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Hirgab

Anyone here refuse to fly online? If so, why?

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All been stated.- AI- Limited coverage- Difficult to understand the controllers when there is coverage- Limited patience for those that aren't "pros".- Too restrictive.- Required add-ons are a pain to learn, and a paint to keep working correctly.All adds up to far too many downsides for me.
1) I can see plenty of AI when I'm flying online2) Agreed, can be an issue as I stated above3) You're a pro then I take it? There's always an opportunity to learn, whether it be rw aviation or virtual :)4) How is it restrictive? All aircraft types are accepted. If you want to do barrel rolls with your friends, offline or gamespy is the place for that lol!5) Let's see for vatsim you need Squawkbox 4 OR FSInn, and of course flight sim ;) So basically you have one extra piece of software. There are forums for vatsim if you need help, or just ask, there are lots of guys around here that fly online.
and someone said "hard to understand what ATC is saying" - you think it's better in real flight? I was really having a hard time understanding what ATC was saying... that said, my Sennheiser headset is really good and I understand online ATC really well.
100% agree with this - I work rw traffic and let me tell you, sometimes it's impossible to understand pilots. Crappy headsets, crappy avionics, turbulence, weather, confidence level of pilot. Not to mention my side of the mic - crappy headset, distance and position of our ground transmitters to the aircraft, stuff breaking... the list goes on. If you feel the computerized voice of FSX or RC4, PFE etc is better than a human, you're missing the fun of a human interaction.

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Oh yeah, and downsides (or problems, if you want) are all in your head.One of the things I've learned on our last seminar: problems are in your head, you create them. Problems are not in the world. It's only your perspective of things. And only you can influence it.

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On principle I'm interested in trying it but unfortunately I have cockpit security issues (cat intrusions) that require pausing the sim, so my setup isn't ideal. Sticking with RC4 for my IFR and FSX ATC for my VFR.

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On principle I'm interested in trying it but unfortunately I have cockpit security issues (cat intrusions) that require pausing the sim, so my setup isn't ideal. Sticking with RC4 for my IFR and FSX ATC for my VFR.
This is a valid point! I absolutely hear where you're coming from because I became a daddy just a few months ago. Sometimes I just have to disconnect :)

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Cats are pretty intelligent, dogs too, you should employ your cat as a co-pilot. I let one of my dogs be my co-pilot all the time, he is good at flying dog leg courses.Al


Alan Bradbury

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Last night I flew ZGSZ to OMSJ. I really don't think there would have been any coverage, at any time of the day, or any day of the week. However, my RC was there and ready to go, with one little click of an icon!!Also, I don't use a mic on a computer!

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Last night I flew ZGSZ to OMSJ. I really don't think there would have been any coverage, at any time of the day, or any day of the week. However, my RC was there and ready to go, with one little click of an icon!!Also, I don't use a mic on a computer!
You could of course have flown it online with RC and AI as well and turned off RC if ATC somehow showed up (altho I do agree that it is unlikely that you'll find ATC at weird places, especially during off-hours)

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3) You're a pro then I take it? There's always an opportunity to learn, whether it be rw aviation or virtual :)
I'm not a pro, that's my point. If you screw up or don't repond in what is deemed as a reasonable time you get a less than favorable response. My point stands.
4) How is it restrictive? All aircraft types are accepted. If you want to do barrel rolls with your friends, offline or gamespy is the place for that lol!
It's restrictive because offline I can fly as I wish. Choose my current flight level, change it if I wish, select a runway, choose another if I wish regardless of what the controller wants.
5) Let's see for vatsim you need Squawkbox 4 OR FSInn, and of course flight sim ;) So basically you have one extra piece of software. There are forums for vatsim if you need help, or just ask, there are lots of guys around here that fly online.
I've had a number of issues with FSInn. Conflicts with other software, disconnects, stops working, etc. I don't need another link in the chain to break.
I work rw traffic and let me tell you, sometimes it's impossible to understand pilots. Crappy headsets, crappy avionics, turbulence, weather, confidence level of pilot. Not to mention my side of the mic - crappy headset, distance and position of our ground transmitters to the aircraft, stuff breaking... the list goes on. If you feel the computerized voice of FSX or RC4, PFE etc is better than a human, you're missing the fun of a human interaction.
Just because the fact that having difficulty in hearing the controller is realistic does not suddenly make that an enjoyable fact. The whole point is to be able to effectively communicate the instructions, not play the "huh?" game back and forth.All this is just my opinion, and devout fans of online flying have always had a similar reaction when I state this preference. The beauty of this hobby is we have options and are all free to choose what we prefer, and can call enjoyment.

- Aaron

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I have found VATSIM coverage areas are actually pretty good in both Europe (in particular the UK, Swedish airspace, and Germany) and the USA depending upon time zone prime-time and fly-in's etc. Canada is very well covered too.I am not quite sure what there is to "refuse" regarding online flight as it is totally optional and being a sim one can enjoy it as you like. Personally I tend to do 95% of my flights with X-Plane on VATSIM (namely because the built-in ATC is laughable and the XSquawkbox plug-in is completely unobtrusive). With FSX I suppose I am now about 50-50 depending on if I wish to see my Ultimate Traffic stuff flying around and if I can stand the FSInn UI that does seem to affect framerates a bit although you can totally minimize the UI to a tiny single column strip and park it out of the way. Without exception I have found the volunteer controllers on VATSIM to be extremely professional at what they do and they work hard to learn that aspect of our simulator hobby. I also enjoy hearing the "real" chatter and practicing my various "hello's, thank you for great service etc" in ten different languages just to be friendly :(.Then again I don't normally "fly" more than 3 hours max for my routes and when I am on call for my real world job I avoid online flight as I need that "pause" button-it can be real frustrating to be on final and have the bleeper go off.I guess after this little ramble the best suggestion I could make is don't knock it until you have tried it!p.s. If I might suggest routings that have almost nightly coverage in EU prime time check out legs between London-area airports and Sweden (ESSA) or Germany. In the USA the PNW area from KSEA/CYVR is usually covered as well (nice for the ORBX junkies I imagine) and I think the Moncton folks are there daily too (do they ever sleep? lol).Remember you can always have fun by requesting VFR flight-following or touch n go's or whatever-online flight is not remotely restricted to IFR long haul. And even with no ATC about you can still practice all your procedures and communicate intentions with fellow pilots. Just my two cents/pence/currency of choice.


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I've flown quite some hours on vatsim and I fully recognize your complaints.Both SB and FSinn suck mayor ***:-Both kill FSAA-SB crashes with player.cpp errors-FSinn causes problems with wilco 737 etc.Let's hope the new client will be released anytime soonAlso, coverage isn't always great. Unlike some say, i think europe's coverage is actually better. Especially UK.Because the distances is so much smaller the chance of short-haul flights with ATC is bigger.And there are plenty of events btw.

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One thing that we all also need to remember is that it is 100% Free to use VATSIM. So for the price we cant beat the value! How is VATSIM staffing done? I mean are the controllers assigned certain times/airports/centers to work or is it random? If it is random, perhaps assigned schedules/airports/centers ect may help with the coverage issue. Jim


Jim Wenham

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I tried Vatsim once in FS9. Whilst I think the concept is very clever, I personally didn't like it. I can't be bothered with it - I enjoy the freedom in FS of going where I like, when I like and in what I like. Also it's the whole XBox Live/Playstation Network thing all over again - half of the voices on it sounded like whining 10 year olds.Regards,Tom Wright


Tom Wright

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All been stated.- AI- Limited coverage- Difficult to understand the controllers when there is coverage- Limited patience for those that aren't "pros".- Too restrictive.- Required add-ons are a pain to learn, and a paint to keep working correctly.All adds up to far too many downsides for me.
+1Also--I like time acceleration for long flights.I tried--I did not like--will never do again.Them-"Delta 999 go around"Me-"Nah I gotta go to the store in a few minutes"

Jim Atkins

 

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Cats are pretty intelligent, dogs too, you should employ your cat as a co-pilot. I let one of my dogs be my co-pilot all the time, he is good at flying dog leg courses.Al
My two are off the scale, even by cat standards (they're both good at engineering and one is tool-using). But they tend to arrive in the cockpit with their lists of demands and I'd get worn out having to dial in 7600 and divert all the time...

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I fly online with RC4 and or PFE, when their is no coverage, keeping in mind that I have to keep my own separation for others that are online and if real atc come on I follow their instructions of course. I really got sick of my dumb AI, I spend most of the time zapping anyways, they are not worth the fps to me.biggrin.gif


 

 

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