Welcome to a new era of flight simulation.

I have been lucky enough to have flown FS2020 for some time now(was a beta tester), and I must admit that my view is still the sameas when I first experienced it, and that is WOW!

I am certainly not an expert on all matters regarding FS2020, Ihave simply flown it, but I must say, it pretty much worked out of thebox for me. In saying that though, this is the first time in my 72years of existence that no manual was included, which I thought wasabsolutely ridiculous for such a complex beast.

I have been around flight simulators since almost the beginning,way back to 1980 in fact, and still have in my little black book,Bruce Artwick's telephone number (the younger generation might notknow who he is). I started on the Sinclair Spectrum 48K, the start ofa long line of computers, and the simulator was called "Flight" andcame on a cassette.

It consisted (if my memory serves me right) mainly of greensquiggly lines. Back then you had to have a good imagination, but Ican still remember how cutting edge it was, even back then.

The successor to the 48K was the Sinclair Spectrum 128K, but Iskipped that and went straight to the Commodore 64, which had slightlybetter graphics. It also enabled me to use subLogic's FlightSimulator II and all the scenery discs which came with it (I purchaseda second floppy disc drive especially for it).

As many of you will be aware, I love microlights and small aircraft(especially farm strip flying), and so when I moved to FS98, Idesigned most of the British Isles for it, and was the first personto design a mesh terrain for the UK.

I then started designing my own scenery named "Farm Strips", beinginspired by my late dear friend Bryan Lockyear's, guide book "FarmStrips and Private Airfields Flight Guide". Believe it or not, theUK has no fewer that over 300 grass strips dotted around the country.

In 2007, like millions of others, I moved to FSX which was a hugeleap forward in terms of realism, enhanced further by the likes ofJust Flight and Playsim with their photographic sceneries of theUK. Again, the development of my own Farm Strips continued on thisplatform.

After over 12 years on FSX I decided to move to X-Plane 11, myfirst true 64 bit simulator. Using Laminar Research's freely availablescenery designer called World Editor (WED) and FlyAgi's add-ons, plusJonathan Harris' excellent FS2XPLANE plugin (without which I wouldn'thave been able to alter my FSX files), I managed to convert some of myFSX farm strips to X-Plane.

Note: If you're reading this Jonathan, many thanks...and pleaseconsider making a program called FSX2-2020.

Anyway...I won't bore you with the rest, but at least now you havesome idea of where I am coming from.

Which leaves us with FS2020.

When I first opened MSFS 2020 I was slightly wary, as it had a similarinterface to FSW (Flight Sim World), Dovetail Games attempt atbreaking into the flight simulator genre; and we all know the outcometo that particular story.

Now I must admit, I didn't bother with Courchevel or the flighttraining option in MSFS 2020, I just wanted to fly somewhere that Iknew. Looking at the world map, I was initially very disappointed bythe choice of airports in the UK (I bet I wasn't the only one).However, it wasn't until I noticed the airport search box did Irealise that I had over 37,000+ airports and airfields at my disposal!

I typed in EGIL, St. Michael's (a microlight training field over onthe Fylde coast) and to my incredible surprise it was listed...WOW! Iselected it and a few minutes later, there I was, at EGIL. The grasswas unbelievable and for a default aircraft, the graphics were firstclass.

So what about setting it up and flight dynamics?

Well, this is where I did run into some issues, as MSFS 2020 has beendesigned to automatically detect certain popular makes of controls,but as my joystick is a specially made product from RC Simulations, itdidn't, with the result being that I had to set up virtuallyeverything from scratch (and with no manual). I did get it going, buta lot of it was guesswork, and I must admit I wasn't particularlyimpressed by their joystick interface.

In this area, both FSX and X-Plane are far more intuitive and a lotsimpler to setup. I also dislike the `SENSITIVITIES' setup; again bothFSX and X-Plane are superior in this respect.

After a while, I did eventually get everything working, but I stillwasn't happy with the result. Controlling the aircraft was difficult,and I felt the whole thing very unsatisfactory, so I went back toX-Plane.

However, knowing that there was potentially a good sim under there,and also the fact that I have never been a quitter, I went back to itafter a while with a fresh mind...and this time, I managed to getthings working. Whether this was due to the sim being updated, or mystubborn perseverance, I'm not sure, but I am a lot happier with itnow.

For myself personally, I am amazed that all my grass airfieldswhich I frequent so often, are actually included in the base simulator(albeit with default buildings). All I would like to do now, is toconvert my existing sceneries so that they are compatible with the newsim.

Moving on to the flight dynamics of the GA aircraft, and I must saythey are greatly improved. With both the alpha and beta releases ofthe MSFS 2020, I wasn't overly impressed with them, but now they arereally enjoyable (especially flying with my brother in multiplayer).

Due to the nature of the aircraft I prefer to fly, I have purchasedthe Premium Edition so have all the aircraft at my disposal (eventhough I have no interest in heavy metal).

When it comes to the weather, unlike FSX and X-Plane where I hardlyever had wind turned on, MSFS 2020 is a whole different ballgame; it'sactually like real world flying!

Staying with real world flying for the moment, and as much as Ihate to admit it, but...finding my farm strips in MSFS S2020 is reallydifficult...because they don't stand out any more, they just blendnaturally into the scenery. Just like real life, they are difficultto spot, and it made me realize how lazy I had become as a virtualpilot.

What I am trying to say here, is that MSFS 2020 really is thatdifferent to past flight simulators. It's such a massive leap overwhat has come before, that it will take some time to get to know. Ifyou can invest the time in it, then I truly believe that MSFS 2020 is theperfect sim, both for enjoyment and also for learning.

For myself, as a 72 year old enthusiastic scenery designer...I'venever been happier!

Neil Birch

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