I think that having the opportunity of walking around the airport the same way you walk in any other game would give us a lot of immersion.
The scenery quality is sometimes so good that you only can appreciate the detail by foot. And I think there is room for a lot of things: different spawn for aircraft and avatar (parking lot, apron, hangar), maybe hanging out in multiplayer before going into the aircraft with some proximity voice chat, Walkaround for an aircraft (I’m sure it would feel amazing checking the landing gear bays below a 747 in VR).
It would be a different perspective to the incredible world of msfs 2020 and another way to immerse ourselves into the world of aviation, beyond the cockpit.
Funnily enough I’ve thought it would be quite good fun to have an avatar able to get out and walk around when you land a helicopter somewhere. I’m sure some modder will do this one day once the SDK improves. It should be technically possible.
ps Better be careful with posts like this. You’ll bring out the ‘this is a seriously simulator its not GTA’ brigade.
The ability to walk around is essential, not just for tourism/exploring the beautiful world where the drone camera is doing a quite nice job, but more importantly, for doing the pre-flight inspection etc. Currently when using the drone camera you can not click anything. If they’d added that I guess I can somewhat accept it, but it would be nice if there is a walking mode as well.
With the VR controller support coming along with the SU7, I hope this issue could be at least partially addressed.
I was thinking about this and then found this topic using search. I agree, given how amazing some of the external models are becoming it would be great to be able to inspect them close up in a realistic and non immersion breaking way.
Like others I can imagine the option to start in walkaround view, which would be similar to drone cam but locked at 6 feet from the ground, locked to walking pace, and with a mouse free-look (not needed in VR).
This is similar but better than the current option of spawning in the cockpit, then having to jump outside the cockpit, set the correct drone cam height, speed, etc, look at the plane, then jump back to cockpit.
Further down the line could imagine nice things like being able to trigger the open hatch animations or fuel dipstick etc (for aircraft that have them) using a button press when nearby. And things like dynamic weathering patterns etc so the model is always a bit different
Avatar/Person/Human/Pilot models that you can “walk” around with controls. If not the ability to animate them, then at least the ability to place them.
+1 for a non camera actual walk around mode, using WASD and mouse etc like any first person game.
Having a body you can look down on and some head bob and footstep noises. Oh yeah.
My Idea is to add a simple walkaround mode for the camera:
-Set camera to eye-height
-walking like in a first person shooter (WASD+mouse for angle)
-height based on ground (to also walk stairs)
I know a walkaround is kind of possible with drone camera, but it is way to fiddly and unconveniant, even with a controller (height is very hard to adjust for example). We have such beautiful and detailed aircraft, it is a shame we can’t properly and realisticly have a good look at them. That mode would be a great addition to immersion!
I must admit I don’t support a walk around ‘mode’. This has to be implemented 100% in first person perspective and be seamless from tarmac to cockpit. As soon as you start switching modes the immersion breaks. The best representation of this is the Persistence Universe in Star Citizen.
Incidentally Microsoft Flight had a walkaround mode which allowed you to switch planes which made missions a lot of fun.
No offence but have u used the drone? Camera views in this game are not exactly a high point, for gaming in general. I try to be careful about dev comments, but the camera controls just kinda suck. Moving around is clunky, there are bugs where sometimes you can’t turn in a certain direction… It’s just not the best at all.
I understand the ppl who say this because it takes away dev time. But to be completely honest, as someone familiar with game development (to be fair i don’t know how their engine functions) it SHOULD be fairly easy to implement. And by easy i mean a team of no more than 5. At least a walk around mode in it’s most basic form. We’re taking movement like any other first person game has with a rudementry snap to cockpit cam on button press.
I would like to add that i multiplayer a lot and being able to see your mates on foot would be amazing too.
Especially once official shared cockpit etc is in.
considering how integral they are to actual flying. Queue the wolves 
Although that would be something I could wait on until flight aspects are finished