I agree. In the magazine PC Pilot they have been running a series of articles all about flying twin engined aircraft . This month it was all about flying and landing with one engine out. I was looking forward to putting some of their suggestions into practice but I guess that will never be possible in Flight now. A sad day indeed. :(

X-Plane10 was the next good thing, in terms of flight simulation :-). I am really enjoying it, and am satisfied that in between I had the chance to try FSX Gold like never before in terms of performance, unfortunately like ever before in terms of "railway-ness"...

 

Two points I want to make.....

 

It's still my opinion based on "plenty" of real cross country flight..................that FSX in no way, is like riding on rails. The term "riding on rails" is reserved for FS98, and amounts to doing what an auto-pilot more or less does. Just because FSX is "smooth" by default, it does NOT allow an aircraft to remain on altitude and heading for a period of time. More than not, it's X-Plane that I tend to change settings, to subdue it's natural tendency to jerk it's tail around, or the way it just gets irritating with it's constant movements. And of course, some do believe, that a plane should always be twitching to one degree or another, while in flight. Yet, that's the wrong assumption...........because flight, even in a small twitchy, fighter like responce..........airplane, can be extremely smooth a lot of the times. I DO prefer the "smooth" default settings of FSX. There I times, that I'd quit X-Plane after just five minutes of being annoyed. I have a tendency to eliminate weather settings, and use artificial stability in X-Plane........because I get tired of artificial turbulence as a normal ongoing occurance.

 

Point two...............cockpitless airplanes..

 

Over the years, I've sim flown airplanes, both from the cockpit and from spot view. The fact, that I was proficient with R/C also helps. I fly from "spot" view, for more realism, when it comes to seeing the panoramic and distant views I see in real life. I've always said, that it would take about six monitors to make up for the forward and peripheral vision, that I always see, while flying the real RV6. IMO, sim cockpits are far too limited, to what you actually see. If nothing else, spot view, is just more like real life, in that sense. Therefor, flying out of the simulated cockpit, does have it's advantages.

 

L.Adamson

Why would they? Its obvious that this thing was made with all the cockpitless warbirds. Why put in a lot of extra work to make a cockpit for a dead product?

 

Might spark Flight's revival.

They would not have killed it if they were going to immediately revive it. The absolute best we can hope for is that in a year or two MS may start talking about another generation of Flight or FS. Expect it to be longer, though. And quite possibly never.

 

No FB page "liking" or web forum polls will make a bit of difference on this.

Might spark Flight's revival.

 

You simply dont understand the scope of what it would take to "spark Flight's revival". There is no simple band-aid that would turn this product around. Its not that simple!!! MS and Flight have simply ###### WAY too many of there fan base. The only way Flight could survive is outside of MS in someone's hands who knows what a sim should be. Not some corp pencil pusher that only worries about statistics and "research data".

 

Flight development is gone. Just face it.

 

They would not have killed it if they were going to immediately revive it. The absolute best we can hope for is that in a year or two MS may start talking about another generation of Flight or FS. Expect it to be longer, though. And quite possibly never.

 

Dont hold your breath. Flight was MS's last play to make simming "marketable". They wont try again. Trust me on this. Everyone who ever cared about simming in MS has moved on, and after Flight, nobody has the will to fight for its survival. Again, flight simming is best left outside of MS.

Therefor, flying out of the simulated cockpit, does have it's advantages.

 

But you should still be given the choice. Occassionally I do fly outside the RV or Cub, Maule whatever and sometimes it can be better, like taxiing on the ground so you can see where to go. But most of the time I am inside and I always I get back inside for takeoff and landing. I know what you are getting at though.

Again, flight simming is best left outside of MS.

 

Totally agree with Kevin. It is a good thing that microsoft is out of the flight simulation business. This company has proved themselves not worthy of carrying the torch for the flight sim community. I would much rather see a different company that cares about this hobby its simmers fill the void that is left and make the profit that microsoft left on the table.

how can you simulate operating an aircraft without having a cockpit

 

Just crash it. Simulation accomplished. :o