Hey all
I flew some first missions.
What confuses me a lot is: Should I follow the path indicated by the blue rectangles as close as possible?
Or can I basically do whatever I want? ^^
Because the EFB and also the G1000 usually have a pretty different flightplan / route than what these blue rectangles show.
The strangest was me first (and so far only) parachute mission:
I did everything perfectly fine, precisely flying withing the blue rectangles from start to finish.
But after the flight, I got a huge punishment for beeing way too slow in the execution. But I flew as fast as possible within these rectangles. Their path was just extremely long, especially at decent. It took forever to get down within this path with about 400 fpm decent.
So should I just ignore the path, and decent as fast as possible in parachute missions?
And the same in other missions?
Or do you get punished if you leave that path for to long and to much?
I find this all pretty confusing.
And why is the GPS path usually so different? 
I started ignoring and fly my own path. The parachute missions I cant get more than a B grade because employer always says I took to long
The altitude objectives are otherwise not clearly stated anywhere in the briefing, so you need to follow the (distracting) blue boxes to not get penalized.
The EFB is mostly ineffective in the career mode (at least in the earlier stages that I’ve seen).
You know how I managed to make it on good time? After the guys drop out of the plane, throttle idle and sink down spiraling over the airport as fast as you can. Ignore the flight path and go straight to final.
They are very demanding with the time so you’ll have to really dive that plane to make it work.
I personally love this, irl some pilots will try to beat the skydivers to the ground. Its super thrilling.
Pay attention to the conversations between the skydivers. The one in charge always goes through a briefing and they say the altitude there. Otherwise the flight path boxes will put you in the right place. Or just go 10k AGL, I think that’s what it’s hard set to.
yes, IRL the plane often lands before all the skydivers are on the ground.
Personally with this release I am down with flying through the blue boxes just for fun and only if the mood strikes. There really are no wrong ways to use MSFS it seems. Unless you crash and then something went wrong.
Sounds good - haven’t gotten to those missions yet. Gave up after a series of CTDs last night. The first flight missions with the customers demanding to go lower are 
You don’t need to be inside the blue boxes, they are mostly a back-up, connecting the waypoints in one way, while the EFB has another way. However, you should reach the waypoints, that sometimes have an altitude, like in the parachute missions. Yes, listen to the briefing, but I found that you can be up to 1000 feet lower. Unfortunately, AFAIK, you cannot turn off the rectangles and keep the waypoints.
To answer a few questions.
I generally stay in line with the blue rectangles during flight - HOWEVER, this entirely depends on the terrain and weather I am encountering. If I am flying over flat, non turbulent terrain, then staying at blue box height is fine. But, if you are flying over trees or hills, you can go 2-3000ft above the boxes, to avoid the downright ridiculous turbulence. You shouldnt lose much points if at all. In fact, some of my best point flights have been done with this method. Stay on the EFB/rectangle path direction wise, but altitude wise it at your discrection.
For skydiving. I found the best way to do it is: walkaround/taxi/takeoff all as usual. Once you complete the initial turn after takeoff and around 1000ft, skip to the drop. This eliminates the insane climb expectations the game has for your C172. Drop the jumpers and when you reach the end of the zone and complete it, dive as fast as you can while side slipping and turning to land as quick as you can. This is the only way not to get 0% on the time score. Trust me, it works, just be careful not to break the plane on the descent.
Hope this helped.
The sightseeing missions penalize for being more than 5nm away from the sightseeing point but the blue boxes center at 5.5….
They blue rectangles can’t be turned off? That’s a bummer 
Has anyone else language issues with the missions by the way?
I have my sim turned to English. My Windows is German however…
Now everything in the sim is English, like I want it to be. However, the passengers in the missions still talk German! “lol”
And it sounds horrible!
Is there a separate setting? Why are the passengers talk German when everything else is turned to English in the sim?
The blue boxes and taxi ribbon can be turned off with “toggle landing ribbon” and “toggle taxi ribbon” keybinds (for me they are Alt+4 and Alt+3). I have to toggle them in every mission, the settings in the Assistance menu seem to be ignored in career mode.
Edit: it doesn’t seem to work every time
Hello @TheRealOli4D,
The blue navigation aids can be toggled on or off in Career Mode depending on your preference. We recently posted instructions on how to do this here:
Thanks,
MSFS Team
Cool, thanks @SeedyL3205 !
At least a workaround! But we need to be able to turn these things off in the assistance menue or somewhere like that.
Have to create extra keybindings for this is quite silly and far from userfriendly.
So how fast can a C172 go before the wings fall off?
I tried to keep it out of the yellow, but I’m wondering if it might not punish me if I don’t go in too far?
Probably risky, but I have just dropped pretty qucickly, well at least it seamed like it, and still lost reputation for being too slow. 
They led me to about 5000 ft AGL with the objective then to be at 1000 ft AGL for a sightseeing tour, resulting in penalties. So I stopped caring…
I spent a lot of time at a German dropzone when I was younger. It was pretty neat to hear the radio from the Grand Caravan… “D-OM, turning base, 8000 ft” (circuit altitude would be 1700). And it also helped doing some nice frames on my last tandem video back in 2006 with the plane dropping down right behind us.
Back on topic: So that approach is perfectly reasonable and close to reality.
Hello,
the deactivation you indicate does not work in exams or driving lessons, the blue rectangles are still displayed.
I haven’t tried this game but in general the fastest way to loose altitude is a spin. Although theoretically not permitted on most aircraft. An alternative is crossed controls. Also makes it sink pretty fast while keeping the speed within limits.
Steep spiral with as much flaps and as little power as you can get (careful not to cold-shock a piston engine; and give it a little throttle every turn or two to “clear” the engine).
The steep bank angle reduces the vertical component of lift by turning much of it horizontal. But it’s a one G maneuver as long as you don’t pull back on the elevator and load the wing up. It may want to overbank or level out depending on the airplane, so you have to tend to the bank angle. But in this configuration you should be sinking rapidly and not gaining a lot of speed while definitely remaining under positive control.
I was able to get over 3000fpm down in the 172 without worrying about overspeeding the flaps.
Bonus if you can come out of the turn right into a pattern entry and never have to touch the throttle. Just make sure you are being safe with other air traffic.