Since the introduction of MSFS last year a couple of things were on my wishlist.
One of them were gliders. Many topics are allready devoted to them but one sensitive topic seems still to be avoided.
In all the choices we have nowadays regarding sims, wich one is the favourite glidersim and what is it that makes that one special and what is missing in it.
I have been gliding for a while in real life. It coincidetally started just after the introduction of the Condor (first edition) glider sim. It had a tow and winch ability which helped me a lot with start, landing and emergency procedures during these phases of flight and helped me to go solo sooner than I thought. Also the termal helpers were of great use to practice centring the termals and flying while scanning the instruments to prevent stall situations.
One major thing missing whas the realistic scenery and the multiplayer option where one can “play” the towplane and the other one the glider.
In the meantime Condor 2 arrived and I flew it whit a lot of passion waiting for the glider to appear after the introduction of MSFS.
A month ago i came across an advert of aerosoft where they were presenting a new stand alone glider simuator. graphics looked nice in the trailer and it sounded all very promissing (the birds flying around and indicate thermals triggerd me much). I havent bought it yet because my glider flying , i still do on condor 2 (despite the low-medium end scenery) and the rest I do on MSFS.
SO… the major question:
What kind of glider sims are you flying and do you look forward to a complete glider experience in MSFS or will you stuck with earlier developed glidersims like condor, addons in other flightsims or the new developed aersoft glidersim.
The major things that will convince me to go fully msfs with this, will be:
realistic thermals, including indicators like birds or maybe a visual pattern for the less or unexperience gliderpilots or “cloudreaders”
I imagine you know, but, for those who don’t who come here… there are a couple gliders available (not so much the features the OP is asking for), and they’re fun, at least to me (I’m not a glider pilot).
Thats actually a good point, there are now four gliders that I am aware of that are out and about for people to try. As well as the two mentioned above there is also a Discus 2b and a Ka6 E that are both really good.
The Discus can be downloaded from the same site as the AS33 and the Ka6 E can be downloaded from the link below.
I wasnt part of their development but I think for the gliding community its very good for us all to promote each others work, then maybe Asobo will pull their finger out and get us decent soaring conditions to cover the OP points.
Most of your requested features can be found in these two (free) applications that work together with MSFS to create a better glider experience. (still in development but it gets better with every update)
For glider racing, (multiplayer)towing,winch,thermals,online/offline hotspot data etc.
Or the standalone version without the racing features, for (multiplayer)towing,winch,thermals online/offline hotspot data etc.
There is also a paid version of this with a few more features to support development.