Bush flying is by far the greatest strength 2024 has over 2020, and the least affected by bugs. The grass, trees, and bushes look beautiful up close, and the displacement mapping helps to give an additional challenge to landing in new locations (that was a little too easy in 2020). The water spray, snow tracks, and grass trails are all welcome features.
So I encourage you, instead of forcing yourself to play through the problematic parts of 2024 (career mode), grab your bush plane (or heli) of choice in free flight and explore the Idaho rivers, Alaskan ice fields, lakes of Minnesota, the Appalachian hills, etc etc. Land, hop out and enjoy the nature. Bush flying has never been so good!
Where is your favorite place to fly in the bush at the moment?
Considering I do so much bush flying in 2020 I haven’t even tried it. Just keep compulsively flying missions in hurricane conditions for some reason. I’ll have to check out Yosemite and around Sedona and Kodiak. I went by the grand canyon once and it looked all muddy like 2020. Turned off PG to sharpen everything up and make every tree a tree instead of a pg blob and haven’t been back there since either.
I haven’t tried the Kodiak in 2024 yet, hopefully it’s ported over ok. The Grand Caravan seems great for bush flying though, I did a quick flight around the featured strip in Papa New Guinea and it was a blast.
I would recommend having Photogrammetry On for most places, because at least for me the ground imagery looks really bad with it off. I’ve seen wonky trees around cities but usually PG is 99% a positive for me.
Funny that you say the Grand canyon looks muddy, that has been the place people say looks the best in the sim lol
There are so many unbelievable locations, even outside the usual suspects. It really is a wonderful aspect of both this sim and the old. But the new shading, lighting, vertical faces, ground textures, and ground dynamics really make the new one pop.
I agree. Bush flying and really any low and slow sightseeing is a fantastic experience right now. I was addicted to career mode for a couple days but as more and more issues became obvious, I became tired of wasting my time in it.
But flying Draco, the Hawk Arrow II, the powrachute, and the Magni Orion has been really fun. I’ve hardly put time in anything else. Flying around and looking for spots to land and take off has been great!
I’d recommend checking out the Harding Ice Field in Alaska between Seward and Homer. It’s absolutely other-worldly out there. Tons of glaciers split off of it but the main ice field makes it feel like your landing on Antarctica
I agree 100%. Ironically, I don’t even have FS24 yet, but I’ve arrived at the same conclusion from all the server problems and bugs I’ve been reading about. I am planning to get a new computer with enough hard drive space to have both 2020 and '24 installed together. That way I can use FS24 for bush flying (and career mode once that gets serious fixes) and basically 2020 for everything else. Walk around and the improved ground detail are a match made in heaven and really give '24 the muscle for the perfect bush flight experience.
I agree, bush flying is great with FS2024. However, I find it very difficult to land with taildraggers. I tried to do three point landings at minimum speed and landings on the main gear, but due to the uneven terrain the plane most of the time flips over. Where am I going wrong?
Turn crash detection off when you’re bush flying. The reality is that a lot of the spots would cause you to flip over. Bush pilots tend to know their landing spots really well, or have the ability to do a quick assessment during a flyby. And even so, they still flip or wreck every once in a while.
Always land uphill. Touch down at the minimum possible speed. Keep the stick back in your lap once you’re on the ground. Brake gently (or not at all). Careful during turns on uneven/unlevel ground.
I am extremely disappointed that the wilderness flights in MSFS 2024 are no longer available.
This feature was one of the standout opportunities that MSFS 2020 had to offer.
While there is an attempt to create the most accurate digital twin of the Earth, I believe that a valuable function has been removed that allowed for a unique exploration of the planet.
This is completely incomprehensible to me. I am convinced that it would not have caused significant effort to integrate the bush trips into the new simulator.
My interest lies in discovering the planet rather than dealing with playful missions or career options.
I have now discovered that externally generated bush trips, when linked in the community folder, are available to select under custom content.
They work there as well. Unfortunately, MSFS 2024 is still has bugs in such a way that I cannot complete flights in VR, as it always ends with a CTD (Crash to Desktop).
