Wobbie - If you want some real fun, take a ride in a real Ford Trimotor.

I had the pleasure of doing this many years ago when the "Tin Goose" was the oldest flying passenger plane in the world at the time. I took my son on his first ever airplane flight in it. What a great time until the oldest (I'm sure) pilot in the world slammed it down on the runway fairly hard. My son's eyes got real big.

You can definitely feel what early passengers felt when you sit in the  un-padded seats and listen to the roar of the 3 radials just outside your window. Along with the metal fuselage creaking and hearing the control cables squeak in their pulleys, you are a part of aviation history.  This helped when I flew the trimotor in FS? whatever version too.

As far as I'm concerned, each version has given us an exponential level over the previous. Us old FS pilots apparently appreciate how far we've come.  (Of course not including FSX over FS9).

 

1 hour ago, 188AHC said:

Wobbie - If you want some real fun, take a ride in a real Ford Trimotor.

I had the pleasure of doing this many years ago when the "Tin Goose" was the oldest flying passenger plane in the world at the time. I took my son on his first ever airplane flight in it. What a great time until the oldest (I'm sure) pilot in the world slammed it down on the runway fairly hard. My son's eyes got real big.

Wow, would really like to have a flight in one of those, that must have been really fun. I have flown in a couple of deHavilland Dragon Rapides (of the grass runway at Duxford, so that was two historical thrills for the price of one!) and I've flown a Tiger Moth, all of which are about 1935 vintage. I rememember that on those Dragon Rapides, they had to seat passengers in the rear first when boarding to prevent it from tipping on its nose lol.

One thing above all that you can observe from the many replies on this thread above all, is that we sure are passionate about what flying, and flight simulation means to us, and that's great. So either low and slow or up high and fast, in a Piper Cub or a Concorde, whatever does it for you, keep on doing it.

I ha flight in a Tiger Moth a couple of months back, wearing a leather flying helmet and goggles, it was excellent.

If ever you get the chance, go for it!

On 3/29/2017 at 6:54 AM, Chock said:

Every version of FS has always required us to turn the graphics down a bit, the need to do so these days is nothing new.

Believe it or not, I've been able to run FS9 with graphics maxed out without any issues. At least the way I see it, though, flying is one thing. Taking screenshots and videos is an entirely different situation, and in such instances, I'd like for the airports to look as realistic as possible.

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But then I think....nah..  Just not enough time to do it all..

Yes, that's exactly the point ... I would love to spend more time with my simulator - I have a hangar full of aircraft waiting and lots of scenery that I never could seriously travel to in a lifetime.
But, there is real life outside, my kids, my family, a job, etc. The simulation is nice, but the life with the kids is ... real; there is nothing more real than life with kids. Those among you having kids may guess what I mean.
So, I cut down on the number of aircraft I fly while trying to find a good balance between real life and simulated life.
That's as well a reason why I stay away from VR. I would probably spend too much time with the sim (or drown into it) when being equipped with VR. I would miss the most precious moments with my kids. VR is for later when being retired and my kids are not interested in their daft old daddy anyway ...

Cheers

Frank

Since we are to have fun and entertainment in the simulator with realism as one of the targets rather than towards a professional goal, it is kind of hard to suggest preference of simulation over visuals as both seem to be equally important. We have been reducing sliders in the past but until recently that has always been about hardware limitation to churn out enough performance, but at present it has become issue of software limitation which has its different set of dissatisfactions.

I would love to fly in a Tri-Motor. Best I've don is to fly a Dak C-47TP. That's a turbo prop modded Dakota, in which I actually flew it myself for a half hour.

Our South African Air Force have a few of them. I'm a member of 'The Friends of the South African Museum'. A bunch of volunteers that look after heritage aircraft at Ysterplaat, our local Air Force base here in cape Town.

We also have the only Shackleton MR3 left in the world that is start upable, which we do on the last saturday of every month. We have also a Shackleton Simulator, using the, by now elderly, Shackleton Project model. The cockpit sits on a trailer, & we are using real seats, pedals, yoke & throttle quadrants.

We built it for immersion. It flys by the numbers & we use a projecter for the scenery (Aeroworx South African freeware) & a panel inside for the gauges. It uses a genuine Shack canopy, & is about 90% scale wide to fit on roads.

We know the immersion works, as we watch real pilots 'bump'in their seats as they anticipate a touchdown.

Oh, we are using FS2004!! 

  

A while ago, an Avsim member (sorry, I don't remember who it was, though I'd love to give credit) made a good suggestion - in some future sim, it would be nice if visual factors like scenery complexity and autogen density were sensitive to altitude.  So scenery could be visually rewarding on departure and arrival - and throughout the flight if you stay low.  But if you climbed to the flight levels, it would turn itself down and free up processing power for other tasks.

I'm always amused or depressed by these threads where we all get into religious wars over visuals vs. systems.  And being a visual person (photographer), I get irritated when people talk about "eye candy" as though the things you see are somehow less legitimate than system schematics or the temperature of the hydraulic fluid as it runs past a particular pump.  Seeing things is one of the most profound ways we interact with the world.  It's no mistake that we talk about inspired people as "visionaries."  To me it's not eye candy but eye food - Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Picasso provide nourishment, not empty calories.

I'm likely to wear out my welcome talking about Mark Vanhoenacker's book Skyfaring, but I'm going to do it again here because I'm struck by how much of it has to do with the view out the window.  This, mind you, is from an active British Airways 747 first officer, not a low-and-slow guy.  But to the point made earlier about the crew on final not thinking about visuals - well, sorry, but they are.  The book includes some really memorable - and purely visual - descriptions - of final approaches into Cape Town, Singapore and Istanbul.  And a lot of the poetry of the book (there's a lot) is about how the world looks from the flight levels.  In fact, there's an early article by Vanhoenacker - I think it may be the first one he ever got published - that has entirely to do with what you see while flying.  

I realize that Chock was saying something different - that it's important to compromise and be reasonable about settings in order to have a good-running sim.  But I'd really like to see an end to this kind of flightsim gnosticism where people are so intent on escaping into the physical world and existing in a pure realm of systems and diagrams, or suggesting that it's somehow less legitimate or serious to take a look outside.

13 hours ago, Alan_A said:

I realize that Chock was saying something different - that it's important to compromise and be reasonable about settings in order to have a good-running sim.  But I'd really like to see an end to this kind of flightsim gnosticism where people are so intent on escaping into the physical world and existing in a pure realm of systems and diagrams, or suggesting that it's somehow less legitimate or serious to take a look outside.

I agree.

That flight from O'Hare to Champagne in my earlier post was my first time using navigation aids. IIRC previous sims I had used were much simpler, and relied on visual clues. This was the first time I really got into a 'proper' FS, using those charts at the end of the manual (aah..paper manuals .. sigh).

The visuals were of some help, but that those needles in front of me had most of my attention....

Regards

Bill

Thanks, Bill.  I just realized I should clarify the paragraph you quoted (too late to edit, unfortunately) - I meant to write, "intent on escaping FROM the physical world."  In other words, I'm big on the out-the-window view.

I started on MSFS in 1986 (Macintosh).  Had the same graphics as you did, but in black-and-white.  Really mastered IFR using the needles back then... 'cause there wasn't all that much to see...