Microsoft Flight Sim 2020

[Monostripezebra]

I really love the new WACO:

 

I mean, it is not perfect and has some bugs, such as somehow wildly off CG that prevents spinning and some weird groundhandling, but overall it is really good looking, sounding and flying.

[DD_Arthur]

It’s a delight to actually fly, difficult to land and thoroughly frightening to attempt a takeoff in?

[Feathered_IV]

Excuse the rather frivolous choice of aircraft, but emerging from cloud to suddenly see a rainbow was a very pleasant surprise.

 

[AndyJWest]

I finally ran out of patience, waiting for the weather to improve on my world trip. I've been stuck at Hokitika on the west coast of NZ's South Island for a couple of days, with strong winds and thick cloud piling up against the mountains. I wasn't sure how high the cloud went, but from what I could figure out it was clear on the eastern side of the island, so if I could find my way above it I should be fine to go.

 

I left Hokitika with solid cloud overhead, but per usual for this sort of situation, heading out to sea soon led me to a safe route up. When I got there I could see the snowy ridge line of the mountains in the distance. Looking good.

 

I'd originally intended to overfly Aoraki/Mt Cook (12,218 ft), but it turned out to be cloud covered. I was already at 13,500 ft (and 0°C), so heading that way didn't seem wise. I'd have to cross sooner, where it was clear.

 

I was well above the mountains, but as I got closer the updrafts and downdrafts got more and more extreme. The autopilot clearly couldn't cope, since trying to maintain a constant height resulted in wild fluctuations in airspeed. I turned it off, throttled back, and rode it out hand flying, while looking for the best spot to cross the ridge into the clear skies beyond. In the distance I could see the glacier leading down to Lake Tekapo. Perfect.

The run-off from the glacier, feeding the lake. Mt Cook is somewhere in the distance, still obscured by high cloud.

 

Out into the Mackenzie Basin beyond Lake Tekapo, with Lake Pukaki to the west.

 

My destination in sight. Omarama (NZOA), a small grass strip. I've used it quite a bit as a base for X-Plane gliding, ridge soaring my way up the mountains. Lucky people get to do it for real.

This effectively marks the half-way point of my world trip. The iffy weather makes heading further south down the island a bad idea, so this is about as close to the antipodal point to where I started as I'll get. If my calculations are correct, I've covered well over 25,000 nm, which would have got me all around the world if I'd taken a more direct route, but where's the fun in that? ?

[AndyJWest]

Just now, raaaid said:

are you going eastwards or westwards?

 

you may save two days if you go eastwards rather than westwards but it may induce the jetlag that my 25 hours day induce  

 

I'm going east. If I'd gone really fast, maybe I could have got back before I'd started. ?

[Enceladus828]

11 hours ago, AndyJWest said:

If I'd gone really fast, maybe I could have got back before I'd started. ?

You sure could... with one of these

 

Edited January 25, 2021 by Enceladus

[AndyJWest]

No, I haven't found a wormhole and taken a shortcut to Japan. This is Mount Taranaki, on New Zealand's North Island. Not quite as symmetrical as Fuji-san, but spectacular all the same. Only 135,000 years old, and being watched closely, since it is possibly overdue for another eruption.

 

 

 

 

[ZachariasX]

I'm really annoyed by these terrain mesh errors that they introduces some two patches ago. So far the main selling point of the sim are its looks. If it looked like a vanilla P3D and it had all the bugs and incompleteness it has now, there would be nothing but fire in that forum. Besides me doubting that it had the success it has now.

 

When bimbling around, I really don't want to see this:

 

While such errors may happen "out there" in Central America, in very densely populated places, they should not escape quality control.

 

 

Welcome to Swiss Monument Valley.

 

It happens now in many places. Although these towers vanish when appoaching them, it's definitely one of the bigger failures of the QC department that I can imagine. At least ASOBO acknowledged that they would be adressing this at least 2 weeks ago.

 

"Two weeks, be sure!"™

Edited January 27, 2021 by ZachariasX

[AndyJWest]

My latest world trip leg runs into more Long White Cloud trouble. What should have been a simple straight run from Auckland (bottom right) to Kaitaia (top) goes distinctly wonky, due to said cloud hitting ground level on the way. If you can't go under, you go over. Except then you need to find your way back down again. At one point, I was considering just turning back to Auckland...

 

 

 

@ZachariasX

I seem to recall that Asobo have delayed the latest patch, as they were having issues with Bing regarding the UK update. Hopefully they'll have sorted that weirdness out too.

 

 

Edited January 28, 2021 by AndyJWest

[danielprates]

How is the addon market for fs2020? 

[SAS_Storebror]

It's fine. Tasty, sometimes crispy.

What exactly do you wanna know?

 

Mike

[DBFlyguy]

 

[Monostripezebra]

Still having a lot of fun with the Waco and stalking and following random other Wacos..

 

[Gambit21]

On 1/26/2021 at 7:53 PM, AndyJWest said:

No, I haven't found a wormhole and taken a shortcut to Japan. This is Mount Taranaki, on New Zealand's North Island. Not quite as symmetrical as Fuji-san, but spectacular all the same. Only 135,000 years old, and being watched closely, since it is possibly overdue for another eruption.

 

 

 

I love coming here and checking in on your trip.

There will be no around the world trip in my foreseeable future, although I imagine I'll get to know the Med rather well.

[DD_Arthur]

Scratching that Cold War itch

 

 

[Feathered_IV]

Wow. Where did you get that?

[CanadaOne]

18 minutes ago, Feathered_IV said:

Wow. Where did you get that?

 

Yeah, what you said.

 

Where is that plane from?

[DD_Arthur]

https://secure.simmarket.com/sim-skunk-works-fiat-aeritalia-g-91-for-msfs-2020.phtml

 

It's really good.  Almost surprisingly good.  Cockpit in VR is DCS standard.  The flight model is a bit 'iffy' in my opinion at the moment but so was the MB339's on first release and after a couple of patches that is a delight to fly.  I see no reason why this G91 won't undergo the same evolution.........even if it is a Fiat. 

 

Landing it is an art in itself at the moment.  I've got to learn to be much more aggresive with the throttle on approach otherwise it likes to fall from the sky.  It's got a payload editor too!

Apparently sim-skunk-works also make a very well respected Thud which they're bringing to FS2020 soon.

 

 

[DD_fruitbat]

Don't know what it is about this sim, but it always looks like,

 

World friction = 200% in the config somewhere

 

When your wheels touch the ground, they always seem to stick and glue to the ground.

[DD_Arthur]

1 hour ago, DD_fruitbat said:

When your wheels touch the ground, they always seem to stick and glue to the ground.

 

It’s because the braking is bugged.  In some planes when you lower the gear the brakes are ‘on’.  

Tap the brakes when gear lowers can free them up....sometimes.

 

Daft VR video to try and give an impression of the quality of the cockpit.

 

[DD_fruitbat]

I don't know,  all of the ground physics feels wonky to me, and landing seems very easy as a result. Not having really flown any of this stuff though, could just be my perception is off.

[DD_Arthur]

7 hours ago, DD_fruitbat said:

I don't know,  all of the ground physics feels wonky to me, and landing seems very easy as a result. Not having really flown any of this stuff though, could just be my perception is off.

 

Yeah, I’d broadly agree with you - with a couple of caveats; we’re used to Box and DCS where a great deal of work has gone into all the flight models - it’s what they’re judged on by a fairly tough audience ?.

MSFS 2020 seems to have a bit of a ‘one size fits all’ about it when it comes to the stock planes.

It’s still light years ahead of previous MS efforts and Xplane.

 

 

 

Edited February 1, 2021 by DD_Arthur

[DD_fruitbat]

4 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

fairly tough audience

 

Haha, ain't that the truth ?

[DD_Arthur]

Perpetual tourism....I love it!

 

 

[DD_fruitbat]

Have you downloaded something for the harbour bridge, last time I flew there it looked nothing like that, and as it should look in your front over pic of the YouTube vid.. 

 

Fun fact, in the very bottom left corner of your YouTube vid cover, is the botanical gardens, which will always remind me of a lovely Irish girl....

[DD_Arthur]

13 minutes ago, DD_fruitbat said:

 

Fun fact, in the very bottom left corner of your YouTube vid cover, is the botanical gardens, which will always remind me of a lovely Irish girl....

 

She fought the monkey off??

[Hoots]

11 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

Perpetual tourism....I love it!

 

 

That is bloody impressive scenery. Is the registration a comment on our addiction to “computer games”...?

[DD_Arthur]

1 hour ago, Hoots said:

That is bloody impressive scenery. Is the registration a comment on our addiction to “computer games”...?

 

The scenery is the Orbx add on for Sydney. Since Luce has stopped buying flight sim stuff atm I thought someone had better step in and take the strain?.

 

RU12 goes back to squad nights when we flew Cliffs and has more to do with Kenneth Williams than actual flight simming?

[Tektolnes]

After an Epic store free games binge over Xmas the round the world trip resumed with a new ultrawide monitor and flights along West Africa through Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of the Congo. On the whole it was a bit disappointing. Terrain was pretty generic for much of the trip so decided that, as my virtual self is a man of extraordinary means, it was time to get a bit more speed and upgrade to the modded CJ4 (highly recommended plane).

 

Flying over the Congo - pretty much all of West Africa looked like this. 

 

Flying higher and faster to get me somewhere more interesting quicker:

 

Down now to Angola which has actual geography to look at (yay!):

 

On to Namibia and South Africa next...

 

[AndyJWest]

I'll not be flying today...

 

Today's leg would have been from Nouméa,  New Caledonia (bottom left) to Tanna, Vanuatu (middle island, top right). A bit too much on the blowy side though. ?

 

 

[DBFlyguy]

Looks like France, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxemborg will be world update 4 after world update 3 cover the UK:

 

 

[ZachariasX]

6 hours ago, AndyJWest said:

A bit too much on the blowy side though.

But you‘d have tailwind. The weather in the eye is usually not all that bad either.

[Hoots]

2 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

But you‘d have tailwind. The weather in the eye is usually not all that bad either.

Big old gamble though

[Feathered_IV]

I finally did my first long haul flight without nav aids.  I've been doing short hops from one small field to another, up the east coast of Australia since September last year. Eventually as I neared the northern tip of the country I realised I was nearing the point where I could make my escape.

 

I took my 152 as far as Cooktown and did one last hop to a small airstrip off the coast on a place called Lizard Island.  I came in the previous evening under a full moon and was amazed how clear the weather was.  Checking the map I realised I would have just enough fuel to reach Port Moresby in PNG from here and still have a small reserve.  The next morning I set out at around 8:50am on a course of 028 degrees.

 

 

The weather was amazing out over the Coral Sea.  Wonderfully clear, and I soon said goodbye to Australia as it disappeared behind me.

 

 

 

 

I was keen to rely on my birdsense and trust the instruments.  The 152 doesn't have a Garmin and I deleted the key for the GPS to make sure I didn't get tempted to take a peek to check my position.  Up ahead I could see some distant cloud.

 

 

 

Maybe an hour into the journey and sticking doggedly to 028 degrees, I reached the first stretches of cloud.  Much denser than I was expecting.

 

 

Still a very long way to go, but my fuel situation was looking good.  So I decided to press on....

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 3, 2021 by Feathered_IV

[ZachariasX]

2 hours ago, Hoots said:

Big old gamble though

"It always worked out so far!"

"We always did it like that!"

 

25 minutes ago, Feathered_IV said:

I finally did my first long haul flight without nav aids.

That's the spirit!

 

What is really bad so far in FS2020, is that there is no way (that I know off) to pop up a map listing the beacons present in the sim. Skyvector is not always a help as some beacons don't exist or the seemingly have different frequencies. After my world tour, I've definitely seen enough of the Gramin and then I'll go for some flying in your place of the world using the old methods of just a map and beacons. I still love those steam gauges more than the glass cockpit.

 

Speaking off, anyone also had experienced the anoying feature of the Garmin 1000 that when doing ILS approaches in some instances turn to "From" insted of following the needle and continuing direction "To" as soon as it switches from GPS to LOC1 and settle on the beam. In some cases, it works like a charm, but in some cases, although LOC1 points to the runway, the aircraft turns and flies opposite in that beam. Am I really doing something stupid here? I mean, In the Garmin, you select the approach from the list in that computer and it has all the frequencies etc. stored there. It is not that I selected eg. the beam of 270 instead of 90. Weird.

[Feathered_IV]

I definitely recommend the no nav aids approach.  It feels like the civil sim equivalent of Ironman or dead is dead.

I was more than two hours out over the Coral Sea when I began to get worried.  I still hadn't seen land and the weather was much worse.  Sometimes I'd be flying long stretches on instruments alone and all attempts to get properly above the clouds had to be given up as they seemed to exceed the 152's max altitude.

 

 

 

Still no sign of land and I was beginning to think more and more about fuel.  All the while trying to ignore all those little side-quests that the clouds were tempting me with...

 

 

 

I was beginning to imagine Japanese carrier groups and all kinds of other stuff down there.

 

 

Every time I'd see a gap in the clouds I would be peering intently at it to see if there was the first hint of land beyond.

 

Nope..

 

 

 

No again 

 

[Hoots]

Those cloudscapes really are impressive. Lovely to look at. 

[ZachariasX]

3 minutes ago, Feathered_IV said:

No again 

BOAC blues in 1925. And you didn‘t even have to think about a dozen or so airsick PAX.

 

People have so little understanding of the achievement of those magnificent men in their crates trying to keep a schedule.

[AndyJWest]

I hope you've allowed for the crosswind, Feathered_IV. If you haven't you should reach PNG eventually, but not where you intended...

 

 

EDIT: 

" I set out at around 8:50am on a course of 028 degrees"? According to Little Navmap, the course from Lizard Island to Port Moresby is 012 degrees magnetic.

Edited February 3, 2021 by AndyJWest

[Diggun]

12 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

BOAC blues in 1925. And you didn‘t even have to think about a dozen or so airsick PAX.

 

People have so little understanding of the achievement of those magnificent men in their crates trying to keep a schedule.

Agreed! Fate Is the Hunter is one of the finest books on flying ever written, and really made me think differently about those guys!