Any advice for a complete noob (much appreciated)

[fvapres 7]

One thing to remember with XPlane is there is no difficulty slider (there is, but it's not exactly a slider and by default, it realistic) which means a good understanding of how to fly is a good starting place.

 

When you have a giant piece of metal spinning in front of the aircraft, the aircraft wants to couter-rotate from the prop (the plane spins the prop and the prop wants to spin the plane, but due to the mass difference, one has more of an effect on the other). This causes a force to be applied on the propeller. Due to the fact that it spins, that force is applied 90 degrees in the direction of rotation. That is what causes the aircraft to veer off to one side. It is called "P-Factor" and is similar to torque in a car (get on the gas hard enough in a high-horse power engine and you could just veer off the road).

 

Another thing to consider is lift. There are two types of it. The first is caused by the air flowing over the wing faster than the air under it, causing a difference in pressure that "sucks" the wing upwards. This is Bernoulli lift. The second is from the air the aircraft is moving through pushing on the flat surfaces of the aircraft causing "an equal and opposite reaction" and is referred to as Newton Lift. The aircraft will not fly unless it has more lift pulling it away from the earth than gravity can pull the aircraft back down again. When you pull back hard on the stick, you cause the air to not flow nicely over the wings and kill the Bernoulli lift and are using mostly Newton lift to perform the maneuver. When Newton lift runs out from the excessive maneuver, you will be left with a aircraft falling out of the sky and have to rebuild the Bernoulli lift by getting the air flowing smoothly over the wings again, which can be a chore when the aircraft isn't pointed in the direction it is actually travelling. AVOID MASSIVE CONTROL INPUTS and you will save yourself some headaches. Small and easy control inputs will make you a good pilot.

 

All aircraft have a speed at which they pretty much start/stop flying. Thicker or thinner air because of altitude or temperature will make this number change, but the rule of thumb is to look at the airspeed indicator (analog ones with needles only) and when you have no flaps, the green arc is when the aircraft should be capable of flying. Full flaps, look at the white arc. You won't take off with full flaps, but you will land with them. If your speed falls under the white arc bottom, you could fall out of the sky uncontrollably.

 

Good luck and never stop asking questions. You'll find most of us on AVSIM are willing to share what we know and some of us are even real pilots that know tricks that help out immeasurably in sim when flying and trying to figure out where the heck you are.

[Redric1970 0]

One thing to remember with XPlane is there is no difficulty slider (there is, but it's not exactly a slider and by default, it realistic) which means a good understanding of how to fly is a good starting place.

 

When you have a giant piece of metal spinning in front of the aircraft, the aircraft wants to couter-rotate from the prop (the plane spins the prop and the prop wants to spin the plane, but due to the mass difference, one has more of an effect on the other). This causes a force to be applied on the propeller. Due to the fact that it spins, that force is applied 90 degrees in the direction of rotation. That is what causes the aircraft to veer off to one side. It is called "P-Factor" and is similar to torque in a car (get on the gas hard enough in a high-horse power engine and you could just veer off the road).

 

Another thing to consider is lift. There are two types of it. The first is caused by the air flowing over the wing faster than the air under it, causing a difference in pressure that "sucks" the wing upwards. This is Bernoulli lift. The second is from the air the aircraft is moving through pushing on the flat surfaces of the aircraft causing "an equal and opposite reaction" and is referred to as Newton Lift. The aircraft will not fly unless it has more lift pulling it away from the earth than gravity can pull the aircraft back down again. When you pull back hard on the stick, you cause the air to not flow nicely over the wings and kill the Bernoulli lift and are using mostly Newton lift to perform the maneuver. When Newton lift runs out from the excessive maneuver, you will be left with a aircraft falling out of the sky and have to rebuild the Bernoulli lift by getting the air flowing smoothly over the wings again, which can be a chore when the aircraft isn't pointed in the direction it is actually travelling. AVOID MASSIVE CONTROL INPUTS and you will save yourself some headaches. Small and easy control inputs will make you a good pilot.

 

All aircraft have a speed at which they pretty much start/stop flying. Thicker or thinner air because of altitude or temperature will make this number change, but the rule of thumb is to look at the airspeed indicator (analog ones with needles only) and when you have no flaps, the green arc is when the aircraft should be capable of flying. Full flaps, look at the white arc. You won't take off with full flaps, but you will land with them. If your speed falls under the white arc bottom, you could fall out of the sky uncontrollably.

 

Good luck and never stop asking questions. You'll find most of us on AVSIM are willing to share what we know and some of us are even real pilots that know tricks that help out immeasurably in sim when flying and trying to figure out where the heck you are.

 

Thank you, I think it's just getting used to the fact this really isn't so much of a game and more of a simulator, slowly but surely, lol, many thanks

[Azone 39]

I am definitely a newb with flight sims . It was Flight that got me interested, just 6 months and 400 hrs later I am looking for more. I want good quality graphics and just purchased a new machine to get there .I just ordered FSX Gold how ever I don't want to be tweaking instead of flying.

 

Is X-Plane the answer? From reading all the FSX threads I think it might be.

 

Can you fly X Plane right out of the box?

[fvapres 7]

You can, but make sure you don't use the default aircraft and think that this is a typical characteristic of all flight models. The default aircraft have been unpolished and raw and several major pieces of data are unknown to the devs, so the default values have been used, thereby creating a 80% flight model. This is typical of all aircraft, but the tweaking by the developer of these variables to find values that are close to the actual numbers is what sets 3rd party aircraft apart from the default ones.

 

The beautiful thing about XP is that there is a demo that is scenery and time limited, but other than that, you can even put a 3rd party aircraft in it and try it if you wish, then take the plunge, deep into the rabbit hole if you wish. XPlane is different from any typical windows offering, so some differences under the hood are to be expected, but keep an open mind and try it out. If you don't like it, great, at least you gave it a shot. Once you get your options set and favorite aircraft loaded up, it will probably result in a longing for more as most of us here can attest to.

 

One last thing about XP10. It is always under development, from now until they cease development of v10 and start v11. That means that any feature additions and bug squashing are possible for a long time yet to come. FSX Gold is a stale product and unless you sink money into the short-sighted aspects of FSX, you will not be able to get what you wish out of it. There is no further support from MS, but XP has possibly years of life left in it before development ceases. We don't yet know what will be the focus of development in that time, but there will be some progress. XP10 was released nearly a year ago and they may have jumped the gun and released something that was not yet ready for our expectations of what we've had, but it is getting to where we all can agree that looking back, XP 10.0 is vastly different from XP 10.10RC3 and in a good way. 64-bit support (allowing more objects and other memory-based programming data) around the corner (maybe 1 month, maybe 3, who knows - it will go through the same beta cycle as everything else), we may get the performance increases or object count increases with little performance hit we're looking for. It may lay a framework needed to bring about features we're all asking for like the plausible world made more realistic than plausible, or an AI framework that supports more aircraft and ATC capability. We don't know. I don't even think that Austin knows where we'll be in a year, but he looks at a list of things he'd like to do, picks the most important of the ones that aren't based on other things not yet implemented and that's what the next patch will be. Get that done, now move on down the list.

[greggerm 312]

Is X-Plane the answer? From reading all the FSX threads I think it might be.

Can you fly X Plane right out of the box?

 

Yes, you can fly X-Plane 10 right out of the box - but in the same way you can fly FSX right out of the box. Both platforms can be tweaked nearly endlessly for performance, experience, control and other factors - tweaking is not exclusive to Microsoft flight simulators.

 

As mentioned above, download and use the X-Plane 10 demo. It's essentially the same exact thing as the full version limited to 15 minutes of flight at a time and a small geographic area up near Seattle. You will get a good feel for what X-Plane has going for it, and doesn't have going for it at this point in time.

[CarlosF 1,239]

Both platforms can be tweaked nearly endlessly for performance, experience, control and other factors - tweaking is not exclusive to Microsoft flight simulators.

 

 

With the difference that in X-Plane you can to tweak it with in the sim using the available options while in FSX you have to find CFG file, then find all kinds of info for tweaking, then test, exit, re-tweak then launch then exit again tweak once more and so on. Then you have to defrag you drive just get rid of of the possible stutters.

 

Both are great platforms, but only one really takes up time just to get it going just right.

 

Also the default baron in XP10 is a good one to start with, it flies great.

[HiFlyer 9,358]

Right, I have had a play around now with Both xplane and fsx ( I'm still bloody useless) but I definately prefer fsx but graphically it's very poor, i know there are lot of add ons both free and costing, where do I start, I have spent ages reading things on the net, and I have to say the more I read the more confused I am. I really am as much as a novice as you are going to get, I bought a nice system to run these sort of games (dell xps 8500 i7 ivy bridge 3770, amd hd radeon 7870) so hopefully it will run anything I throw at it, what do you think are the add ons I need to get to make this game look good and how does it work, if I download something does It automatically update the game, sorry to be a pain as I said I am a complete novice who really does appreciate your help.

 

Should you find that you prefer Fsx, Avsim itself has a an extensive library of free additions to help you enhance the look of the sim. However, just as a suggestion, being new to this hobby and the rainbow of available options, I might suggest going a bit slow rather than diving in all at once and perhaps becoming frustrated.

 

Fsx itself is considered by some to be more forgiving for novices, and the lessons and missions are a good way to familiarize yourself with the basics, giving you a bit more solid footing as you delve into xplane as well.

 

Be aware that incorrect installation of addons can cause corruption of your sim, and many people back up important folders just in case. Being less familiar with xplane, I am not sure if this is as important as in Fsx.

 

The main thing is Just take it slow and don't try to eat the whole pie at once! :-)

[LAdamson 240]

With the difference that in X-Plane you can to tweak it with in the sim using the available options while in FSX you have to find CFG file, then find all kinds of info for tweaking, then test, exit, re-tweak then launch then exit again tweak once more and so on. Then you have to defrag you drive just get rid of of the possible stutters.

 

Both are great platforms, but only one really takes up time just to get it going just right.

 

Also the default baron in XP10 is a good one to start with, it flies great.

 

In all of these years, I've never spent much time tweaking MSFS. I just haven't had too. I also have no interest in downloading the every other day, updates and changes for X-Plane. Some people enjoy all, that..............I just don't.

 

L.Adamson

[GoranM 3,764]

You're in the minority, Larry

 

http://www.flightsim...s-7-tweak-guide

 

http://forum.avsim.n...-guide-for-fsx/

 

There are no such guides for X Plane because any issues people have, can be reported to Laminar and they'll fix them. No need for tweaks.

 

I followed Nick's guide once. Improvements were good, but it took me almost a day to do all the steps (including defragmenting the hard drive several times.)

[LAdamson 240]

You're in the minority, Larry

 

http://www.flightsim...s-7-tweak-guide

 

http://forum.avsim.n...-guide-for-fsx/

 

There are no such guides for X Plane because any issues people have, can be reported to Laminar and they'll fix them. No need for tweaks.

 

I followed Nick's guide once. Improvements were good, but it took me almost a day to do all the steps (including defragmenting the hard drive several times.)

 

I'm going to disagree with you. Considering the thousands, and thousands who have purchased FSX, as well as the thousands of available addons..........some are definately going to want to make some changes. As far as the vast amount of FSX third party addons, that are still being produced, it's the third parties that take care of problems with those. Therefor, the word "stale" as use previously by someone else, doesn't mean much.

But.............considering I've been around the FSX forums for all these years, I don't see this continual tweaking and fly a little bit.........that I hear about on this forum. Actually, I think it's a bit humerous, considering so many X-Plane users are continually downloading the latest and greatest "revision", just to see if things are better or not.

[GoranM 3,764]

I'm going to disagree with you.

 

There's a surprise!

 

Considering the thousands, and thousands who have purchased FSX, as well as the thousands of available addons..........some are definately going to want to make some changes. As far as the vast amount of FSX third party addons, that are still being produced, it's the third parties that take care of problems with those. Therefor, the word "stale" as use previously by someone else, doesn't mean much.

But.............considering I've been around the FSX forums for all these years, I don't see this continual tweaking and fly a little bit.........that I hear about on this forum. Actually, I think it's a bit humerous, considering so many X-Plane users are continually downloading the latest and greatest "revision", just to see if things are better or not.

 

I know sales estimates of FSX. It's not just 1000's and 1 000's, but several hundred thousand. It's a bigger market than many people think.

You say you haven't had to tweak FSX. Just think how well it would run if you DID tweak it. Especially with your preference of aircraft add on.

 

X Plane updates are to fix issues the user finds that the LR team may have missed. They do not "break" an add on with each update, like so many people think. And if they do, Ben Supnik encourages developers to contact him with details of what exactly did break, so he can fix the platform. I'm sure I speak for countless others when I say that I much prefer a platform and a development team that are continuously honing their own product, rather than a dev team that only issues 1 or 2 service packs. I respect the Aces team (I'm actually working with one of them atm), but to not have an open channel of communication with them and not being able to provide feedback for particular fixes, makes it a very limited platform in terms of continuous development. (A moot point, seeing as MSFS is now completely discontinued.)

[Comanche 417]

I think there are people in the flightsim genre who like to fiddle and tweak their sims. I have both FSX and XP10, and spend just as much time on both of them tweaking stuff. I think its because I enjoy that part, just as much as flying. I might be the minority here, but in FSX I had fun just trying to squeeze out a few more FPS. In XP10, I enjoying converting my FSX scenery to work in XP. I also have fun overclocking my system to squeeze out what I can from it.

Many people would find this part boring, and I could understand why, but for me and a few others its another reason I like flight sims. I can see the results of my tweaking. Getting a sim to run better or look better is somewhat gratifying to me.

 

Rob.

[airlinejets 709]

Considering the thousands, and thousands who have purchased FSX

 

Are you sure Larry they weren't millions and millions?

 

Since this is the X-Plane forum, I'll chip in and say, do your due diligence. FSX has gone the way of the Dodo, it is now officially extinct. Third party developers will continue to release products for a while, but sooner or later, they'll move on (probably go back to their day jobs). P3D is moving towards the military aspect of flight and have admitted they have no interest in consumer flight simulation.

 

According to Laminar, 10.10 RC3 will most likely be final and work will begin on 10.20 and the 64 bit simulator. The future for X-Plane is bright.

 

For someone starting out and who is not heavily invested in FSX, X-Plane is probably a smart choice.

[LAdamson 240]

Are you sure Larry they weren't millions and millions?

 

Since this is the X-Plane forum, I'll chip in and say, do your due diligence. FSX has gone the way of the Dodo, it is now officially extinct. Third party developers will continue to release products for a while, but sooner or later, they'll move on (probably go back to their day jobs). P3D is moving towards the military aspect of flight and have admitted they have no interest in consumer flight simulation.

 

According to Laminar, 10.10 RC3 will most likely be final and work will begin on 10.20 and the 64 bit simulator. The future for X-Plane is bright.

 

For someone starting out and who is not heavily invested in FSX, X-Plane is probably a smart choice.

 

I hadn't bought an FSX model for a while. The last purchase (until now) was a Carenado product for X-Plane. Just recently, I picked up the RealAir Lancair Legacy for FSX. This is a "new" release, from one of the best known, and creative third party developers for FSX. I buy from RealAir, because I trust, that they'll always have the excellent flight dynamics I expect (not dismissing XP here. Just keep in mind that FSX is very capable of super FD). Just as the Earth was created so long ago.........we still seem to be able to change it for better or worse. FSX is like the original planet Earth.....and really doesn't need Microsoft's help to farther progress from a pile of dirt. I'd say that FSX still has years left.

 

L.Adamson

[HiFlyer 9,358]

I would think a person would choose the sim that fits their needs. If that's xp fine: and if it's something else, then it's also fine. But I am uncomfortable with the notion of being inevitably moved by simple lack of choice into one direction or another.