Lol yes, confusing terminology. But on the subject of turbo props the SDK for Turbo props is severely limited and there are a number of issues with how they work in sim currently. We will probably eventually get some high fidelity turbo props when someone gets around to doing an add on with custom coded engine modelling. Not sure when that would be though. Perhaps the Milviz ATR (hopefully).
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Or their Totter.
ReEeE ItS nOt a GaMe iTs A sImUlAtOr - People that don’t actually know the difference
But honestly you are right though. The primary purpose of Flight Simulator 2020 is to provide entertainment. Just like Farming Simulator, Gas Station Simulator, Power Wash Simulator, Goat Simulator, PC Building Simulator, Auto Mechanic Simulator, Airplane Mechanic Simulator, Bus Simulator…well i think you get the idea lol. I don’t think any of the aforementioned games prepares you to do the real thing in any practical sense, mostly just familiarity or an introduction into a particular industry.
If one wants to use FS2020 to stay familiar with a planes controls and layout, then yeah FS2020 is great for that. Otherwise, go to a real flight school
And summer for the PMDG 737 seems far. There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence it will be released much sooner (test store page for 737 on PMDG site appeared then removed, talk of how-to videos being made, currently-in-progress internal beta testing and just the overall hype is growing, more so than it was 6 months ago)
I recently had a similar experience. Great, isn’t it?
Just an FYI, yellow are things to keep an eye on to make sure they don’t get worse, but mean slightly out of spec and won’t cause damage. Only orange or red will.
All - Looking forward to the PMDG 737 cargo plane version. It will be as study level as it can be, I think! The second-best plane in this is also payware, DC Designs F-14, the publisher says it’s not study level. Well, that is so, however, there are “rules to operate that plane” and if violated you will crash. Much better here, than real life. The navigation is difficult for me, buttons/switches all over the cockpit. MSFS currently will not let you bind all of them in your flight device. So, looking forward to the 737. I will have to check on the YouTube videos on the 737. Bad WX here, so laptop unplugged till late. Good Flying.
The below post actually says what most of us feel. If it was a carbon copy of the original, you do not experience the G-Forces, (maybe in VR-some of the effects-but in reality, those are bogus-you are still just sitting in your chair), although twice lately, steep turn, clouds obscuring my vision field, I had to focus on turn/bank indicator to make sure I did not lose perspective.
On YouTube, excellent 787 Cold and Dark on “study level” plane for X-Plane, I think. It’s over an hour long. Excellent description on how it all comes together. For instance, Pilots Computer System is INOP in all the planes in MSFS (where it’s installed), in that one, it works. However, many of the things mentioned in video, the Company would automatically send to the plane, so Pilot is not overwhelmed with calculating all that stuff, but it’s nice to know.
I love the DC/SC Designs products, but you really should take a look at the Just Flight Hawk if you are striving for a ‘study level’ military jet.
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The terms “proper simulator” and “study level” are undefined and seem to serve three purposes:
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ego - some people like to think they are above “mere gamers” and are actually undertaking some sort of “serious” exercise, often accompanied by fantasies that if they are ever a passenger in a real DC6 or whatever and the flight crew all have a medical emergency or die to terrorists or some such they can save the day and land the aircraft
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justifying the often outrageous cost of flight sim hardware to the relevant partner/parents/teachers who are in charge of authorizing the expenditure
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a marketing term used by developers to indicate they have a superior product
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Yes, it is up there with, “Serious simmer” and, “Not a game.”
But it is the best term we currently have.
I am starting to see, “High fidelity” used instead.
It is better as it is objective - the fidelity of the modelling can be seen an judged against a benchmark.
As this and your other thread have show ‘study level’ is highly subjective. Just as with the ’ serious simmer’ thread.
One of the common observations made by flight instructors teaching novice pilots on the basics of VFR is that the ones who have had prior home flight simulator experience spend way too much time looking at the instruments.
Which isn’t suprising really as up until now the tech has favoured IFR simulation. Creating an authentic VFR experience was simply beyond what a home computer could do.
So those who measure MSFS against what came before or dismiss it as a mere visual experience perhaps miss the essential point: staring out the window is a good thing and now actually worth doing - you can use a real sectional and find real visual reference points shown in the sim that don’t look like garbage. You can actually navigate cross country. It’s a minor miracle.
Of course it should also be able to offer a high fidelity IFR experience and if you use an aircraft with good avionics and have Navigraph then you can have a pretty good IFR experience too, although there is certainly room for significant improvement here…which we know one is in development.
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So the talk is of the aircraft, but what of the ‘world’?
As new construction is completed, does the ‘flight Sim’ world evolve also?
Shouldn’t all VP locations be modeled so we can practice our pilotage?
QFT…
And IMHO your first bullet point is by far the biggest contributor.
i mean over the course of the game series, yes the world has significantly improved in terms of fidelity. In this game, as time goes on countries will get updated with their real world photogrammetry, airports will gets fixed/renovated, navdata gets updated, airports get removed and added as they’re built and decommissioned in the real world (well…at least when it’s reported by the community). World upkeep will still be performed to keep it updated in game in or to remain accurate to the real world. So right now you can look up a point on bing maps and fly there in the game and it will match up (in theory)
- too much time looking down at instruments
- if they fly combat sims a tendency to line the runway centreline up with the nose rather than the yoke position
- in some cases a tendency to “land flat” when they should be pulling the yoke all the way back to lift the nose as they touch down
The simmer syndrome.
Whelp, thanks again for your help. I’ll be getting a Bravo in a few days and I just purchased the DC6.
Spending time in the Pipers has quelled the intimidation I was feeling for larger, more complex planes. In fact, those little Pipers have enriched my passion for this hobby.
I still fly at least one of them regularly.
The DC-6 is quite intimidating at first; the AFE will help you get up and going, PMDG has an excellent video series on their Youtube channel and of course, you have the forums here and at PMDG should you run into issues. Also, manuals, manuals manuals!
One thing to note: the DC-6 has a lot of magic working under the hood and sometimes the sim doesn’t play nice with it; it’s highly recommended you unbind all controls not specifically used for the DC-6 and create a profile just for it, ESPECIALLY mixture. There is no typical mixture axis in the DC-6, and trying to use one or having Automixture on in the options will play merry hell with the engines.
Good luck, let us know how it goes!
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I am REALLY looking forward to some new airline / cargo aircraft. There is a lot on the horizon, so we have much to look forward to! Even the ATR that MilViz is developing I am looking forward to.
Its gone a bit stale since the DC6 for me, so I’m keeping a look out to see who releases first: PMDG, iniBuilds, MilViz, BAE 146 etc.
Hopefully should be a great year for new aircraft!
Most of the behavior you describe is because new students are clueless to flying a real aircraft until they finally learn how to. I flew the old, (mid 1980’s) FS for a few years before getting my pilot’s license. There was nothing wrong with the knowledge I had gained in navigation, but I had no clue about the basics of aerodynamics in the real world. Sure I could fly the sim but after learning how to fly in the real world, flying the sim was a different and better experience. When I buy a new plane for my sim now, I want as close to study level as I can get as I find it rewarding to learn how to fly a new type. I don’t need every circuit breaker to function, but I do want all the systems to depend on my doing exactly the right thing at the right time. I also want the handling of the plane to reflect real world performance. If I wasn’t a pilot in real life, I probably wouldn’t care as much. I think there are many ways to enjoy or use desktop sims, from gaming to practicing real flights. To each his own.
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I did take her up for a test flight from a runway. And she is a slow, heavy boat with glorious sounds. I can almost smell the plane.
Still haven’t succeeded in starting her from cold and dark, but it was a late night last time and it takes a while with all the studying and tutorial watching needed.
BTW, how lovely are those YouTude tutorials? PMDG did NOT have to do that!
There is some real logic to the cockpit and I am surprised how much I recognized. I am pretty familiar with the layout now.
Thank you for the tip on mixture. I will be sure to unbind that for the DC6. Not doing that might be the source of a problem I encountered last night.
The APE is rather inspired.
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Right?!
Really glad you’re enjoying her! Such an amazing model.
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