How often do you fly default planes?

[Joe Long 0]

I fly the 172 .  Its one of my favorite aircraft.

 

Otherwise, all payware, especially the Aerosoft Airbus Extended X, and the Aerosoft Twin Otter X.  

[TracyQ 2]

Never, really.  Nothing wrong with the default,  just that most payware (and a lot of freeware) is so much better,  IMHO.

 

 I would put around in the default 172 sometimes,  but since A2A's Skyhawk came out...Well...

[CoolP 283]

I have two gazillion hours in the Trike. :ph34r: That's from always starting with it, wanting to load a more detailed plane but then thinking 'meh, lets takeoff from here, right here, right now'. Later, I flew around a new scenery for an hour, scared sheep and old ladies, chased the AI planes (they hate me) while never having left the area.

 

I'm glad I've prepared a detailed flight plan and fuel calcs though. :mellow:

[ryanbatc 12,914]

I only use the Cessna for positioning other aircraft in slew mode and for loading more complex add ons but for flying, none.

 

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk

Same... My default flight is stock 172 cold n dark.

[spilok 1,139]

I like the 172, the Airbus 320, and the 737.  YES, I do.

 

Stan

[mangistar 0]

Only payware, the reason is simple, they are far better

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

 

 

If I buy a new scenery or airport ill hop in the trike or the f-18 to check it out but that's the only time ill use default.

 

LOL, same here. I usually just use the trike since that is the plane that loads by default. 

 

I've got a lot of the time in the trike using it just to check out a scenery I just bought or something I need to check in the sim after changing something. Other than that I never fly defaults, there just to bad compared to payware or even some freeware.

 

Actually, I take that back. I fly the default Jet Ranger from time to time, that's it though.

[Alan_A 1,650]

Same... My default flight is stock 172 cold n dark.

 

Same here.

 

Actually, when I first loaded up the A2A 172 it was a bit of a shock - my first reaction was, "it looks just like default!"  Obviously, it doesn't - after a few minutes the differences started to emerge, and it's a whole different (and much more rewarding) experience.  But that first impression reminded me that MS did a pretty good job with the default Skyhawk - more than decent look and feel for something that came free with the program.  It's not my aircraft of choice by any means, but it's not terrible.

[tgenius 2]

Considering the crazy amount of cash Ive spent on payware planes, theres no chance I would be spending any FSX time playing the low quality default planes.

[Bigmack 30]

I use the default beech for cold and dark loading and positioning. The rest I removed so never.

[ematheson 19]

.....theres no chance I would be spending any FSX time playing the low quality default planes.

 

Well, we shouldn't expect payware quality of them, since they were built as part of the release, so they predate the payware curve - which took a while to get established, since (as an observer), it seemed there was an initial period of experimentation while developers played with the new SDK and released things as payware that perhaps now would not be considered good.

Besides, as I pointed out in my post above, there are some planes released as default for which no better version exists, even now. One would think that an iconic plane like the Curtiss Jenny would have a payware version right now, but the FS9 default version is still arguably the best out there. Although native FSX versions have been compiled, they don't alter the geometry or textures significantly... The reason for this, I believe, is that (while now dated in design), for much of the FS9 era, they were up to par for a plane of that size.

I do believe that since the FS community is so focused on addons and whatnot, especially seeing how far the sim framework has been pushed, we tend to forget that the original dev team that assembled FS9 and FSX really did a lot of hard work and achieved things that were very nice and quite high quality. Nor should we forget that for the creation of FSX Acceleration, they subcontracted various parts of the development out to community dev teams that were then of quite high stature (though they may not be so now, they were then). They did good work for the era and the Acceleration planes, though now dated and superceded by newer realeases, were at the time up to the standards of the era, if not greater due to the new features they were designed to take advantage of. Captain Sim did the FSXA FA18 exterior and the P51D interior(?), Cloud 9 Simulations did the FSXA FA18 interior - which is just full of features and details that were not documented, but could be found at the Cloud 9 forums while they were still open. I forget who did the EH101 and the P51D exterior - but those, too were do by community payware developers.

 

So, I think it is wrong to say that the default planes are of low quality - just wrong. Many of them are of very high quality. The only problem with them is their age and the dismissive simmer culture.

 

Disclaimer: While I do keep some default planes installed (the ones I have mentioned, primarily, though I also enjoy the Robinson R-22 as well. I do not use the Acceleration FA18 as I have the VRS Superbug, and there are nicer Mustangs out there, just as there are nicer Cessnas, Cubs, etc. But there is no replacement for the Jenny or the DH.88 - and the Trimotor is nice, too.), most of my install is non-stock. I've replaced all the scenery - vector, mesh, autogen, textures, landclass, sky and weather, etc, along with scads of addon airports, removed the stock ATC and AI, swapped out most of the planes with payware and freeware, etc. My defense of the stock sim does not state that addons are wrong or unnecessary - I only mean to state that our frequently dismissive attitude toward the stock sim is inappropriate and respect is due where it is deserved.

[fppilot 4,389]

Been off an on with MSFS since the inception and in the past 10 years at least I have not flown even an hour in default planes.  The add on models from FSD, Carenado, and MilViz were known to me prior to my installation of FS9 and FSX. I flew significant hours with the PMDG 737 in FS9.  Prior to that I was using Pro Pilot and prior to that subLogic's ATP:Flight Assignment.  I also spent some time with Fly, but cannot recall the time interval.

[smpetty 6]

I think the stock Maule is one of the best VFR airplanes in the sim, free or payware. It gets equal billing with The Cessna L-19 BirdDog, the A2A C172, the RealAir Scout, and the A2A J3 Cub when I want to go low and slow... which is always :-)

[metalmike 34]

The only time I fly a default is when I install a new scenery and I just want to see how it looks. I'll just take the default Cessna up around the airport in a circle or two.

[rjmcgill 15]

Can't remember the last time I loaded one for any reason to be honest.