Newby Orientation

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Good afternoon forum,

Firstly wanted to start off by saying thank you to everyone who has reached out either through my previous thread or directly through messaging to offer advice, help, etc… the community support appears to be strong!

As I (somewhat) patiently await the arrival of all my new orders I have been reading through the forums. I will admit, I did get sucked into a few of the more negative threads and did have a few moments of "oh no, oh no, oh no no no no no, what have I done invetsing nearly 15K into simming with this much “problems”. But that was short lived. I also work in the IT (software) field and while not a developer understand product life cycles and that these “issues” are not just with MS / ASOBO, most products go through these phases.

I have since gone ahead and dismissed these threads and moved on to more constructive ones which leads me to this post.

As a newby to flight sim, and aviation in general, I have noticed that there are allot of pieces of information scattered about on here. Or, perhaps it is collectively somewhere and I just haven’t stumbled upon it yet.

What I am wondering is if there is some sort of tracker, or guide so to speak that goes from day 1 upward.

Something like, you have MSFS 2020 installed, here’s what to do next (tweak this config, change these settings, etc…) based on the communities experience thus far so that one isn’t re-inventing the wheel so to speak.

This isn’t limited to just the software (MSFS) but also OS level, GPU, Periphrials etc…

I did see someone mentioned RMAG’s youtube channel on the HOneycomb products and I watched those, a beautiful tutorial on getting everything setup and configured as well as bugs and how to fix.

The second part of the ask to the community is, is there a place to get a better understanding of all the mods / add ons that you can do with MSFS? I know there is a thread section but is there a collective of this is whats developed so far and this is what it actually does / gives you?

I will continue to research on my own but if the wheel was created I don’t want to try and make another from scratch :slight_smile:

The last part of my ask and this is where being new to aviation in general comes from, where does one simply get started? again, youtube has been great, but is there a program online someone recommends to just start out to learn what the lingo means, the principals, a ground school so to speak?

I did find an add-on (I forget the name now but have it saved) were you can actually do shared cockpit with real pilots, ATC, etc… and that looks amazing, but I think it’s ahead of where I am at and should do some type of basic training first.

Again any constructive feedback is greatly appreciated.

Hope to talk to you all soon.

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This is a great book when you’re new to flight sim

All the info is applicable to MSFS and you can really learn how to fly in a sim.

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I wish that the FS2K-FSX flight school with Rob Machado had been ported or redone.

SU5 Brings more training flights and MSFS twitch has lessons.

There are a number of YouTube channels and streams out there.

There is a lot (really A LOT) of info the FAA publishes that is free to download. This can get real in depth real quick and is not needed to enjoy flight sim. But it’s a good resource if you really want to learn about avaition.

https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/airplane_handbook/

https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/phak/

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim_html/index.html
HTML

PDF

https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/instrument_procedures_handbook/

https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/

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For groundschool I recommend to watch the flying lessons with our own @Jummivana on

Basically ground school specifically catered to flightsim. Lots of footage, will get you up quickly! Also included is some documentation

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I concur with StarlessLion 50. That is a great book. Although it was written for FSX, I keep it on my desk and still refer to it. It covers all the basics of flying including explaining why an airplane flies and moves up to more advanced skills. Worth the $25 or so.

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Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to chime in thus far, I will get started on those suggestions provided. I can certainly follow a manual / procedure and press the right button at the right time. I just want to understand what I’m pressing, and why. What is it actually doing and why am I doing it.

Thanks again!

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I understand your frustration with organized knowledge sharing. It would be so much easier if comprehensive documentation was produced to put everyone on the same page regarding best practice functionality. All that aside, I’ve found a few You Tubers that have gone to a lot of trouble to introduce the sim to new pilots in a series format that adds more proficiency to the previous flight to provide a more or less complete understanding of the sim. One good example is “Squirrel”. If you use VR, another one that assists with tweaking the VR experience is “VR Flightsim Guy”. You Tube is my GO TO for supporting information these days - Picture is worth a thousand words, as they say.

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Well, the Youtube tutorials will certainly tell you what buttons to push and when to push them. The book will tell you why. I keep a bunch of those videos bookmarked. The two reinforce each other. With both at your disposal, plus all the experienced flyers (real and make-believe) on this forum, you can’t go wrong. There is also a New Pilot’s Guide on this forum. Check it out.

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Seeing all the money you just threw at MSFS for a more immersive experience, I would recommend staying out of the Home Cockpit part of the forum. Unless you have a lot of money you’d like to burn. lol

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lol, that would be a project for another rainy day. For now I’ll just setup the desk as best as possible.

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That’s how it starts…

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Here is a thread regarding aircraft mods:

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