I recently watched a YT video about touring Namibia by private train. Great video! Highly recommend it. The places they visited were absolutley amazing so I thought I’d fire up MSFS and see how they looked in the sim. And of course what aircraft did I choose to do this in? Well the PMDG DC-6 in the Namibia Commercial Aviation V5-NCG livery obviously! I was NOT disappointed to say the least! Absolutely amazing! If you want to see some incredible scenery, travel west from Windhoek, Namibia on a course of 246 until you get to Meob Bay on the coast. Stunning! The dunes are incredible! Then head on a course of 123 to Sossusvlei where, according to this video, the tallest dunes in the world are. As I was flying this route I was using LNM and had the Google Maps satellite map up and everything that was on the map was in flight sim as you would expect. All the land features. The dunes. Everything! It was an incredible experience. As I flew over this area I was amazed that there were actual settlements in this vast, inhospitable land. I then continued east and landed at FYML.
If anyone had told me that the screnery and the experience would ever be this good in FS I never would have believed it.
This sim amazes me more and more every day. I’ve been simming for twenty plus years and I used to fly exclusively IFR flights in airliners in past sims because the scenery was just so bland and drab but I just can’t do it anymore with scenery this good.
Great post and great pictures! I know it’s trendy to bash this sim and it’s developer but I love it. It isn’t perfect but it’s so far beyond what I played a decade or two ago that I’m simply in awe of how good this thing is. I also like flying low enough to enjoy the scenery but I also enjoy flying IFR in airliners, so as a compromise, I’m flying the CRJ on short routes. Just flew from Bangor, ME to Boston, MA, max altitude was 19,000’ so I could still enjoy the scenery.
I know what you mean about bashing the sim. I see it so much in the forums here. I think we tend to forget how good we’ve got it right now. There is a lot that needs attention for sure but for me anyway it’s been a great experience. It just leaves me speechless sometimes with the scenery and the graphics. I travel over parts of the world now and I’m just in awe that people live in such remote areas. I try sometimes to go back to FSX because I have a lot of addons that haven’t been ported over yet, A2A aircraft and of course the Majestic Q400 and others, and although the aircraft are fantastic I just can’t tolerate the scenery anymore. It just turns my stomach.
Bangor to Boston? That’s my neck of the woods. The scenery up here is fantastic too. I can navigate from one place to another all over my home state just by looking out the window from 3000 feet! Love it!
Great pics and post. This game is so excellent for low and slow flying and its what I use it for.
I am one of those that did whine when the updates degraded the visuals but its only because they looked so good before the updates came and made the clouds bleh and the tree draw distance bleh.
But Im under no illusions and am very grateful to Masobo, Azure, MeteoBlue and BlackShark for what they have achieved here. Its truly mind blowing. The entire planet 1:1 sent to our computers thru the internet. If someone had told me this in 2018 I would have been “Hahaha”
Yes the scenery is great bit what I really love is when you add live weather to the mix. A routine flight can become a real challenge when your destination airport is covered in fog and you don’t have enough fuel left to turn back.
Yep just fantastic. Flew into Sheremetyevo with live weather, traffic etc yesterday. It was dusk and the lighting and clouds were stunning. Landed, taxied and parked. Proceeded to just watch the clouds rolling over the airport, changing shape, colour, lighting…all whilst hearing the sounds of airport traffic, seeing live aeroflot flights come in… Just magical.
Well said, there’s a lot wrong in every sim and that just shows how blessed we are. It ultimately means that the underlying systems are indeed complex and full of variables. I’d take an ever improving and changing environment anyday, over a perfect static one.
Lovely pics and great post. There are times that this sim throws up some truly incredible “wow” moments or even entire flights, I’m currently on a Tour De Med whereby I’m flying clockwise along the coastline of the countries starting and ending at Barcelona. I’ve currently got all the way around to Algiers and I’ve seen some great sights along the way, but also experienced the occasional “wow” moment and sometimes an entire flight left me amazed at the end.
Visually breathtaking sim, and the intigration of Bing maps has brought tremendous realism to the visuals as we VFR around the globe. Few could have imagined these views. The low frame rates are improving with some degredation, but overall this is an asthetic masterpiece.
I agree 100% its a good sim. To be a great flight sim, we hope for a few basics like replays glaringing vacant and multi-monitor cockpit support… all coming back soon we are told.
A fantastic game of visual brilliance on a global scale.
Agree with all the above. I combine my love of simming in MSFS with my love of history, geography and maps. For years I have studied the history of airfields. Now that MSFS is so good I have started recording them. An old fella on YouTube! Great in retirement! Many thanks Developers. Cheers.
I agree with the OP, MSFS has been such a pleasant surprise. I find myself flying over new places and then doing further research afterwards about these places.
I am now mapping out new places to explore in person.
Great post. The other things is that screenshots just don’t do the sim justice…hard to capture the movement, lighting and atmosphere in something static.
I know HRHighness4588 mentioned screenshots don’t do it justice, but I have to agree with Potuslancer the sim here is incredible. I’ve been on MSFS since version 3.0 I bought back rough in 1987. Bravo to all involved. I’ve personally developed a renewed interest in flying again and decided to do circumnavigate the world (not in a hurry) to just visit the various places in detail.
I recently flew with a passenger view on a sunrise which is just an awe-inspiring view for a sim; here is a 45 second clip. I added a bit of camera motion to make it a bit more realistic, but all the graphics are exported from Xbox Series X at 4K. Perhaps camera motion is something to consider for the passenger view.
This game is so excellent for low and slow flying and its what I use it for.