Return to Flight Simulation after 15yrs absence

[LDR InFlight 52]

So way back in 2005 I was a very keen Flight Sim enthusiast. I was a fan of Microsoft Flight Simulator since 2000 and spent hundreds if not into the thousands of my hard earned cash on a PC, Addons and peripherals. 
As time went by, my passion slowly faded. Adult Life and things took over and my Flight Sim days weaned away. I slowly and reluctantly sold all my hardware. 

Imagine my delight when I saw Microsoft were releasing a new Flight Simulator MSFS2020. 

It had been nearly 15 years since my last virtual flight. My fond memories of this genre were reignited. I always thought MS FSX was impressive. Yes it had its flaws and no machine back then could run it smoothly but it provided hours of entertainment, satisfying a childhood dream of being a real pilot. The graphics were good but I always thought, what will  graphics be like in 10yrs time. 

 

As more trailers were released I was in total awe of what was about to be released. I was genuinely excited. I bought a new PC, got my hands on new peripherals as the simulator launched. I could not wait until the August release date. 

 

And so it arrived. Well what can I say. For someone out the game for 15 years. Wow it is fantastic. I’m brushing back up on my airliner skills. Learning to fly the Airbus A320. My excitement is back and the community forums are on my favourites all over again. Have Microsoft/Asobo done a good job?. In my opinion. Oh yes they certainly have. There are some flaws and some bugs that need ironing out but the Sim is nearly just very nearly “as real as it gets”

I look forward to the updates and patches and third party airports and planes.

the future of Flight Simming is great and I’m glad to be back. 

[ThrottleUp 643]

Welcome back! I know what you mean because I've also been out of it at one time (although nowhere as long as you). A world of virtual flying fun awaits. I dont have MSFS yet and it will be a while but I follow these forums and watch the YouTubes. The game has bugs (as you can see from the many threads on here) but in time they will be sorted out! 

[HighTowers 1,448]

Great to have you and many other 'rekindled' simmers back.  The passion is always there deep down inside even if we take a leave of absence from the hobby. MSFS is very young, and when your young you make alot of crazy mistakes. But it will mature in due time and has tremendous potential. You will enjoy the high fidelity complex systems airliners once they come out even more. 

[Alaska738 8,672]

You're not the only one. Me 2 i stopped the flight simulation after 7 years of abstinence between my job...then with the release of FS2020 i went back to the sim and now i'm addicted lol

I'm glad i haven't lost all my aeronautics skills.

[pjs37 319]

Yeah I had X-Plane 11 and enjoyed a few things from it but my enjoyment in sims kinda died with X-Plane 10 I was tired of the add-ons and the tweaking and all that MSFS re-kindled a lot for me.  I can just go and fly and have fun.

[Little Jenny 317]

I wasn't away from flying for 15 years but definitely a while.  I dusted off the FSX when I saw that a new version was coming out.  Definitely seeing what was coming reignited my interest.  Found my yoke and started looking at hardware to build a cockpit (nothing like trying to find sim hardware during a pandemic and hype over a new version).  So still waiting on most of the hardware but I've been doing some training in the 172.  Loving it more and more every day.  Sure, there are some issues to be worked out (I'm getting awfully tired of the MFD shutting down in the 172 G1000 model).  

Welcome back and enjoy the flight.  😉

[Dillon 2,218]

The freeware offerings is what impressed me so quickly.  I remember in the FS9 days everyday was an amazing new freeware release.  I thought we'd never see that again as new platforms would be too hard to develop for.  This sim has taken off like a rocket in little over a month.  That says it all in where this is headed.  We lost allot of simmers with FSX's release as people had to spend so much time tweaking instead of flying.  From there it became a nitch market over the years.  Now it's back like before.  People are talking about this sim in the FBO, at my job, and even kids at my son's school.  This one is huge.  Welcome back.

[LDR InFlight 52]

Thanks everyone. Great to back. 
 

Im based in the UK and looking forward to lots of UK airports to be released including my home airport, East Midlands. 

I’ve also bought the Honeycomb Alpha Yoke as well as the Thrust Master Airbus Sidestick.

Next on my list is a set of pedals, a throttle quadrant, either the Honeycomb or Airbus throttle release later this year. 
 

Exciting times

 

 

 

[Dharma66 48]

I was away from flight simming for nearly 30 years! Imagine my reaction to this modern stuff!

I’m also like looking forward to UK airports, being from there. Being a professional software engineer, I considered having a go myself, but it seems to be more about 3D graphics than coding (probably should have been obvious), and I have no clue in that area!

[CFIJose 5,486]

Welcome back! 😀

[ErichB 3,736]

12 hours ago, LeeRid78 said:

the future of Flight Simming is great and I’m glad to be back

It is indeed.  Welcome back

[Ricardo41 6,029]

10 hours ago, Dillon said:

The freeware offerings is what impressed me so quickly.

Not only that. What impresses me the most is how enjoyable MSFS is and how great it looks straight out of the box. In order to get that "look and feel" with P3D you need to spend thousands of $$$$. Secondly, the default airplanes are actually quite good and hopefully will become better as more patches get released. Thirdly, the default airports are quite sufficient. Fourthly, the weather and the clouds are heads and shoulders above what P3D offers in its vanilla version.

Again, this in a default sim out a month.

I'd advise anyone new to MSFS to ignore the whining and baying of the complainers. If you have a PC with at least an i5 processor, 8 gigs of ram, and a 4 gig video card, you can run this sim on low/medium settings (and it still looks good).

Get yourself a $1 gamepass subscription and try it out for yourself!