[Polls] Aircraft & Avionics Update 1 Discussion

you cant have anything easier than the G3000/5000. everything is shown graphically and very easy to use.

its not some obscure, complex, FMS…

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I think you are taking it to the extreme. I’ve been here since a couple months into the initial MSFS 2020 program. No update has made anywhere near the change of the last one, at least to my favorite airplane.

I would love to see the Microsoft market research on their ten million user market.

I envision simmers who have converted entire rooms to cockpits, surrounded by screens, sophisticated hardware peripherals and third party flight planning abilities playing for many hours each day.

On the other extreme I imagine kids sitting in front of their TV with an XBox and controller playing Forza Horizon one minute and MSFS the next.

Me, I have a laptop, XBox controller and mouse. I enjoy a VR when it works. I enjoy flying an hour or two each day for a couple weeks then not for a month.

When a new feature comes out, I try to learn about it if it applies to what I enjoy and go on enjoying the game. This update is something completely different.

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It is more than just those screens and buttons. I’ve been trying to get familiar with them. Its the world map flight planning that has been damaged. It is the entire landing process that was so straight forward with the legacy TBM and now a confusing mess. I think I have had one successful ILS landing so far and I have no clue why it worked. Every other time I finally give up pushing buttons and land visual.

I watched an excellent video today on the use of the new Garmin in MSFS. The real pilot was working his way through screens, button pushes, reading third party charts, etc that I felt like I was drinking from a firehose. Realist, probably, but…

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how could it be better before when as soon as you touched the slightest thing in the approach/STAR the whole flight plan was a mess? :man_shrugging:

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Personal Comments and Observations

The Flight Planning logic in all the Community Mod Garmins didn’t fully replicate all AIRAC Leg and Procedure Types.

So for as long as players used those Mods, they got used to the FMS working a certain way, which of course did not reflect real life operation. Sometimes it was a big deviation, other aspects more nuanced.

This is is how it actually is, with the NXi, G3000/5000, 430/530 and PL21 (CJ4). About the only FMS that operates in the low effort but mostly unrealistic way is the G3X, either the Mod or the Asobo code.

I hate to be “that guy”, but yes, flying in realism settings is hard. IFR is even harder.

Wait until the Flight Planning logic in the World Map and ATC plus Weather catches up. Even if it only approximates 70 percent of real world, most folks will find it very challenging.

There are assistance settings to help, and other planes to fly if the intention is to mostly operate hands off and automated, with minimal intervention. The Pipistrel Virus and XCubs come to mind. Hit AP and FMS and off you go. No Visual Approaches and don’t even think about dialing in a SID or STAR, but everything else is pretty much press and play. Not much more I can say for this.

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What I was saying is, prior to the update, the world map would plan the ILS flight end to end. In the most simplistic scenario, you could press the AP as soon as you lift the gear, enjoy the scenery, activate APP on approach and turn off AP when you want to take control of the final touch down.

Now, with the new system, 1. The world may planned routing is corrupted when it hits the Garmin. Then, if I successfully get the plane to capture and follow the main route, the approach gets messed up nearing the transition. If the plane has not already wandered off course, trying to capture the approach process is a confusing mess.

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Interesting. Are those future planned developments? I don’t have charts or planning tools other than the world map so - cool! Also, I have noticed ATC a bit flaky since the update so that would be a welcome future change. I take my altitudes from their instructions and lately get left way to high to land at flight end.

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It might be easier if its done correctly though.

right now the world map FP + new garmins are kinda of mess because it’s not ‘‘importing’’ in the garmins the same things as what is shown in the world map, and requires very often that you tweak your FP ingame

if they are successfull in making 1-1 replica of what you selected in the world map to the garmins, it’ll help a lot those with lesser knowledge

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If you knew how to use the G3000 prior, it’s the same now, only with more realistic features and behaviours. There’s literally no difference in how an ILS approach works. I’ve shot several ILS approaches with the TBM since the AAU I beta landed. Never had an issue nor found any significant differences between the old and new for ILS except that now you can choose vector for an approach instead of a transition. In fact, it works better now because you no longer get turned around to your last waypoint when activating an approach. It now works exactly as it should.

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I think it will reduce confusion, but not really reduce the gap required to understand procedure flying. For example, if the departure leg is a MANSEQ to the outer perimeter of the tower control zone, players will be wondering why coupled AP wasn’t following the plan the moment they raised the gear.

There’s a measure of learning that is nondeferable. That just the nature of any high fidelity sim.

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Big issues with connectivity since this update. Particularly the issue around bing/photogrammetry turning off, despite good Internet speeds. Turn it back on sometimes CTD. Happening frequently and a fair few now.

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The MANSEQ has been part of the G1000NXi for nearly a year now. I can see how it’s confusing at first. It was for me as well. So it’s definitely a bit of a learning curve. But that’s the way it works IRL and the way it should be.

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That MANSEQ is very understandable and easy to adjust to. I often wondered the unrealistic ability to push AP on wheels up and sometimes buzz the tower banking to the route. I thought the world map plan should have put in something like a MANSEQ (I didn’t know what it was called then) that the AP would take you past prior to banking. It’s the entire approach processes that are bizzaro with the new update.

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true

but if the player know those, why not just do a VFR flight plan with waypoints, or just direct?

people have to learn a bit of how things works :slight_smile:

without beeing hardcore IFR are having charts
IMHO

The Departure Leg is usually portrayed in the World Map as an Amber-Orange Leg. That’s why for now I perform all my flight planning in Little Nav Map, which is AIRAC compliant, and just load it into the World Map to sync the FMS. I can see in LNM all the nuances of the plan, such as MANSEQ and STARs/approaches.

This will become less necessary when World Map receives the FP logic inherent in all the above FMS.

All of this. It’s why things were so glaringly obvious to folks used to how they behaved in real life. Many aspects of systems in the sim are now essentially indistinguishable from how they work in reality, which makes for a great practice platform (as long as you are using them the right way and understand the other limitations of the sim).

And I am blown away by the commitment of the Asobo and WT teams to make it right. This is how it should be done.

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Two survival tools I highly recommend - and there are dedicated threads for discussing them:

  1. Use an outside-of-sim Flight Planning Tool/Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) like Little Nav Map. It connects to the sim via SimConnect (transparent - you only need to install LNM) and you can do all sorts of great Flight Planning inside of it. It also serves as a great Moving Map while you’re flying - you can see other traffic - air & ground, and get previews of airfields and approaches so you can figure out which approach makes the most sense based on your Plan.

  2. I use Offline ATC - it will speak to you using your localized Windows installation sound pack voices - and it never drops out because Azure connection started getting flaky. Thanks to a dedicated private mod by a fellow Staff Member/PPL holder, I even have customizations that correct all the Phraseology to make it Federal Aviation Administration-comformant.

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Yep. It pays to be close to Working Title since they’re vital to the revamp of Flight Planning Logic (and by extension, ATC, Weather routing etc). Join their Discord and hang around the various channels. You will learn so much just observing what happens in there.

To paraphrase Matt Nischan (Prinicipal Lead of Working Title): “We don’t comment on futures or roadmaps.” :slight_smile: Which is fair - they’re partly constrained by their employer Microsoft and partly dependent on what Product Management (Jorg/Seb/Martial) think needs to be done next to move the Product Vision forward. But that’s always been the base strategy - fix the Flight Planning from the outside in - make the FMS’ understand the FP logic, then convert the core sim. That way, the flying experience gets fixed first, then the planning, then everything else.

Jorg used to call this a ten year project. Then he changed his mind and no longer arbitrarily named a future window - it will take as long as it takes to improve MSFS to the point where it is a predominant, highly realistic sim. That will take time in the order of years.

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The flight I’m on right now is a perfect example of how the real world Garmin operates, and why Flight Planning matters.

Nassau to Exuma (MYNN-ZQA-LEPAS-BOSAR-DONEZ-GEROT-MYEF) via RWY32 Javis SID

The FMS will follow the Departure on Runway Heading to 3NM and intersect Navaid JAVIS. At which point the Autopilot will turn you Right and then curve around in a Reversal Turn back to the airport - MYNN - taking into account my speed and altitude to define how tight that turn is. Had this been a real ATC environment, you likely would have been routed away from the airport and onto the next leg, which would be ZQA-LEPAS. Instead, at the time of the turn, you the player would switch to HDG mode, activate ZQA to LEPAS leg, rearm GPS, and wait to intercept the leg, preferably at a 30 degree angle. Alternatively, set a Direct To to LEPAS.

Had this been the old FMS, two outcomes were likely:

  1. Because JAVIS was part of the SID and part of the Flight Plan, there was a good chance the FMS would have given up the ghost and Desynchronized because the old FMS Flight Plan Logic did not like any overlaps between Flight Plan Waypoints and SID/STAR Waypoints. In short, it would have stopped tracking and started throwing errors.

  2. If by some chance, the plan didn’t desynch, there would have been this enormously ridiculous curve turn that didn’t even attempt at performance matching (i.e., your airspeed and altitude determining how tight the curve is) in order to perform a course reversal, and you still would have had to overfly the airport and first VOR (MYNN-ZQA) again.

I didn’t learn how to resolve this overnight. It took a lot of time in the other better built FMS like G1000 and the older CJ4 to figure out what to do - along with guidance from IFR manuals, and kind advice from Working Title and real-world pilots. That’s what it might take you to get comfortable with the Garmins.

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This is pretty much what I figured it was doing. I’m excited about the changes (and roadmap).