1 hour ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

I always liked these intermediate, early glass cockpits, with PFD & HSI on screens, but still enough traditional gauges, knobs and buttons around that so it didn't feel too sci-fi.

Agreed, it’s why the MD-80 and 757/767 make great aircraft for sim use.

There’s a difference between what’s practical for real-world use, and what’s fun to fly in a flight simulator.

In the RW steam gauges no longer sell. Most if not all new planes are or have glass. Glad they kept to that in MSFS 2020.

14 minutes ago, Flyfaster said:

In the RW steam gauges no longer sell. Most if not all new planes are or have glass. Glad they kept to that in MSFS 2020.

So I am a guy in Russia, China, Argentina or Brazil and I have some money to buy a plane.

Do you think Im going to ship it from the US down here? or pay pilots to bring it ?

NEW planes only exist in United States.

All other countries work second hand for private use. Unless you are government or a big company

Do you know how much tax is charged for import private planes?

100% overall tax

In the past much lower, once nationalized the second hand price is market price. Thats why Cessnas 172 from the 60s are still flying

Edited August 22, 20205 yr by kapitan

I propose a compromise - some individual glass gauges, almost like a digital six pack, one of which may be a primary flight display, but if that pfd fails then you still have reliable back up glass gauges with analogue-looking needles displayed. IMO one can spot tends with displays showing needles rather than just numbers.

Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate the whizz-bangs available with a modern glass display - the synthetic vision aspect is great  as long as the terrain mesh is accurate lol, but there's a lot of information to lose IF that screen fails despite claims of reliability. 

I'm still not sure of operating a touch screen in heavy turbulence instead of a tactile lever. 

its like a Tesla car.

Sure, they are common in LA or San Francisco. But you wont see them in Madrid

A lot of people really like glass cockpits.  I am not among them.  At least for flight simming.

I like to fly period planes in period conditions.  By that I mean analog gauges before the days of the GPS.  Preferably with radial engines.

I prefer analog gauges over digital for reasons of my own, and explaining it won't make anyone who prefers glass agree with me.  For what it's worth, I have not flown any of the glass cockpit aircraft in MSFS yet.  I was dismayed to find how few analog gauge aircraft there were in MSFS.

Hook

I guess another issue with using a glass cockpit within a flight sim environment is the size of the person's monitor and the graphical resolution. A screen which is good for displaying steam gauges may make the readouts of the glass display too small. If the simmer hasn't got VR or track IR - i.e. some way of leaning forward in the VC without taking their hands off the controls, then that might be an issue.

In real life aircraft this would be a non-event I think.

15 minutes ago, LHookins said:

A lot of people really like glass cockpits.  I am not among them.  At least for flight simming.

I like to fly period planes in period conditions.  By that I mean analog gauges before the days of the GPS.  Preferably with radial engines.

I prefer analog gauges over digital for reasons of my own, and explaining it won't make anyone who prefers glass agree with me.  For what it's worth, I have not flown any of the glass cockpit aircraft in MSFS yet.  I was dismayed to find how few analog gauge aircraft there were in MSFS.

Hook

Exactly Mr Hook,

many people forget what is the purpose of flightsim. Flightsim is NOT real flying.

If you are a RW lover of flying go and fly, get out of the sim. Buy a plane! Turn a pro pilot if you are young

There will be those that use the sim for training for real life purposes.

A number of simmers do it just for fun, to remember periods of time from the past. Either former pilots, sons of pilots, life experiences in younger years. What draws us to analogue cockpits is not just that they are cockpits with a personality, or challenging to fly, we are driven by memories.

I have no interest in RW flying. 

 

Edited August 22, 20205 yr by kapitan

2 hours ago, ThrottleUp said:

In the real world I would always choose glass since its reliability is a universe away from steam gauges and their dreadful spinning motors, vacuum mechanisms etc. So failure prone. 

You might think that would be the case but I'm not sure there is much evidence to support it. I am now long retired, but my flying career was entirely on analogue gauges and not only did I never experience any kind of gauge failure, but I never heard of anyone else having such an event on any of my various squadrons. Of course it may be that light aircraft instruments were/are more prone to failure than the probably much more expensive versions fitted to military aircraft.

Yes we had pitot heat failures and static vent icing issues on rare occasions, but these also affect glass cockpits as with Air France 447.  The big difference in the past was that we were all trained to deal with such events on the assumption that they could happen. Flying in IFR on 'limited panel'  and 'recovery from unusual positions' in that state was vigorously tested as part of the instrument rating. Modern glass cockpits with superb navigation aids are certainly very reliable, but may have resulted in some loss of airmanship.

 

Never heard of analogue gauges failure either some work decade after decade.

But i did hear about MFD electrical failure, and for this reason many Glass had at least the horizon gauge analogue. 

Today even the backups are electric, which in a small GA could be more prone to failure. Luckily GA never engage in too long flights

32 minutes ago, kapitan said:

Exactly Mr Hook

I'm just Hook.  Mr. Hook was my father. 😄😄 
 

33 minutes ago, kapitan said:

If you are a RW lover of flying go and fly, get out of the sim.

Funny thing is, every real world airplane I've ever been in has had analog gauges. 🙂 
 

35 minutes ago, kapitan said:

There will be those that use the sim for training for real life purposes.

If I were doing that, I'd want my sim airplane to have the same panel my real life training airplane has.  Not a lot of glass cockpit Cessna 152's out there.  How many 172's used for training have glass cockpits?  I have no idea.

Actually, I'd love to train on a Piper J3 Cub.  My best friend did, while my lessons were in a Cessna 150.  I kind of envy him now.

Hook

6 hours ago, Chock said:

It's exactly why I bought the super sexy version too. I wanted a proper 172 with steam gauges.

It’s what I will be getting when I buy the game. MS knows it too. That’s why it’s in that version of the game 🙂 

1 hour ago, kapitan said:

If you are a RW lover of flying go and fly, get out of the sim. Buy a plane!

Yeah, it’s really just that easy! I mean $130/hour to rent a basic 172. Hmmm that seems high. Ok so let’s just buy one, that has to be cheaper, right???
 

Oh look, I can get a perfectly good used 1967 Cessna 172H with 6500 total hours on the airframe, 150 hours left on the engine before overhaul, a clapped out panel full of those beloved analog instruments with radios that work...most of the time anyway... all for the bargain price of, oh let’s be optimistic and say, $60,000....+ $25,000 for the upcoming engine overhaul. + another $15,000-30,000 to upgrade that ancient panel.  Oh yeah, and it still costs $80-100/hour to operate. I’m in! Who’s with me?

1 hour ago, Biggles2010 said:

You might think that would be the case but I'm not sure there is much evidence to support it.

55 minutes ago, kapitan said:

Never heard of analogue gauges failure either some work decade after decade.

Today even the backups are electric, which in a small GA could be more prone to failure. Luckily GA never engage in too long flights

I’ve had 3 separate failures In 3 different planes in the past 12 months. 2 individual gyro instruments, and one complete vacuum pump failure. Vacuum driven instruments are prone to failure, they always have been and aren’t getting any better. With an aging GA fleet, it is not a question of if but when the failure is going to occur. Digital has an outstanding reliability track record, though its record is obviously shorter. That’s why owners opt to replace analog with digital when they fail these days. 
 

I learned on analog and still love the challenge of flying them...but give me digital all day long in the real world. In the sim I’ll take either 

Edited August 22, 20205 yr by snglecoil

Let the thrid party addon race and festival begin, so we can park the default planes in the library never to touch them again.

And guess what 70% of the simmers will be flying around the world? right, analogue planes!

7 hours ago, captain420 said:

Actually that's not true, glass cockpit is much more advanced. They have to get the avionics and technical side of it right. It's the side that you don't see.

And if they did, glass cockpits would be just fine by me..  In real life, these Garmin gauges are high function and high resolution. In MSFS, they are low function and low resolution.. unfortunately. ☹️

Given that choice, I also prefer steam gauges.

Edited August 22, 20205 yr by Bert Pieke