Elvensmith

I notice the plan is saved in .pln format so in theory it ought to be possible to se Plan G or similar to create a flight with custom waypoints or to see actual location detail.

About 4.5 hours here - a few minutes for the Steam host files, the rest for the Asobo stuff. There's a period of about 10 mins after the D/L completes and you get a black window but still unravelling stuff as the HDD light on almost continuously. Then it dropped me in the welcome screen. So no real drama (yet...).

Downloading here, seems to want to go to the C drive and I have read elsewhere of issues if you try and assign it to a different drive.

Steam will not be acquiring the files until tomorrow morning 0500 UTC I believe.

If you get the Steam version, the non MS-ese part of the game will presumably go to wherever your Steam Common files are.

I get the gaming types but still the physics model shouldn't really allow that rate of climb... Guess we will find out for sure in around 48 hours!

Was watching a preview video where the guy was taking off in the 747-800 - sorry no link as it was via YT on the TV while using the exercise bike(!). However it looked at one stage the plane was climbing at +-9000 fpm and a cut to external view showed at an angle of nearly 45 degs. Surely that can't be right, some brief Googling indicates a maximum climb rate of around 4000fpm if passenger comfort not an issue, otherwise 1500fpm. Does that mean we could be in for some disappointment where physics are concerned? Not sure which version of the sim the guy was testing, fairly recent upload so possibly the beta or "press" gold version.

From what I understand from the preview videos, FS2020 will autogen AI flights based on the real world situation. What we don't know is how those planes will be represented in terms of type and livery.

Think that will be a subjective issue. You will have default FS scenery vs. streamed scenery vs. add on (presumably installed) scenery. That will also have to be judged against what settings you can run at - say on medium, you might find a 3rd party scenery gives better performance and results than the same in the streamed scenery.

DC6 would be nice along with a DC10. And +11 on the Tristar. Hopefully Just Flight will also be looking at converting some of their existing catalogue.

Already binned XP11. May keep FSX installed in case there is some sort of in house means of transferring aircraft, but can't see me going back to it. I'm sure even on low to medium settings FS2020 is going to kick its posterior. And I had a whole load of FSX payware that doesn't run well (or at all) in the combination of Win 10 and Steam Edition. Clean slate and start fresh.

Buy it on Steam, then you get 1hr 59mins to try it out and if you don't like for any reason, get a refund.

There was me pruning stuff off my "E" drive, looks like I'm going to have to clear up a bit more space off the C: Drive. As I've ordered the Steam version I'm assuming the none "App" files will still go to the SteamApps folder.

Doesn't FSX go a bit weird near the Poles? I did a flight from Svalbard a few weeks ago and the GPS window showed my track at a 45 degree angle! Wonder if FS2020 has got this right?

I'm sure it will run fine on your old PC in the meantime. There is the slight issue of a global pandemic going on, from which 1000's of people are still dying each day, so there is bound to be a knock on effect on items such as new PC builds - particularly as 99.9% of components are manufactured in China.

Having ordered from Steam I'm hoping the game will pre-load and unlock at the release time so it is ready to play without further delay.

Myself and other train simmers are hoping MS will dust off their train sim ambitions on the back of FS2020. Unlike when MSTS came out, train simming is now a mass market established genre with all sorts of products ranging from Derail Valley to Run 8 catering for different branches of the hobby. Of course we are also just a tad cynical, with two previous attempts to extend the franchise cancelled - the first due to development "issues" (urban legend has it Kuju dropped the ball), the second when MS decided to put their games division into hiatus. So maybe third time will be the charm. What would be really great is some level of integration between the products so you could fly from London to Glasgow, taxi to Central station and drive a train from there back to Euston. That's probably a bit ambitious, but I can dream! :)

Personally I would wait and see if they turn up in a separate add on, or MS (Steam) offer a discount on the upgrade price when it's been out a few months.

Even so at takeoff and landing you are going to be focused on procedures and not auguring in, not whether the terminal building has the correct number of windows. At 35,000 feet the ground detail will be a smudge anyway!

OP sounds like flame bait to me. AFAIK there is nothing (apart from EGLL in the premium deluxe) that justifies paying the extra price. A bunch of GA aircraft I would probably never fly and a bunch of hand crafted airports I would never use. It's not like you can walk round the airports in 1st person perspective, pop in the duty free or find the observation deck... Besides people have different budgets. I will be running FS2020 on a PC I purchased 5 years ago but have made a number of updates so the "cost" is more than paid for. I could afford the PD version quite easily if I wanted to but there are others out there for whom putting a roof over the head or food in the bellies of their kids might just be a tad more important than a slightly more up market version of a game which lets you pretend you're a pilot. Other customers might be on furlough due to Covid-19, might even be wondering if they will have a job in a month or two's time... Sheesh. :(

Money? I remember reading Patrick Smith (of Ask The Pilot fame) who asserted after paying the crippling fees to train for and acquire a commercial pilot licence, F/O jobs at a regional carrier paid less than driving a truck or bus. Also it still remains to be seen how Covid 19 will reshape the future of passenger aviation. I certainly have no desire currently to get on a plane and jet off somewhere for a holiday - 5 hours in a hermetically sealed aluminium tube wearing a face mask and touching surfaces which could be contaminated by an asymptomatic fellow traveller. Oh plus the ever present risk of finding yourself subject to quarantine on return - not such a biggie if retired like me but certainly a logistical problem if you come home to an empty pantry and fridge then not allowed out to the supermarket. I digress, the point being there are likely to be fewer commercial flights overall as we go forward beyond Covid, certainly for a few years until confidence improves and/or the disease is totally eradicated.

Wonder what the plan is for commercial airliners on RW flights that are not operated by A320's or 747's... Will there be AI aircraft that we haven't seen yet to cover these?

Everything came back clean. Maybe it was just a Windows glitch.

I found a couple of helicopters I wanted to download via Google with links to the Simvation site. However when I clicked on the link I got a message stating "This site isn't secure. This might mean that someone’s trying to fool you or steal any info you send to the server. You should close this site immediately." Now I've had similar messages before from known okay sites so I continued, however this morning on starting the PC I got a pop up message advising of a problem with Skype. To the best of my knowledge I never installed Skype on this PC so I killed the message. Subsequently found that Skype had somehow installed, so uninstalled and now running full virus and Malwarebytes scan. So currently a process of elimination going on and the obvious finger of suspicion points towards Simvation. So just wondered if anyone else has had this or similar issues?

I'll probably hit up the A320 first. However the aircraft I really want to fly in the sim are the ones we will be waiting for - the DC6's, DC10's, 707's, 767's oh and helicopters!