More Realistic Agricultural Aviation Missions

Official Microsoft Flight Simulator Wishlist
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It seems silly how you load up an AT802 with 400 gallons, spray off 50 gallons or so, land, then shutdown. Doesn’t make any sense. That scenario would literally never happen in real life.

I’d like to know how many acres we have to spray and take the appropriate amount of product. How about multiple loads? If I have 600 acres to spray at 2 gallons per acre, let me do it in two loads of 600 gallons. Or how about I have three 100 acre fields and I do it in one 600 acre load? My point is I wish it was more fleshed out.

Loading pad operations are a big part of the job in real life, it’s a shame they missed it for the game. Deciding how much product to take based on acres, runway conditions, weather, aircraft performance is essential.

If there are cargo missions that take 3.5 hours, why can’t we have more fleshed out ag missions that take longer?

Also, why does the game insist on flying exactly at 110 knots over the field. If you look at Air Tractor’s website, that’s below the “typical working speed”. Can we just get rid of the naggy AI voice. I’m an ag pilot in real life. If they put an AI in the airplane that nagged me every time I turned my spray on slightly late, ect I’d quit.

I won’t get into it too much, but the lack of GPS guidance systems is also disappointing. In real life we have a GPS system, usually mounted on the nose that keeps us lined up in the field. It’s a shame they missed it, since it’s an essential, critical piece of equipment that nobody is going without these days.

Also, why are we spraying liquid fertilizer on dirt on every mission. Usually when I spray in real life I’m spraying plants of some sort. Usually corn or soybeans. How about some dry work? Dry fertilizer on timber for example would be cool.

I really do appreciate it that ag aviation has been represented. It’s missing a lot though.

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This post makes me wonder how well thin client can be modded, becase the Ag life sounds fascinating if someone went hardcore with a mod and accurate avionics. Keep giving your feedback, somebody smarter than us will absolutely kill to make this happen if its even possible. I just dont know if 2024 is capable of modding in this way.

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Agree. Was hoping they’d have the fully-modeled Ag-nav or Swathstar lightbar, etc. I kind of doubt it’s going to be a standard package, but hopefully someone will be allowed to mod it.

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It is nuts that this smart wish by a pilot experienced in the field and that would promise to make the sim even more entertaining gets 3 votes. Yet “beards” (BEARDS!?) gets 130.

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I don’t disagree that this one should have a lot more votes, but ag is a very niche field when it comes to subject-matter expertise, and is largely unknown to most simmers because we’ve never really been exposed to it. Compare that to beards, which is noticeable to most simmers because we all have to do the avatar personalization and it’s an obvious miss that probably doesn’t require too much effort or subject-matter expertise. I think we can push for this without slamming that.

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Makes perfect sense.

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I agree that ag is a niche field. So I definitely understand why it’s not more fleshed out. And to that point, they missed a lot in the other career paths too. For example, the IFR procedures make no sense at all lol. The ATC in game really has me scratching my head a lot of times. I bet that skydive pilots and banner tow pilots have their fair share of complaints too.

But man, the ag flying is just missing so much. But then again, it’s a game.

I used to be an infantryman, and now I can’t watch movies or play games without calling out all the non-tactical nonsense. The same thing is now happening to me in aviation.

Again, I really am happy that ag flying made it in though. The fact that an Air Tractor and a Cessna 188 made it into the game is really cool.

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I have a beard in real life too so am not opposed to that. haha Although I never attempt to make characters in game look like me. I usually just try to make my character look like a huge goof ball because I think it’s funny.

But yes, I would love some more votes on this topic!

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Absolutely agree with everything you said. I hope you stick around and lend your subject matter expertise into making it better! And thanks for your service.

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Well said. Time will tell!