neilends

Some of you probably guessed that I would eventually come around to saying this, so here it is: I've been mulling this over quite a bit and have reached a conclusion that I should just go ahead and do it. The logic I'm relying on is this: even if I can't dedicate tons of time to a brand new real-world hobby at the moment, if I do spend enough time to properly learn, train, and gain a PPL the right way, that at least gives me the chance to continue self-improving and gaining skills as time goes on. There will be one day in the future when, I guess, my life priorities will shift and I can increase my aviation hours. But why begin that day by starting from scratch on that day? Why not be a licensed PPL holder by then? That's my thinking at the moment anyway. The Phoenix area seems to have a very good population of flight schools. If anyone has tips on how to make sure I select the right one that will teach things the right way, please chime in!

As a simmer for decades who loves aviation but has never flown a plane, I might be very similar to you. What is addictive about MSFS and all good flight sims is that you begin to delve into real-world learning in order to figure out how this simulation properly works. The more you learn, the more crazy you realize the sim is in its attention to detail, and into the rabbithole you go. So I think that MSFS intentionally created only cursory, skim-the-surface training simulations. Microsoft tries to meet the desires of at least two different audiences: (1) people who love aviation and/or sim-aviation, and (2) new consumers. If you try and teach VOR navigation to a new consumer who just clicked on a link on a screen saying "learn VOR navigation!", he or she would get overwhelmed and/or bored and that's the end of the game for that person. New consumers need just a little taste, and then once they start they might eventually become nutjobs like the rest of us. But it's a gradual process. The real answer to your question: Short of signing up for professional aviation classes that real pilots take (which I am considering these days btw), you can figure out a ton of MSFS features by watching the hundreds of Youtube videos out there put out by simming experts, many of whom are real-world pilots. (A lot of the latter are unemployed or underemployed right now, sadly, so some are using Youtube to help get by). There are many, but here are a couple of good ones I watch now and then: P Gatcomb: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGWd_NMbp7GxMg4bZO65heQ Corporate Pilot Dad: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOTbYtdmGZfqxq0D0lsrYeQ A lovely French-Canadian pilote who calls herself Pilot Emile: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgUEhJJU3XJVBb8V2nckN3Q There are tons more, including real 747 pilots who also put up sim videos about airliners but I think your interest is in small planes. It's all out there though.

I did use VR, and VR's main weakness right now is definitely night flying in MSFS. (Some might say that realistically viewing the instrument panel is the greatest weakness, but you can use your mouse to improve instrument viewing right now). In daylight VR's resolution is a bit degraded compared to 2D, but it's not enough to bother me. In part the exhilaration of feeling like you're in a plane and can actually look all around you compensates. But at night, the degraded resolution stands out more: the stars are an important aspect of realism in a flight sim, and the stars pretty much look silly. Viewing the ground and city lights is better and not so bad. The night sky does not look realistic at all though. Surely they can fix this, given how amazing it is to use VR when flying through clouds.

Your description inspired me to go back to the basics a bit instead of cavorting around Nepal and the Kingdom of Tonga. I attempted a night flight at what might be a rough equivalent in Arizona to Bishop-Mammoth: Sedona to Flagstaff, in a Cessna 172. Being night in live weather, I tried to use instruments only. Damn near killed me several times. The first near-death was my own fault, as I failed to climb properly and almost smashed into Sedona's red rock mountains. But at one point this is literally what ATC was doing to me as I approached elevation 7,000 feet Flagstaff: Phoenix ATC: Please contact Albuquerque tower. Ok. Contact. Albuquerque ATC: Please contact Phoenix tower. Ok. Contact. Phoenix ACT: Please contact Albuquerque tower. About 6 consecutive rounds of this happened. Since I was trying to stay disciplined and land on instruments, I just played along with this goofy game by the AI. Winds were strong at Flagstaff and almost blew me to the ground, but I managed to land safely. Among the things I want to study next: landing in crosswinds; RNAV navigation; VOR/DME navigation.

Apparently I've been playing an older version of MSFS this whole time, even though I have "automatic updates" checked off etc. :rolleyes: So the World Update 3 initially told me that I could not download, because I did not have the minimum-required version installed. I went into my xbox account to re-download the latest update and that did the trick. Just posting this in case anyone else has the same issue.

Nope, there aren't, which prompted me to complain to the developer but they haven't responded. I appreciate your response though as it looks like I've done everything normally, and something abnormal is the problem. ;)

I did read it. They don't appear in the Bush Trips.

Reviving this old thread to ask anyone: How do you load up these "missions" into MSFS? I am having trouble figuring how to do so. I've dropped a specific mission folder into the community folder like we normally do for other add-ons. Then what?

Appreciate the tips! It does seem more flexible than I'd realized.

Thanks! I am trying to thread a bunch of Tongan islands together. It's amazing how far apart they are and how this society functions with such distance. I was using VR so no external shots today but here's one from my own window in the cockpit: Sadly, I crashed into the water because of poor fuel management and will have to try this leg again after I am reincarnated later this week:

Was flying between some amazingly accurate atolls and small islands in the Kingdom of Tonga, live weather, when I ran out of fuel. I was actually on a long stretch of 60 nm so I was doing work on a separate laptop, with my VR headset sitting on my head so I could hear audio only. To that point the scenery was great: But while cruising at altitude 5,000 feet I heard the engine suddenly die out. I know it sounds dumb but... it was a pretty cool experience, because I had no idea what to do and I knew I only had seconds to decide. At 5,000 feet, since I wasn't paying attention, I had to spend a valuable 20 seconds or so getting my bearings to figure out if there was any land that was reachable by gliding. It turns out I was only 15 nm from my island destination (Fua'amotu Airport), so I had hope for a minute. That hope dwindled as I saw how quickly the plane was descending without power. I had not adjusted my flaps properly so I also lost valuable altitude for that reason. Nope, I would be ditching this puppy into the ocean. Thankfully it was a clear day, and being an experienced hiker I am sure that Pilot Me would have brought a go-bag for emergencies as I was flying over water: life vest, emergency beacon, flares, etc. I hit the water pretty hard, over 70 knots, again because I did not think through how the flaps could have helped me. My crash detection setting was off so the sim may have normally killed my plane and the flight on the spot. This experience is a good reason to keep it off, because you can decide for yourself whether you may or may not have survived a given crash, and then contemplate your fate and your life choices while seeing these unpleasant sites in front of you:

I've noticed that the sim gets easily confused when I am switching around settings for live weather, live time, etc. If you select live weather, you lose the option to change the time of day, as I understand it.

I enjoy reading these write-ups just as much as I do writing them! I had a similar experience to this when I made the mistake of going for live weather in Seward, Alaska. I gave up on my actual destination and barely landed on a nearby strip. The Cessna 172 was not having any of that at all.

Had some real adrenaline moments today. I have earlier crashed two planes trying to fly from Nepal's Langtang (tiny air strip at elevation 12,557 ft) to Lukla. In between are several peaks of over 20,000 feet. A small but powerful Cap10 could not handle the altitude and spun out of control in high winds very close to Langtang. A larger but less maneuverable Cessna Grand Caravan was too difficult for me to angle correctly while landing at Lukla. So this time I picked a TBM 930 and it seemed just right. This is my crazy-a** route departing Langtang (I calculated this after 3 consecutive tries remember, so feel free to steal, or better it if you can): Lukla is an absolutely terrifying airport, when I think about the fact that real pilots routinely land there in planes larger than the TBM. Mind blowing. First, from Langtang you are descending from about 20,000 feet to land at Lukla's 9,337 feet, with mountains everywhere. Second, not only can you be too high to see the airport in its hidden corner, you can also be too low because it is perched up on top of a hill. That's exactly what happened my first attempt. You can see my two attempts here, the second of which succeeded: Despite landing safely, I confess that I did actually taxi my plane into a building where it got stuck. Navigating that sloped village is hard. Anyway, I decided to fly to one more nearby airport since I was having such a blast in Nepal. I picked Phaplu (VNPL) only about 15 nm away, and used no external aids to navigate there--just the Beechcraft's G1000. But with live weather VNPL proved completely impossible due to clouds and visibility. I would have no chance whatsoever even with GPS and the artificial aid of MSFS's VFR feature of not smashing into a mountain. On the fly I found another airport a little further away, VNLD-Lamdada, and thought I would give MSFS's ATC AI a chance at helping me. That proved to be close to useless. I could not trust ATC's altitude instructions for one thing, and anyway, they wildly fluctuated. "Please climb to 8,500. Please climb to 9,100. Please climb to 8,500." What the... ? I also do not understand the landing approach it was trying to give me. It felt like the approach it wanted to set me up with was designed for a 747. Cloud cover was still thick. When I could finally spot the runway from a distance, I told ATC to go away and gave it a try visually alone. VNLD is a microscopic air strip located on a miniscule hill that is sloped up just like Lukla. I guess this is a nifty, uniquely Nepal thing. Being able to land there successfully was again an adrenaline rush, as much as you can have one from software:

Unless it was a rescue mission to pick up some stranded tourists IN Langtang. ;)

Kingdom of Tonga, departing from Vava'u (NFTV) for Ha'Apai-Lifuka (NFTL) about 75 nm away.

I’m a Cessna 172 loyalist because it forces me to learn a lot of aviation concepts. But I needed more muscle for Nepal, so I picked the 208. I’ve had the same issue as you and figured that sticking with a Cessna would mean at least some elements of the dashboard would seem familiar. That’s mostly worked. I did read in a non-sim article somewhere that Cessna or Garmin deliberately did not use the nifty graphical 3D modeling screen we are used to in the high-end 172 model (with a G1000). Real world pilots apparently don’t need it, as I recall. (Edit: I’m wrong. I’m thinking of the CJ4). This Youtuber (who is also a real pilot) gives really good training videos for all kinds of MSFS stuff. Here’s his clip about the 208 that you might find helpful:

Been simming since Flight Simulator on the IBM PC in 1982. I am not experiencing your problems or perceiving them that way anyway. I've rediscovered the joy of properly landing an airplane again, with this one. The sensitivities are adjustable so maybe that's the issue you should tinker with.

I do use my real name. I have simply translated it into a non-western alphabet, which is allowed by Facebook. If you are John Smith, just spell John Smith in Japanese, Chinese, Arabic or whatever you want. Google Translate is a nice tool.

Re-attempted my route in the last post using a Cessna 208. Successful. However, the runway is only 1,396 feet long. I slightly overran it in the 208 and could have probably avoided that with an absolutely perfect landing. It's just grass on the other side so no crashing. This is a short and extremely challenging flight, that I highly recommend for anyone. The scenery is great (there are some MSFS Salvador Dali graphic glitches). The tactics needed to navigate and land will challenge any non-experts. On one hand you need a plane that can comfortably reach altitudes of 16,000 to 20,000 feet. On the other hand, that plane needs to be able to turn around inside a canyon without crashing into the mountainside (see my route below, depicting the turn-around). I know now that the 208 can accomplish this. I doubt a Cessna 172 could tackle the climbing needs. Departure airport: VNKT (Kathmandu) Arrival: VNLT (Langtang)

I understand some people don't like the Facebook connection. I personally don't mind it because I don't actually use Facebook, other than merely having an account. I've translated my name into a foreign alphabet so it's not even that easy to find my profile. Data privacy is a serious crisis in our societies so I am not undermining this concern at all--it is a valid concern. That said, most of us who have email accounts and credit cards are pretty much "on the grid" anyway, with these companies data-mining the crap out of us. I have not watched all of the youtube videos so thanks for the link. I am curious about the better resolution from G2. But for now, I've made my Quest choice so given my non-infinite budget and a very skeptical wife, it will have to do for now. Let's see what happens in the coming year.

My experience with the Quest 2 has been pretty positive. The universe hasn't figured out a way to visually show whether the G2 is vastly superior to the Quest 2, so I am still confused about that. But either way, I love VR and am excited about its future. There are many kinks still to be worked out right now, but they are manageable. If you don't spend a decent amount of time configuring your headset to exactly the specific settings needed, it will not work. What those "specific settings" are is not in any Microsoft manual anywhere. You have to google it. I am not very technically proficient though, and did manage to figure it out with a few hours of tinkering.

Vatsim does work and MSFS made sure that it would. A lot of hard core simmers use it so the company specifically sought out to make sure there would be compatibility.

VR continues to blow my mind, despite some annoyances. First of all, I discovered the joys of the non-autopiloted Robin Cap10C, which I understand to be a French-manufactured aerobatic plane. Second, I decided to fly in live weather from the Nepali capital of Kathmandu to the closest airport I could find. This meant flying to Langtang, elevation 12,557 feet. Kathmandu is elevation 4,400 feet. Per my navigation mapping, I would encounter Himalayan peaks of almost 15,000 feet en route. But the MSFS "brochure" for the Robin Cap10C claims that it can fly up to 16,000 feet. Sooo, what's the problem? I put on my portable oxygen mask and took off. As I climbed up toward some very scary-looking mountains trying to get to 16,000, I learned the hard way that science--even MSFS's version of aviation science--is way more complicated than brochure data. Around 12,000 feet my plane wildly spun out of control and began tearing toward the ground. It is hard to describe this sensation when wearing a VR headset. I hope never to be in a plane when it stalls or flails wildly like this. But this is about as close as I can get to understanding the terror. I actually had to close my eyes for a second because the rotation spin was too much. I recovered, but spun out two more times before accepting that for whatever reasons the actual ceiling for my plane was about 12,000 feet, not 16,000 feet. So now what do I do? Maps told me that there was a river/canyon route all the way to Langtang. That was my only answer, so away I went. The views were breathtaking as I followed this path. I headed west folowing the Trishuli Khola river, then followed it as it turned north. At some point it intersected with another river, the Langtang Khola. I followed this new river east and was making excellent progress, getting to about 6.5 nm from the Langtang airport. Unfortunately, my luck ran out somewhere near the village of Thangsyap. Here, flying at about 11,000 or so but only 1,000 feet above the ground, the plane surrendered completely. It spun wildly out of control for reasons I don't understand, and I could not recover. Boom. Crash. Dead. Oh well.

I might be telling you something you already know so please excuse if I'm missing your question. I use two methods to deal with MSFS ATC: (1) change the settings so that the simulation automatically responds on my behalf, or (2) use keyboard shortcuts. I re-programmed mine to the random letter "u" (it was unused). Responding to ATC during inconvenient times is easier this way, since I can hit "u" and the simple "1" or "2" or whatever that is required to finish the response manually. Also, I turn the voice of ATC (and of "myself") off. Subtitles only. Either way, the consequence of not listening to ATC is nothing more than a bunch of repeated instructions. If you land on a runway without ATC clearance, then you will get a verbal reprimand that you landed without clearance.