The reason it’s such a big issue is: (IMHO)
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For those of us who don’t fly “heavy metal” at 30,000’ or more, (i.e. those of us who like low-level VFR “sightseeing” flights in light GA aircraft), it’s beyond unrealistic all the way to “are you absolutely outta your mind?!” unbelievable.
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Turbulence is a fact of life and is something to be expected - like gravity - but the way it is currently modeled is totally unreasonable. If you were flying around and gravity itself periodically, (and seemingly randomly), changed direction and intensity, you’d be upset too since it would make flying almost impossible.
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It makes lower altitude VFR-type flying almost impossible.
Ref:
What I like to do while flying is to “go sightseeing” and look at things. IOW, I really don’t care about what things are like at 36,000’ - I want to follow a road, a railroad track, a canal, and go exploring.
In a way it’s kind of like hitchhiking in the 60’s - you’d pick a direction and didn’t really care where you ended up - it was the trip, not the destination, that was important. I often don’t know where I’m going to end up - at an airport somewhere? In a field? I don’t know and don’t care - just so long as I get home in time for dinner, it’s all good!
It’s bad enough that the terrain itself sometimes looks like something from The Twilight Zone, (The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) - Wikipedia), but the fact that the flight characteristics of the environment itself borders on the fantastic at times makes the sim much less effective than it could be.
I REALLY LIKE the scenery effects within MSFS, but the turbulence and the meteorological air-flow modelling - especially at lower altitudes - makes it less of a sim and more of a game of chance.
If I could somehow blend the flight dynamics of XP and the scenery of MSFS, I’d be in Hog Heaven!