VATSIM: Perspective from the new guy

[zihmer001 67]

39 minutes ago, flyinion said:

Nice find!  I'll have to try that out.  That sounds a lot faster than building it by hand in the sim and trying to find matching waypoints or avoid the buggy thing where it loops you to the new waypoint from an earlier or later point in the plan.

The only down side is it "seems" to mess up the logbook and triplicate entries....one for takeoff, one for cruise, and one for landing.  Not a very big deal to me, but if the logbook is crucial to you it will break your flight apart (from what I saw at least).

 

Regarding looping to a waypoint from earlier or later - I'm not sure that it really helps with that.  What I find that I do is that I enter the FLIGHT PLAN, and then set the Active Leg to be connecting my 2nd and 3rd or even 3rd and 4th waypoints.  This keeps everything in front of you so that it doesn't try to loop back.  If you aren't flying VATSIM you could pause and tweak the plan in Navigraph and keep updating it into the game.  With VATSIM you really shouldn't pause so it makes that part a little harder to do mid-flight.

[flyinion 280]

34 minutes ago, zihmer001 said:

Regarding looping to a waypoint from earlier or later - I'm not sure that it really helps with that.  What I find that I do is that I enter the FLIGHT PLAN, and then set the Active Leg to be connecting my 2nd and 3rd or even 3rd and 4th waypoints.  This keeps everything in front of you so that it doesn't try to loop back.  If you aren't flying VATSIM you could pause and tweak the plan in Navigraph and keep updating it into the game.  With VATSIM you really shouldn't pause so it makes that part a little harder to do mid-flight.

I'm talking about the Flight Planner behavior of where you're adding waypoints in between the two airports and say you're trying to put a waypoint in that's in the middle of say 10 waypoints you already have in the plan and you want the new waypoint to be position 6.  Instead it puts it at position 8 and makes the flightplan line zigzag back to it and then continue on.    I know there's other issues with adding approaches and STARs and stuff while in flight.

[sidfadc 1,344]

Good post!  I started simming Jan 2015, after 12 months I tried VATSIM and about 6 months later I signed up to Pilotedge which in my opinion is another level up.  Flew on PE for a while before taking a break from simming in general.  Nothing beats flying gate to gate With full ATC coverage, so much more realistic!

[flyinion 280]

5 hours ago, zihmer001 said:

The only down side is it "seems" to mess up the logbook and triplicate entries....one for takeoff, one for cruise, and one for landing.  Not a very big deal to me, but if the logbook is crucial to you it will break your flight apart (from what I saw at least).

 

Regarding looping to a waypoint from earlier or later - I'm not sure that it really helps with that.  What I find that I do is that I enter the FLIGHT PLAN, and then set the Active Leg to be connecting my 2nd and 3rd or even 3rd and 4th waypoints.  This keeps everything in front of you so that it doesn't try to loop back.  If you aren't flying VATSIM you could pause and tweak the plan in Navigraph and keep updating it into the game.  With VATSIM you really shouldn't pause so it makes that part a little harder to do mid-flight.

Apparently I missed the G1000 part.  Just tried this in the a320 (flybywire project in case it matters) and it wouldn't actually load the plan in the FMC.  Oh well.

[zihmer001 67]

32 minutes ago, flyinion said:

Apparently I missed the G1000 part.  Just tried this in the a320 (flybywire project in case it matters) and it wouldn't actually load the plan in the FMC.  Oh well.

I believe that Navigraph has a separate FMC loader utility. That may help with this? If you explore it, please let us know how it does or doesn’t work. 

[flyinion 280]

40 minutes ago, zihmer001 said:

I believe that Navigraph has a separate FMC loader utility. That may help with this? If you explore it, please let us know how it does or doesn’t work. 

They have a utility that will sync your addons with the latest navdata.  Simbrief has a utility that downloads plans.  The navdata thing for MSFS is in beta and I haven't tried it.  Also, I did figure out how to load stuff in the FMC of the A320.  It works the same, it was just user error.  Instead of choosing just an airport and starting gate, I chose a destination as well, but had left it on VFR and clicked Fly Now.  Once I restarted with just a gate and no destination it worked!  I had to add the departure and arrival stuff again, but that seems to be because the sim's navdata doesn't match Navigraph. 

 

For example planning into KSEA 16R or 16C or actually even 16L you can use the HAWK arrival so I had set it up for that with the "Vashon" transition to RNAV 16C approach and it swept right across to the approach.  The sim didn't like that and wouldn't offer HAWK at all for 16C.  It offered it for 16L/R but not with the Vashon transition I had to pick one that was on the north side of Seattle a few miles out of the way.  So that's an example of Navigraph either just having newer data, or the sim not having complete data.  Trying to use that approach transition in Navigraph it couldn't link up to it and gave a dashed line (so maybe I just picked the wrong STAR overall who knows).

[Boomer 1,619]

VATSIM is a blast but MS2020 is not ready for it.

[Ricardo41 5,954]

On 9/22/2020 at 1:34 PM, vcarlo said:

If possible, strongly consider purchasing the FMS Data and Charts for Flight Simulation from navigraph.com . You can even start by getting a one month subscription and cancel anytime if it's not for you.  Not only will you always have up to date Navdata for VATSIM navigation, but you will also have an awesome "moving map" that projects your aircraft location directly on a chart of your current location which prevents you from ever being "lost" at a large airport ! 😀  https://navigraph.com/home

I tested the subscription but never found much of a use for it. 

1. I don't fly online. 
2. I can find most of the charts online
3. MSFS has a nice inbuilt moving map that I can easily activate from the toolbar at the top of the screen. 

[flyinion 280]

45 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

I tested the subscription but never found much of a use for it. 

1. I don't fly online. 
2. I can find most of the charts online
3. MSFS has a nice inbuilt moving map that I can easily activate from the toolbar at the top of the screen. 

MSFS can't overlay charts on your route, finding most charts online depends on where you actually fly.  If I ever go touring through asian countries I expect finding websites I can understand to download them from will be very challenging.  I'm not flying online right now either (as far as something like Vatsim) but I still find Navigraph really useful and saves me time vs what I used to have to do to hunt charts down when not flying in the US.

[Ricardo41 5,954]

1 hour ago, flyinion said:

MSFS can't overlay charts on your route

I fly mostly with the TBM 930 and the Citation Longitude. Once I load and activate an approach in the G3X or the G5X it is displayed on the MFD. For the additional guidance, I use the inbuilt VFR Map.

Now, if Navigraph could find a way to integrate their charts into the Garmins, I'd be all over it like the DEA on Pablo Escobar.

[BillC 135]

Having Vatsimmed for over 16 years I maybe look at MSFS in a different way to a lot of people on here. I just see it as a platform on which the quality add-ons will be built that will turn it into a proper Vatsim simulator.

As it stands I am using it for VFR on Vatsim but not even considering big-tin IFR because the default aircraft just aren't up to doing the job properly (and they won't ever be). I'm waiting for the PMDGs and similar standard addons which will take MSFS to the next level. Even VFR'ing I find every flight I am crying out for quality add-on aircraft that don't require workarounds and just do the basics properly without being hamstrung by inadequacy.

It will come to pass and MSFS is the future but for the moment there are a lot of things it can't or won't ever do with default aircraft that inhibits the full Vatsim experience. We'll get there but it won't be this year or even next. . Much patience required but in the meantime learning all the tweaks and tips with the new platform.

Edited September 25, 2020 by BillC

[Andreas Stangenes 1,628]

Navigraph will not fix the issue with ILS including transitions because that is a bug in the sim itself. Its coded so that whenever there is a transition available to an approach (ie ils), it will pick the first one available in alphabetical order and combine it with the ils. That will overwrite parts of the star. This is hardcoded into the sim, and the devs over at navigraph say that they have a stable release candidate for navigraph for msf2020, but they dare not release yet because of the bugs in the sim. Asobo needs to fix this. 

[zihmer001 67]

Took me a little longer than I had hoped for, but I made a video of an "easy" IFR flight in VATSIM.  It is in 4k, but still waiting on YouTube to get it over 360p (so if video isn't very good that is why).  I set up chapters for anyone that just wants to go straight to my interactions with ATC.  If you have any questions, let me know and I hope that this is helpful to at least someone!

Also - if the guy running Washington Center sees this, you rock and thank you!