taxi out on CTAF. Oh my god, hitting a dozen other nearby airports on the same freq with every taxi in and out call would be chaos in real life (and be heavily derided). Remove that, please. Takeoff and pattern calls, yes, and there should be an initial inbound call around 10 miles and another at 5 miles out. Second - the UI and interaction is wonky. The return key did not work half the time, and as I said above, the logic of talking to the class D tower whose airspace I immediately flew into when I departed the private strip is wrong and I got docked for it. There also seems to be this idea that we call the traffic for every airport we overfly - I get that for actual airports with CTAF, but for private fields or heliports that don’t have a published CTAF? No. There seems to be a lot of bad data with frequencies and how ATC in general is performed and if we’re held to that, it’s going to be a no-go for me.
-
weather. Life ain’t always 29.92/1013. The constant turbulence and major updrafts I’m fighting (also causing me to go too fast for the pax) would actually make most newbie pax sick and throw up. I was laughing when they said it was so peaceful and they were enjoying the flight. Also, shouldn’t their perception of how fast we’re going be dependent on ground speed? What if we’ve got a ton of wind? Speaking of wind, it seems to be coming from random directions that aren’t usual for those locations (and might cause issues with obstructions, etc). I’ll have to confirm that with more testing. Either way, the takeoff runway was basically auto selected and there’s no attention given to slope, weight, wind, obstructions, etc. Again, as PIC at a non-towered field, runway choice is MY call, nobody else’s.
Oh, and on my PPL checkride the proposed taxi route went right through a parked aircraft. I went around it and got docked about 20% on taxiing. Forget that we never did a runup, checklists, anything like that. Forget that I consider it pretty good ADM to avoid parked aircraft. Nope, the rails dictated that I lose.
So no, I don’t accept getting docked for any of the above, and I think it’s counterproductive to do so, frustrating for all walks of pilots, and promotes bad flying and decision-making.
Okay, here’s another point I didn’t mention: I set my cruise altitude prior to the flight in the EFB at 55.00 feet (what’s that even mean?). It got stuck at that and I couldn’t edit it after, so that seems like a bug.
Regardless, I went up to 5,500’ entire and got dinged the whole way. The blue path never matched what I entered vertically, only laterally.
THEN the passengers demanded I fly lower anyway - I didn’t see that objective anywhere to begin with. And again, I don’t care that they want to go lower.
It wouldn’t allow me to pick KPRB as my “base”, but now after my first mandatory First Flight mission, I’m allowed to magically teleport to and fly in/out of KPRB for my second ever mission?
I really don’t get this. What is the point of this base, anyway?
Had the same thing on last night’s stream. We got a chuckle out of that.
I really don’t want to be so negative, but my initial impression is that this probably isn’t for me, which is a shame, because I am an aviation junkie.
If this sim isn’t built for aviation junkies, then who is the target audience? Mr. I’ll fly over my house and then get bored and go back to Call of Duty?
Do I need to give this more time? Am I being unfair?
(The Seastar in free flight is really calling my name right now…)
I just realized that if you do show off that you got 100% on everything, all it’s going to do is make real pilots suspect that you flew unrealistically and gamed it. The irony.
They need prompt, constructive feedback in order to right things. I think what we’re doing is necessary. Whether it’s listened to, or if this is even the right avenue to do so is a different story.
Hello @CharlieFox00,
We are carefully reading, documenting, and sharing with the dev team all the constructive feedback we receive from the community.
Thanks,
MSFS Team
7 Likes
I’m just bummed. I really enjoyed NeoFly in 2020.
I was so hoping this would be like that only better because it is implemented natively in the sim.
I’m genuinely disappointed here. I wanted to really like this.
Let me add, too, that during the surveys that went out by MS that lead to this mode being added to the sim I never specified that I needed or wanted a career mode or “something to do”. I was perfectly fine doing my own thing as a pilot.
However, this idea totally grew on me once I experienced NeoFly, which happened after I answered the survey.
I would call myself part of the target audience for the career mode.
I like goals and progression; I like being given options to pick where to fly instead of coming up with something myself (that’s why a big fan of Virtual Airlines); I feel that I have greatly neglected VFR/prop flying overall and the career mode really gets me into that.
I would like to think I am not completely clueless as to how airspace works (thank you VATSIM UK ATC Training) and what is expected from a pilot flying in said airspaces.
So for me, there’s lots to like about the career mode, just wish some things were a bit better.
Appreciate that, Seedy. I figured that would be the case, and didn’t intend to imply that it wouldn’t be. 
And if there ever becomes a better method/forum with which to hash this out more methodically (rather than a general airing of grievances), please let me know.
I believe we are aligned here, although I’m massively a VFR pilot, so that aspect isn’t a revival for me.
Do I need to push through and give this more time? How far have you gotten?
I’m willing to keep trying. I just don’t want to be a candle snuffer in the midst of limited light… I loathe being negative.
50 smth flights over 8 hours which includes the tutorials for PPL, CPL, Night Flying and IFR. Cannot do IFR exam cause I cannot remove forced 2020 scenery on me at Sumburgh causing cliff runways. So that’s all career mode for me for now until they fix it.
Thanks for the reply. I’d simply like your post to tell you as much, but I’m totally out of likes!
They were the band that became Supergrass…
Funnily enough, it wouldn’t surprise me if at least one of the Jennifers on your plane sounded like a man.
Just voicing my opinion in here in case points made in this thread is being read for future update considerations. Career mode was one of the things I liked the most while reading about the new features over the past 2 months and one reason to consider buying 2024. But if it’s all on rails, it’s an arcade game.
I was thinking we would be free to make decisions as trained pilots to complete an objective using basic safety and comfort piloting we are trained to do as pilots. I would like to have a career feeling like I earned my way and eventually can make my own routes from A to B as long as it falls within reasonable parameters according to “flight training” and mission demand. And if it’s true it’s influenced by a non working ATC system we have to ignore in FS2020, that’s kinda a problem as they will send you into a mountain. It’s like having the worst ignorant boss ever. On top of the rails I seen footage in a stream that reminds me of the slow flight to Cayo Perico in GTA 5. (That plane crossed with a post op van up a hill)
I hope Career mode gets to have more freedom and at least some that can use live weather like a cargo run for example. I imagine doing a cargo run and part of the challenge is getting goods to point B on time good weather or bad. I understand why you wouldn’t want skydiving to be on a day there’s a thunder storm so things like that can be in a fixed weather environment or the player can simply choose the weather no matter what. Would be interesting seeing an evil pilot sending divers into a hurricane just for the lols.
I was really looking forward to this mode but from what I’m seeing atm, it would be a feature I would ignore because it’s too restrictive while at the same time seems to have some unreasonable requests of the player. Just my 2 cents as an observer.
I would say my biggest issues with Career mode:
- The Career mode mission picker definitely needs filters, especially for: Mission type, Airport type (grass, hard runway, controlled airport) and Mission difficulty. I would also like a filter for Airplane (for example, I never want to fly the Robin again).
- Several times I have gotten dinged for things that make no sense. Specifically I was flying the Robin and set the flaps while parked at the ramp and got a “too fast for flaps”. A few times I’ve had the “hold short” line show up on a different runway (e.g. when there’s two runways crossing), forcing me to turn around to go on that runway. I also don’t know any airport that forces you to “hold short” while on the runway. For exiting the runway it should be “pass the hold short line”.
- The ATC interactions definitely need to be fixed. Most of my flights have all been VFR flight rules, even though I have IFR rating. I would definitely like to see VFR being forced to navigate around airspaces like Class B and penalties for not respecting those boundaries.
Another element that is frustrating to me and adds to the “gamey” kid mode feel is that I don’t get to shutdown and secure my aircraft. I cut mixture and in a heartbeat the mission is over.
Add options for this. Allow people to turn that sort of thing off and focus on the game aspect and allow people to turn this sort of thing on and focus on the entre aviation experience aspect.
I cannot stand that whole “immersion” thing, but it’s true.
The biggest thing that is helpful to us when sharing your feedback is to be constructive and specific about what your problems are. Your post here is a good example of this. 
For everyone else, consider the difference between these example comments:
- “Career mode sucks. This is for Xbox console kiddies, not Serious Simmers like me.”
- “I would like an option to disable the taxi ribbon and aerial blue box navigation assists in Career Mode for increased realism and immersion.”
- “During a skydiving mission, the mission parameters asked me to climb to 12,500 feet. This is an unrealistic high altitude for a basic skydiving flight and is close to (or exceeds) the service ceiling of my aircraft.”
- “The taxi ribbon wanted me to taxi through an obstacle (tree, other aircraft, etc.). I avoided the obstacle but was subsequently docked points at the end of the mission for not following the taxi instructions. This doesn’t feel right.”
The first example is non-constructive and does not mention any specific issue that we can document and send to the devs for future action. The other three examples are all specific, actionable requests that we can pass on to the dev team to consider changing in a future update.
Thanks,
MSFS Team
7 Likes
