Xeragi

I too am struggling to figure out why I am not conforming to what is expected, in reference to the first solo flight out of Sedona. Based upon the prior lesson, it seems that after reaching altitude, you have to turn left, then essentially do a 180 as as part of the crosswind leg, going west of the runway, then turning around for another 180 to "join the pattern, to fly to the east as part of the crosswind leg. You then go north on the downwind leg as is intuitively correct and make your landing from base. The picture at the beginning of the exercise does not do that, making just a circle in one continuous direction. As an armchair pilot, I have no idea if that is what would be expected in real life or not. It certainly is not what I expected, especially based on the picture at the beginning of the trip. Is my not making the two 180's the reason I fail? Does anyone have any other suggestions on this first solo flight?

I'm not at my computer at the moment to check on the null and sensitivities, but my recollection was that I left them at default settings. I do recall that I had major problems when I tried to fine tune the throttle (Joystick slider-X), so I'd suggest leaving that one alone. In response to others in the forum, I did fool around with the sensitivities for the other variable controls, but found that a more linear response was more intuitive for this non-professional FS pilot. Others may well suggest otherwise. My set up still leaves you with one button available (#4) for your choice of binding. The Sidewinder does what I need and expect it to do, so if you already have one and after you configure it and it is working for you, I do not see a reason to purchase another one. You might want to spend that money on a yoke or other fancy gadgets, as is well demonstrated in the photos.

On the bottom of mine it says 100-240 VAC @ 1.0 amp 50-60 cycle The controls work with USB, but I believe that the FF is AC powered. However, FS2020 does not recognize FF. There is a fix: https://www.fsmissioneditor.com/product/xpforce/ That will give you 10 minutes free to see if you like it or not. If so, it is £9.95 You will need a specific female end to the AC power line - should be easy to find the right one. There is no "wall wart" with this - just straight from the wall socket. However, in the end, you do not need AC to run this joystick - USB only is fine.

As others have reported, not having the program recognize "old" but familiar joysticks has been a disappointment in FS2020. However, mapping my (and your) MS Sidewinder FF 2 is not hard. Here is how I did it Of course, the force feedback does not work. Hope this helps.

Thank you all. #2 - MSFS bought directly from Microsoft - no second hands in the till. #3 - no VPN in use #5 - this morning what I presume to be a 333.2 MB patch was installed. MSFS 2020 ran this morning just fine - we'll see what happens next.

I have been getting this message for the past 24 hours and intermittently before that: "We’re updating Microsoft Flight Simulator. It should be ready to use again shortly." I am obviously unable to run the program when this shows, although I was able to run things well before this, the usual bugs in a new program as expected. I had a reasonably uncomplicated installation of FS2020 last week. Am running a PC with plenty of power. I have rebooted several times. I checked my network statistics to see if anything is being downloaded (it is not - no more than the usual background activity.) I am not using Windows Insider, and my Win10 is up to date with all the latest stuff, at least according to the systems info. Anyone else having this issue, and any solutions? Thanks.