Microsoft Flight Sim 2020

[ZachariasX]

1 hour ago, CUJO_1970 said:

Any advantages or disadvantages of either? 

It‘s up to you how many or which installers you want to have on top of what MS is doing anyway. Least complexity you have when using the MS store. And that is IMHO complex enough by all means.

[AndyJWest]

I let my impatience to continue my world trip get the better of me. Clearly shouldn't have. ? That's Vladivostok below me. I'm stuck in low cloud and rain, and may end up flying back to Japan if I can't find clear skies any nearer.  More details later, including an explanation of why I was over Vladivostok in the first place...

 

 

 

 

[ZachariasX]

The Bering Strait seems to have better weather this week (when looking up windy. The Aleutian islands have their awful low pressure system. If yo make it through that cloud, you can try crossing via Nome...

[ZachariasX]

Some more flying in the PTO. This just show @AndyJWest that he's actually not doing that bad. There's many shades of bad.

 

This is the one in which where I didn't even get half way, but inexplicably, I didn't die.

 

 

But first things first. The plan. After my arrival at Moro Airfield, I picked some jungle fields for a visit. Komo airfield is one of the very few featuring a beacon. It even has an ILS. by now, I consider that a threat regarding weather I might encounter. But I do not plan on landing there, maybe a touch and go. I mainly plan to use its the beacon to direct me to Wanikipa Airstrip (AYWP). I even have a sketch of that airstrip:

 

 

There's a river, the runway is sloped, and weather: "Morning fog, afternoon showers" Given that it is probably not advisable to land there at night, when the heck is one supposed to land there???

 

As usaual in life: There's only one way to find out.

 

Enough paperwork in the flight information office. I step out and...

 

 

This is not rain, this is a deluge! Thank God I parked the aircraft on the concrete helo pad last night. I do know that in direction of the runway I am supposedly flying toward a lake and I am surrounded by hills otherwise. I can't see any of that. But I figure going straight the direction of the runway, I can keep climbing until maybe I can see something. And not run into things.

 

 

Full power, release brakes and off I go into the grey.

 

 

LOL... At the precise end of the runway, I emerge in beautiful and clear weather. Welcome to New Guinea! Then again, I suppose this works the other way around as well.

 

 

As I climb as fast as I can while maintaining some speed (just in case) not only the ground rises as fast as I climb, but there's an awful cloud layer sitting on top of these mountains. It is obvious, there is a lot of pretty hard stuff in those clouds...

 

 

Komo airfield is less than 5 miles away and by now I'm up at 7'000 ft. It must be directly behind that ridge. Komo is at ~5'000 ft. Most uncomfortable. I decide to aim for the ILS apporach opposite to my current flight course. I don't feel like diving into these clouds.

 

 

As I pass that ridge, I quickly see half of the airfield. Again, there's areas that are completely blanked out, the rest being pristine weather. There's hardly anything in between. I don't feel like landing. I have plenty of tailwind and the ATC wants me to land in the "correct" direction. Good luck doing that. ¡Adiós!

 

Ehm... this basically has been the "easy airport". Let's see what Wanikipa has to offer.

 

 

Full power climb, using the Komo localizer to give me the direction to Wanikipa. Like that, I also have a range indication (without using GPS as a cheat). These mountains. Those rocks being all green jungle, they don't seem as high as they are. I'm up at 7'500 ft., climbing and it is far from a safe altitude in case clouds colose on me.

 

In this part of the Island, there's almost only jungle, you can hardly see any settlements. If you had to bail out, you'd be trapped in an impervious jungle that even surrounds you not by one but several cliffs of an average height if 2'000 ft.! Not to mention forced landing would be lethal in almost all cases. This is indeed a difficult place. It is remarkable that this very feature seems to be a cause for the spectaclar biodiversity present.

 

 

I'm passing what is probably Pori landing strip (AYTX). What the heck are people doing out there? I don't feel like doing appraches there, I try to keep those 2'000 ft. altitude and go to Wanikipa first.

 

 

I am at 8'500 ft. now and the airstrip must be right behind that ridge, I am very close now. People land here??

 

 

Look at that! Just passing the ridge, there's a gap in the clouds and I see the river that must come from where Wanikipa is located. The "Turkish experience" during my world trip taught me everything I need to know when it comes to follow rivers and roads in non-permissive conditions. I spiral down 5'000 ft. (!) almost to to the riverbed in that gap.

 

 

Here we go! About one mile up, there must be a river coming in from the left. I must take this left and after another mile I should have reached the airstrip .

 

 

HOLY SH*************************************T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I yank the crate around, the repeater compass is way off, and somehow I manage to fly back the direction where I came from.

 

 

At least, in this direction, it is clearing up quickly as I reach the gap in the clouds where in descended. Now I'm really in a spot here. I have to climb some 5'000 ft. in this narrow valley to get out. This is gonna take some time. Good I took all the fuel I could. But while I waste time, climbing in tight circles.. Lo and Behold! Weather starts clearing up! I try again, up the river! Wanikipa, here I come.

 

 

There it is, in the fog. If I had to picture an airstrip on Skull Island, that would be it!

 

 

Sup. Chocolate for fuel?

 

I fly some further approaches as the weather indeed clears up slightly more in between the normal spells of outwardly unflyable conditions. The rule to new Guinea flying seems to be that in principle, it is usually nice weather, but you have to wait up to half a day at any location until that happens.

 

I realize now that my original plan of making four stops to Madang (next to Lae) is slightly optimistic. I spend the night here in the jungle, as after some go-arounds, weather closed again. I wait for "morning fog" to clear and take off then.

 

 

Looking at my flight log, I'm lucky to be alive. When I ventured up the valley, I took a left one turn after I should have.

 

 

My new plan is a tad simpler, as even Windy is threatening with a very low cloud base here be very high mountains.

 

The idea is now just to fly to Lae Nadzab (AYNZ) via Mount Hagen Airport (AYMH) and Madang (AYMD). I hope I can tune in in one of the beacons. I don't count on evading the clouds all the time.

 

 

Waiting for a suitable weather event like sunshine, I take off. Flying here has two modes. Full power climb or steep descent.

 

 

Representative weather along the way. Somehow i can't pick up Mount Hagens VOR and I fly by heading bug, constant full climb. I eventually reach 12'000 ft. to have a somewhat safe altitude in between the thunderstorm clouds.

 

 

There's a road in this country! It connects Porgera with Mount Hagen, Madang on the coast in the north and Lae. as I simply can't dial in on any beacon It's the road that guides me.

 

 

Mount Hagen. A real Airport. And typical weather. Horrible-nice-horrible.

 

 

Dodging clouds and hills, I arrive at Madang. The weather over the coast and the sea is usually nice. But as soon as you go inland it is like a steampot running on it's own timer.

 

Crossing the bay in direction to Lae, I am siilly enough to descent from 12'000 ft. to about 8'000 ft. for catching a breath. When I arrive at the coast again, I have to turn back as I needed to climb to 14'500 ft. to cross the mountain range in between the clouds.

 

 

Saidor along with its landing strip.

 

 

As I cross the mountain range, the weather opens up and over Lae it is sunny. Lae is just dead ahead. It is just to the left of the river flowing in direction away from me, just where it flows in the other river. I initiate a rather steep descent now from absolute maximum celing of the Cessna.

 

 

Lae Nadzab. And the total mess of weather, clouds and mountains that I've just crossed.

 

 

A real airport. And that was work coming here as well. The idea of pilots using inaccurate paper charts and vague instructions to find airstrips flying their Dakotas in this country coudn't impress me more.

 

It's fair to say, not PTO combat simulator ever came close to what flying in this part of the world really means.

 

Some debrief again.

 

 

Finding Mount Hagen was not that easy, but looking where the Highway goes helped. For some reson, I couldn't dial in the VOR. The mountains north of Lae are are truly monumental. 14'500 ft. is what you should have, given thos emountains come with a nice topping of thunderstorms.

 

Next is finding my way east to Milne Bay and Bougainville.

 

 

[AndyJWest]

Yeah, that's why I avoided the New Guinea highlands on my trip, ZachariasX. Almost permanent clouds.

 

More on last night's flight into stupidity. First, what was I doing in Vladivostok? Having arrived in Japan a month or so back, my trip was rather on hold while I waited for the weather to warm up northwards: the XCub has no de-icing. With time to spare while I waited, it seemed worth taking a diversion west, to look at an isolated but geologically-interesting volcano: Paektu, on the China/North Korea border. Or at least, that was the idea. Vladivostok seemed a sensible place to head for on the way, after waiting a week or so for a break in the weather, off I went, 419 nm across the Sea of Japan. My first attempt was going well, until I realised that after updating the XCub to the latest mod, I'd forgotten to reenable the auxiliary fuel tank.  This shouldn't have been an issue, except that I was flying into a 39 kt headwind, which would make it a little marginal. And then, well out to sea, the MSFS weather started  playing up. First, the headwind instantaneously changed to a 19 kt tailwind, which was a little disconcerting, but harmless. And then, a few minutes later, it reverted to the headwind. Not good. Suddenly well over VNE, climbing like a rocket. The wings were still attached at this point, so I carried on. Until it did the same thing again, with fatal structural damage. Having turned off damage, and enabled the extra fuel tank, I got across safely a couple of days later, landing at Emar Airport (UEMR), a few miles NW of Vladivostok itself.

 

And then I had to wait for the weather again. And to ask myself whether I'd made the right decision. Despite its latitude (Vladivostok is the same latitude as the south of France) it seems to be a bleak, cold, windswept region. And Mt Paektu is over 9000 ft. My chances of being able to climb high enough to see it without icing up seemed increasingly slim, unless I was willing to wait until midsummer.

 

Waiting for midsummer clearly wasn't sensible though, if I'm going to get back to GB this year - I've got the north Atlantic crossing to do too. If I can't see Paektu, I should be heading towards the Aleutians instead. The weather was still grim, but if I stayed over low ground, or out to sea, at least it should be a little warmer. 

 

Anyway, yesterday found me looking at the weather on Meteoblue (where it is supposed to be coming from), and convincing myself that it was going to be flyable. I even thought I might have a chance to head SW towards Paektu, though failing that, Plastun airport (UHWP) up the coast in the other direction would be a sensible option for continuing the trip. I decided to take a look at least, and decide which way to head once airborne. I started MSFS, set everything up, and clicked 'Fly', only to find the airport in a downpour, with solid grey murk overhead. Somehow I convinced myself that this was just a local shower. It wasn't, which is why my earlier screenshot shows me at 2000 ft over Vladivostok, wondering whether I should pick a more sensible hobby. 

 

It was clearly decision time. Landing back at Emar was clearly going to be tricky, and heading inland over high ground was probably suicidal. Which left me little choice but to head out to sea, hoping it all cleared. I could maybe make it to Plastun, though the worst-case scenario would have been to fly back to Japan. Using GPS and the autopilot, I flew blind a few miles offshore, following the coast to the northeast. Eventually it began to clear a little, and I was feeling a bit more optimistic. Plastun looked reachable.

 

At least, Plastun looked reachable until I got close. The weather was closing in again. I dropped down to 1000 ft, but the patchy murk was right down to sea level in places. The track from Little Navmap tells the story well. Came in close, couldn't see a thing, so turned out to sea. Decided to try the grass strip a few miles northeast, but soon realised it was even worse in that direction. Back to Plastun. Nope. Still can't see a damn thing coming in from the sea. One last option was to come in from the south, over the settlement. It looked a little clearer that way, and if I had to abort, I'd only have to make a 90-degree turn to safety.

 

In over the bay.

 

Over Plastun, and I can see the road leading to the airport.

 

The airport appears through the murk. A nice long runway.

 

A close-in circuit, and I'm almost there.

 

Safely down. Until the next leg...

 

[Trooper117]

Anyone bought the Spitfire Mk IX yet?

[Tektolnes]

42 minutes ago, Trooper117 said:

Anyone bought the Spitfire Mk IX yet?

 

Yes - I'd probably class it as decent but not great. Looks and sounds nice enough but when I compare the FM to the DCS one it doesn't match up. They got the pitching moment from the flaps the wrong way around. The torque from the engine seems to disappear once you get off the ground e.g. when in the air you can pull the throttle all the way back and then jam quickly it all the way forward and it doesn't induce any sort of rolling motion from the torque (I haven't tested this in a few weeks so potentially has been improved). I find the Milviz Corsair better all round - it's more expensive though

[DD_Arthur]

3 hours ago, Tektolnes said:

 

Yes - I'd probably class it as decent but not great. Looks and sounds nice enough but when I compare the FM to the DCS one it doesn't match up. They got the pitching moment from the flaps the wrong way around. The torque from the engine seems to disappear once you get off the ground e.g. when in the air you can pull the throttle all the way back and then jam quickly it all the way forward and it doesn't induce any sort of rolling motion from the torque (I haven't tested this in a few weeks so potentially has been improved). I find the Milviz Corsair better all round - it's more expensive though

 

I’ve got the Spitfire and the P40. Neither are comparable to either GBS or DCS in terms of the flight model order  the 3D model and are a slight disappointment in my opinion.

 

 I think a lot of it is to do with shortcomings with the MSFS physics modelling as it is at the moment. This will develop as it’s a work in progress but high power, low weight taildraggers exacerbate these problems.

 

Some of the 3D modelling also seems....interesting. The Spitfire cockpit is pretty good but the external model seems to have more fuselage than it should have and the Corsair has been modelled incorrectly. The devs themselves estimate it’s five percent too large which seems a rather basic error from an experienced developer.

The P40 is the first attempt by a new team of devs and in my opinion reflects this.

 

Sounds are generally good but need tuning.

 

[Monostripezebra]

I am currently trying out this "top rudder" part 103 ultralight.. flightmodel is not overly great, does not spin etc.. but it still is fun, as taildragger with almost no landing or takeoff distance

 

 

[Gambit21]

Seems to me there’s no quality control gateway or reasonably high standard upheld with regard to flight models, 3D models etc for this product. Is that a fair statement?

[AndyJWest]

21 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

Seems to me there’s no quality control gateway or reasonably high standard upheld with regard to flight models, 3D models etc for this product. Is that a fair statement?

 

Yup. The stock aircraft are mostly pretty good visually, but often missing significant functionality, and with sometimes questionable FMs. The third-party market has seen some absolute crap sold, and Microsoft have made it clear that they aren't going to apply any sort of quality control to the in-game 'market place'. Caveat emptor.

[Tektolnes]

After getting waylaid by Cyberpunk 2077 for a while back on the world tour and seemingly never ending circumnavigation of Africa. From Goma it was up to Lake Albert through some slightly iffy weather again. Lake Albert originally had the more interesting name of Locusts Killer but the Brits decided to name it after Victoria's consort who'd just popped his clogs.

 

 

From there it was east / north east heading past Lake Kyoga and Soroti on the way up to Lake Turkana with the land getting progressively more arid along the way which fits with Lake Turkana being both the world's largest permanent desert lake and largest alkaline lake.

 

 

 

After that it was up to Addis Ababa, capital city of Ethiopa and world's 3rd highest capital city at 2,400m. Civilization beckons for a little while again.

 

 

The trip continued then to Djibouti located in the Horn of Africa and then headed on west to have a look in Khartoum to have a gander at the confluence of the While Nile and Blue Nile. Next up then will be onto Port Sudan and then follow the Nile all the way up to Cairo/Alexandria and Africa will finally be in the rearview mirror.

 

 

 

[ZachariasX]

Beautiful screenies!

 

In NewGuinea, things are still problematic. But the reason for that seems to be the current „La Niña“ phenomenon. Cold waters in the Pacific make the south west pacific area with New Guinea more rainy than usual. So it‘s not just bad, but especially bad…

[AndyJWest]

Todays lesson in aviation meteorology: check the freezing altitude forecast!

 

My latest world trip leg was going to take me across the Sea of Okhotsk, from Sakhalin to an island off the tip of the Kamchatka peninsula. 554 nautical miles (my longest leg so far, I think), but should have been relatively straightforward, provided I had good weather. A look at Meteoblue suggested it wouldn't be too bad: I could expect some significant low cloud on the way, but hopefully clear at both ends, and the wind wasn't as strong as it had been a few days earlier. What I didn't do though, was check one particular map. This one, showing freezing altitude. Something I should have looked at, when flying in subarctic regions in an XCub with no de-icing.

 

Anyway, off I went, onwards northwest, climbing happily to 5000 ft, finding myself over a thickening layer of cloud below as I went out over the sea, with more scattered cloud well above me. It was 4° C up here, so either MSFS wasn't modelling the cold patch that Meteoblue showed at all, or it was modelling a temperature inversion. Either way, I didn't know about it, and wasn't thinking about it.

 

And on I went, over the cloud. Had to go up to 6000 ft at one point, hoping the cloud below didn't get any higher. It didn't. The temperature started dropping instead. Slowly I was getting forced down. Or at least, forced into a situation where going down was the only sensible option. As long as I wasn't actually in the cloud, I would probably be safe above it even in less than freezing temperatures, but that was chancy, since I really had little idea what was ahead. Better to stay below the freezing altitude, rather than run into cloud and ice up over the sea. At half way I was at 4500 ft, but by 200 nm to go I was down to 2500 ft, at 1° C, though by this point the cloud had all gone. For now. It was at this point I finally remembered that Meteoblue had a freezing altitude chart. And fully realised the predicament I was getting myself into. If it got much colder, I'd have no choice but to fly through any low cloud. And hope that it was clear at my destination. Turning back wasn't an option, and though there were alternative airfields further on, they were unlikely to be any better. If the cloud returned, and it got any colder, I'd be in trouble.

 

And then, still in clear skies, I saw land ahead. First an isolated volcanic island, and then my destination. Peering ahead, I could then see some patches of low cloud about, but it didn't look too bad. Reaching land, and flying over a peninsula, I spotted what could only be an abandoned airfield. If I had to, I could probably land there. I might have to, as looking ahead I could see a few more isolated patches at sea level, over the bay right where I was heading.

 

And then the runway, such as it was, came into sight. Cloud free, though I'd flown over another patch to get here. 1° C, at 2000 ft. Pushing my luck.

 

Down. By a huge grass runway, next to a lake. No facilities. No buildings at all. Just me, the lake, and perhaps a bear or two trying to decide whether XCubs are edible. For my next leg, I will look more carefully at the weather...

 

 

[ZachariasX]

The icing effects supposedly will be revised in later patches. So far, MSFS onlyknows one mode if icing: turning your plane into an ice cube. There will (hopefully) a bit more variation to that.

[ZachariasX]

Some more New Guinea flying. Despite a global weather inconvenience.

 

This is the one where I found a new bug in FS2020.

 

 

Previous experiences made sceptical to any idea crossing the Owen Stanley Mountain Range. With a non-aspirated engine. I fired up the sim a couple of times and always checked the weather on this island, but any given day it was the same. Hence I decided to detour them and go via Milne Bay. I didn't get far due to a sim issue, but there was some noteable learning effect about that Island.

 

 

Taking off from Lae. This is nice weather. As good as it basically gets. You are either directly under the shower (bad weather) or next to the shower (good weather). What is remarkable, is that Lae (and Nadzab airfield) are often next to the showe instead of under the shower.

 

 

Taking off, heading towards Buna. I fly just by dead reckoning, as there no beacons that I can tune into other then Nadzab and I have the coastline as reference.

 

 

The coast usually features great weather all around, but inland I have thunderstorm clouds up to 24'000 ft. and mountains up to 14'000 ft. This is just eastward past Lae. I fly at 3'500 ft.

 

 

It is for the most part rather hard to make out specific towns on this island, but certain topography helps. This is a larger town Kurereda. It is just some 40 kilometers West of Buna on the western side of Holnicote Bay. Kumusi river flows into the sea in this place.

 

 

Looking upriver, it is obvious that this river is fed lots of water all the time.

 

 

Buna, finally. The town is to the left and the old airstrip is the left one, the (weird) new airstrip is the one to the right. I decide to make a touch and go on the old airstrip, direction east, same  direction I took off from Lae.

 

 

On approach, something weird happened: All moving things on the dashborad froze. While they would operate (like the throttle or mixture), it would not show. Hence horizon, airspeed, variometer etc were all stuck. I decided to go for a full stop landing then.

 

Unfortunately, everytime I took off from this airfield, the cockpit would freeze after about one minute. I made several tries, but to no avail. I think I will have to skip this airfield on my journey. I see this happening just here. On the other hand, trying to take off from this airfield showed me one thing: Magically, in Buna it is always nice weather. Not only had Buna far less Malaria, here the weather is is astonishingly better than in most other places on this island. (Which certainly is a reason for being less infested with Malaria.)

 

It is by no coincidence that places like Lae or Buna were so central to the New Guinea campaign. These few places are like pilot sanctuaries in an otherwise intolerable envionment. The Japanese not realizing what they had in Buna and soon losing it to the Americans (who knew exactly how special this place is) that must be seen as decisive for the whole battle. I've tried a couple of airfields several time to find good places for flights. But in the end you always end up with Lae, Buna, Milne Bay and Port Moresby. These places are like islands in an otherwise impossible environment. There is no way you could have been effective operating a force from Wau. Just supplying troops there must have been a nightmare. Taking Wau as a fighter airbase is just a sure way to destroy material and kill your pilots, all without further help.

 

[AndyJWest]

@ZachariasX

 

Neither MSFS nor Little Navmap seem to show any airport at Buna, and looking at a Google satellite image, the only signs of the airfield are at the western end of what you show. Clearly not in use, and with houses built on it. 8°40′S 148°24′E I'm fairly certain this is the right spot - the coordinates are from Wikipedia, but the coastline seems to match your screenshot. Is the airfield a mod? That might account for the bug.

 

[ZachariasX]

18 hours ago, AndyJWest said:

Is the airfield a mod? That might account for the bug.

Yes, it is a mod. Most airfields that I use are mods. As there is usually nothing (for practical puroses), I have to use the mods to do some bush flying here. I also think it is due to that mod that the freezing of the dash occurs.

[AndyJWest]

A few more screenshots from the last couple of days.

 

First leg sees fine weather for a change. Cold though, so I have to stay low. Crossing onto the Kamchatka peninsula, with volcanoes in the distance. Plate tectonics doing its stuff again. The Pacific Plate subducts at about 8 cm a year here, so lots of opportunities for volcanic goings-on.

 

Kurile Lake. Used to be a volcano. And then sometime around 6450 BC it blew, depositing ash up to 1,700 km away. 

 

As I get closer to my destination - Yelizovo - it warms a little, and I climb higher to overfly what MSFS at least thinks is still frozen ground with floating ice.

 

The Soviet-era submarine base at Vilyuchinsk.

 

The airport ahead, surrounded by fields. Not sure what they grow here, but evidently something does.

 

Next leg, cold, grey and windy weather. I fly further up the coast of the peninsula. One more volcano I'd like to see. And here it is: Kronotsky, another perfectly-formed pointy stratovolcano. If it wasn't so cold and cloudy, I'd take a closer look. I then head out to sea, watching the OAT gauge carefully. 

 

Did I say it was windy? Close to 40 kt, from the southwest. Which at least makes the crossing quicker. Ahead is Bering Island, my destination.

 

Nikolskoye Airport. A rapid downwind leg, followed by a nice gentle landing, with 20 kts conveniently blowing straight down the runway.

 

Next leg should take me to Attu. Which is either the western-most or the eastern-most of the Alaskan islands, depending on how you think about it. It's in the eastern hemisphere...

[ZachariasX]

Divine weather indeed. Even the "bad" weather is pretty nice, given the location...

[Tektolnes]

Next leg brings me from Atbara over to Port Sudan. Definitely happy to be flying when reading travel reports like don't go on the road via Kasala due to tribal conflicts and banditry.

 

 

Then on to Abu Simbel on the western bank of Lake Nassar. Now that I'm in Egypt I'm finally hitting my last African country on this round the world trip. Bit of a long leg this one so definitely not one for the Piper Arrow. But hopped into the Arrow to have a gander at the Unesco World Heritage Site "Nubian Monuments". I think it's fair to say MSFS may not have done them justice. Supposed to be some temple monuments there after they got moved back in the 60s from their original location due to a dam being built on the nearby Nile.

 

 

From there it was on to Aswan, historically considered the opening or beginning of Egypt geographically, before then heading up to Luxor. Formerly known as the city of Thebes it's been called the greatest open air museum with all the Necropolis, Valley of Kings and Valley of Queens around there. Again I think it's probably fair to say that MSFS possibly doesn't give Luxor the greatest advertisement as can be seen in the bottom photo of one of the great, ah, temples (?).

 

 

 

 

Then on to Asyut and Beni Suef. Not a huge amount to see along the way. Beni Suef is an active military base but I'm sure they won't mind a Piper Arrow dropping in for a quick visit before my next leg up to Cairo & Alexandria.

 

 

[Tektolnes]

I absolutely, positively bit off more than I could chew when I decided to circumnavigate Africa on this round the world trip. I'd touched down in Tobruk on Oct 12, 2020 and am only now about to finally be out of Africa. First up the short leg to Cairo with the pyramids at Giza easily visible on the approach.

 

 

 

Then back into the TBM930 for Cairo -> Alexandria. Cairo looks an insanely packed city with more than 21m people living in the metropolitan area. The Giza pyramids / sphinx are done very nicely in MSFS after getting an official touch up from the developers. Coming in to land at Alexandria was a bit trickier than usual with a 20knot crosswind requiring a fair bit of crabbing.

 

 

 

 

Then one final hop and I was on my way to Cyprus via Port Said. I finally decided to try out Navigraph. Really liking it so far. You can have all the departure/approach plates, etc. integrated with the moving map & flight plan which is a nice touch. Also Navigraph charts can be linked in with the G3000 on the TBM930 or the GTN750 like in the Arrow. Pretty cool to bring up the plates and taxiway charts on the Garmin in game - especially in the G3000 with that big screen.

 

 

 

[DD_Arthur]

Big boys toys are here!

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4Z6uOroKwk2BCoBHzhuaeQ/videos

[Lusekofte]

2 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

Big boys toys are here!

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4Z6uOroKwk2BCoBHzhuaeQ/videos

I Just might fly a Airliner after all

[ZachariasX]

3 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

Big boys toys are here!

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4Z6uOroKwk2BCoBHzhuaeQ/videos

YEAH! That's I am looking for. (Besides the A2A planes...)

[Dakpilot]

7 hours ago, LuseKofte said:

I Just might fly a Airliner after all

 

Much more fun to fly freight in some of the more less known parts of the world ?

 

**edit**

(personally) wish it had been the DC-4 

 

 

Cheers, Dakpilot 

Edited May 22, 2021 by Dakpilot

[AndyJWest]

I'm still waiting for a DC-3. Meanwhile, this looks tempting, despite the excessive number of engines. They never were very reliable, so the less you have, the less chance of having a failure. Better to play safe, if you ask me. ?

[CUJO_1970]

First look, downloaded all the world updates. Now the long process of setting up the key assignments and the old Galdiator NXT.

 

There goes the neighborhood:

 

[CUJO_1970]

These graphics are unreal.

[ZachariasX]

8 hours ago, AndyJWest said:

I'm still waiting for a DC-3. Meanwhile, this looks tempting, despite the excessive number of engines. They never were very reliable, so the less you have, the less chance of having a failure. Better to play safe, if you ask me. ?

DC-3 is always nice. But the double whopper looks great. I mean, there are two developpers that truly stand out for making planes for flightsims, PMGD and A2A. Resistance is futile…

[Hoots]

9 hours ago, AndyJWest said:

I'm still waiting for a DC-3. Meanwhile, this looks tempting, despite the excessive number of engines. They never were very reliable, so the less you have, the less chance of having a failure. Better to play safe, if you ask me. ?

 

This is why I fly with no engines. Much safer.

 

[Dakpilot]

In a DC-4 we often flew with 5 engines.. 

 

One in the back as a spare, you just never knew when you'd need anther one ?

 

Cheers, Dakpilot 

[ZachariasX]

57 minutes ago, Dakpilot said:

In a DC-4 we often flew with 5 engines.. 

 

One in the back as a spare, you just never knew when you'd need anther one ?

 

Cheers, Dakpilot 

 

The Double Wasp was not reliable in the DC-6? How come? Wasn't it a popular engine otherwhise?

 

EDIT: The aircraft used to model this sim plane was a Namibia Commercial Aviation DC-6, the last one in the world to be used as comercial carrier. It should be modeled well, as the developpers had access to the real thing.

Edited May 23, 2021 by ZachariasX

[Bremspropeller]

MSFS - when you want to quickly hop in and go yet the launcher suggest you're better installing that 78GB update ?

[Dakpilot]

2 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

 

The Double Wasp was not reliable in the DC-6? How come? Wasn't it a popular engine otherwhise?

 

EDIT: The aircraft used to model this sim plane was a Namibia Commercial Aviation DC-6, the last one in the world to be used as comercial carrier. It should be modeled well, as the developpers had access to the real thing.

 

DC-4 used R2000 quite different to R2800, not as reliable. 

 

R2800 in airline use was quite known for failure before overhaul time, somewhere I had failure rates for all airline use but no idea where to access that now.

 

In the 'ad hoc' freight trade DC-4's even with their more fragile engines were easier to keep running than DC-6/ R2800's, easier/cheaper maintenance and less sophisticated electrics

 

Cheers, Dakpilot 

[DD_Arthur]

 

[Dakpilot]

I've posted that one a few times

?

 

An empty DC-4 is a lot of fun, 

 

Cheers, Dakpilot 

[CUJO_1970]

That's a LOT of keys and binding to set up. Taking a break for a practice landing in Japan with the Grand Caravan:

 

 

And a nice relaxing Alaska hop in the 152:

 

[DetCord12B]

Not sure if anyone is aware of this debacle and or nightmare.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/flightsim/comments/nio12j/captain_sim_trying_to_sue_creators_for_publishing/

 

They actually stole my content, altered it, and uploaded it without any sort of notification. Of course the story has since blown up via reddit and social media resulting in massive refunds and people blacklisting the site. The issues concerning this release go way, way deeper than this, but they chose a horrific and confrontational stance that all but alienated nearly everyone. Even the hardcore CS supporters. 

 

Quote

I was planning on updating some of my 30 or so liveries (FSX/P3D) for their MSFS product launch. Ya know, like in my time off where I could be doing other things, on my own dime (PS subscription), and all for free-90-free. Then I get a IM from a buddy on Steam with news of this nonsense. I contacted them and they promptly removed my liveries. However, other creator content remains, at least as of now, and it doesn't look like they have any intention of doing the right thing and respecting the hard work people put into livery creation, let alone their flagrant CC/IP infringement and the potential legal ramifications associated with it. This shit has me so fuckin' heated!

While it is true that they might be located in the Ukraine, their site is hosted in the States and HTR'd by a company with branches in the US and Germany. This means they are subject to certain criteria, rules and regulations. Feel free to contact their SP and domain operator to report them, if ya want.

 

EDIT - Looks like they've since backtracked their position. Too little, too late. They've already damaged their rather wobbly reputation even more than they did with their previous FSX/P3D releases.

 

EDIT - A few of my liveries I planned on redoing for MSFS.

Edited May 24, 2021 by DetCord12B

[Dakpilot]

10 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

 

 

Just have to point out, in case people missed that on one of the passes engines #3 and #4 are shut down with props feathered!! 

 

Cheers, Dakpilot