I hate to jump onto the naysayer pickup truck, but I spent a couple hours in Flight yesterday, and although I'll probably spend a little time in it here and there because I really like the Icon A5 airplane, I'm not impressed overall.My initial impression was pretty good; I started at Kona Airport, and it's a reasonably accurate depiction of the buildings and even the rental car lots to the east of the airport are depicted. But, I was anxious to see how they did with Kamuela/Waimea up to the north, as I am very familiar with that town. I was trying not to get my hopes up, but nevertheless was disappointed to see basic landclass and what I'm assuming to be Autogen buildings (many of which are far larger than anything found there IRL). It's not pretty at all at low level, with nonsensical roads and rough transitions from "town" to "country".Then I moved over to Hilo, thinking that maybe they'd given a shot at depicting the historic waterfront part of the town reasonably well... Nope, more landclass/autogen. Bummmmer.My last flight was out of the Bradshaw AAF base, on Saddle Road between the two big volcanos. I was thinking I'd pop up to the observatories on Mauna Kea to see what they did there, but the A5 will barely get off the ground at (what I believe to be) about 6000' MSL. So it seems they've retained the modeling of altitude pretty well. But at that point I decided to bail on Flight and move over to FSX with my wonderful new Aerosoft OV-10 Bronco -- man I love that plane but that's another story.Anyway, although it's called The Big Island for a reason, it's not that big from an FS scenery standpoint, and I was expecting more accurate (photoreal?) content and more accurate buildings. It's because of this that I don't expect I'll be buying the rest of the islands. (In comparison, the MegasceneryX Oahu product for FSX is much nicer to look at and fly around...)Speaking of buying addons, I really dislike the new Nickle and Dime To Death way this works. If airplanes were five bucks that would be one thing, but $15 for the Maule? Nah.cheers to all,Dave B.

Interesting - I've never been to the big island, but while doing aero cache hunts I was able to navigate to them by finding them in google earth, then using landmarks, such as buildings, roads and yes, even a pool once, to find it. That was pretty impressive to me at least.

Thanks Dave. No better report of the accuracy of the scenery than from someone who knows the area.Overall the scenery isn't bad, but it's far from ORBX quality...

I think the scenery looks pretty nice from way up. I did buy the Hawaiian DLC and I'm not complaining, also the Maule, too (very nice looking plane - the cockpit is very detailed). I'm not a hardcore flight simmer, just someone who fancied MS Flight. I play on a fairly good rig (i7 quad core, 12GB RAM, GTX460 1GB, Win7 64bit) and I use the 360 controller which - for me, at least, works fine. The game runs well at all max settings - some very occasional and briefly dropped frames, but it hasn't crashed once. The planes look lovely - very detailed and crisp. I'm looking forward to seeing how MS Flight pans out - the steady arrival of further DLC is something I like (I'm a long-time 360 player and well-used to purchasing DLC via LIve), but I'm also a member of the C.A.R.S. beta and in many ways I feel MS Flight is in a similar position: just starting out, with incremental improvements over time yet to come. Should be fun.

I think the scenery looks pretty nice from way up. I did buy the Hawaiian DLC and I'm not complaining, also the Maule, too (very nice looking plane - the cockpit is very detailed). I'm not a hardcore flight simmer, just someone who fancied MS Flight. I play on a fairly good rig (i7 quad core, 12GB RAM, GTX460 1GB, Win7 64bit) and I use the 360 controller which - for me, at least, works fine. The game runs well at all max settings - some very occasional and briefly dropped frames, but it hasn't crashed once. The planes look lovely - very detailed and crisp. I'm looking forward to seeing how MS Flight pans out - the steady arrival of further DLC is something I like (I'm a long-time 360 player and well-used to purchasing DLC via LIve), but I'm also a member of the C.A.R.S. beta and in many ways I feel MS Flight is in a similar position: just starting out, with incremental improvements over time yet to come. Should be fun.

Hey,Welcome to AVSIM! Glad you are onboard and hope that you will have as much fun and enjoyment many of us have had here and in our hobby.Kind regards,

Right after I posted my op-ed above, I talked to the guy that tuned my new system for FSX. He's surprisingly bullish about Flight and as a result I'm going to give it another look, and maybe buy the rest of the islands.I also learned that the Maule has an autopilot -- since I didn't see any key/controller assignments for an AP I assumed that Flight wouldn't be supporting such nonsense but I'm starting to think that maybe the assignments lists are dynamic depending on which aircraft is loaded.That all said, I'm still underwhelmed by the scenery things I mentioned. Hopefully there will be aftermarket scenery that will address this for at least some areas.to Noah: point noted about using landmarks to find aerocaches... Maybe I underestimated this sim, but honestly the fact that it's hosted out of the same e-commerce thingy as X-Box titles didn't start me out with warm fuzzies 8^) .Dave.

I must admit that to me, the big island is BORING. Not much going on. The island of Honolulu on the otherhand is just PACKED with detail. I hardly fly the bis island once I got the DLC.

I also learned that the Maule has an autopilot -- since I didn't see any key/controller assignments for an AP I assumed that Flight wouldn't be supporting such nonsense but I'm starting to think that maybe the assignments lists are dynamic depending on which aircraft is loaded.

The Autopilot in the Maule is IN OP! It does NOT yet work, and I dont know MS's plans for it. The rest of the aircraft works great, except the Transponder. Since there is no ATC, there is no current need for the transponder.I hope MS fixes the AP, but even I dont know there plans.

I think the Island looks fine from high up - but I think the missions should have been picked in such a way that doesn't show up the scenery flaws so clearly :( could have been avoided by making you fly higher or something. Or alternatively make the areas you are asked to go to "right" and high quality, blending textures etc - rather than jarring landscapesor do I have a graphics setting wrong ? (all set to high)

Hey,Welcome to AVSIM! Glad you are onboard and hope that you will have as much fun and enjoyment many of us have had here and in our hobby.Kind regards,

Thanks for the welcome. I have this forum newly bookmarked and will be dropping by regularly catch up on any MS Flight chat and news. God bless the internet!

I'm gonna guess you have your texture resolution too low in that picture. That looks lower res then stock FSX and I'd think that can't be right. Or maybe you are dealing with blurries (textures not fully loading) and don't realize it.

I'm gonna guess you have your texture resolution too low in that picture. That looks lower res then stock FSX and I'd think that can't be right. Or maybe you are dealing with blurries (textures not fully loading) and don't realize it.

all settings set to high - running off an SSD drive toonot sure what's with that tree shadow either ? its upside down isn't it ?I'll retry mission after quitting and re-going into the program see if was just a glitch

Edited March 1, 201214 yr by Buckster