I’m a huge fan of the bush trips here as the combination of the landscape, flight model and flying in VR is just awesome.
I’ve done all the bush trips of the initial sim and up to update 4
Patagonia
USA West
Alaska
Croatia to Greece
France
The bush trips were so well done. I’ve never used the ingame map or autopilot NAV/GPS mode.
All the steps were presented and described by using visual markers such as roads, rivers, railways, mountains and other landmarks - just as I know it from real life VFR flying before moving maps came around some 20 years ago. Additionaly there was so much information about all the landmarks on the way between POIs.
But then suddenly, things have changed. I’ve tried to do the Norway bush trip and the Germany bush trip and both are complete rubbish. Whoever made those two bush trips has never flown a real VFR bush trip herself or himself. Every step is just: Fly for xx km on heading yy and you will reach the next POI.
Seriously? This just invites to set autopilot to HDG mode and ignore every landmark on the way until reaching the next point after some defined time. No exploring on the way, hoping to identify the correct road, river or what else.
Am I the only one to feel really disappointed, to miss spectacular VFR bush trips in beautiful Norwegean or German landscapes to those boring not well prepared bush trips?
How are the other bush trips that I havn’t done so far?
I guess I have to ask. Do we need someone to draw us a map and tell us what to look for?
As a real life VFR pilot, I am confident that you could plan a bush flight from anywhere to anywhere. The nice thing about MSFS is that we can fly anywhere in the world, without political restraint. You can even go fly trips that may be outside your experience level. What is the worst that could happen?
I guarantee that if YOU planned the flight, it would be exactly what you want, and done perfectly.
Didn’t notice this until now, but you’re right. I wonder if some of it is just the nature of the landscapes? Only one I’ve completed 100% is France and it was an utterly remarkable experience. Germany so far has been underwhelming as you mentioned, enjoying it but very little in the way of visual cues, but it’s also largely just flat farmland and lakes so maybe it’s not as easy as the mountains in France
Having been there IRL many times, I found the German bush trip a little underwhelming, to be honest. I did enjoy flying over the Airbus factory in Hamburg however, having been on a tour around the real thing a few years ago.
By contrast, the alps challenge around the Swiss / French border is amazing. I flew the leg that included the Eiger and the Matterhorn and found it to be a very rewarding challenge, and not just for the scenery. I enjoyed managing the climbs and descents within the narrow valleys, and also working out the best use of the mixture control on the XCub as you gain and lose altitude. The descent into the airport at the end of that leg is quite something too!
