Is there any study level C172 either coming or planned?

another linguistics nerd? Who knew there were so many?

:grin: :wink:

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I am all for good habits but if you are using a plane without nose/tail wheel steering, the brakes are your friend :slight_smile:

I have not done solo yet, no. Although I suspect my instructor has me pegged to do that relatively soon.

MSFS has definitely helped me loads. At first the instructor asked me “have you played much flight sim?”, “Yeah, like … a few hundred hours!” I said enthusiastically … “We’ll have to beat that out of you first then” :frowning:

But subsequent to that, he’s asked me about the new sim, coz Im progressing really fast. I’ve only done 6 hours, and he’s already got me doing:

  • All the taxying
  • Most of the radio comms (I’m learning out of London Southend, so the takeoff clearance call is rather specific with the tower, and you don’t want to muck it up)
  • I’ve taken off on lessons 4, 5 & 6
  • I’ve landed both lessons 5 & 6

Monday coming is false landings, and then apparently “it’s just circuit practice, and then your first solo” … I mean, scary, but super exciting.

Anyway, enough of the humble bragging. You mentioned about control pressures, yes absolutely, that’s the main difference (and one I’ve said to my instructor is the main thing separating sim and real life), but I didn’t mention it here just because it’s obviously not a ‘sim’ problem, but a hardware one … what do you mean by using 0% sensitivities? how does that help simulate control pressures?

FYI, I use the Honeycomb Alpha and Bravo, and the Thrustmaster TPR. So, good kit, but none of it is force feedback, which I’d presumed you need to simulate the control pressures and the affect of trimming.

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I am talking about the pressure you feel in the palm of your hand. If control sensitivities are set at 0 then you can control the aircraft using gentle pressure against the controller’s centering springs. When you get the trim set you can actually feel that you are not “pressing” on the controls to hold attitude. The same as in the real plane. It teaches soft hands on the controls. If you are “gripping” your controls then every muscle from the wrist to the shoulder is tight and you will never have smooth fine control.

Oh, I forgot to say also, that I hear that every plane is different.

To be honest, that was kind of my original question. I.e. is the in-game C172 essentially ‘study level’ already, albeit it’s either modelled after 1 specific C172 that Asobo has access to, or the average of a few C172 samples … and therefore while it’s not exactly like the one I fly … that’s to be expected regardless?

If so, that’s interesting, and indeed, nothing to complain about at all.

The one I fly IRL is actually the C172R … I’m not overly familiar with the various versions, but I gather that’s actually relatively uncommon, it’s fuel injected, but no the S model, it also has long range tanks which I’d guess might affect handling somewhat.

You’re getting the picture.

Flying is flying. If you click my avatar you will see I have driven a few. The skills in one always translate to every other aircraft, as long as you remember to fly first. All the technology garbage just gets in the way of flying, and they ALL fly the same way, lift, drag, thrust. That is all there is. If you want to be a really good, safe, old pilot, learn to manage those forces first and the rest is just numbers.

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Oh come on … compared to the default Cessna in FSX or even X-Plane, the one from Asobo is far superior. And there has NEVER been any default aircraft in any MSFS installation that achieved the so-called “study-level”. So it’s not reasonable to expect such a thing happening now. Especially at the price tag. Otherwise MSFS would have to be far more expensive.

And that’s also not the target of MS and Asobo. Basically MSFS provides you with a basic sim with great scenery and basic aircraft that are realistic enough to get beginners and advanced flightsim enthusiasts interested. Not everyone even WANTS or can cope with a totally realistic experience. That’s what the 3rd party developers are for and have always been

And yes of course: P3D and X-Plane are superior when it comes to aircraft systems, but those sims have been around for many years - more than a decade you could say in the case of FSX/P3D. And due to their age both are now quite outdated visually.
MSFS2020 is now the new kid on the block. The first MSFS since 2006 so it’s natural that not everything’s up to snuff yet. The first versions of XPlane were pretty rubbish compared to the contemporary MSFS versions. And while the P3D V2 was pretty good out of the box it wasn’t a new sim at all but aleady the second version of a gigantic upgrade of an already 7-year-old FSX.
And talking about systems: just install a vanilla copy of Xplane 10, FSX or even P3D V1 and then start comparing realism with MSFS2020 …

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I think you missed @N6722C point.

Eating too much candy makes diabetics.

I think he is just wishing the developers would focus a bit more on fixing some of the things that don’t work. Ease up a bit. Not everything is an attack.

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Sorry. I agree, I missed that connection entirely. Sorry for misinterpreting that.

However, I stand by my point that the grade of realism needed in MSFS is based on the needs and wants of the majority of users. And MSFS is not meant to be a training program for future pilots like Prepar3D. It’s purely recreational and is supposed to be easily accessible for anyone and it’s main selling point compared to P3D and XPlane IS the eye candy.
So of course the pro-simmers here are understandably disappointed (and will remain so for a while I guess, because they aren’t the targeted customer group and MSFS will need time to evole - just like FSX, P3D and Xplane did).

Descent graphics and study level C172 is only available IRL at the moment. Once A2A (hopefully) releases a C172 for MSFS this will change. But then, MSFS still lacks home cockpit features. I hope this will be possible eventually.

Karl

Wowww that thing is expensive ! For a yearly A2A license price you can get 3 MSFS installs :hamster:

Does it have autopilot training too ? How does that work with P3D… or A2A…

A suggestion, download the XPlane demo. It has the default C172 that you can use to fly in the demo version. XPlane has a very good rendition of the C172 in my opinion. I’m still disappointed with the ability to manage fuel mixture in the MSFS version. As a real world pilot, I have been very happy with the C172 in XPlane.

Since the release of MSFS, I have found it difficult to go back to XPlane, mainly for the quality of the “air we fly in” and the visual environment both atmospheric and scenery. XPlane just doesn’t do it for me after this sim. I even had Ortho installed to provide some semblance of photo realistic scenery but MSFS has blown this out of the water.

HOWEVER, if you want a very close representation of a C172, I feel the XPlane version is very close. Note: If you decide to go with Xplane11, there is an equivalent A2A “like” standard in one of the Commercial available C172’s available.

Hope this helps.

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Most people buy the Academic A2A license (one-time $50) because most A2A users own the Academic P3D license. There is literally no difference in functionality between the Academic and Professional. The Pro version is generally used for commercial purposes.

A2A pricing for MSFS will most likely lean toward the Academic license. Pretty sure they won’t be charging $800.

Now, if you think the $50 pricetag is outrageous, especially for study-level, you must be new to flight simming :wink:

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They have 3 different licenses. On the page it says only a Commercial license would be qualified to practice for RW flying. It’s not clear from the description, what the differences are between these 3 licenses… but indeed 50,- is overseeable ! i would want to try it out.

The msfs 172 seems to steer like a real 172…crappy.
I do enjoy the creaking sounds they put in when you move the rudder pedals while maneuvering on the ground.

As far as I know there is no functional difference at all between the A2A licenses. I’ll admit I know nothing about the commercial license. But the only reason there are Academic and Pro licenses is because there are Academic and Pro versions of P3D, which have different EULAs. Functionally, the only difference is that there is a super tiny watermark that says “Academic” in the upper right corner of the P3D Academic version. It’s virtually invisible. It’s all tied to the contract between Lockheed Martin and Microsoft, and that the sim legally is not intended for a casual gaming audience. Even though many of us use it for that.

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This is so wrong, I don’t even know where to start. Lol…

I still remember the marketing material and inteviews about a year ago where they emphatically stated that MSFS would be, first and foremost, “a sim for simmers”. This is how it was marketed. What was delivered and the way it’s been handled since has been anything but.

That said, I do believe that once sales critical mass on XBOX is over in about a year, they’ll be switching gears and focusing on features that the more hardcore simmers want. That’s why stuff like that (like multi-monitor support) is planned for later in 2022.

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Slightly overselling a product never hurts especially if you can always go back to saying that the product life is supposed to be 10 years and that development continues.
It’s a good thing IMHO. In the good old days you had to purchase a new MSFS about every 2 years, there was exactly ZERO free content after release, and at least half of the addons (if not all of them) didn’t work with the newer version.

reality-wise In my experience that’s the way it has always been with MSFS ever since I can remember.
The first release is pretty good but not at the level the hard-core simmers would prefer. Only later on the 3rd party developers (and sometimes Microsoft themselves) added some depth to it. In any case a product like this will always be a mixed bag because it has to appeal to everyone. Make it too hard-core and you scare away the the casual players (and don’t make a mistake: they are probably the largest group). Make it too much like a game and the hard-core simmers will shun it because it’s nothing more than a toy. That’s a tightrope I wouldn’t want to balance on.

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While I am with you throughout that post, you lost me with this last part.
I have an F1 racing “game”. In some version, it has been around since the 90’s. By the time my son got interested, I was posting some extremely fast laps with no traction control, no brake assist, manual gearbox, no “racing line” and full damage and wear turned on.
My son started out with all those assists turned on and we could have some pretty good races. Now we run the modern version. Both of us race with no assists.

There is absolutely NO REASON that the same approach can’t be taken with MSFS. F1 even has a career mode if that’s what ‘drives’ you. I prefer to just set up races with friends online and spend an evening wearing out tires. Why not start with a ‘drop dead’ simulator and allow new users to dial in the assists they need to have fun flying. Toss in a career mode for those that want to progress through to seasoned pilot.

It is entirely possible to have a title that appeals to the hardcore and the casual at the same time.

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