GWJ FBO: Flight Simulation Catch-all

My best friend during junior and senior high school lived right next to an airpark (1NY3). I'm not sure how that came to be exactly, or where property lines were or anything, but the runway was on the other side of their driveway. We played a lot of catch on the runway, and eventually figured out how to get into the hangars to check out the planes, which was fun.

On a whim, I recently installed MSFS from game pass, and decided to see if the airpark was in. And it is! And looks remarkably how I remember it. The buildings they used for what used to be his house (and his grandmother's) were really dilapidated looking, which seemed like an unfortunate choice, but they were roughly the right dimensions and in the right places. I think I remember there being more hangar buildings than included, but its been a bit, so that might have actually changed.

I decided to wing taking off in a cessna 152, without looking up controls or anything, using a mouse and keyboard. I managed to take off and fly around a bit. Then I buzzed his old house; I never witnessed it, but his mom would sometimes complain about the pilots frequently being drunk ( easy to believe), and also frequently flying too low and close to the house (also easy to believe). I wasn't drinking, but buzzing the house was fun, so I felt a little bit of empathy with whichever jerks used to do that. Karma struck though, as I did something weird while trying to climb and go around for another time, and I crashed. I went to bed.

But then the game stuck in my head, and eventually I got out my t16000m and throttle. I originally bought them to play elite dangerous, but the twist rudder went beserk. I started the RMA process, but procrastinated when they asked to send a video, and then the pandemic happened. For ED, not having the twister rudder made flying a lot less fun, with that and kids making VR too much of a hassle, I put it all away. Fortunately, for planes I prefer using the paddles on the throttle to the twist rudder anyway, so its useful there.

I did a small bit of sight-seeing and practice flying. I started out with no control assists, but most of the navigation and system assists on. I've been weaning myself off of the system assists.

A career mode thing seemed like a good idea. I've started out with Neofly, since it was free (though I've since 'donated' for all of the perks except for the additional campaign). The first Leeroy Fogbottom died a terrible death in the dark of an 'Unknown Field' somewhere in Massachusetts while on this third missions. I was insisting on using live weather and such, and didn't yet know about the option to filter our missions where the destination had no lights. It was my first night flight in the game, and I was flying the c152 with just analogue gauges (which was fine because most of the POI and navigations assists were on). I took off and made it to nearby the destination ok, but realized I might be in trouble when there was nothing but darkness and I finally realized the destination was literally called 'unknown field'. I decided to be brave and attempt to land anyway; I saw I was about to come up short and crash into trees, panicked my way into a stall and smashed the trees hard. That's when I learned that Neofly on survival mode will kill your pilot off (I assume it actually deleted the save, though I didn't double check).

The second Leeroy Fogbottom's career was going well until suddenly the game started lagging hard. It didn't crash, but I was getting a few frames a minute. I spent small chunks of time over the next day troubleshooting everything, and finally narrowed it down to the Neopad from Neofly, when I had a specific mission loaded. It really didn't like me traveling from Ohio to Virginia for some reason. Turning Neopad off fixed everything though, and I was excited to have a chance to get back to flying. Too excited apparently. The weather was pretty crappy for my take off, and just after I got airborn something happened that resulted in me crashing straight back into the ground.

For Leeroy Fogbottom the third, I decided I would switch up to the 172 to see if I could move about a little faster. I didn't understand the significant of the G1000 in the name, so was surprised to see the 'glass cockpit'. I had no idea how to see the system, but was sure I could wing it. I had also decided to turn off auto-mixture, figuring it was time I learned how to handle that. I guess I turned off something that handled altimeter, heading, and other gauge calibration as well, though I hadn't meant to. The checklists for the 172 are a lot more through than for the 152! The weather was again miserable, and instead of going above or below the clouds for my first mission (a trip from Boston to Ithaca, NY, at night), I ended up right in the soup. It was pretty hectic trying to learn the garmin system, learn how to manage fuel mixture, stay on course, stay at altitude (and frequently having to communicate with ATC when they yelled at me for leaving my assigned altitude ... oh yeah, I forgot to mention it was my first time trying IFR). Eventually, I was near Albany, and I wasn't sure I was going to have enough fuel to make it. I think previously I had been able to add fuel midflight, but I must have turned that off too, so I decided to land there to refuel. I called for a fuel truck, and MSFS crashed. Once I got back in, I just adjusted my fuel manually, and managed to take off without any major issues. While I was still climbing, I decided I should probably turn the icing feature back on, so I would have to actually be careful about heading into clouds. Instead of just changing that, I decided to move the whole category to hard from 'custom'. Unfortunately, it first went to 'easy', so Neofly yelled at me for trying to cheat and failed the mission.

Anyway, anyone have a preferred career mode add on? Neofly looked like the coolest for digging into GA type stuff, but its always hard to tell from the outside.

I kind of want to go back to the 152 in Neofly, and pick up https://flightsim.to/file/2246/msfs-.... However, reading around tells me the default 'flight model' for the 152 was greatly improved in the last patch or so, and those changes are not yet in the mode, so I'm not sure if that would end up feeling like a downgrade for now.

I'd also like to fly the 172 with steam gauges; I wasn't sure if I had ever purchased MSFS (I thought I had); the game pass tells me that I have the premium deluxe edition installed, but I don't see the classic 172 in my content anywhere (and the in-game store gives me the option to upgrade to that version). I can't tell if its worth the money or not, though I'm leaning towards yes.

absurddoctor wrote:

I'd also like to fly the 172 with steam gauges; I wasn't sure if I had ever purchased MSFS (I thought I had); the game pass tells me that I have the premium deluxe edition installed, but I don't see the classic 172 in my content anywhere (and the in-game store gives me the option to upgrade to that version). I can't tell if its worth the money or not, though I'm leaning towards yes.

If you have the premium deluxe, you may just have to go into your Profile > Content Manager and download it along with any other deluxe content.

Also, not sure if the launcher/game pass downloads all of the free new content but there's a lot of free MS released scenery updates over the last 1.5 years its been out. Go to the store and look up all of the world update content, make sure you have space on your HD, and get downloading.

As far as career modes go, FSEconomy (which is free but a bit old) can be fun (www.fseconomy.net), but it can be pretty limiting, particularly at first. I've used Air Hauler 2 on Xplane. Its paid, and you can do quite a bit with it. It does take some tweaking to get right, but its as much a sim about building a big network as it is just a pilot career mode. Personally, the biggest challenge I have with any flight sim is "where do I fly", and IMO many of the existing sims dont' address that. The only one I have that does is only on xplane called Mission Generator. Basically I pick a plane and a starting airport, and it just pops up a list of destinations with fictional missions like.. deliver 5 dogs, bring 3 kegs of beer.. etc. There's no virtual money, and some very limited progression that basically gives you small bonuses for different types of missions, but its exactly what I'm looking for.

Definitely look out for some of the free apps that help with flightplanning... and if you were to pick just 1 free one, go with Littlenavmap.

Also.. if you haven't done a lot of simming I would recommend not flying into clouds. Set the weather to nice and calm and just enjoy the visuals... besides in a C152 or C172 there a big placard that reads "Flying into known icing conditions is prohibited"

Welcome to the wonderful world of flightsimming.. in a few months (maybe) you'll be able to upgrade from MSFS to Xplane 12

I had icing turned off at first, so flying into clouds could be done safely (and I think its kind of fun). I've since turned icing on, so definitely need to be careful now.

I did pick up Littlenavmap and played around with it a bit. It's a lot to take in, so I'll need to ease into that I think, and I'll probably mostly stick with the nav assistance stuff in game for now.

I started up the KBOS to KITH mission again (having living around there for awhile, I'd really like to make the flight out there). It was still light when I fired it up and started going through the checklist, but then there was a kid interruption and it was starting to get dark by the time I made it back. The good news is that the weather at KBOS had cleared up a little, it had been really foggy and drizzly when I first loaded in. After finishing checklist stuff and getting permission to taxi, I started rolling, and almost immediately was told to stop because of other traffic. There was nothing actually near me, but I waited for around five minutes before deciding I'd risk just going. After a few minutes of rolling along, tower finally gave me permission to continue (oops). It was around this time that I saw a c152 upside down and spinning around slowly, just to the right of my taxi path. I'm guessing that might have been the hold up.

A bit later I cross the first runway of the taxi trip; I could see a player down at the very end, but they weren't moving, and since the tower didn't tell me to stop, I made my way across, and was immediately told I had made a runway incursion. That's annoying, because I think Neofly will cancel the 'safety bonus' payout for that. I was close to the second runway to cross when I was given instruction to stop to wait for traffic. And then there was a non-stop streaming of landings. I didn't count how long I was there, but it felt like at least fifteen minutes, maybe longer. Two other players were behind me, both in air liners of some sort . The one immediately behind me kept creeping up, as though they expected me to move; I'm not sure if they actually heard the instructions I had to stop, or had similar instructions. I thought they might just drive around me, but they never did. I was awfully tempted to just make a run for it, as I thought I could probably sneak across in time, but decided to stick with the role play.

At long last I was given permission to continue, and the taxing line guidance and objective were supposedly to line up on the center line of the runway. But the taxi ribbon pointed me to face the wrong way. I followed it anyway, but it never told me I completed that part, and the taxi ribbon never went away. I circled around a couple of times trying to get that to happen, and also trying to see if I was confused about where the runway was (it was dark, and there are lights everywhere, but its hard to see whats going on from a c172 cockpit). I realized at some point that one of the player jetliners was there waiting for me to take off so they could go next, so finally turned the way I thought the airport was facing (the VFR map seemed to agree with me) and started taxiing a bit more. I thought I might have hit runway, so went to full power, and pretty quickly got dinged for exceeding taxi speeds. I had a really tough time taking off, and couldn't figure out why. Even once I was in the air, my climb rate was atrocious. Eventually I noticed that at some point I had somehow accidentally set the trim to -45%. After fixing that and turning west, everything was smooth for a bit.

When I asked for IFR, they initially wanted me an altitude of 12000 feet. I thought I would go for it at first, but at around 9500 feet I started having trouble climbing and wasn't sure I could get there before hitting clouds, so I asked to bump down to 5000 feet which seemed to put me below everything. Eventually it looked like the sky was mostly clear so I went back to 8000 feet. As things got really dark, I was worried I might not see clouds and run into them, but I wasn't sure how best to deal with that. For all I knew, dropping down lower could face the same problem. I couldn't figure out how to get an up to date weather report. I thought I should be able to set my second radio to a local tower to do that, but it appeared as though I would have to cancel IFR completely, and I wasn't sure how challenging it would be to get back.

A bit west of Springfield I realized my windows had iced up a bit. I didn't seem to be seeing any performance issues, so hoped it wasn't a big deal. But eventually it became harder and harder to maintain altitude. I requested a decrease, hoping that maybe I could thaw out further down, but that didn't help. So I decided to land at whatever was nearest and hope I could somehow de-ice on the ground and not have to restart the mission all over again.

As I was about to turn final, I got the helpful alert that my mixture was not ideal. The default control to go full rich is Ctrl-Shift-F4. The plane was not flying so well, and I couldn't see so well because of the icy windshield, but tried to quickly jam that control. But my fingers instead found Alt-Shift-F4 (the saved camera presets that I use a bunch are on Alt-Shift[1,2...] so I think muscle memory got in the way), which I managed to turn into an Alt-F4 and completely bail out of the game.

I'll get to you someday Ithaca Regional!

The mod you linked for the C152 is great.

Other improvement mods on flightsim.to for GA aircraft that I can recommend:
- DA-40 NGX https://flightsim.to/file/2738/da40-...
- DA-62X https://flightsim.to/file/2733/da62x...

If you haven't yet, get the Working Title Garmin NXi mod from the marketplace (it's free). It updates functionality of the G1000.

As for career mode things, I used FSEconomy for a while and enjoyed it, but eventually moved to virtual airlines. There are some that mirror real world airline operations, but others are more open. Most have an activity requirement (1 flight or 1 hour/month). FlyVirtual lets you fly any aircraft on any route (so you could fly a C152 on an airline route, say KJFK->KBOS), or you can make your own route. It has no activity requirement. It also has tours, which are a series of legs to fly in order. It may or may not be for you. I haven't flown with them in a while (I moved over to Walker Air Transport). In any event, it might be worth a look. It costs nothing.

If you have the t16000m + Throttle, consider using the slider at the bottom of the stick for the mixture. Also TBH, unless you're doing high altitude takeoffs and of course for engine start, you really don't need to mess with the mixture. Keep it full in and you'll be fine. You're not running efficiently, but gas is free in a sim That being said I do recall that in the early days of MSFS if you didn't lean the mixture after 3500 your engine would eventually quit which wasn't realistic. Hopefully that has been fixed.

Also, you can set the altitude for your IFR in the (2nd page?) of the flight planning/map screen before you start your flight. I think it defaults to 12000. I remember having that issue when I wanted clearance and couldn't figure out where to change it at first, and then when I was trying a jetliner it capped me at 12000. FWIW unless there was serious terrain, you would almost never take a C152 or a C172 to that altitude, as it would take you probably 30 minutes to get there depending on how heavy you were. Also over 10,000 feet there are significantly fewer speed restrictions and you really can't be dodging jets in a cessna prop

As far as enroute weather goes.. sounds like you have real weather turned on. I think MSFS weather has gotten better so if it mirrors reality, you can always check on littlenavmap or skyvector.com. There's not really a real time temperature aloft report in game or even IRL unless you call FSS (that's your job to figure out when you're planning!), but most airports will have some sort of automated weather for surface weather and will report ceiling and sky conditions if you look them up.

Those mods look nice, thanks! I was mostly ignoring the Garmin stuff at first, so I'm just getting the basics of it. I remembered reading that Working Title had joined MS so assumed the mod would end up integrated anyway, but it seems like maybe not (or at least it hasn't yet).

I haven't tried IFR with the 172 again yet; setting the altitude on the Xcub before take off didn't seem to influence the initial height they gave me. (On the first day I started playing I did have a stock 152 up at around 13000 feet, but all of my settings were on easy and I realized it was rather from realistic ;p )

The joystick slider for mixture is brilliant, thanks! That defaulted to rudder, which I had left in case I felt I needed a backup. That is until I managed to accidentally move it all the way to the bottom once during take off with the expected results. I did find that messing with the mixture did seem to give me some extra RPM's, and not doing so seemed to give me pretty atrocious climb rates with the 172 above 6000 or so. (It's also possible there was something else going on there I didn't understand though, and the improvement was a coincidence). Yesterday I had an xcub at around 110000 feet and going full rich didn't quite kill the engine, but essentially brought it down to idle.

I do sort of pay for fuel; Neofly has an option to take over control of your fuel in the game (which is the real reason I couldn't refuel midflight above), and I have to buy fuel within Neofly in order to fuel up in the sim. I can set the price though, so I could also cheat that to not matter again

I do have real weather on; so far I usually go into the 'mulitplayer' mode, which forces that. But I would usually want that anyway; part of the fun for me is learning how to handle potential surprises, so I avoid setting the weather unless there is some specific thing I want to test.

My normal landings need a lot of practice, I keep coming down way too hard, which is a problem with some missions in Neofly and a lot of the cargo movement. I'm still pretty lost without the approach guidance, and things aren't great even with it. Two things that I think will help going forward is that "power = altitude and pitch = speed" finally clicked for me. And I've realized that I should let myself glide along just above the runway until I can really get the VS down (the former I think will help, as before I was frequently landing in or close to a stall, and hopefully I can start to better avoid that).

absurddoctor wrote:

My normal landings need a lot of practice, I keep coming down way too hard, which is a problem with some missions in Neofly and a lot of the cargo movement. I'm still pretty lost without the approach guidance, and things aren't great even with it. Two things that I think will help going forward is that "power = altitude and pitch = speed" finally clicked for me. And I've realized that I should let myself glide along just above the runway until I can really get the VS down (the former I think will help, as before I was frequently landing in or close to a stall, and hopefully I can start to better avoid that).

Pitch = Speed is correct... on final though in a cessna or other single engine prop... Trim = Speed is better. You don't want to be making too many pitch adjustments on final except for the "flare".

Also, in a cessna, you absolutely can stall it to land... in most landings the stall horn is going off. You just don't want to stall it when your 30 feet up. Low and slow = bad, use the VASI/PAPI guidance if your airport has it.

Also in my experience if you're following MSFS ATC, its absolutely horrible in picking the correct landing runway. Double check the weather and make sure you're landing into the wind. ie. winds are 260/7 you land on runway 26 or whatever is within +/- 9 of that runway number. If you're landing with a strong tailwind, you are going to absolutely smash your landing. You're pilot in command not ATC!

absurddoctor wrote:

I do have real weather on; so far I usually go into the 'mulitplayer' mode, which forces that. But I would usually want that anyway; part of the fun for me is learning how to handle potential surprises,

Its a flightsim.. so absolutely.. fly casual.. but in a 172 or 152 or for sure an xcub... you should never be surprised by the weather Aviation weather is publicly available.

I started paying attention to the wind ATC gave me vs the runway yesterday, and haven't noticed a major screw up yet, but its also only been a day, and that has all been in small airports with few choices anyway.

I just learned what VASI/PAPI meant last night, and noticed one for the first time today, that is a really big help. The in game assistance boxes stop well short of the runway, and I had hoped to be able to get rid of them eventually any way. Using the VASI at my current 'home' airport I'm starting to consistently get below a VS of 200 when landing finally (below 200 was my goal for Neofly, since all of the 'fragile' missions seem to look for that). I suspect landing would be a bit easier in VR, but I can't reliably use it so I'm avoiding it completely for now.

'Surprise' was the wrong word on the weather; right now I have Littlenavmap importing weather from MSFS, and then I can track it and plan around it from there (though, I do end up surprised when I have to pause the game for kid shenanigans or other reasons and the weather has changed while my plane magically sat still in the sky for an hour).

Also, I'll have to think about better mapping trim control. I think if I had pedals, the obvious answer would be the the paddles on the TWCS throttle, but right now I alternate between keyboard and joystick buttons, neither of which are conducive to adjusting while landing.

I know I posted this here before, but I just dropped the price on a CH Products USB throttle.

In case you're worried about its age, it is practically new - I bought it originally for Elite: Dangerous and haven't used it since I fell off playing that. It's pretty damn good.

absurddoctor wrote:

Also, I'll have to think about better mapping trim control. I think if I had pedals, the obvious answer would be the the paddles on the TWCS throttle, but right now I alternate between keyboard and joystick buttons, neither of which are conducive to adjusting while landing.

I would recommend the hat controls on the joystick. I know that's commonly used to look around, but it would make the most sense.

Yeah, that does seem to make the most sense. I do like the quicklook there, but have been trying to wean off of that to make the switch ... the buttons are ok, but not great for quickly adjusting. (A good justification go get a TrackIR!).

Is XPlane 11 still worth the 60 bucks at this point? I wasn't really considering it, but Ive been suddenly inundated with the dreaded CTD's that I saw so much about, and none of the typical attempts to fix have helped. It's been a little frustrating, and made me considering shelling out for XPlane now, but I guess I could see if the next update helps anything. (FWIW, I'm pretty sure I'll pick up XPlane 12).

XP 12 is likely this year. I would wait. I think XPlane is better, but the biggest thing you lose is the visuals. The developers of xplane are not graphics engineers, so the visuals aren’t close to what MSFS offers. Even when xplane 12 comes out it will likely lag behind msfs interms of visuals.

Looks like a May 4 release date for the Milviz C310. They had been waiting for the SU9 release to happen just to make sure it didn't break their plane. Today they posted this to the MSFS forum:

Milviz wrote:

Who loves Star Wars? I do… very much so…

I can't get the C310 and the JustFlight BAe146 and the Leonardo MD80 and the PMDG 737. That's like 2 years of gaming budget for me. They are all aircraft that I am interested in and will probably pick up eventually though.

The 737 has been extensively streamed and looks fantastic. They've been trying to nail down a landing issue that's been happening on occasion and from what I read, it looks like they may have figured it out. Release looks to be very very close. This is number 1 on my list. Price unknown, but I'm expecting it to be around $80. If it's less, I'll be thrilled.

I like the old school airliners, so the BAe146 and MD80 have my interest, but I haven't seen all that much in the way of previews. There were some streamers showing off the BAe146 a month or so ago, but I haven't seen live coverage of the FMS, so I think I can wait on this. Originally was to be priced at $80, but after a lot of backlash on the MSFS forum, it will be priced at $65.

The 146 originally launched with only the means for conventional (VOR/NDB) navigation, it was later retrofitted with a variety of GPS/FMS units for greater flexibility. Our 146 will release with an FMS that is based on the popular WT unit, modified for suitability with the 146 avionics and autopilot, providing full LNAV functionality, SID/STARs, MSFS and SimBrief flight plan support etc.

As with all our MSFS aircraft, we will continue to introduce new features over time, including different FMS/GPS units such as the commonly fitted UNS-1 and even the GTN 750 (as fitted to some current firefighting 146 aircraft), providing you with even greater customisability of your aircraft.

The MD80 I really know nothing about, except that it has an exceptional reputation in XPlane. It'll be roughly $80. I am perfectly content to wait on this, and circle back to it later. Maybe it can be a Christmas present for me.

Now, the Milviz C310 is an interesting one. I've been following it and I expect it to be superb. If not for the PMDG releasing shortly, I'd be all over this one on day 1. Realistically, I expect that once the 737 releases, it will be all I fly for a while. I've never flown the 737, so it'll all be new to me. Based on that, I think I just have to wait. Call it number 2 on my list at the moment. If they announced the price, I haven't seen it.

Oh, I figured that you and Carl probably had empty spots in your hangars just waiting for the 737.

No, I don't think they have announced the price for the 310. They haven't really announced the date beyond the hint that I quoted.

Hrdina wrote:

Oh, I figured that you and Carl probably had empty spots in your hangars just waiting for the 737.

No, I don't think they have announced the price for the 310. They haven't really announced the date beyond the hint that I quoted.

I'm probably going to hold off on the 737 until I confirm the honeycomb works as it should. I flew the CRJ7 once and when I found out the altitude selector doens't work with the Honeycomb it went right back into the hangar along with most of MSFS.

I'm assuming PMDG has to be using custom commands... so those need to be accessible. Zibo in XP11 is a close 2nd to PMDG in terms of systems simulation, and for the low cost of free along with all of the other investment I have in Xplane, I don't really see the immediate need to jump into PMDG x MSFS. At 35000 feet xplane looks as good as MSFS. I'll wait to see some streams, but nicer looking airports and PBR EFIS knobs aren't enough for me to make the switch.

Another career addon just got released, Simbitworld's A Pilots Life v2. It a paid addon (30 Euros unless you're upgrading from v1). Initial impressions seem to be pretty good. Its more geared toward commercial airline operations with real-world schedules than small GA aircraft though. If that's your thing, may be worth checking out. Even though the majority of my time in xplane has been in airliners, I've been enjoying my time in smaller aircraft more recently.

It says "available now" at the end of the C310 launch trailer, but it's not really available until tomorrow.

The Milviz website still lists the price as "$tbd".

They are also giving away copies on their livestream tomorrow (while I am at work).

I am greatly amused by the ability to vary how dirty the aircraft can get (at about 5:10 of the AvAngel preview).

DonD wrote:

I can't get the C310 and the JustFlight BAe146 and the Leonardo MD80 and the PMDG 737. That's like 2 years of gaming budget for me. They are all aircraft that I am interested in and will probably pick up eventually though.

I'm not really into airliners, but that BAe 146 looked like it could be a lot of fun. These guys seem like they're ganging up on you. I wonder if it's a coincidence that so many liners are arriving so closely together or if something in SU8 or SU9 finally gave these guys enough of an API to put out the products they want.

I did get the BaE146, and after 2 days and 6 flights, I feel comfortable flying with it. It does things a bit differently from other airliners, which I understand, but I had a heck of a time wrapping my head around how the autopilot works. I fly the CRJ, so I'm used to flying aircraft with no autothrottle, but in this one I found it so easy to overspeed. It's a slippery aircraft, and you really need to use the speed brakes on descent. It's a very nicely modeled aircraft, the sounds are great, it flies great. I like the EFB for the most part, but the aircraft page is a little bit quirky and sometimes entering ZFW or Block Fuel can be a challenge. I'm hopeful that this part of the EFB gets an update. The FMS is a patched in version of the Working Title one, and works fine. There are no displays, so you don't get a range banana for your descents and have to work out TOD on your own, which I don't mind. No VNAV, even though there is a button for it. Custom FMS is said to be in development (and not the same one used in XPlane), but has a ways to go, according to a dev I heard on Twitch yesterday.

I wasn't impressed by what I saw of the MD80. There are plenty of people who are happy with the aircraft, but for me, at that price point it is a pass.

I have been following the C310 release hype train and it looks incredible. I would really like to get this one, but it's going to come down to price.

I'd like to think I'm going to hold out for the 738 (expected 12 weeks after the 737 release), but in reality, I'll probably get the 737 as soon as it's released.

DonD wrote:

I have been following the C310 release hype train and it looks incredible. I would really like to get this one, but it's going to come down to price.

I've heard a rumor that there was an accidental leak of a $60 price. They are supposed to announce that on their livestream today.

The only thing I've seen from a dev about it was "it won't be over $100". So, a lot of wiggle room there.

For me, $60 is a maybe/probably, if all the post-release user reviews are as good as those from the hand-picked streamers that have shown it. $60 is the same as I paid for the package of three JF Arrows and I've gotten a lot of flight time from them.

$40 for the Milviz C310. That seems like a very fair price.

Already purchased and downloading it.

DonD wrote:

$40 for the Milviz C310. That seems like a very fair price.

Already purchased and downloading it.

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that. I will almost certainly buy this when I get home from work tonight. Hopefully by then you'll tell us how awesome it is!

I just did a quick flight from KJFK-KSWF. Sounds and visuals are great. I'm very pleased with the documentation that comes with the aircraft and there are in-game checklists that highlight the switches if you don't know where to look. I really appreciate that. I chose to 'own' the aircraft and went with full realism for everything. 91 page manual and full checklists for normal operations and various emergency situations.

I don't have an add-on paywareGPS, and I had real issues trying to get the autopilot to work properly. It uses the Asobo default one, the name of which I forget, and I struggled with it the entire flight. I tried to switch to the GTN750 free version, but apparently airways and the Direct To function are locked behind the paywall, so I looked at the other options in the aircraft. You can switch at will during fight, through the tablet. Anyway, back to the default. I couldn't hold altitude in cruise, and I couldn't capture the glide slope on approach. That's default Asobo (not even Working Title). I'm slightly annoyed that I have to go outside the sim for an autopilot solution, but there is the freeware PMS50-GNS530, so I'm going to give that a go on my next flight.

Back to the aircraft, as I said I had full realism on. After takeoff, pilot side altimeter stopped working. The copilot side still worked fine, so I used that. I kind of wonder if this is why I couldn't get the AP to capture the altitude. I just don't know enough about how the default AP works to know. The trip was otherwise uneventful. The aircraft seems very sensitive to wind, kind of bouncy in the air. I tried to follow what I thought were proper procedures for mixtures, cowl flaps, rpms and such, but when I landed at SWF, I had only 1 engine running. Taxiing in, the second one failed, but at least I was in the ramp area. Inspected the aircraft and had 3 failures and oil supply in the yellow. Seems like a lot for 1 flight (I set failures to 'rarely').

Bottom line, I need to give it another go. I'm going to try the GNS530 solution I mentioned above, and I'm going with failures off for now. Still full realism, but failures off. I don't need random things breaking, just the stuff I do wrong that breaks stuff.

This flight, from KEFD-KORG (chosen because the weather was better and it's still daytime), and with the freeware PMS50-GNS530: marked improvement. Still can't figure out how to enter airways but I can get around that with waypoints. This time, Direct To worked (kind of). It doesn't go direct from your position, but finds its way to the magenta line then goes direct. It should really plot a new line from your position, but I can live with that. Altitude captured as well. So far, no issues at all. I didn't think to choose an airport with an ILS, so I can't report on that, but overall, I'm feeling much better about flight number 2.

Update: Diverted to KLCH, captured LOC and GS. Smooth landing. No failures. All systems green. Feels good. I noticed the gauges don't light up as much as I'd like, but the overhead red light beefs up the lighting quite nicely.

DonD wrote:

This flight, from KEFD-KORG (chosen because the weather was better and it's still daytime), and with the freeware PMS50-GNS530: marked improvement. Still can't figure out how to enter airways but I can get around that with waypoints. This time, Direct To worked (kind of). It doesn't go direct from your position, but finds its way to the magenta line then goes direct. It should really plot a new line from your position, but I can live with that. Altitude captured as well. So far, no issues at all. I didn't think to choose an airport with an ILS, so I can't report on that, but overall, I'm feeling much better about flight number 2.

GNS 530's don't have airway capability.

GNS 530's don't have airway capability.

Alright, thanks. I wasn't sure if I was just missing it somewhere.

Sadly, tonight I only had time to buy and install my new 310R, then open up FS and look at it in the hangar. It was getting close to 0100 here and I just didn't have time to set up my Alpha/Bravo, create a new profile for the 310, then get flying. That will have to wait until the weekend.

Thanks for writing up your thoughts from the first couple of flights, Don.

One of my last flights with the Turbo Arrow took me over the Great Smokey Mountains.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/AGhxGP7.jpg)

A couple of days later I landed in Huntsville, Alabama, where I picked up my new C310. The previous owner apparently did not keep it very clean.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/UN5R8Qd.jpg)

I took it on a shakedown flight from Huntsville down to Birmingham. I was making good time (cruising at 160 kts instead of 140 or so), so I decided to continue the flight down to Montgomery. Of course that caused the sim to crash about 15 minutes before descent.

Right before the crash, a co-altitude airliner flew across my path right-to-left, less than a nm ahead. I had been messing about with the radios and didn't notice him until right before this happened.

My second C310R flight went a little better. I managed to complete a whole flight (about an hour) but since I made the mistake of picking a poor takeoff time, my first experience landing the C310R ended up taking place at about 2400 local time. It was not the most graceful landing, but the plane came down in one piece. Next time I start it up I will look at the EFB to see how much damage I did.

Oh, and I just saw this as well:

Edit: Ha, my third C310R flight was less successful than the first two. I was flying over KATL under AP, and told it to start descending to land at KPDK. I looked away at a map for a second, then heard some unhappy metallic noises. When I looked back I saw that the IAS was over 200 knots. I think the wreckage from my plane was scattered over the western side of KATL and I-85.

Time for some remedial autopilot lessons.