Microsoft Flight Sim 2020

[ZachariasX]

That update worked. But more for internal maintenance than adding features. I am happy that the update ran smooth. The sim now runs stable, even longer flights. I then made another flight, continuing my journey down the east coast. From LaGuardia (KGLA) to First Flight Airport (KFFA) via Harrisburg.

 

Not a cloud during the whole flight. I had to check during the flight wether I didn't actually select "Clear Sky".

 

Spoiler

My flight plan, a shorter flight this time.

 

Spoiler

 

I wanted to see a bit more of Pennsylvania. An important place, we learned.

 

 

First, takeoff from LaGuardia. Amazing the weather they have in this country.

 

 

In Soho. Experience told me that Broadway would take me south.

 

 

There was a nasty crosswind in Soho. I figured getting altitude again couldn't hurt. Turning east toward the Pocono Mountains. They are supposed to be nice, but well hidden from the perception of the common earthling.

 

 

From now on, when I think of Pennsylvania, I shall think of trees. Mr. Penn really had a point there. I see that now.

 

 

This is one of the places where a GA aircraft is actually very convenient. They have nice airports. KMPO here, Pocono Mountains Municipal Airport located in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania. I do hope Mr. Penn only paid for the trees, and not for the mountain.

 

 

Still, there are some ridges. If that was an A2A Simulations Baron, I probably could cut the mixture now and fly on distillery vapors in the air alone.

 

 

Over Harrisburg. You gotta respect a capital city that has a railway station almost the size of half the city.

 

 

So, that's how high sh*t can cook. You'd think you are done with that, but no. Then, now, every bottom of a barrel has it.

 

 

DC. Just passed the Washingon Monument. From afar, it looks ok. Close up, the French AI turns it into an office tower. I could not stomach taking a screenshot. I guess it's French humor. But Lincoln looks good.

 

 

In the NAVY... Willoughby Bay. A bit abandonned. Everybody fired?

 

 

En route to Cape Hatteras. Of all places, it is not the one where I would start a bicicle shop.

 

 

Thanks to the community, I actually  have a decent place to land.

 

 

The weather is good enogh to land with the keyboard controls.

 

 

How neat. About two hours an a half trip. The next leg will be longer, about 700 nm to Miami. I wonder how the weather will be.

 

 

[Bremspropeller]

3 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

The next leg will be longer, about 700 nm to Miami. I wonder how the weather will be.

 

If you're into barbecue, make sure you're stopping by at St. Simons (KSSI) in Georgia.

They have a very nice bbq just short of RWY 22.

 

Once you're there, you might want to stop at St. Augustine (FL) and visit the oldest, still populated town in the US.

And of course stop by at Titusville (KTIX) for a tour to the Kennedy Space Center. They also have a nice little museum right at the airport.

Oh, and if you're already in the area, request a low approach at the Shuttle Landing Runway (KTTS). They're inside a restricted area, though, so you might ask Orlando Center and Tower if they'd like you to come by. Make sure you're ducking under the Class B airspace at Miami, following the coast below 500ft - that one is still on my actual to-do list...

 

Just a few little adventures to do...

Edited November 11, 2020 by Bremspropeller

[ZachariasX]

Made another leg, from KFFA to the Space Shuttle landing strip.

 

 

Clouds in the USA, above Cap Hatteras.

 

The FS2020 scenery is generally without major errors all along the southern states. Florida is very detailed and increased scenery streaming rate form about 3 Mbit/s to about 50 Mbit/s.

 

 

For Cape Canaveral, community scenery is still recommended.

[dburne]

Hmm Reverb G2 is now getting out in the wild.

Wonder when MS support for it will come...

[coconut]

They are already looking for beta testers with WMR devices, I don’t think it’s very far out. 

[Lusekofte]

VR capability is not my priority on this sim. What really would make me happy is a heavy bomber from ww2 with access to front cabin. With ability to take a few ai with me on a mock bombrun over ruhr valley 

[AndyJWest]

Finally figured out the answer to something that's been bugging me for weeks. Why are parts of Africa covered in spots?

 

No, not MSFS AI getting confused, you can see the same thing in satellite photos. Apparently, it's all down to termites. Each spot has a termite mound at the centre, which impacts the entire local ecosystem.

 

https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2010/05/27/termites-rule-africas-savanna-satellite-data-show/

[dburne]

On 11/14/2020 at 5:34 PM, coconut said:

They are already looking for beta testers with WMR devices, I don’t think it’s very far out. 

 

Awesome!

[wheeliemonsta]

Actually, the VR Beta has already closed! The first wave (for WMR devices) has been running for a couple of weeks and now they've opened wave 2 for non-WMR and closed applications.

I tried to get on both but no dice. Hopefully they'll put it into general release soon anyway.

[AndyJWest]

Ethiopia. Or possibly Mars...

 

I'd originally intended to go up the Rift valley, to Addis Ababa, but thought better of it after struggling with the weather through parts of Kenya. The Ethiopian highlands aren't a wise place to be trying to navigate through clouds when the difference between the terrain height and your ceiling is only a few thousand feet. I headed further east, over lower terrain which has a strange beauty of its own. One last African volcano to look at - Erta Ale - and then I'm off across the Red Sea.

[dburne]

9 hours ago, wheeliemonsta said:

Actually, the VR Beta has already closed! The first wave (for WMR devices) has been running for a couple of weeks and now they've opened wave 2 for non-WMR and closed applications.

I tried to get on both but no dice. Hopefully they'll put it into general release soon anyway.

 

When they do, I will pick this sim up.

[busdriver]

8 hours ago, AndyJWest said:

I'd originally intended to go up the Rift valley, to Addis Ababa,

 

For the past 40+ years, since I graduated university, whenever a sales person or waiter/waitress would ask, "Do you have any questions?" My standard response would be "Yes I do...what's the capitol of Ethiopia?"

 

In 40+ years only ONCE has an American answered that correctly...and this lady happened to be a fellow shopper who overheard my enquiry. Her face lit up, "You didn't ask me, but I teach geography...Addis Ababa."

[AndyJWest]

15 minutes ago, busdriver said:

 

For the past 40+ years, since I graduated university, whenever a sales person or waiter/waitress would ask, "Do you have any questions?" My standard response would be "Yes I do...what's the capitol of Ethiopia?"

 

In 40+ years only ONCE has an American answered that correctly...and this lady happened to be a fellow shopper who overheard my enquiry. Her face lit up, "You didn't ask me, but I teach geography...Addis Ababa."

 

I'm not entirely sure I'd have answered the question myself, if asked like that. I have a head full of generally-useless facts (or things I think are facts), but finding the right one at the right time doesn't always come easily. Fortunately, while bimbling across the African savannah, I can have a web browser open (either on top of MSFS, or on a second monitor) and do a bit of geographical research on where I am, what I can see out the window, and where I'm heading. And learn interesting things about the Mauritanian railway line (they only have one), sugar cane growing in Mauritius, how fast the Rift Valley is growing (a couple of mm or so a year), how termites have given Kenya spots, and what the rainfall is like in eastern Ethiopia (very seasonal, and very unreliable ☹️). For anyone who could actually retain such information for any length of time, it would probably be educational. I'll probably have forgotten most of it (or at least filed it away somewhere in the far recesses of my brain where I can't get at it) by the time I get to  the Persian Gulf...

[DBFlyguy]

 

[DD_Arthur]

Above Keswick, in t' English Lakes.....

 

This week; another big update involving US scenery among other things is due.  

 

[Trooper117]

Nice!

[Bremspropeller]

On 11/17/2020 at 3:18 AM, AndyJWest said:

And learn interesting things about the Mauritanian railway line (they only have one), sugar cane growing in Mauritius

 

That stuff just stinks when they're processing it!

I think they were growing sugarcane on Fiji, too. Both islands/ countries have a major minority of indian (as from India) people, being brought there on the sugarcane farms by the British.

/ useless trivia

 

 

Have they fixed the usueless views-system in the meantime?

[DD_Arthur]

17 minutes ago, Bremspropeller said:

Have they fixed the usueless views-system in the meantime?

 

Dunno but a big USA scenery update is due this week. 

[Lusekofte]

9 hours ago, Bremspropeller said:

Have they fixed the usueless views-system in the meantime?

Is it useless?  You mean lack of tower view and such?

[Bremspropeller]

Nah, the over-complicated way the views work.

[Lusekofte]

3 hours ago, Bremspropeller said:

Nah, the over-complicated way the views work.

Ahh that. I am not too keen on that popup menu myself. Kind of wrong

[AndyJWest]

More world trip screenshots, and more geology lessons, from the last few days. 

 

Afar Triangle, Ethiopia. Plate tectonics at work, as the African rift intersects the corner of the Saudi-Arabian plate, making for a geological tangle, including what looks to non-geologist me like two grabens intersecting at right angles off to the right of me and behind. The ridge below me is presumably rifting too, though it looks older and more eroded. To the left is Lake Abbe, and the border with Djibouti.

 

Just to the northeast of Lake Abbe is Dama Ali, a nice example of a shield volcano - relatively flat and wide, the consequence of low-viscosity lava.

 

 

Further up the Afar Triangle, into the Danakil Depression. To the left is Ali Bagu, a stratovolcano with classic steep sides. I'm more interested in the low rise to the right though...

 

 

...which is Erta Ale. Another shield volcano, and the most active volcano in Ethiopia. I drop down to take a look - the smaller crater to the left is currently the active one. No glowing lava inside, but that would be asking too much of MSFS. I could probably have gone a lot lower, but judging height when there is nothing giving any sense of scale can be tricky.

 

Further up the depression is Lake Karum. Over 400 feet below sea level, in one of the most hostile environments on earth (the locals aren't that friendly either, though that's down to geopolitics rather than geology).

 

The following day, I take off from an isolated airstrip to the north of Lake Karum after setting my altimeter to -300 ft, to climb up towards Eritrea and the Red Sea.

 

200 nm or so of Red Sea later, I arrive at Jizan, Saudi Arabia. No trouble landing at the airport, but the clouds in the distance may indicate a problem for the next leg. The mountain range goes up to 8000 ft at minimum, and I want to be able to see the range when I cross it.

 

The next day, climbing out of Jizan, I find that at 11,000 ft I can safely get across, as the cloud is below me...

...well, relatively safely. Not the sort of place you'd want to have an engine failure. 

I land at Nejran, just beyond the mountains. Beyond that, there's nothing but sand dunes for 600 miles or so. Well, that, and an airfield in the middle of nowhere, presumably built by the Saudi's to guard their southern border. At a pinch, I could go all the way across in one leg, but stopping seems the better option, sanity-wise. 

[ZachariasX]

One issue I have with this Garmin is that when I reset barometric pressure, the autopilot still locks to the old barometric pressure setting. Is there a way to make the autopilot adjusting to the new pressure settings? Or is that (again) a feature not coded yet?

[ZachariasX]

Took another flight from Cape Canaveral (KTTS) to Aéroport de Santiago de Cuba (MUCU) in the south of Cuba. I chose to fly around the Hurricane that is currently appoaching the Bahamas.

 

Spoiler

 

 

FS2020 is very generous in placing thunderstorms, hence I got them in what should be just party cloudy. Oh well. It looks nice.

 

 

Early morning. Ok weather, but lighnings all the time.

 

 

From Ft. Lauderdale to...

 

 

Miami. I am basically constantly streaming golf courses and retirement homes at ~50 MBit/s. The least surprising landscape puts on a really heavy system load. A lot of it is actually photoscenery.

 

 

Over Havanna, the sim has much less to do.

 

 

Cuba. Florida minus nursing homes and golf courts.

 

 

In the south, it has some mountains though. But at 4500 ft, you (mostly) manage.

 

 

Arriving at the Aéroport de Santiago de Cuba with the city of Santiago de Cuba on the left. Situated rather nicely, I must say.

 

I'll continue this journey via the Dominican Republic, Haiti, BVI to Saba. From there all the way along the Windward Islands to Isla Margerita. Has been a while since I was there last time. (Today, people bringing the right suitcases get landing clearing, I'm sure.) From there via Caracas to Bogotá. Then upall the way to Alaska and crossing over to Russia, Japan. Currently, from Seatle on weather around that bend is hell frozen over. I seriously hope I find a nice day to fly. Or at least that it will not be worse weather than crossing the Atlantic. There is absolutely no other way "to get around that" with a 1000 nm range.

[dburne]

On 11/21/2020 at 6:21 AM, DD_Arthur said:

Above Keswick, in t' English Lakes.....

 

This week; another big update involving US scenery among other things is due.  

 

 

 

Wow, just wow. Going to be interested to see how this thing runs in VR when they get it done.

 

 

 

[Hoots]

27 minutes ago, dburne said:

 

 

Wow, just wow. Going to be interested to see how this thing runs in VR when they get it done.

 

 

 

 

I am toning down my expectations. I just can't see it being possible to get close to these flat screen levels whereas Il2 and (to a limited degree, DCS) manage reasonably well.

[DD_Arthur]

New update out now!

Wow. I'm installing another 12.75Gb

[DBFlyguy]

 

[kestrel79]

Hoping this goes on Sale on Steam soon. Will be getting it.

[DBFlyguy]

It looks like the update may have made one of my payware purchases (DRZEWIECKI DESIGN Washington Landmarks) obsolete as well as the freeware Kittyhawk scenery from Vertical Sim.  Waiting for the update to download to confirm though...

[unlikely_spider]

3 hours ago, DBFlyguy said:

It looks like the update may have made one of my payware purchases (DRZEWIECKI DESIGN Washington Landmarks) obsolete as well as the freeware Kittyhawk scenery from Vertical Sim.  Waiting for the update to download to confirm though...

I was wondering about that, since I have that payware as well. But if they only updated a few key landmarks, then the Drzewiecki Design DC would still be worth it.

I work in downtown DC (at least I did pre-covid) and recognize many of the downtown buildings that are customized in the payware as opposed to just the famous landmarks. I haven't fired up MSFS to see what the update made DC look like yet though.

 

Edit - I just went in and Drzewiecki Design's DC is still better than the Asobo updates. They added a few landmarks, as I anticipated, but still other major landmarks such as RFK stadium and the armory are not there, and the Smithsonian museums are much better (and more accurate) in the DD payware.

Edited November 24, 2020 by unlikely_spider

[DBFlyguy]

2 hours ago, unlikely_spider said:

 

Edit - I just went in and Drzewiecki Design's DC is still better than the Asobo updates. They added a few landmarks, as I anticipated, but still other major landmarks such as RFK stadium and the armory are not there, and the Smithsonian museums are much better (and more accurate) in the DD payware.

 

Yep, agree! Crisis averted LOL 

[CanadaOne]

Downloading a 9.7GB update, it's the USA scenery package. 

 

Might be up late tonight. 

 

 

 

EDIT: Bozo me didn't read the thread , I thought I was first. That's it, time to start drinking.

Edited November 24, 2020 by CanadaOne

[Feathered_IV]

That’s amazing.  In any other sim that would be a $100 DLC. 

[DD_fruitbat]

Got around to updating this yesterday, haven't started it for a while, so 29 gigs later, lol....

 

Turned it up to ultra, with which my Rtx 2080 Ti and 8 cores @ 5.0ghz and superfast fibre, can just about get mid 30 fps in 4K, lol.

 

But damn those clouds look amazing.....

 

 

[CanadaOne]

Been getting texture flashing and occasional jitters in the scenery, just enough to be a PITA, any thoughts as to what it might be?

 

Thanks.

[SAS_Storebror]

I've seen the game switching from TAA to DLAA by itself, might have been from game or GPU driver updates. Worth checking. DLAA always causes texture issues for me.

 

Mike

[DD_Arthur]

 

[AndyJWest]

My new toy. ?

 

Où est l'Angleterre?

 

L'Angleterre est là! 
Note the altimeter-only head-up display. ?

 

Douvres!

 

The hardest thing about landing was controlling power. The throttle and mixture have next to no effect, so you have to blip the ignition on and off. Carefully, so you don't cut the engine entirely too soon. No brakes, so try to land on a flat spot.

 

The Blériot XI comes in three versions - one with a 50 HP Gnome, which I was flying (which boasts such advanced features as a rate of climb ?), and two with 25 HP Anzani engines, which differ in the flight model. Louis Blériot made his crossing in an Anzani-powered one, in poor visibility. A brave man.
 

https://wing42.com/en/msfs-addons/29-bleriot-xi-for-msfs.html

€19.99 (£17.84/$23.70 at current exchange rates) so not cheap, but worth it for anyone into flying something different.

 

[ZachariasX]

How much forward do you need to keep the stick? How effective are lateral controls?