Microsoft Flight Sim 2020

[BOO]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

 

It's the FSLTL mod, found here: https://www.fslivetrafficliveries.com/

 

Cheers. I have it. I turned it off as it cost me a few fps with the RT traffic but now I can afford some I may reboot it. I really find the ATC immersion breaking though. Same woman talking to herself most of the time. Also pretty sure not every controller in the world is American. 

currently discovering what the awesome Little Nav Map can do. 

[DD_Arthur]

Just now, BOO said:

currently discovering what the awesome Little Nav Map can do. 

LNM is indeed absolutely awesome. About the only thing it can’t do is bacon and scrambled eggs on toast…

 

…and it’s freeware.

Fan-freakin-tastic!?

 

 

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, BOO said:

Cheers. I have it. I turned it off as it cost me a few fps with the RT traffic but now I can afford some I may reboot it. I really find the ATC immersion breaking though. Same woman talking to herself most of the time. Also pretty sure not every controller in the world is American. 

currently discovering what the awesome Little Nav Map can do. 

 

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

LNM is indeed absolutely awesome. About the only thing it can’t do is bacon and scrambled eggs on toast…

 

…and it’s freeware.

Fan-freakin-tastic!?

 

Yep, it's a great app. I'm using it to plan and track my round the world trip, along with the Navigraph Charts app (sometimes when planning my route I find Navigraph's interface easier to navigate, especially when it comes to airspaces). 

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, JimTM said:

I tried the above scenario the next day with the C310 and neither NAV or APR would engage. Looks like a bug.

 

Yes, same here. I took off and tuned into a local VOR, confirmed I had an audio tone coming from it, but I could never get the autopilot to track towards it with NAV mode.

 

@ZachariasX, I would post a message on their support forums. You should have received a link to it when you purchased the plane: https://blackbirdsims.com/forum-new/viewforum.php?f=150&sid=d909cf1ff5ade8d1e4e67d7f78a7a252

[ZachariasX]

2 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

Yes, same here. I took off and tuned into a local VOR, confirmed I had an audio tone coming from it, but I could never get the autopilot to track towards it with NAV mode.

 

@ZachariasX, I would post a message on their support forums. You should have received a link to it when you purchased the plane: https://blackbirdsims.com/forum-new/viewforum.php?f=150&sid=d909cf1ff5ade8d1e4e67d7f78a7a252

I bought it from MSFS store and just got the usual invoice. But I will check there, thanks for the link!

[JimTM]

17 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

Yes, same here. I took off and tuned into a local VOR, confirmed I had an audio tone coming from it, but I could never get the autopilot to track towards it with NAV mode.

 

@ZachariasX, I would post a message on their support forums. You should have received a link to it when you purchased the plane: https://blackbirdsims.com/forum-new/viewforum.php?f=150&sid=d909cf1ff5ade8d1e4e67d7f78a7a252

 

It seems to be an intermittent problem, or the result of some very specific conditions. I know it was working just fine for me yesterday.

[BOO]

3 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

 the only thing it can’t do is bacon and scrambled eggs on toast…

 

 You must have an older version….?

 

Can’t for life of me get it to be an app on the in game tool bar but TBH it’s a full screen programme so Alt tabbing isn’t an issue. 

[LukeFF]

So, I took @SeaSerpent's advice, so this next leg takes us from Lucknow (VILK) to Tribhuvan Intl (VNKT) in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal and situated at the foot of the Himalayas. Real-time weather, time of day, and traffic, 280 nautical miles flown:

 

 

Yet another warm, hazy morning as we performed our preflight inspection and fueled up the plane. A bulb for the landing gear indicator was burnt out (yep, that's the level of detail this model tracks), so we had to fix that before taxiing out:

 

 

ATC was on its game today, so we didn't have to worry about any airliners barreling down in front of us as we took off:

 

 

As we crossed the Ghaghara River, we could see our destination in the distance: the Himalayas and Nepal:

 

 

While the terrain in this part of northern India is as flat as ever, the Himalayas grew ever larger in our view:

 

 

 

With under a hundred miles to go, you really get a sense of how towering these mountains are:

 

 

As you begin your approach into VNKT, your approach path resembles a slalom course as you maneuver down between the mountainsides from 8500 feet:

 

 

\

[LukeFF]

 

It was another blasted hazy day as we came in for landing, so we didn't have much of a view of the mountains on final approach:

 

 

We taxied past the numerous planes parked on the international apron and made our way to the GA parking area, to the east of the runway:

 

 

We had another tailwind helping us along this leg, and while things were a bit bumpy, it was very manageable. One thing that I think helped out this time around was un-binding my analog elevator trim wheel from the elevator trim command and leaving it just bound to a hat switch on my joystick. I think part of the reason why I've struggled so much with keeping this plane level in turbulent conditions is that the elevator trim couldn't function entirely properly with autopilot engaged, since the trim wheel always wanted to push it back to a position other than what the autopilot wanted. So, we'll see if that holds up. ? 

[Hoots]

9 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

It was another blasted hazy day as we came in for landing, so we didn't have much of a view of the mountains on final approach:

 

 

We taxied past the numerous planes parked on the international apron and made our way to the GA parking area, to the east of the runway:

 

 

We had another tailwind helping us along this leg, and while things were a bit bumpy, it was very manageable. One thing that I think helped out this time around was un-binding my analog elevator trim wheel from the elevator trim command and leaving it just bound to a hat switch on my joystick. I think part of the reason why I've struggled so much with keeping this plane level in turbulent conditions is that the elevator trim couldn't function entirely properly with autopilot engaged, since the trim wheel always wanted to push it back to a position other than what the autopilot wanted. So, we'll see if that holds up. ? 

That place definitely deserves a visit

[BOO]

@LukeFF Damn it dude- youre costing me money - Navigraph now onboard!! ?

[ZachariasX]

After some flying with the 310, it becomes obvious that there is a "software problem": The autopilot with the simple radio stack doesn't work for NAV and APR. But if you change to the Asobo stack, the click NAV or APR and the autpoilot shows it is arming the function, you can revert back to the simple stack and then the autopilot works as intended.

 

With doing several patterns and approaches now, I find the 310 a rather peculiar ride. It definitely wants to fly fast and once it is fast, and then it stays fast. But as soon as you are lowering gear and drop the flaps, it needs plenty power to not fall out of the sky. Making it slow down from cruise speed to approach speed takes a while. As soon as you start your descent and lower gear and flaps, one should power up soon to maintain approach speed. The AP quietly loses the glidepath as soon as the trim system get overwhelmed when the aircraft loses speed. One really has to constantly check the gauges.

 

The aircraft really gives me the feeling of running on a razor sharp margin...

[JimTM]

26 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

After some flying with the 310, it becomes obvious that there is a "software problem": The autopilot with the simple radio stack doesn't work for NAV and APR. But if you change to the Asobo stack, the click NAV or APR and the autpoilot shows it is arming the function, you can revert back to the simple stack and then the autopilot works as intended.

...

 

@ZachariasX, do you do the change once before taking off or do you need to do it each time you select NAV or APR?

[ZachariasX]

11 minutes ago, JimTM said:

 

@ZachariasX, do you do the change once before taking off or do you need to do it each time you select NAV or APR?

I usually have the plane with the simple stack. I can then start my flight and take off as usual, I then engage the AP and use HDG to go my ways. Then I have to change the stack to the ASOBO one, click NAV or APR and see the AP arming that function. Then I can revert back to the simple stack and I have it working as intended. It will not work just switching the stack forth and back; I must arm the AP with NAV or APR (or REV), only then it keeps working.

[LukeFF]

50 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

With doing several patterns and approaches now, I find the 310 a rather peculiar ride. It definitely wants to fly fast and once it is fast, and then it stays fast. But as soon as you are lowering gear and drop the flaps, it needs plenty power to not fall out of the sky. Making it slow down from cruise speed to approach speed takes a while. As soon as you start your descent and lower gear and flaps, one should power up soon to maintain approach speed. The AP quietly loses the glidepath as soon as the trim system get overwhelmed when the aircraft loses speed. One really has to constantly check the gauges.

 

The aircraft really gives me the feeling of running on a razor sharp margin...

 

Yes, I've learned that the best way to deploy the last stage of flaps is to wait until around the final approach fix - before then they just add a ton of drag and require a lot of power to keep the plane above stalling speed.

[Monostripezebra]

Just  a heads up.. the plane with currently the most discount in the sale, while ugly as sin, is actually modeled pretty well and super fun for silly landing stuff!

 

 

[Mtnbiker1998]

The Himalayas are really incredible, especially in VR where you can appreciate the scale of it all. 

 

Something really weird about seeing your altimeter read 17k and still seeing mountains tower above you...

[Guest deleted@83466]

Those are some cool screenshots and a really impressive looking approach. The next leg I was going to suggest was to retrace the Hump, but I don’t know if that plane can do that high.

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, SeaSerpent said:

Those are some cool screenshots and a really impressive looking approach. The next leg I was going to suggest was to retrace the Hump, but I don’t know if that plane can do that high.

 

Yeah, the 310 tops out at around 15000 feet, so I'm going to work my way south. Imphal will likely be my next destination. Time to do some WWII battlefield tours. ?

[BOO]

Day 6 Clementsport, Nova Scotia - Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Magdalen Islands, Quebec. 250nm, clear and cold.

 

 

I’m gonna say, off the bat, not an enjoyable flight. RL worries, Sky broadband at its worse and a faulting game all conspired to make this a “get though it” session.

Anyway. As I’m sticking to real time and real time weather, and having already spent a few days in Nova Scotia playing in float planes various, I had decided that, transit wise, there was not a lot to really see over and about what had already been seen. As such, and due to RL demands, this leg was going to be flown into the evening and night.

 

Taking off for a very different Clementsport to one I landed at (stock scenery replacing the user made one due to games crashes), I heaved the Cub into a clear, crisp evening sky and turned Northeast.

 

 

Approaching Debert, the sun was sinking low as I put the Cub on a NNW heading into to take me over the Northumberland Straight and Prince Edward Island.

 

 

The first sign of trouble came in the form of the ATC menu becoming stuck fast, shortly after various lost services message began to “bing” from Little Navmap before the game itself began to issue warnings of lost connections. Immersion lost. Not that there was much immersion in the first place. Whether it’s my 1080 screen or something else, the night sky looks “off”. It lacks depth and sharpness to me. For all the world, a cheap star patterned blanket could have been thrown over the cockpit.

 

Not that I had to worry about this for long as the view soon faded behind a windscreen full of ice. Despite the cockpit heating being on, the ice built and built. The effect  initially wasn’t observed in the darkness over the Gulf of St Lawrence, but on approaching the Magdalen Islands I was confronted with this ( the Airport is dead ahead and 2 miles away....)

 

 

Determined that this was not a session I would quit and fly again, I pressed on, making several attempts at landing before conceding to “gaming”, opening the window (the ice stayed in place in the open gap), and leaning out to see where I was going.

 

 

Anyhow. We’re here. Îles-de-la-Madeleine Airport. As advertised.  

 

 

The games icing mechanism is something to consider. It was a reported -1 C at the airport but this was the result. Apparently, you can “Dev Mode” fix it. All in all, external factors to game affected my enjoyment more than the game itself. But not a trip to repeat.

 

 

Batgirl gets about - same lass saw me off at Clementsport. Come to think of it, same lass (and her skulky dude sidekick) have been at every damn place I have...

Edited April 10, 2023 by BOO

[ZachariasX]

12 hours ago, LukeFF said:

 

Yeah, the 310 tops out at around 15000 feet, so I'm going to work my way south. Imphal will likely be my next destination. Time to do some WWII battlefield tours. ?

Hold my beer!

 

What do we buy some extra-extra Himalya mesh for? 15'000 ft... Let's make a very thorough flight plan taking that into account: Kathmandu to Lhasa.

 

 

I mean, I can't really go direct route. Mt. Everest is just too high. But just me and some 90 kg Chocolate in the front an rear trunk... I will burn fuel on the way and get lighter and if i stay in the right valley...

 

 

And I have a freshly serviced plane and I am taking off early morning (I had to cheat on the time) in real weather.

 

 

All in? Friggin' hazy here in Kathmandu.

 

 

Off I go, with a brilliant strategy: Throttle firewalled and mixtures to keep EGT at max. When I say I need power to get out of that valley, I mean it.

 

 

Turns out, I really, really needed all the power I had, as while I was working the mixtures, suddenly a huge moutain popped out of the mist.

 

As I dial in in on Biratnagars beacon, I realized why I had the issue with the analog radio stack and NAV not working: The plane is set up to track GPS (which is absent), hence there is no NAV function. Only once you switch to the Asobo stack, change GPS to VLOC and then revert to the analog stack again, you can arm NAV or APR. Oh well. I use the occasion to climb to 12'000 ft.

 

 

Some 30 miles short of Biratnagar, there is the valley that leads to Tibet. Somewhere there, to the right next to Mt. Everest. Off I go.

 

 

I follow the valley up past Everest, where there should be Tibet. Barely I make it over the pass at 15'700 ft. I barely manage 120 kts inddicated, full power, full revs, mixture at highest power output. Man... that bloody floor stays up and now I have to figure out if there is a valley that actually goes down from here!! I figure past the snowy ridge, to the right is the way to go.

 

 

Barely made it across.. just to find out that even the plains rise further. The engines now start to make funny noises. And I just don't get the crate to 16'000 ft. while maintaining >100 kts. Most uncomfortable. It barely flys, but if I reached out of the window, it seems I can touch the ground.

 

 

The river actually flows toward me... No way... the passes I can make out go up rather steeply and the plain climbs slower. But it also climbs. As I frantically try to get more altitude, more funny sounds from the engines. They don't like beeing firewalled like that. I can't continue to hang around here (I barely do) and the workload just to keep flying in these windy conditions with just an arms lenght of air between me and the ground doesn't even allow me to grab a screenie.

 

 

I am outa here, no more oil in the engines (explains their sound) and I basically can just dive down the valley toward Biratnagar to make for whatever airport is next. I barely made it with my rotten engines.

 

 

Tumlingtar (VNTR) it must be. I am basically gliding down there, the EGT being low off scale and I hardly get power anymore. I have one try to bring her in.

 

 

For once I like how much drag the flaps give fully deployed. You can make for a rather steep approach without getting too much speed.

 

 

Made it. Not those white mountais were the problem, what lies beyond... Checking up the plane, no more oil. As suspected. And one burnt brake. How lucky I was that the weather here is nice. If it had been overcast, I would have to have gone all the way to Biratnagar (VNVT). That would have been possible, but barely as while losing altitude, I would have had to fly blind through the valley...

 

 

I got about half way. I guess I will have to try again with a different plane.

Edited April 10, 2023 by ZachariasX

[Bremspropeller]

7 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

Turns out, I really, really needed all the power I had, as while I was working the mixtures, suddenly a huge moutain popped out of the mist.

 

Well, you COULD have retracted those landing lights... ?

 

 

[LukeFF]

Brave man, as always, @ZachariasX! ? 

 

Question on this image:

 

 

Is that custom scenery for VNKT? I saw some options for this airport on flightsim.to but haven't downloaded anything yet.

[ZachariasX]

5 minutes ago, Bremspropeller said:

Well, you COULD have retracted those landing lights... ?

I was a bit emotional as suddenly the brownish muck torned into a black mountainface and shifted my priorities. But you‘re right, maybe it woukd have worked then… hmm… 

[ZachariasX]

Just now, LukeFF said:

Is that custom scenery for VNKT?

Yes, the freeware from flightsim.to:

 

https://flightsim.to/file/6893/vnkt-tribhuvan-international-kathmandu-nepal

[LukeFF]

45 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

Yes, the freeware from flightsim.to:

 

https://flightsim.to/file/6893/vnkt-tribhuvan-international-kathmandu-nepal

 

Great, thanks! Gonna download that one for sure before I leave VNKT. I keep forgetting that there are some great freeware airport addons. 

 

1 hour ago, ZachariasX said:

I realized why I had the issue with the analog radio stack and NAV not working: The plane is set up to track GPS (which is absent), hence there is no NAV function. Only once you switch to the Asobo stack, change GPS to VLOC and then revert to the analog stack again, you can arm NAV or APR. 

 

Also good to hear that. ?? I don't fly radio-only navigation much (what can I say, I love modern gadgets ?), but it's good to know how to fix this nonetheless. Who knows, maybe I'll be brave enough to try a VOR-only trip after I complete this world tour.

[ZachariasX]

2 hours ago, LukeFF said:

Who knows, maybe I'll be brave enough to try a VOR-only trip after I complete this world tour.

As long as you keep calibrating the gyrocompass it‘s mostly fine. There‘s just this feeling of a localizer suddenly appearing when you travelled over a great expanse of nothingness (there are vast places like this on earth… often filled with foul weather) with fuel getting low an lower… like hearing that shout from the crow‘s nest „Land!!“

[CUJO_1970]

Anyone else get hit with the 1.31.22.0 update? Was not expecting an update today.

[BOO]

24 minutes ago, CUJO_1970 said:

Anyone else get hit with the 1.31.22.0 update? Was not expecting an update today.

Hasn’t that been out a few weeks? 

[Lusekofte]

I cannot get passed looking for update myself 

 

[CUJO_1970]

35 minutes ago, BOO said:

Hasn’t that been out a few weeks? 

 

Honestly don't know but it wouldn't surprise me...just trying to figure out why I have to d/l it twice. Files maybe not being validated or something...more anoying than anything.

[ZachariasX]

1 hour ago, Lusekofte said:

cannot get passed looking for update myself 

The only thing that helped me was deleting the entire content in the Directory, where the gam einstalls the content, namely your folder that contains both th e"community" and the "Official" folder. With that directory empty, It will find that there is no update to check for and it will download the whole damn thing again.

 

Also If you bought the DC-6 form PDMG and no through the store, you should uninstall that one via "Apps" control panel in Windows. Once you downloaded all those terrabytes again, install the DC-6 again. Preferably you download the most recent installer from PDMG first if you do not have the store version. After you have the sim up and running, install the most recent version and it will bring along the most recent version of the Ops center.

 

It's a pain. And fiber connection is no luxury.

[Lusekofte]

2 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

The only thing that helped me was deleting the entire content in the Directory, where the gam einstalls the content, namely your folder that contains both th e"community" and the "Official" folder. With that directory empty, It will find that there is no update to check for and it will download the whole damn thing again.

 

Also If you bought the DC-6 form PDMG and no through the store, you should uninstall that one via "Apps" control panel in Windows. Once you downloaded all those terrabytes again, install the DC-6 again. Preferably you download the most recent installer from PDMG first if you do not have the store version. After you have the sim up and running, install the most recent version and it will bring along the most recent version of the Ops center.

 

It's a pain. And fiber connection is no luxury.

Yeah. I guess I have to do that. I removed the community folder. But that did not help. 

[ZachariasX]

17 minutes ago, Lusekofte said:

Yeah. I guess I have to do that. I removed the community folder. But that did not help. 

As a fist measure, you can also try to just rename that directory, where cummunity and official folders are in. Doing so, the "checking for updates" mechanism will not find the conent anymore and prompt you for the location of that (renamed) folder. Sometimes, this makes the thing get past the "checking for updates. But in this case, you'll most likely have problems with the DC-6. If yoou mess with that folder structure uninstalling/reinstalling that one is the only thing that helps. But it is a fast procedure with the recent installer package.

[LukeFF]

Speaking of around the world tours, the one this guy did was really impressive: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/what-did-you-do-in-msfs-today-part-2/553275/2278?u=lwallace79

[Lusekofte]

About DC 6, I am pretty sure I got it for free, and I was pretty sure it is the same as they have in Orbx

[Lusekofte]

And I am doing a ful reinstall . I leave for Whales the day after tomorrow. I will make it ready and dandy until my return

[BOO]

Bit specific to my specs (non g sync screen and trackIR) this.
 

 Does anyone find setting low latency to on (in game or in the ncp) reduces the slight stutter the Track IR can do times produce when turning the head in MSFS? 
 

Im not sure if it’s a placebo I’m seeing. I also set up an ncp profile for the trackIR with both the low latency and vsync matching those if the msfs profile. Utter hoodoo I know but, I dunno, seemed to help. 

 

 

 

[BOO]

1 hour ago, Hoots said:

Wales UK? If so pack your scuba gear. Bit wet at the moment

 

Im currently at Pembrey VTOL-ing a cub ?

[DD_Arthur]

2 hours ago, BOO said:

Bit specific to my specs (non g sync screen and trackIR) this.
 

 Does anyone find setting low latency to on (in game or in the ncp) reduces the slight stutter the Track IR can do times produce when turning the head in MSFS? 
 

Im not sure if it’s a placebo I’m seeing. I also set up an ncp profile for the trackIR with both the low latency and vsync matching those if the msfs profile. Utter hoodoo I know but, I dunno, seemed to help. 

 

 

 

Low latency did seem to help on my ancient system.

What really helped was getting a g-sync screen that allowed me to turn off the in game v-sync without having screen tearing.