What i would like to hear …how do you use the sim?
As inspiration to me and others I think it would be interesting to learn how others are using everything, planes, world, weather, multiplayer.
I preferably flies GA planes myself, sometimes in my home country Denmark, just seeing the sights.
Sometimes I like to be an virtual tourist and find a location, recently Italy fx. the coast from Rome to Sicialy and Tasmania. Going from town to town even looking up things in Lonely Planet and ofcause checking the local weather. It gives a good meaning and sense of purpose.
Also tried relearning to fly, doing things the right way, and I must say despite simming on and off for many years I have learned a thing or two.
Historically I have flyied big planes (FSX) but for now I am waiting untill everything matures.
Also I search and print our info about the planes and instruments POH, repair manuals, garmin manuals, king/bendix. You can easily have 9 pages on doubbelsidet paper, so even a 500 pages manual becomes manageable. Have to use a good pair of glasses though. Have a dossier on each plane.
Please hold back from a lot of…I carn’t use it, every thing sucks. There are other places for that.
Back in my FS9 days, my go-to planes were the Super Constellation and Starliner from Manfred Jahn. If I flew anything bigger, it was usually an MD-11F - because boxes don’t scream when I pull extreme maneuvers to save a botched approach! Beyond that, it was usually t-prop twins. The default King Air got a surprising amount of time.
In this one, it’s usually one of the 172’s for local flights, then the TBM for a little bit longer distance. Most of what I fly is essentially what I might fly if I was a real pilot, such as flying from my home airport to the beach.
I’d love to see a HondaJet with the G3000, and I’d pay top dollar for a really nice Connie - especially one done as a modern restoration with the same GNS530 style avionics found in the 172 Classic.
Mostly GA planes that have gps and auto pilot. I mostly fly short flight to and from local airports, half hour or less flights. I tend to use simple flight plans, gps, autopilot and ILS approach landing if available. Basically I am lazy lol. I also use some of the flight assists.
I am not overly concerned with ultra realism because I will never be a pilot for real. I even go as far as to tweak some of the aircraft for better performance. I haven’t done it yet in MSFS but I have in the other sims. I find a couple planes I really like to fly and then start messing with the config file to see what I can get them to do without going nuts.
I also like small jets, tend to like faster aircraft. So I am waiting for a few to come into the sim. Or some decent fighter jets.
Oh, and I don’t use online weather, traffic or multiplayer and don’t pay much attention to ATC. I let the AI handle the radios most of the time. And I mostly fly during the day in good weather. If I were to try and fly in real life I would assume that is what I would be doing as well. I would try plan out flights so I didn’t have to fly at night or in bad weather. Just seems safer that way.
So far I only did short (20-60 min) VFR hops mostly in areas where I flew in RL. Scenery and weather can be very immersive at times like rain showers with midnight sun just above the horizon on the Norwegian coast line or night flying through the San Francisco bay around scattered low level stratus. I now mainly use the Cap 10 as it is the least incomplete GA aircraft with steam gauges (apart from the little Cessnas) - I do not like those TV screen cockpits with microscopic keys. Sadly there is no complex stock aircraft with an old fashioned cockpit.
As I “managed my expectations” (as one forum member suggested we should do) and consider MSFS2020 more of a game than an actual simulator in its current state, I am having some fun despite all of its shortcomings.
Looking forward to seeing the small GA planes finally fixed and completed.
As a visual slave for Aerowinx PSX connecting to MSFS with WidePSX…
Here set to depart VHHH 7R for a circuit round to the virtual IGS13 into VHHX (https://flightsim.to/discover?s=vhhx)
After my initial world sightseeing bonanza at release, I settled into a nice little formulaic playstyle.
At the beginning my computer couldnt handle most major cities with photogrammetry, so I stuck to my home base of KORS and the San Juans. Id fly to all the different islands in different planes and dabbled in OnAir which I think is great. I have a Seatac to YVR benchmarking flight because I was really trying to squeeze every last frame out of my setup so I did a lot of tinkering.
I really liked doing longer flights in the TBM, KORS to Anchorage for example, (fuel off), Id leave on while I do various tasks for work on my other screen. Set autopilot and its like the greatest screensaver ever.
When I do sightseeing of far off places, I use google/bing maps, wikipedia and http://radio.garden/ to tune into local radio stations for where im flying anywhere on the planet for the local ambiance.
I just recently upgraded and Its like a new game. If I spawn at a larger airport its hard not just to taxi to parking, turn everything off and watch people fly patterns or land their different planes. When I tried that with my old setup Id crash in minutes.
Talk about nostalgia with the super connie by Manfred. That was probably my most flown in FS9.
As for MSFS, I’ve been flying around random places in GA planes - a lot of my hours are in the C208, which I’ll probably be flying the most up until we get a Twin Otter or the Longitude is fixed. I’ll definitely be getting the Aerosoft CRJ to do those regional jet hops in what looks to be a near fully functioning and correct cockpit (which is not available in any aircraft yet). I also like taking around the Cubs in Alaska - finding little strips and places to land on or orbit and enjoy the views. I recently started the bush trip activities and plan on completing those for the achievement (and fun, of course).
In XP11 I mostly flew the RWDesign Twin Otter and ToLiss A319/21 (my two most flown planes in ~1.1k hours of XP11 flying). When a study level airliner launches I’ll probably grab it and try and split my time around the aerosoft otter, CRJ, Cubs and airliner… which pretty much covers the whole spectrum, but I’m having loads of fun either way.
I was thinking along those lines the other day.
When posting in the forum it would be nice with some insight in the posters commitment to the sim.
It could be by this ‘code’ thing:
CG = Casual gamer
SG = Serious gamer
CS = Casual simmer
SS = Serious simmer
In that scenario i am a CS.
I am until instruments are working, mostly flying VFR and i follow most rules, like patterns, max 250kts below 10000ft etc.
I love the C172. I rarely fly anything else since the alpha ended. I like flying in my home country (UK), hopping between airfields. Strangely I really enjoy doing circuits too. Like you, I used to like the big jets, but since having real GA flights with a friend and subsequently lessons, I just enjoy GA more.
I only fly the A320. In previous versions I flew the 737 but I must admit that I absolutely love the Airbus (even with all the limitations in this sim). I mostly recreate flights I’ve been on in the past, which is no longer than ~3 hours total. Long haul bores me.
I prefer GA, because the SIM is too beautiful to fly on 30.000 feet. The North - Iceland, Norway, Alaska. The South - Greece, Cyclades and Ionian Sea, Italy - Tuscany. US - Washington, Florida and of course Bush Flying at all in special Patagonia. Last but not least, I love Snow, Snow, Snow
Doesn’t matter what you prefer. FS2020 is a beauty.
20 years ago I worked for an American company based in Chicargo. They had their own airplane fleet, among other an Kingair 350, and once we were diverted to Meigs to land and to me this was absolutely mindblowing to land in Meigs for real, having been simming FS for a long time. Took some pictures but lost them.
World exploration preferably to distant less visited airports, testing different aircraft (i fly everything), longhauls and random touch and go near where i live. I’ve also done a round the planet flight that took roughly 28 hours, which i don’t think I’ll do again.
Basically I’m looking for challenges and not to simulate regular commutes from A to B, have been flying sims since childhood, but took a long break from 2011 to 2018 when VR started to be supported more.
I’m on a flying around the world trip VFR-ish. I’m using the TBM and definitely not going very direct! I’m touring around places as I go, seeing the sites and generally making sure it is fun rather than a chore. I started in Edinburgh (my home town) and have headed North and West, via Iceland, then Greenland, over to Canada, down to the Great Lakes, across to New York, down the East Coast of the US, Florida, Cuba and the Carribean and now into South America. At the moment I’m following the Amazon from it’s source high in the Peruvian Andes all the way to the Altantic. So it’s going to be a long process!
Capturing hundreds of screenshots on the way and recording it all on my blog thread:
I’ve not been too “purist” about this. So not worrying too much about fuel and needing to be able to refuel at all destinations and/or taxi to gates etc. As some of the bugs get ironed out with some of this I might improve that. I’ve been learning a bit about IFR flying too and have tried a few ILS landings and even letting the AP land the plane! For me it is most important that this is a fun ride rather than over doing the realism.
So far it’s great fun. Flying over places I will never travel to in real life. Yes, I know I could do this all through Google Earth or whatever, but that’s nothing like as much fun!
Looking forward to the Japan update tomorrow - especially as I’ve not got there yet. Here is my progress so far…
I have been using flight simulations since the 80’s and think I have flown an airliner only twice. Exclusively a GA simmering and enjoy flying planes I have been in as a passenger or student pilot.
In FSX loved flying the A2A cub, as well as their 172. In the 172, used it to relieve many of my RL flight lessons and practice steep turns, slow flight, shooting patterns and the such. Mostly because the scenery in other flight sims was sort of underwhelming out of the box.
Once OrbxSystems started to provide True Earth regions, started my world exploration tours which I have reinstated in MSFS2020. Visiting the different cities, states and countries I have lived and/or was stationed or worked in my 22 year military career and my 25 (and still counting) year consulting career that have taken me all over the world.
Yes it is entertainment, I do like high fidelity in the systems and proper flight characteristics and reasonable weather with realistic ATC. However, I don’t throw my toys out of the pram if it isn’t 100% perfect since life is way too short to get upset over minor nuances.
For the last 2 weeks, I’ve been flying the Longitude or TBM (mostly Longitude) doing IFR flights of 60-90 minutes. Really focusing on flight plan and ILS management and trying to get comfortable with the systems and performance of the jet. Almost all of my flights have been US based and using different size airports to learn the jets takeoff and landing limits. Always trying to focus on speed management after takeoff to stay within FAA max speed under FL10k, and managing speed on approach and making smooth landings. I’ve been fortunate that my system runs the sim on Ultra settings and haven’t really had any of the performance issues others have suffered, so my frustration issues so far have all been self inflicted.
