Relatively new to MSFS (about two weeks), and my first impression thus far is that the default planes are near useless, especially the jetliners. For instance, the autopilot for the 747 and A320 is inoperable and the control's sensitivity is universally bad. The scenery is amazing but there's little joy to be had if you find yourself is unrealistic planes full of glitches. I don't mean to start another wave of negative comments against the sim. For the record, I have been a very outspoken supporter of this platform from its genesis, but given the unending issues with aerodynamics, autopilots and controls etc, I'd join the group of critics who demand better.

While I understand they are the default planes, the game should have never been launched in its current state. We need third party developers to come up with top notch aircrafts.  If Aerosoft, FSLAB and PMDG fail, MSFS is doomed because without realistic planes you do not have a flight simulator. I guess Aerosoft is under the radar as they will be the first to release a complex jetliner.

 

Edited December 20, 20205 yr by Huascar

Try mods! 

Try the FlyByWire A320NX or the Working Title C4 mod. They are excellent and getting better by the day and the price is great - free.

MSFS is a good base and over time will mature in many aspects. If you don't have the patience for it, use the 'other' sims and come back in a year or so.

10 minutes ago, Silicus said:

Try the FlyByWire A320NX or the Working Title C4 mod. They are excellent and getting better by the day and the price is great - free.

MSFS is a good base and over time will mature in many aspects. If you don't have the patience for it, use the 'other' sims and come back in a year or so.

Good point. I will reassess.

The focus of the sim at present is not on airliners and what is available on the airliner side is pretty poor.

What they seem to have focussed on is presenting a wide range of light VFR capable prop singles, some (such as the Cirrrus and the Cessna 152/172) because they are ubiquitous in real life. Most of the rest because each offers something unique -  the Icon has floats, the TBM is a turbo prop, some are tail draggers, some have a CSU, some have glass cockpits, some with flaps some without, others are really basic,  others again are bush planes etc etc.

There will always of course be a few people that see this wide range of different and interesting prop singles as "a batch of almost identical boring slow aircraft" and there is nothing to be done about that. Ironically the same people often go on to request a who batch of almost identical  variants of the same basic business jet or airliner.

It is true the airliner side of things as well as IFR and even basic autopilot have not been a big focus to date  (presumably they see IFR and airline ops as a niche market who are too hard to churn away from XPlane/P3D)  and unfortunately this may not improve much for at least another year.  That is really annoying - but it is what it is.  

On the plus side there are some really good mods starting to emerge for the standard edition default planes. Regardless, if your preferred thing is flying IFR at FL 350 them MSFS is not going to bring you any real benefits over P3D anytime soon - so for now at least you can just keep flying your current hangar of addons in P3d for your airliner fix..

Edited December 20, 20205 yr by Glenn Fitzpatrick

6 minutes ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

The focus of the sim at present is not on airliners and what is available on the airliner side is pretty poor.

What they seem to have focussed on is presenting a wide range of light VFR capable prop singles, some (such as the Cirrrus and the Cessna 152/172) because they are ubiquitous in real life. Most of the rest because each offers something unique -  the Icon has floats, the TBM is a turbo prop, some are tail draggers, some have a CSU, some have glass cockpits, others are really basic,  others again are bush planes etc etc.

There will always of course be a few people that see this wide range of different and interesting prop singles as "a batch of almost identical boring slow aircraft" and there is nothing to be done about that. 

Basically airliner side of things as well as IFR and even basic autopilot have not been a big focus to date  (presumably they see IFR and airline ops as a niche market who are too hard to churn away from XPlane/P3D)  and unfortunately this may not improve much for at least another year.  That is really annoying - but it is what it is.  

On the plus side there are some really good mods starting to emerge. Regardless, if your preferred thing is flying IFR at FL 350 them MSFS is not going to bring you any real benefits over P3D anytime soon - so for now at least you can just keep flying your current hangar of addons in P3d for your airliner fix..

There appears to be a consensus amongst most of you that this is going to take a while. I normally fly IFRs though I enjoy short VFR flights from time to time. Yes, I gave up on the default airliners. Not worth my time.

28 minutes ago, Huascar said:

 I normally fly IFRs though I enjoy short VFR flights from time to time. Yes, I gave up on the default airliners. Not worth my time.

You can still fly under IFR or IFR conditions in the available G/A aircraft if flying IFR is your thing, unless by IFR you mean that you prefer flying airliners. You know when people get their IFR rating it’s done in G/A aircraft not airliners.

It seems to be a common sim-ism around here that people who like to fly airliners, always say they like to fly IFR rather than saying they prefer to fly airliners, just because airliners operate under instrument flight rules but not necessarily IFR conditions.

I agree Asobo hasn't really delivered a great default sim experience.  I'm ok with some systems being not modeled in default aircraft, but the IFR procedure and autopilot functionality should at least work.

The good news is that there are a lot of great mods, if you haven't tried them yet. 

• The MSFS Addon Linker makes it really easy to turn mods on and off without any copying needed
• All of the Working Title mods, the new CJ4 beta especially, new Garmin stuff is en route as well and the WT Garmins will eventually inherit some of the custom stuff that just went into the CJ4 beta.
• The FlyByWire A32NX mod
• There is a GNS530 mod if you have the MSFS edition with the steam gauge C172, or the Mooney add-on from the Marketplace
• Two options to choose from for the Bonanza (have to use one or the other)
  • Robert's Turbo Bonanza significantly improves the Bonanza and adds a Turbo Normalization setup modeled after a popular real world aircraft STC (I'm currently using this to fly around the world)
  • The G36 Improvement Project improves the Bonanza but leaves it naturally aspirated
• The DA40-NGX mod significantly improves the DA40
• The DA62X mod improves on the DA62
• The VL-3 Rotex 915 mod turns the VL-3 into a rocket ship of a little light retractable gear aircraft
• GotGravel's Savage Carbon is great for bush flying with max performance
• The Bush League Legends mod for the XCub is good as well, a bit more toward 'comfort' and higher cruise speeds vs the ultimate STOL performance of the Savage Carbon
• There is a mod to improve the Longitude (by rebuilding its flight config from the ground up using a non-encrypted file)
• Two options for the C152:
  • https://github.com/DRF30q/C152X
  • https://github.com/JPLogistics/MSFS_C152

I think this is most of the big ones, but I'm sure there are a couple more that I missed.

I think we will see some Asobo AP fixes come Tuesday as well.

I had a really neat moment today, I was flying the Savage Carbon at once of the Bush League Legends add-on scenery airstrips, and another player came in and landed while I was parked off to the side...in another Savage Carbon, with one of the sweet mod liveries.  First time I had seen another player in MP with a fun livery. 

Edited December 20, 20205 yr by marsman2020

Yup those are great list of mods.  In fact FBW A32N is getting close to some payware for other platforms. 

This has always been the case for flight sim for a long time. Base sim, vanilla is ugly. uneventful.  Its all the mods and addons that make it inspiring and full of life. Come to think of it, all the different theme simulations out there are the same.  Truck simulator, Farm simulator, etc they all have just 'good' default but nothing great. But its all the mods that keep people around, enthused and inspired for more.  This is why a strong SDK cannot be overstated.  Alot of talented people out there to bring some fantastic mods. 

3 hours ago, Huascar said:

Relatively new to MSFS (about two weeks), and my first impression thus far is that the default planes are near useless, especially the jetliners.

Take a look and give it a go...I think you'll find everything you need to complete an accurate IFR flight....

 

Of course I'm biased towards the CJ4 since I have hundreds of hours invested in it, but the FBW 32NX is a great improvement on the default as well and is definitely worth checking out also. Should keep you busy for a while 😉

 

2 hours ago, Huascar said:

There appears to be a consensus amongst most of you that this is going to take a while. I normally fly IFRs though I enjoy short VFR flights from time to time. Yes, I gave up on the default airliners. Not worth my time.

Ok ... to be more specific.

Quite a few addon devs have been quoted saying the SDK is not in a state where they can bring out new complex aircraft and some have quoted a year as roughly when they expect to be able to release any study level airliners for MSFS. 

Because of this the current options are EITHER default aircraft such as the A320 and user mods to those default aircraft OR  simple aircraft of the type already on the marketplace (Jabiru, Mooney, Long Ezy etc etc) which are sort of workable with the current SDK with a few issues.

 

Edited December 20, 20205 yr by Glenn Fitzpatrick

1 hour ago, marsman2020 said:

The good news is that there are a lot of great mods, if you haven't tried them yet. 

Nice summary of the mods everyone should have in their Community Folder. For me the real challenge is trying to keep up with all the updates to these mods.

2 hours ago, Huascar said:

There appears to be a consensus amongst most of you that this is going to take a while. I normally fly IFRs though I enjoy short VFR flights from time to time. Yes, I gave up on the default airliners. Not worth my time.

Husdcar.

Sounds fair enough to me.  I believe you are flying in the face of general positive opinion.

To be fair, I think you should try all the other default platforms and their default aircraft and then compare like for like. 

IF you prefer all the other default sim platforms and their default aircraft, scenery and utilities, then  "good luck to you"  

The general concensus here is that we are far and away, better off with MSFS (default) and this is something I agree with, despite known bugs and problems.

It is genuinely hard to believe that you have been around for quite a few posts and can still come up with this comparison.

My advice for you is to remaiin with FS9, FSX and other default platforms (whatever is your preference) 

There is a lot to enjoy with MSFS but, if you seek a default platform with comparable scenery, aircraft and scenery (without addons) then I cannot recommend an alternative to MSFS.

Good luck and look after your wallet when seeking altenatives.

Tony

No aircraft to fly? The GA aircraft work well, I have just flown a twin engine Diamond DA 62 from Coventry to Dublin, the aircraft followed the flight plan and the AP worked as it should, after I landed an airliner followed me in an Aer Lingus, I looked up the flight number and she was a real flight on time.

Edited December 20, 20205 yr by Scimiter
new content

At present I am flying the default GA aeroplanes on IFR flights in Air Hauler 2 and finding they do the job okay. To be honest, some of this choice of mount is imposed on me because until a patch comes out for AI Hauler 2, you cannot import payware aeroplanes for use in AH2, which is a bit of a bummer, especially when I bought all three of those Carenado birds specifically for this purpose, but it will be sorted soon.

Having said that, I've flown the default Diamond DA62 approximately 1,200 miles IFR at this point on Air Hauler jobs (and being in Air Hauler carrying cargo, this is usually at near MTOW too) and it has behaved well enough. It is slow to turn, roll out and settle on the final heading when in autopilot NAV mode following the magenta line, but as a workaround, I'm picking a heading about five degrees past where I want to be, turning using heading mode, then dialling that back to the actual desired heading when it gets on it and this seems to work okay to overcome its lethargic turning with the autopilot.

Even this is not much of an issue really, since I tend to not be routing via a ton of waypoints when navigating using the GPS and for the take offs, departures , arrivals and landings, I rarely use automation, because I want to fly the thing myself. Fuel consumption appears to be wildly inaccurate on the DA62 as far as my observations go, but since it is easy to top the tanks off in flight, this is not a show stopper, even if that is not realistic.

These things aside, I can plant that thing exactly where I want it when flying it manually, turning beautifully lined up on finals when doing those close-in 'expedite' circuits with a 'Navy' curved approach and I can grease it right on the piano keys every time; this aspect and the fact that I can do this, means it is far and away better than any other flight sim as far as seat of the pants stuff goes, because that's what you can do in real life when hand flying and this to me is enough to easily forgive other shortcomings whilst we await them being sorted.

So I really don't get why some people are not acknowledging what a great actual flight simulator it is, because it really is excellent in that regard.

Now if you want to talk about ground handling, yup, that definitely needs some work lol, but a good workaround is to choose the rudder assist on the take off roll, which seems to alleviate the tendency for the thing to set off sideways like you've got engines one and two shut down on a 747 the moment you start rolling. 🤣

Seriously guys (and girls TM), fly a few manual circuits in this sim or knock off the autopilot for that landing and fly a visual approach in your A320, and you begin to see where it has a lot of strength, even at this point in its development.

 

 

Edited December 20, 20205 yr by Chock