GWJ FBO: Flight Simulation Catch-all

Looks like the default aircraft incorporate the new WT G1000 NXI but the modified aircraft that I normally fly need to catch up to it. (DA62, C208)

Thankfully the non NXI version seems to work well enough, but this is the problem with the early days (years) of this sim. Things change and then that just sets everything back.

Regarding your pic... during the Nextgen Xplane seminar that was livestreamed this last week, it was noted how the MSFS streaming technology is awesome and makes everything look real good at 5000+ feet, but there are challenges at the lower altitudes. I don't pretend to know how the technology works, but your pic may illustrate that?

As a point of comparison, here's basically your same shot in Xplane 11 with default scenery (with an Xplane Piper Archer even!). While I wouldn't say its "better' per se, because its using a default texture instead of trying to make something out of a photo-texture, it at least looks like grass and at 1000 feet would probably look a bit better than what you are seeing in MSFS. MSFS does have morebuildings in the background, which I do like, and that is a testament to MSFS. It takes a photo and says "oh there's a building there" and puts one there. Xplane on the other hand uses a static open sourced Open Street Maps data from a specific date and plops autogen buildings based on that, so if there is no buildings on OSM, you won't see one in Xplane, unless someone custom inserts one there.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/QWNsEb6.jpg)

quote is not edit.

In looking at Google Earth imagery, and pics of the airport, I think MSFS gets the color and texture of the scrub ground cover better than that X11 one. Remember, a lot of the Atlantic islands have African grasses, which are different to the ones we have here and expect to see. Bermuda grass is African, and looks much more like what is at Miquelon than the European and American varieties.

Just a thought.

Could be. I just wanted to show how xplane does it. MSFS also has 3D grass, while xplane generally does not.

Comparing to Google maps is interesting though, in XP11 one does have the ability to basically drape a google map image over a tile in game so it matches 100% what is you can see on there (or Bing or ARC), so I could have my tile literally be the google map tile you see (limited by zoom level, so its not like I can do street level), but that will still not put in 3D objects unless the osm (including trees) data is updated with that info.

Some rough sailing here after SU5.

Seems like the graphics issues Hrdina mentions are widespread. I personally don't notice them, but I don't fly MSFS as often as others do. I suppose if you were already on very high settings and getting decent FPS, even more FPS isn't necessarily a win for flight sims, where a consistent 30 fps is enough. I was able to move graphics sliders up and maintain 30 fps so to me things look better and just as smooth as before.

Fly By Wire's A320 has been pulled from the MSFS store, likely due to incompatibility with the new control scheme. This is surprising since it was kind of a big get to have one of the most popular freeware aircraft in the official store.

Aerosoft announced a new product in development called Simple Traffic to improve AI traffic, and then seems to have killed it because SU5 broke everything they were trying to do.

The new control scheme is making custom aircraft where new controls were added, challenging. Some things work, others don't. The window in the JF Pipers is a good example.

Working Title new G1000 NXI is good, but I think it only works in default vanilla aircraft. A lot of other aircraft used the WTG1000 as a base and added function to it, but this function doesn't work in the NXI.

No doubt all of these things (except maybe Simple Traffic) will be resolved in due time. The typical FS Grognard is crying "dumb down for console". I don't know if that's true or not, but I certainly hope not. The few posts I've seen on GWJ seem to be the one-and-done of MSFS on Console: Fly by your house, and uninstall (is it 80GB+ on console?). Catering to that audience at the expense of the PC I think is going to be a big mistake and if they keep trying to push that, XPlane and P3D are going to have a pretty wide door to walk through to grab some of that share they lost right back.

Carlbear95 wrote:

Seems like the graphics issues Hrdina mentions are widespread. I personally don't notice them, but I don't fly MSFS as often as others do. I suppose if you were already on very high settings and getting decent FPS, even more FPS isn't necessarily a win for flight sims, where a consistent 30 fps is enough. I was able to move graphics sliders up and maintain 30 fps so to me things look better and just as smooth as before.

And you guys had convinced me that I was imagining things!

Seriously, without actual before/after images I do have a hard time telling whether something is different in the sim, or I'm seeing some impacts of different weather/time-of-day/locale/sun angle/whatever. I still have a hard time describing what seems off, other than maybe sometimes the scenery (especially buildings) almost remind me of a cell-shaded video. Sometimes.

That image I posted before is one example; it looked strange when I taxied my way down the runway to leave, the high grass alongside the runway looked absolutely amazing. I was too busy staring (and steering!) to get an image.

With my new-this-year PC I was getting well above 30 fps almost everywhere I flew, with most things set to Ultra. After SU5, the nvidia frame counter on my screen usually reports numbers in the 70s, although to be fair lately I have been flying over sparsely-populated areas. The last large city I've seen was Quebec, back in early July. St. John's Newfoundland (population ~110K) is not likely to stress most people's machines.

I'll be heading back into the NE US soon-ish, so expect Boston, NY, NJ, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and DC to give me a better idea what SU5 can do.

Carlbear95 wrote:

Aerosoft announced a new product in development called Simple Traffic to improve AI traffic, and then seems to have killed it because SU5 broke everything they were trying to do.

The new control scheme is making custom aircraft where new controls were added, challenging. Some things work, others don't. The window in the JF Pipers is a good example.

That actually made me sad to read. I'm assuming that they have some inside information to tell them that whatever broke Simple Traffic is something that Asobo is not going to revert.

Yeah, my JF Pipers have a handful of problems but at least I can still fly them as long as I remember not to push the parking brake button on my HOTAS.

Carlbear95 wrote:

The typical FS Grognard is crying "dumb down for console". I don't know if that's true or not, but I certainly hope not. The few posts I've seen on GWJ seem to be the one-and-done of MSFS on Console: Fly by your house, and uninstall (is it 80GB+ on console?). Catering to that audience at the expense of the PC I think is going to be a big mistake and if they keep trying to push that, XPlane and P3D are going to have a pretty wide door to walk through to grab some of that share they lost right back.

I'm trying to be open-minded but have to admit that the timing of all this breakage does reinforce my pre-existing bias about PC/console stuff (the last console I actively played was a PS2). I really hope it's not true, because having flight sim successful on multiple platforms can only lead to more flight sim later.

If they really did pull back on PC features to try to keep "parity" with their console version, the third party developers are going to abandon them just as fast as the PC sim crowd, if not faster.

Hrdina wrote:

[

Carlbear95 wrote:

Aerosoft announced a new product in development called Simple Traffic to improve AI traffic, and then seems to have killed it because SU5 broke everything they were trying to do.

The new control scheme is making custom aircraft where new controls were added, challenging. Some things work, others don't. The window in the JF Pipers is a good example.

That actually made me sad to read. I'm assuming that they have some inside information to tell them that whatever broke Simple Traffic is something that Asobo is not going to revert.

Yeah, my JF Pipers have a handful of problems but at least I can still fly them as long as I remember not to push the parking brake button on my HOTAS.

My question is how did MSFS not share the info previously? That Simple Traffic addon was announced a few days before SU5 was released. There are a lot of fly-by-night 3rd party devs trying to cash in on MSFS but Aerosoft is not one of them. Pretty bad look that a well known developer has to cancel a product announced just ~72 hours beforehand. That and the FlyByWire A320 being broken makes me concerned about how 3rd parties are being treated (maybe not at all?).

Well, according to a Just Flight staff posting the developer preview builds they had before SU5 didn't really represent everything that changed in the released SU5.

Just Flight wrote:

Unfortunately, despite being involved with the Sim Update V developer preview builds in recent weeks, there are various control/clickspot issues that have been introduced due to the undocumented changes made to the simulator to support Xbox hardware. We are continuing to work with MS/Asobo to address those issues ASAP and will share any news here.

That was posted a week ago; no additional news was posted in that thread, but another thread says that they have a pending release tomorrow (5 August) for the Arrow III and the Turbo Arrows.

I see that there is another hotfix arriving on Friday (or Monday). Hopefully that won't undo the fixes that Just Flight are making!

Stormbirds also has some thoughts about this hotfix.

Stormbirds wrote:

Among the issues listed are problems with:
* volumetric lighting
* LOD popping and camera stutter when panning
* low resolution ground textures
* crash to desktop issues
* washed out graphics and clouds
* a problem with one of the libraries that Aerosoft’s CRJ uses
* incorrect ATC altitude message
* temperature spikes

On a more positive note, AvAngel seems quite taken by the Aviat Husky (bush/float plane) that Asobo just released.

If you read enough of the MSFS forums, there are some good posts from one of the Working Title guys about the issues. The short version is there is some legacy code from FS9 that they replaced to improve accuracy in the weather engine and flight model, and the bugs and issues are the ripple effects from that change.

It sounds like they have a good handle on it, but not all of the fixes are coming with the hotfix. Some will be in the end of August update.

The bigger question, for me, is not why the buggy update and hotfix were released, but why the preview version given to 3rd party vendors did not reflect the update/patch that was ultimately released. Isn't that the point of it? JustFlight has said as much, as mentioned above. PDMG has also stated pretty much the same thing. I'm not saying they can't make more changes, but if they do, they have to undergo the testing cycle again. Somehow, for a software company, this doesn't seem to be in their workflow.

DonD how are the CRJ and DC6 working? Did SU5 break those?

There are problems with both the CRJ and the DC6. I didn’t even try. I did a few flights in the Salty 747 and it worked OK, but I used preset weather (high clouds), and I wasn’t on Vatsim. My one flight in the FBW A320 also went smoothly. My community folder is almost empty except for new downloads that say ‘works with Sim Update 5’.

I see this morning that there is an update for the DC6. This is probably the most colorful language I've ever seen in a patch update:

We very much appreciate the patience and humor you have shown during this transition from MSFS to MSFS Performance Plus. For us, the experience has been a bit like sitting cross-legged on a yoga ball in a dark room on a ship navigating rough waters while balancing a tray of flaming champagne glasses with an eye patch on one eye... There might also be someone throwing MSFS branded tennis balls in this circus act, at times it is hard to tell, but I think you get the point.

I finally completed my little tour of the island of Newfoundland. I may have landed at the majority of the airfields on the island. When I finally left, I flew off the SW corner in the direction of Cape Breton.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/QlzK85Y.jpg)

This resulted in a 58 nm over-water flight, with a small island (St Paul) maybe two thirds of the way across. I think I got up to about 11K feet altitude before heading over the water, so I could see the bare hint of land ahead of me.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/BWAAW6G.jpg)

Instead of landing on Cape Breton, I turned west and flew another 60 nm over water before landing at Iles-De-La-Madeleine (CYGR), aka the Magdalen Islands. Again, I could see the bare hint of land toward the horizon as I set off. It's out there under the sun if you open the image in a new tab. Those Piper sun visors do a great job!

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/XqZzBqI.jpg)

This is a weird place. From the air it reminds me of a tropical atoll, but it's really in a gulf off the north Atlantic. I might "rent" an Icon for a day or too to check the place out before heading back toward Cape Breton and Nova Scotia.

So I'm a beginning virtual pilot, and I want to use MSFS and Xplane to learn to fly properly and eventually do some of the cool stuff you guys are doing. I'm a beginner as in learning to take off and fly straight and level is an achievement for me. Does anyone have recommendations for sites/youtube channels/training curricula? I'll be starting out with a HOTAS Warthog setup and CH rudder pedals, though I'm sure I'll wind up with fancier stuff as the years go on.

I assume you are starting in something like the C172? The first person I started watching when learning on Xplane was this guy

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_c...

maybe start with this one

Its pretty old (I think its XP10) but he does a really good job with the basics.

Others may disagree, but there is learning to fly a sim, and learning to fly a sim like the real thing If you want the latter, Xplane should be the way to go. MSFS is where you use those skills to fly around a pretty scenery.

Depending on how much you want to get into various things, let us know. I have a pretty good sense of xplane, and there are a whole bunch of free and paid resources to make that really the best simulator of choice.

Also, any sort of HOTAS is fine, and if you have pedals even better.

When I was starting out, I found P Gatcomb very helpful in learning how to fly in MSFS.

The FAA Airplane Flying Handbook is surprisingly well written. You don’t need to read it cover to cover, but pick the chapters that you want to dive deeper into. Each chapter is also divided up well and you can pick out the parts that interest you.

I recommend reading Chapter 3, the section on 4 forces and straight and level flight and Chapters 5, 7, and 8 - takeoff, traffic pattern, and approach and landing.

Start with YouTube, but when you are ready for a bit more depth, the Handbook is great. Each chapter is downloadable as a PDF with graphics and illustrations that are really well done.

I'm pleased to report the DC-6 works well, although I'm not seeing the nav lights (switch is on). 2 flights with it yesterday, no issues aside from not seeing the lights on external view.

Flying the CRJ this morning, and I notice that I can't hit the button in the middle of the HDG knob to set heading to current (I don't get the hand icon, just the turn left/turn right). Similar issue with the Speed knob to change to Mach, and the Altimeter knob to change to standard pressure. I know Aerosoft has a patch in testing, so hopefully this is one of the fixes.

Heading isn't the biggest deal, since you can turn the knob to set heading, and same with pressure. For speed, I'll have to see if I can set a button for it on my joystick, otherwise this is kind of an issue.

Edit: Tried a couple of things. It seems if I right click the knob, the turn symbol changes to a hand and I can click the center of the knob, and it does what it is supposed to.

Great, thanks folks.!

I think the first time I really tried to learn how to fly in MSFS, it was with Rod Machado in MSFS 2000. I'll definitely have a look at the lessons that Carl & Don posted.

On that note...

As I mentioned in my last message I did end up flying around the Magdalen Islands in a float plane for an hour or two. I decided that I had already flow the Icon and was unimpressed, so I chose instead to try out some of the float versions that were added recently.

I started out with the XCub, only to be unable to taxi the thing on the ground. It turns out that was a known and reported bug.

I then tried out the Cessna 172, which worked much better, especially since I was already familiar with the aircraft.

I was greatly impressed with how many luxury yachts I found in the waters around these out-of-the-way islands.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/WmrH7qg.jpg)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/3TjYuo2.jpg)

One thing about the float planes is that they apparently nag you about whether your gear is up (for water landing) or down (for land landing). I got really tired of hearing it all the time. Too bad that didn't prevent me from landing wheels-up on the runway at the end of the night.

Funny thing is that it did not count as a crash, and it was one of the shortest landing rollouts I've managed.

Heard on VATSIM today during CYWG-KMSP event:

ATC: Delta XXX say altitude passing
Delta: passing XXX climbing FLZZZ
ATC: Delta XXX you're on MSFS aren't you.
Delta: Yeah
ATC: uggh.. *Sigh*

From MSFS notes: In-sim ATC service radar can still report incorrect altitude (fix expected in world Update 6)

hehe. guess it effects VATSIM too.

I just put MSFS in my flight plan remarks and leave it at that.

Have you updated MSFS to the latest hotfix released this weekend? When I start MSFS it says I need to update from the store.. when I go to the store there is no option to update.

Hrdina wrote:

I think the first time I really tried to learn how to fly in MSFS, it was with Rod Machado in MSFS 2000. I'll definitely have a look at the lessons that Carl & Don posted.

Heh, Machado's books are a good substitute for the FAA's Pilots Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge and the Airplane Flying Handbook. A lot easier to read.. but unlike the FAA's books, aren't free. I have it here next to me studying stuff. I think (hope) he's doing a new edition, because the last published one has a lot of silly jokes and sayings that are cringe-worthy at best, borderline offensive at worst in today's society. For example, he uses the term "oriental" more than once and that's just in the first few chapters.

I'm on Steam. I had a small update, and then nothing to download from within the sim.

Carlbear95 wrote:

Heh, Machado's books are a good substitute for the FAA's Pilots Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge and the Airplane Flying Handbook. A lot easier to read.. but unlike the FAA's books, aren't free.

I meant the stuff that Machado did which was included in FS 2000 (or maybe it was 2002 or 2004?). I probably still have them all somewhere in my basement or attic.

DonD wrote:

I'm on Steam. I had a small update, and then nothing to download from within the sim.

Likewise for me, which surprised me a little. I was expecting the installation manager within FS to greet me at startup last time I flew.

Got the patch installed... my favorite modded aircraft (C208 and DA62) seem to be updated and support the new WT G1000 nxi (I pushed direct to and it selected a waypoint!).

Still some weirdness with the cursor just disappearing on me, but at least I can fly. IMC conditions here I come!

Was able to complete a flight using the new WT G1000 in the modified C208... Direct To work.. activating the approach worked... The VNAV profile worked well enough... the actual approach didn't work well but that could very well have been my error or some other navdata issue.

I forgot about the altitude / ATC issue so i got the constant "Expedite climb to XXX" over and over again. That was frustrating. Should have just canceled IFR, but kept thinking it would eventually stop which it did not.

So if not for the ATC, definitely a serviceable flight and made a few FSEconomy bucks while at it.

This post was dated 8/23/2020... yes we are just past the one-year anniversary of MSFS.

Carlbear95 wrote:

But, I also realize that MSFS 2020 is less than a week old as I type this. Developers I know who released content on P3D and XPL are releasing MSFS content every day. We'll just have to see how it all falls out. I have no problem flying in MSFS and will continue to do so.

I will say that over the last 12 months, X-Plane has still very much been my simulator of choice, even though MSFS has had a lot of improvements.

I have no clue how many people are playing MSFS nowadays. Developers continue to make content for it, so I'm assuming its still quite viable, though most of it is high quality scenery. As far as aircraft goes... aside from the Aerosoft CRJs, PMDG DC-6 and Just Flight Piper series... there doesn't seem to be much out there other than the "frankeinstein aircraft". The PMDG 737 and maybe the Fenix Labs A320 will be the true bell-weather for high quality aircraft. I'd actually pay for a very well behaving C172 to be honest. The way SU5 was handled with the 3rd parties was also not good.

is it still more than an incredible streaming tech demo at least with all default? Maybe? I know I want it to be and as long as developers (Asobo and 3rd party) continue to support it I'll keep going back to it.

That being said the news on the "next" Xplane should be out during next months flightsimexpo. Whether that has any impact on MSFS is TBD, but I know I'm anticipating with as much, if not more than anything MSFS related.

I’m interested to hear the news on the next XPlane as well. I know they’ve put out some videos about it, but I don’t really follow that kind of stuff until I know a release is imminent.

I’m happy with MSFS, and optimistic about its development, but it is entirely possible that I end up with both sims.