I primarily sim in the Cabri G2 helicopter for the last couple years, flying VFR at 500 AGL to “see the sights”. I came to MSFS2020 and then 2024 after many years flying, (also building planes and airports in X-Plane11 and X-Plane12. Much has changed with flight sims, and my priorities have changed as well.
When I make a new friend somewhere in the world, I like to plan a virtual visit to see the sights where they live. This week I built a flightplan around a Canadian friend that volunteers as the conductor for a tourist railroad train, expecting that MSFS2024 would populate the scenery with too many trees, but would give me some idea of the sights along the train route.
There are always “fan-boy” posts for both X-Plane and MSFS, and I cannot pry myself from considering the serious discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of each. I know that my use-case for flight sims is not in the majority, but I do enjoy hearing how folks are simming and what they enjoy.
Having recently read a few well written threads from folks that are favoring X-Plane12 after many hours in MSFS, I decided to repeat my railroad following flight in X-Plane12 in the very accurately modelled Cabri G2 by VSkyLabs. Same aircraft, same flight plan - let’s see how we feel.
Being very comfortable at the Cabri G2 controls and reasonable heli flight skills, allows me to focus on looking out the windows without worrying about controlling my vertical and air speeds. My feet, cyclic hand and collective hand stay coordinated such that transitions into / out of hover and slow flight maintain altitude and heading without my attention.
So how was the flight in X-Plane12 (only with respect to the visuals)?
+ The heli was not parked behind a building making taxi and takeoff a breeze
+ The rails and rail bed were clearly visible never obsured when passing through forested areas
- There was a disturbing visible change at the level of detail radius, where trees changed foliage color as I approached them
- The railway ended abruptly where it was supposed to navigate a 90 degree arc, it ended at a few trees and a weird circle of grass.
- There were hundreds of row houses wrongly placed along the “country roads”
- The train stations did not have the same shape or colors as the actual buildings
- The rail museum was represented by a trucking distribution building with no railways leading to it
- There were no cell towers that I could use for navigation references.
- The distinctive sidewalk of the memorial park I needed as a navigation waypoint was not modeled.
For many years, I built custom photo scenery for X-Plane11 and 12 to have more accurate VFR visuals at 500 to 1000 feet AGL. I did not invest the time for this comparison to generate scenery.
As far as the flight model, yes X-Plane12 felt slightly more accurate but the difference did not make flying the Cabri G2 experience better for me, just different.
Perhaps using a “Flight Simulator” as a “Google Earth” viewer is not really fair, but MSFS2024 allows me to have fun flying my birds (Cabri G2 heli, LongEZ pusher, ICON-A5 pusher sea-plane) with sufficient realism for 30-40 minute visits to “see where my friends live”.