Hereby my honest opinion,
I have to say I have been very impressed at first by the stunning graphics and visuals. My opinion has shifted however after performing some flights and testing out various aircraft. I have the impression that a lot of development and effort has been put in the graphics and the rest of the simulator has been left severly lacking. I’m primarily interested in IFR flying, it doesn’t feel like the simulator is ultimately designed for that, evident by the vast amount of single engine piston aircraft. I feel like Microsoft / Asobo have overstated the importance of having great graphics and overlooked other parts of the “simulator”. No replay, no flight analysis, no option to convert units to metrics and inHg to hPa, not even possible to change meteorological visibility! Those are really basic functions and essential for any flight simulator. FS2020 feels more like a game compared to a simulator, fine for single engine piston VFR flying maybe, definetely useless for any kind of IFR flying.
Camera system: I configured some custom views to quickly peak at something, I have to select the required custom view button THREE times to have the correct view which makes it very annoying to change view. The camera system, it’s complex and buggy. Not able to move to drone view or fixed camera views when inside the cockpit. Not able to move back inside the cockpit without first deselecting drone view or fixed camera view. Drone view controls are too complex, it would be much more intuitive to control orientation with the mouse (yaw and pitch) and translate referenced to the current direction you are looking at. I can’t turn off head movements which make it really annoying to scroll anything into the avionics / autopilot as with every gust or bit of turbulence the view shifts and I’m zooming or out in instead of scrolling something into the avionics system. Even with head movement turned OFF the view is not completely steady.
Its unfortunate that the ATC system is a copy of the FSX system, not utilizing standard ICAO ATC phraseology, using tower frequency to ask for ground services and start / end pushback… Come on guys, is it so difficult to make an intercom option to talk with ground crew and a little window to plan pushback? This is supposed to be a simulator, this is not how it is done in the real world. Further the ATC system is buggy, FL320 for a short flight? Not taking into account terrain, being cleared for take-off while live traffic is cleared to land). Altimeter setting system is set for USA not for Europe, no options to change from inHg to hPa, transition 18000 ft, it doesn’t feel like flight simmers on the other side of the pond have been taken into consideration. The green/white aerodrome beacons everywhere are also very American…
Couple of automatically generated airports are years behind, new terminals, taxiways, building are not there. No heliports, military or joined civil / military airports missing.
Whats going on with all the single engine piston aircraft? Most of which I’ve never even heard of before. What is the purpose of having a Cub Crafter X Cub, a Zlin Savage Cub, and a Shock Ultra? Or a Cessna 152, Cessna 152 Aerobat and Cessna 172S? I don’t know what audience would be interested in a list of single engine aircraft as long as my arm. One aircraft in every category would have been just fine as long as they made them useable and functioning to get us started and leave the rest to 3rd party developers. Don’t give us an A320 with no functionallity and no fly-by-wire characteristics, if it is too difficult or time consuming to correctly model an A320 then take something more conventional like a 737 or leave airliners out completely and put that time in something usefull. Now everything is half-baked…They could have better used this R&D to improve the quality of aircraft, some more cockpits without the mickey mouse G1000 or at the very least make the G1000 useable, some helicopters, some jets, gliders…
I performed an IFR flight at Innsbruck only to find out that the main navaids either don’t work or have the wrong front and back courses programmed, apparently FS2020 doesn’t support offset localizers. The Airbus A320, of course not study level but basic functionality is just not there. No ECAM displays except the fuel page. Autobrakes MAX (RTO) disengaging during taxi when hitting the brakes, when landing with autobrakes MED, DECEL appears above the autobrake LO pushbutton. SIDs according the FMS are wrong, missing waypoints, turning the wrong way into mountains, basic IFR navigation isn’t possible as the ADF / VOR needles are not shown on the ND. The speeds on the speed tape are wrong, after lift-off Vr shows below alpha protect. Distance to destination on MCDU is incorrect and actually increases and many, many, many more issues…
Tried the TBM 930, in LO and HI idle ITT goes over the limits. Went to test the same on the Cessna Caravan and Beech Kingair, Cessna Caravan you can’t even feather the prop, on the Beech Kingair same as TBM, ITT goes over redline. Seems to me the free turbine principle isn’t correctly modeled as propeller speed should have no effect on the engine compressor section since there is no physical connection between the power and compressor sections. So you can also park those planes somewhere far in the back of the hangar in long term storage waiting for a patch to arrive…
The huge pile of single engine piston aircraft have a bug in which fuel flow first increases when leaning the mixture and then decreases. As a concequence you need to lean even at ISA at sea level to get the rated performance out of them.
Basic options as replay and flight analysis missing, there is currently no option to change the meteorological visibility (quite essential for simulating IFR) but able to change snow depth, very useful but please give us basic functionality first.
FS2020 is great as a game, I enjoy fooling around, fly over my own house, reposition overhead a flock of flamingos, all great fun. As soon as I try to use this piece of software for what it claims to be, a “simulator” the fun is quickly over, there are just too many flaws and missing functionality to even remotely consider it useable for IFR flying. I don’t see FS2020 useable as a tool for “professionals” to train and improve their skills in the current state, sorry to come to this conclusion.
Every flight and every aircraft is like opening a whole new can of worms. I am seriously considering to uninstall put the 150 GB hard drive space to better use. Wake me up when FS2020 is out of early release / public beta…
Greetings Nijntje
(real life airline pilot and former flight instructor)