An Open Letter to Microsoft

Discussion Hub General Discussion
107

I just did a flight to Hickory, NC, which has one ILS. This was in the TBM. I did not pre-load the approach in my flight plan. During the enroute phase, I was able to tune VORs on both Nav1 and Nav2 and freely adjust the CDI bearing for any tuned VOR. As I got close to the destination, I tuned NAV 1 to the ILS 24 frequency 108.7. As soon as the ILS was in range, and the identifier I-HKY appeared on the PFD, the course bearing went to 243 degrees, and I could not change it.

The actual localizer course on the r/w chart is 241 degrees, but the ILS brought me right to the center of the runway with a centered needle, so the 2 degree difference probably reflects a difference in the magnetic variation model of the sim vs. real world.

So, it appears that if a standard VOR is tuned on either NAV receiver, the course may be freely adjusted. If an ILS frequency is tuned, but no ILS is currently in range, the course can be adjusted, but as soon as an ILS is received, the course immediately locks to the inbound published course of that particular ILS. I assume the course setting comes from the nav database.

1 Like
109

ILS (correctly, the localizer) has no radials, there’s no need to dial in a course as opposed to a VOR.

The VOR of the C-172 with steam gauges is broken while the VOR on the glass cockpits (at least the TBM and C-172 G1000) are working fine.
Which is even worse since we paid a premium price to get the steam gauges…

What bugs me the most at this time is the weather/wind though. The ATC tells you (on final) completely different values than you actually have when touching down. AI aircraft taking off in the opposite direction since they seem to have different wind than Tower/ATIS is giving me etc.

I just hope that they get it right with the first patches to show that the direction of the sim is towards the better. Now that they have the release done, maybe they’ll have more time to work on the known issues. We all don’t know what was going on in the background during Alpha (but maybe that’s exactly the problem).

1 Like
110

Yes, I am an avionics technician so I know how it works. The centering of the ILS localizer needle depends only on the aircraft’s spatial position in relation to the localizer beam. The needle will work correctly no matter what course is set. But, from an operational standpoint, it is important to set the correct inbound course (especially with an HSI), so the pilot can visualize the angular relationship between the aircraft’s current heading and the localizer.

On a simple non-HSI OBS/CDI setting the inbound course on the OBS is nothing more than a visual reminder to the pilot of what the course should be. Although there is no technical reason why you would have to set the localizer course, failing to do so on an instrument check ride would assuredly result in getting a failing grade.

Perhaps Asobo coded the G-xxxx systems to automatically set the ILS course as an aid to those new to flight simulation.

I have not yet flown the analog 172. What is broken with the VOR gauge?

2 Likes
111

VERY GOOD Assessment! :wink:

112

This should be required reading for people that think that since it is straight from Asobo/MICROSOFT:

  1. We are making Microsoft Flight Simulator. Emphasis on the word SIMULATOR.

  2. Designed for PC, optimized for multiplatform support (e.g. Xbox).

  3. Yes. We are supporting 3rd Party Content Development and Community Content creation. We are aware of the concerns in the current eco-system and are working to address them.

  4. Yes. We genuinely want to work closely with the community in the development of this title.

  5. Accessibility is important to us. Whatever your abilities are, if you want to fly, we are going to do whatever we can to make that happen. Yoke and pedals, mouse and keyboard, controller, etc. No pilot should be left behind.

4 Likes
113

you cannot shoot, all you can do is fly around. Kids using the outside view will lose interest pretty quickly and MS will need to concentrate on the simmers for MSFS to be a success.

2 Likes
114

I was not in beta or alpha but as a consumer it’s always frustrating when you jump into a game (or sim) and find an array of bugs and a giant obelisk on your first flight and wonder what all the alpha and beta testers had been doing? To busy making YouTube content saying this will all be fixed in the release version don’t worry.

If MS never interacted with the alpha or beta testers and nothing reported was ever fixed seems odd to think you were here for that.

Seems to me all the alpha beta testers job was minor load testing and promotion.

115

Stopped reading when one of your complains is about the Cessna.
Let the devs work please.

2 Likes
116

YES… SIMMERS is long term CORE customers not gamer… sorry no offence please forgive.

117

I remember reading this when posted, and was comfortable with it. Maybe they have changed the terminology since then, but it seems they may have been considering the PC release to be “public beta” all along, and the subsequent XBOX release to be the official, media-hyped, release. Fine with me. Other sims have already beaten me in to submission and made me a patient long-hauler.

1 Like
118

I thought all post on a open forum was “an open letter”.
And to address it to the CEO.. how silly.

1 Like
119

So what to do now with that contradiction? May there be a course setting from the nav database or is there some kind of correction for magnetic variation?
As you are an avionics technician, you will know that this is exactly that kind of confusion you don’t want to appear in cockpits.

If an ILS course is published as 241°, your flight instructor would expect you to dial in 241°.
An ILS (localizer) course is the measured angle between the localizer beam and Magnetic North at the localizer antenna. This is what gets published and this is the magnetic bearing you will experience when approaching on the localizer. Since you fly your aircraft by magnetic headings, there is no such correction for mag variation.

(Imagine there was a correction, what would it help at all? That course would be useless unless winds are zero, because you’d still have to adjust the value for the wind vector to get your heading)

When the published localizer has a value of 241° and MSFS is showing 243° for any reason, chances are high there is a database error.

120

First let me start off by saying thank you for the very thoughtfully crafted original post. I appreciate the time you clearly took to write down how you felt and the concerns that you are expressing for not only yourself, but the community. With that said I also appreciate the majority of the responses here.

Before I get to far into the weeds on this let me first start by saying this:

We are currently working on releasing a patch to address stability/performance and loading issues. It is currently being tested by our teams internally and we hope to release it soon. Information on the contents of the patch will be released tomorrow along with the date

So I believe the majority of this post(s) really lands on one thing. That there is this disconnect that the community continues to have in regards to the below:

that there is no communication with the devs.

To start the community team does communicate back when they have things that they can contribute to the conversation. They do their best to respond in kind to issues that are brought up by the community and just in general threads. Granted right now there is so much work going on behind the scenes and with our current team size of two Community Managers and the many channels they have to moderate you can fill in the gap as to why communication is slow and selective to important and informative responses. We want to hit every question and the CM’s are working hard to bring every concern to the team, along with working on many other ways to help improve community feedback from the team to the community and vise versa.

Forum Moderators. Please understand that they have been chosen to help us respond on behalf of the community team. They check with the CM’s on hot button issues and act and do things as an extension of the CM’s to help them out. Please respect them and understand that they are doing what they are asked, and are here to help you, so they can help us.

Next let’s talk Devs. Conversations with the devs are something we are increasing. We are hosting a monthly Q&A with the devs on our twitch stream similar to the one we already released before launch. We want to continue the feature discovery series, and have more 1 to many conversations with the team. This will take time for us to figure out the best route to do that. You may ask "Why not just have the devs respond here?" We don’t want them to do due to the FLOOD of messages they would receive as a result, or the demand for people to read their post and fix their problem. Them responding constantly takes them away from.. fixing the sim. Developing the sim, working on new features, etc.

I have said this a thousand times during our Alpha but the devs read EVERYTHING When they have a break, or are at home. They read the forums. They want to know what you’re happy with, upset with, content with. They want to know this community. Just watch the Q&A stream and listen to Sebastian talk about the forum posts he’s read. So while they won’t be responding to every forum post, know it’s been heard and taken to heart.

Lastly when it comes to the issues of people not being able to get into the sim if you believe that the team doesn’t see all of the issues and has not been working everyday since launch, hours on end including weekends and VERY late nights to address this, then you are mistaken. Getting people into the sim is our number 1 priority. Yes Jorg mentioned cool and fun features and things we want to do, but he also said “We want to get the fundamentals right”. This includes stability, performance, and getting people into the sim. Yes we had an Alpha and Beta to work on these issues. BUT we also had a much smaller percentage of users, and all users only playing via one method, and rolled in, in at specific times and increments. A much difference experience than what is happening now.

With all of that said (and yes it’s a lot) we are so appreciative of those of you who are here and advocating for those who can’t play the sim. Our goal is to make a great sim for this community. We plan to be here for a long time and this is JUST the start of a long journey ahead. Hang in there and we will get past this point, and continue to grow with this amazing community.

55 Likes