14 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I have around 50Mbps now and intend to go full fibre soon. Probably 150Mbps. But I live in a suburban area which makes a huge difference to availability.

Yes, living near a Town makes a huge difference.

We do not have fibre near us yet and we live on an "agricultural holding", so not very likely in the future. I have LTE which gives from 10 to 40 Mbps depending on time of day. Averaging about 20-30.

14 hours ago, mwilk said:

Commercial customers as a rule aren't interested in scenery. They're interested in aircraft fidelity and interaction with the environment around the airplane. Every see the graphics of a Level-D simulator? 

Indeed. Having "flown" into LHR from Schiphol on one, the graphics reminded me of FSX (not quite as real as it gets). However, the 737 simulation was something else.

Edited July 10, 20214 yr by IanHarrison
error

I'd say that as MFS get's fine tuned, as new releases make it more sound and complete, as more developers bring their products into the platform, the less there will be room for other similar flight simulation platforms to co-exist.

I believe X-Plane is a niche sim, with a well defined and strong core user base that probably outnumbers the correspondent user base for P3D, so, with time, I believe most of the P3D users will be using MFS.

Those that invested on the Professional version(s) of P3D and have put a LOT of money into their flight simulation platforms and have a very oriented use for their sim will probably find no reason to abandon P3D.

It's all a question of purpose... What do you use your flight simulator for ? Is it for rw train / proficiency in some types of procedures ? Then if it fits, why leave ?  Is it to play being a pilot ( like I do mostly ) ? Then move to whatever gives you the most gorgeous looks 🙂

8 hours ago, Doug47 said:

One company develops commercial ‘add-on’s’ for real world training. 
One company develops games for gamers. 

i know what I’d prefer to tell my friends at parties what I use. 
 

 

To be honest, if MSFS keeps advancing, it has a real shot at the commercial market.  I wouldn't be surprised if one day, MSFS has completely conquered the consumer flight market, by making P3D and X-Plane obsolete for new 3rd party developers products, that Microsoft considers targeting the commercial market.

The problem with P3D and X-Plane is that the core of the engine is 10 year old.  MSFS on the other hand, is a brand new designed engine, with new architecture.  If you are a software developer, you will know it is harder to add new features on top of old software, if that old software has outdated architecture.  For this reason, MSFS is much more agile and can be changed easier, compared to legacy and outdated architecture from P3D and X-Plane.  So if Microsoft wants to target the commercial market, it will be much easier for them to make the changes in MSFS to make it happen.

If LM were smart, they would be negotiating with Microsoft to license MSFS for the commercial market, to fend of Microsoft from entering this market.  LM is not a software company at the end of the day, and they cannot take on the resources that Microsoft can use at its disposal for software (ie. MSFS is leveraging Azure cloud and Bing maps, something that LM cannot do).  For the same reason, X-Plane also cannot compete with Microsoft's resources.

4 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

If LM were smart

They do seem to be a reasonably successful company.

4 minutes ago, Reader said:

They do seem to be a reasonably successful company.

Yeah, I suspect LM has already approached Microsoft about licensing MSFS for the commercial market. But if the years go by and LM is still unable to license it, that tells me Microsoft is probably not giving the license to LM because Microsoft eventually wants to enter the commercial market themselves with MSFS.

Edited July 10, 20214 yr by abrams_tank

10 hours ago, Doug47 said:

One company develops commercial ‘add-on’s’ for real world training. 
One company develops games for gamers. 

i know what I’d prefer to tell my friends at parties what I use. 
 

 

And yet both are Flight Simulators...  I'd argue the one for the consumer market is probably going to be more appealing in the long run than a commercial product never intended for consumer use.  But if it's about what you are comfortable telling people at parties then by all means let that be your deciding factor.

Quote

  15 hours ago, w6kd said:

MSFS is still just an arcade novelty to me, because I want the ability to fly legit training-like profiles that include flight planning, correct procedural operation of a variety of complex aircraft, IFR approach work down to minimums, missed approaches, diverts etc. 

Can't believe some people are still flying the "MSFS isn't a serious sim" banner proudly.   Seriously?  An arcade Novelty?  I really can't believe people still believe this and worse spread the misinformation. 

What exactly is a "Legit training like profile?" 

What exactly in what you listed can't MSFS do?  

3 minutes ago, psolk said:

 a commercial product never intended for consumer use. 

P3D is the glorified version of a game called FSX 😉.

1 hour ago, Reader said:

They do seem to be a reasonably successful company.

Yes, and none of that is based on P3D.  If they decided to pull it from all consumer availability tomorrow it wouldn't even be a rounding error for them...   Not even a mention of their SW business, don't falsely inflate what P3D means to Lockheed from a consumer perspective, you think they are concerned with consumers using P3D with their 147Bn backlog?  $3Bn between the 3 deals they listed alone plus a $4.6Bn acquisition planned for this year.  P3D isn't even a blip on their radar.  They could kill the consumer program tomorrow without anyone even noticing it's such a miniscule part of what they do. 

Quarterly Earnings Review

Lockheed Martin reported first-quarter results on April 20. Net sales increased 4% to $16.26 billion, while diluted GAAP earnings per share increased 8% year-over-year to $6.56. All four business segments again increased net sales.

The Aeronautics segment increased net sales slightly due to higher F-16 production, while revenue grew 5% in Missiles and Fire Control, 10% in Rotary and Mission Systems, and 3% in Space. On the bottom line, share repurchases and lower interest expense helped boost earnings-per-share growth for the period.

Lockheed has seen accelerating momentum in recent weeks, and as a result the company raised guidance for the remainder of 2021. The company now expecting revenue in a range of $67.3 billion to $68.7 billion, and diluted earnings per share of $26.40 to $26.70.

Future Growth Catalysts

Lockheed Martin has a long growth runway ahead. It ended the first quarter with a backlog of $147 billion, driven by increases in Missiles & Fire Control and Space. Such a large project backlog bodes well for the company’s long-term growth.

Recently, Lockheed Martin has picked up multiple incremental wins that will further boost its growth. For example, in the past few weeks alone Lockheed Martin won deals including a $472 million contract from Naval Air Systems Command, and a $736 million Navy modification contract. On June 30^th, Lockheed Martin announced another major contract with Naval Air Systems Command, this time in the amount of $1.8 billion.

Perhaps the most important growth catalyst continues to be the $4.6 billion planned acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne (NYSE:AJRD). The acquisition will boost Lockheed’s propulsion systems services. Overall, we expect 8% annual earnings-per-share growth for Lockheed over the next five years.

Edited July 10, 20214 yr by psolk

10 hours ago, Doug47 said:

One company develops commercial ‘add-on’s’ for real world training. 
One company develops games for gamers. 

i know what I’d prefer to tell my friends at parties what I use. 

To be honest, if we tell them we use either, they'll still think we're nerds. So personally, I'm not bothered by trying to impress people at parties with that sort of thing, because, I don't care whether they think it's cool or not and in any case, they're probably not going to think it's cool anyway.

The only things I've ever had prove useful from having had FSX or P3D with regard to the real world usage, is that the FSL A320 enabled me to be able to power up real A320s at work when they need power for ground ops such as when the cleaners board them at night to deep clean them, and I once supervising the problematic engine start of a Loganair Embraer 145. It was not cranking up, and was smoking badly because of a tailwind coming through the tailpipe; I told the crew to stop cranking it and we towed it around into the wind; the crew then started the other engine to give the first one they had tried time to evaporate the fuel from it. Because of this, their ECAM was showing a 'rudder hardover inhibit disabled' alert and the crew were wondering why it would not clear as they cranked the other engine. I told them the alert would disappear when the second engine got up to normal rotation speed because until then, the system thinks the first engine has failed and so it gives them full rudder authority to counteract the potential for asymmetric thrust from only having one engine which was running. Sure enough, the alert cleared and we disconnected the tow and waved them off on their way, but just before that, they asked me how I knew that message would disappear and I replied 'Microsoft Flight Simulator mate' lol. That's genuinely true; it was from having the FeelThere ERJ145 for FSX and reading the manual for the real thing to see how accurate in comparison to the real thing the add-on was. The answer is, it is very accurate, as this tale proves. 🤣

With regard to training and military use, it's worth bearing in mind that P3D is essentially an operational scenario tool rather than a flight trainer; i.e. it is for trying out the logistical positioning moves of aeroplanes, ships, ground vehicles weaponry when planning missions and stuff, rather than being aimed at getting people qualified to fly the real thing. i.e. they could have used some Nemeth add-on choppers and a few hastily-modeled buildings of the correct scale to try out the operation where they went after Bin Laden. And for all we know they may indeed have done this, which would have alerted them to the potential for the tail-rotor strike they had when that chopper hit the wall of his compound and had to be destroyed since it was one of the funky stealthed-up versions of a Blackhawk, since P3D can emulate wearing NVGs and such. And it would be good for making a familiarisation video for the troops in a briefing to help them visualise the upcoming operation in terms of where everything would be positioned. But the training they might have used P3D for itself would not have been related to actually learning how to fly the choppers in the first place, more for the kind of things I've mentioned. So yeah, it is a professional tool, but it's not really professional in the sense of getting you up to speed on flying the real things; you can use it for that of course and it is sometimes useful for that purpose with things such as cockpit familiarisation, but it's no more 'pro' than FS2004 in the flight training sense.

1 hour ago, psolk said:

Can't believe some people are still flying the "MSFS isn't a serious sim" banner proudly.   Seriously?  An arcade Novelty?  I really can't believe people still believe this and worse spread the misinformation. 

Yeah as usual, some Avsim old timers think themselves they are "above" other people aka the gamers because they the "hardcore simmers" and others are just the "gamers".  They just can't get over the fact MSFS will be available for wider range of users through X-Box.

Edited July 10, 20214 yr by omarsmak30

16 hours ago, psolk said:

C;mon guys we all know if someone jumped FSL and delivered a high fidelity Concorde for MSFS before it was released for P3D we wouldn't be able to beat @Ray Proudfoot back he'd be so far ahead of us in line!!  😉  

You got that right, 

I have flown real sims used by the Military and Airlines, and P3D is not what I would call a "real flight sim". People like to think it is, but you aren't going to train someone to be a pilot using either P3D of MSFS. It will help in some things, but is severely lacking in other areas. How can you compare something that costs $60 to something that costs millions and millions of dollars, and only works for one aircraft. For those of us who are pilots in the real world, the feeling of flying something, is much better in MSFS than it ever was in P3D. Look at the number of Youtube videos that have been made by real Airbus Pilots, and Commercial Pilots, where they really enjoy flying MSFS. They must know something about flying. 

Edited July 10, 20214 yr by Bobsk8

1 hour ago, omarsmak30 said:

Yeah as usual, some Avsim old timers think themselves they are "above" other people aka the gamers because they the "hardcore simmers" and others are just the "gamers".  They just can't get over the fact MSFS will be available for wider range of users through X-Box.

There were people still defending Betamax long after it was dead, saying that only people that were uneducated would buy a VHS machine. Some people are afraid of progress. 

And why people don't like having the sim updated, is beyond me. The last update has people excited about the better performance seen by many, and the the next one at the end of this month will be a bigger improvement.  What do the "don't update my MSFS 2020, want, to hang onto the unimproved version , so they are  able to complain that their install doesn't work well? 

2 hours ago, Chock said:

To be honest, if we tell them we use either, they'll still think we're nerds. So personally, I'm not bothered by trying to impress people at parties with that sort of thing, because, I don't care whether they think it's cool or not and in any case, they're probably not going to think it's cool anyway.

The only things I've ever had prove useful from having had FSX or P3D with regard to the real world usage, is that the FSL A320 enabled me to be able to power up real A320s at work when they need power for ground ops such as when the cleaners board them at night to deep clean them, and I once supervising the problematic engine start of a Loganair Embraer 145. It was not cranking up, and was smoking badly because of a tailwind coming through the tailpipe; I told the crew to stop cranking it and we towed it around into the wind; the crew then started the other engine to give the first one they had tried time to evaporate the fuel from it. Because of this, their ECAM was showing a 'rudder hardover inhibit disabled' alert and the crew were wondering why it would not clear as they cranked the other engine. I told them the alert would disappear when the second engine got up to normal rotation speed because until then, the system thinks the first engine has failed and so it gives them full rudder authority to counteract the potential for asymmetric thrust from only having one engine which was running. Sure enough, the alert cleared and we disconnected the tow and waved them off on their way, but just before that, they asked me how I knew that message would disappear and I replied 'Microsoft Flight Simulator mate' lol. That's genuinely true; it was from having the FeelThere ERJ145 for FSX and reading the manual for the real thing to see how accurate in comparison to the real thing the add-on was. The answer is, it is very accurate, as this tale proves. 🤣

With regard to training and military use, it's worth bearing in mind that P3D is essentially an operational scenario tool rather than a flight trainer; i.e. it is for trying out the logistical positioning moves of aeroplanes, ships, ground vehicles weaponry when planning missions and stuff, rather than being aimed at getting people qualified to fly the real thing. i.e. they could have used some Nemeth add-on choppers and a few hastily-modeled buildings of the correct scale to try out the operation where they went after Bin Laden. And for all we know they may indeed have done this, which would have alerted them to the potential for the tail-rotor strike they had when that chopper hit the wall of his compound and had to be destroyed since it was one of the funky stealthed-up versions of a Blackhawk, since P3D can emulate wearing NVGs and such. And it would be good for making a familiarisation video for the troops in a briefing to help them visualise the upcoming operation in terms of where everything would be positioned. But the training they might have used P3D for itself would not have been related to actually learning how to fly the choppers in the first place, more for the kind of things I've mentioned. So yeah, it is a professional tool, but it's not really professional in the sense of getting you up to speed on flying the real things; you can use it for that of course and it is sometimes useful for that purpose with things such as cockpit familiarisation, but it's no more 'pro' than FS2004 in the flight training sense.

I was the same way. When I transferred to DFW, I had to learn how to start the APU's on 737's and Airbuses because fleet service was responsible for moving planes from the hard stand to the gate. I used the PMDG 737 to practice as that procedure is more complex than the Airbus.