Hello all,

I'm currently (actually since 2020 and now in the final stages of) writing a German-language book which covers MSFS 2020 as well as three other non-military sims. It will be published later this year in printed and ebook form (I don't know if posting a link would count as advertising, so I don't but if you google my name and the title "Fliegen Lernen", you'll find it).

Most of the book is "how to use the sims" and "how to fly".

But real flying as well as flight simulation is also about community, and I'd like to throw in some "user voices", so to say, to show the community aspect.

And I'd like to ask you for your help in this regard: I'd like to hear your story about the "best" experiences you ever had in _any_ version of the MSFS franchise. "Best" can be "most educating", "most entertaining", "most intense" etc. - everything that shows why you are loving flight simulation, what you make of it etc.

This can of course be related to MSFS 2020, but if you are long-time simmer, I'd also love to hear what you liked in previous versions. How did you grew into the flight sim world and its community? What have been your favorite addons over time? Which people (developers, community members, etc.) do you admire? And so on.

 

I, for example, started with FS98 (not knowing anything about flying back then), got more serious with FS2004, was barely able to run FSX (which made me throw out Windows out of the window altogether and brought me to the 'other' sim franchise, first on macOS, then Linux), but much later bought a new Windows PC once FS2020 was announced and now mostly flying MS2020 (the scenery ... the scenery!). My "best" experiences were finally understanding how and why a plane flies at all (FS2004; in FS98 I poked around very blindly), my first successful ILS-approach, my first full long-haul flight (7 hours real-time - and I stayed awake and in front of my desk the whole. f... night. Landing was awful, since I was very tired, but still a great time 😄 ), ... seeing my home town Magdeburg (EDBM) in photogrammetric beauty in MSFS2020 which _really_ looks very very much like the real deal (which I know from my real flying, which I currently can't continue though 😕 ) ... and just earlier this year my first successful PilotEdge flight (just understanding the often fastly spoken American English was a challenge 😄 ).

 

Looking forward to your stories. Mostly for personal interest, but please let me know if you allow me to quote translated excerpts (about 250 +/- characters) of your statements in the book and which name I should attach to it (none, forum name or real name) - quotes are meant to be printed at the beginning of each chapter (we have 18 chapters) or, in rarer cases, in-between, if fitting to a specific topic. If you're included I'm sure I can arrange for getting your a copy. (It's German language, though).

Thank you!

Edited April 15, 20224 yr by MarioDonick

Hey Mario ! Long time no see... now I kind of know why 🙂  Writing a book requires allocation of pretty much all of the "spare" time...

My contribution:

- Aviation has been in my neural net since the early times of my youth. I remember spending from 9am to 7pm at Lisbon Airport watching arrivals & departures in the seventies of last century. I used to go to the operations room because I was allowed to, simply as a reward from being such an "interested" plane spotter 🙂  The security guys knew me already, and I was familiar with most crew members ...

By that time my preferred aircraft was the 747-200 bought for TAP, and the Caravelle :-), but I also had started to like those noisy BAC 1-11s... the VC-10, and after april 74, the Aeroflot IL-62. 

Those were the years of a True Dream of becoming an airline pilot !

I dreamed of having a model aircraft the kind of those I was able to see at the company offices in Lisbon, and I started to build airplane kits, scale 1/72 and 1/144, later 1/48 too ( up to the early eighties already at the university ).

- As a RL pilot, I got my private license ( ICAO ) in october 1980 - gliders. I still keep it although it is now an EASA SPL. Flying gliders is what I would be doing most of the time if I could, but I'm not rich 🙂

- Flight simulation started with MS FS2, in an Atari computer a friend of mine bought while we were in the high school. Later, already at the university, a teacher who also happened to have a passion for aviation and had a PPL invited me ti is office and showed a MAC LISA where he had a copy of MS FS 3 running !!! WOW ! I fell in LOVE with flight simulators, and it trned out to be so strong that most of my live has been somehow connected to this passion...

- ATP Rev D was probably one of the best flight simulation experiences I was able to get in times of MS FS4. It was way ahead in the simulation of airline ops, and a colleague from the university bought it for me during one of his trips to NY. Wow ! That made me dream of leaving the teaching assistant carreer and try once again to get into civil aviation... I applied for TAP, but had no one to "do the magic" for me, so, it remained again as a dream until when the growing age made sure I could no longer consider it as an option.

- FS4, then FS5 and the interaction with Maurizio Gavioli, Enrico Schiratti, Manfred Moldenhauer and my great friend Carlos Coimbra ( from Canada ) brought a new phase - scenery design in BGL !  I participated together with Coimbra in the testing phases of Moldenhauer's BGL compiler - SCASM. As a Computer Science / Language Theory / AI teaching and research assistant, it was a nice exercise I used at some classes to show the use of compilers for some very practical application - flight simulation 🙂 ( poor students, although some later became avid simmers  as well ... ).

- Next step fwd were Flight Unlimited, all 3 versions, Propilot and Propilot 99, then Fly!  and Fly2!, X-plane, ELITE, Aerowinx PS1, LAS VFR, etc... I kept using MS FS, and then also MS Combat Flight simulator, Janes WW2, and a few more combat sims, just for the detail of their aircraft and flight models. LucasArts SWOTL was a reference ! WOW ! I relally enjoyed that one.

- FS9 and FSX were probably the culprit of my simmer "career" 🙂  I also had the chance to interact with some really great / special people, like Ron Freimuth and Hervé Sors, and a few portuguese simmers who were also into bizz creating aircraft / systems and sceneries ( PTSim being a reference with the Portugal Scenery for fs9 and later fsx... ).

- Soaring simulators were never my beach, although I did appreciate SFS v2 and then v3, later Condorsoarin ( 2006 ) and SilentWings ( 2007 / 2008 ). I returned to Condorsoaring later, but I seldom played it.

- My return to flight simulation was due to the announcement of MS FLIGHT !  WOW ! It had a special Magic on me, and I was so so so into it, dreaming of future developments, that the end result of MS having decided to abandon the Project made me a rather strange simmer - I became "The Uninstaller"....

MS FLIGHT was the cause of my "bi-polar simmer syndrome" 🙂  I never believed again in MS, and in flight simulation offers as a whole. I first diverted into X-Plane, but soon found "good reasons" to smash against it's limitations, just as with Prepared, Flight Gear, etc... I eventually was pushed into Combat Flight simulation and the by then recently released P51D for DCS World. I built a passion for it, then later for IL-2, and even War Thunder !!! I sometimes reinstall IL-2 and play it for a while simply because I still think it has some of the best flight dynamics and overall physics model available for a desktop flightsim.

X-Plane 11 + some really good addons for it , fixed and rotary wing, withToliss and very recently Enhanced Skyscapes being some of my preferred ever addons for that platform, various versions of Prepar3d and FSLabs + ActiveSky, and recently MFS, have relighted my interest for Flight Simulation. The announcement of X-Plane 12 also made me start to dream about it !

Along my journey I had the chance to make some Great friends, mostly met here at AVSIM of which I became a member around 2006 for the first time, or other forums ( flightsim.com, airsim-.net, x-plane.org, ... ), starting with the Portuguese Airsim some 15yrs ago. Murmur ( Marco ), Alexis ( who is now livng here in Portugal ! ), Zulfi ( The Indi Rotary Freak! ), Tony, Devon, Fillipo, Ralf Maylin, and many others, are always a pleasure to talk to and exchange most of the thoughts that glue us to this addictive Flight Simulation Virtual World !

- The Best / Special / Magic flight simulation moments happen whenever a given combination of simulator / addon / flight situation can bring my "airline pilot wannabe spirit" to soaring... This can happen in MFS when using the FBW A32Nx during one of the many short or medium-range flights, mostly between Lisbon and some European airport, preferably under adverse weather conditions. MFS with it's unique World Scenery coverage can make me feel at times so close to "BEING THERE", the smoothness in it's performance with all of that detail, and the quality I find in the FBW A320 can bring it all to a level that really give me some of the best ever flight simulation experiences !

I am very critic of the flight dynamics and systems modelling, but I have to accept that MFS has raised the bar to levels that really pushed civil flight simulation into a new Era !

In X-Plane 11 I can get some really "WOW" experiences when flying a similar route in the Toliss A319. While the scenery ( and I just use default ) can't compare with what MFS offers, addons like the Toliss and recently Enhanced Skyscapes make the overall experience good enough to, summed with the overall better feel of the flight dynamics compared to MFS, be able to still provide great moments of simming, at least while I wait for X-plane 12.

In the past I had such moments too while playing Flight Unlimted 3, Propilot 99, Fly! 2, and specially Aerowinx PS1 and then PSX. But long go those days, and I now have good reasons to look fwd for an enhanced MFS with better FM ( it's coming, so I hope ! ), and X-Plsne 12 with what has already been announced for it.

In any FLIGHT simulator I place flight and weather modelling at the very top of my wishlist. Scenery is important too, OFC, but I can accept that at least the airfield elements that are important for realistic operations are represented. The kind of details that are totally secondary are the aircraft outside graphic details, those bells & whistles regarding pax cain views & details, airport building with people inside... and so on... But I will gladly accept those too, like with MFS provided thy don not compromise the overall performance of the FLIGHT simulation.

 

All the Best for your book Mario !

( and sorry for the long write... )

 

Edited April 15, 20224 yr by jcomm

FS4 hands down. After wanting to be a pilot from my earliest years, fs4 was my first introduction to the world of flying an aircraft myself. I did not even know what flaps were, so a whole new and wonderful world full of discoveries opened up to me, and it sent chills down my spine, nothing ever topped that.

(1) 1983, taking off for the first time in FS2 with scenery that consisted of a runway that grew smaller as I lifted off the ground. No buildings, ground universally green with no texture, sky and water the same shade of blue, "clouds" represented by a white strip at the top of the screen, no external view of the plane, just six instruments -- but wow!  (You had to be there).

(2) 2006, first flight in FSX, seeing tremendous advances in scenery, planes, and much else, really impressive.

(3) 2020, first flight in MSFS, no add-ons or updates, but seeing the world as it really is for the first time in any flight sim --  a jaw-dropping, mind-blowing experience that has been repeated countless times since then and has never ceased to amaze.

 

Just seeing the evolution from FS2 back in the 80's  Flying around in a generic 2d cockpit with some squares and rectangles.  Plain green ground with maybe some roads and blocky rivers.  I remember buying a $10 little thumb joystick at my local radio shack to fly around. 

I've played every version since and now I can fly around in a bush plane and land on the park near my house where I just walked my dogs in real life. 

It is just amazing how we've gone from plain green ground, to accurate rivers and roads plus landclass, to full on satellite scenery. 

Historically, installing FS5.1 from a 3.5 inch floppy into my first dedicated PC. Loading up the 172 at Meigs and flying between the antenna on the John Hancock/Sears tower in downtown Chicago. Oh, that unmistakable crazy simulated engine noise that we all thought sounded so cool. What memories!

Mine was quick and simple...

In 2001 I think, I got a hold of a copy of FS2002 (I was not into gaming at all).  Not knowing what I was doing I got it to install and load up.  There opened a nice side-shot of a Boeing 747 on the runway. I thought "nice, but what's the big deal?".  I must have accidentally moved my mouse or something as all of a sudden the shot panned to get a 3/4 view over the aircraft.  "OH WOW" I said.  The game is in 3D!  Been hooked to this day and work professionally in the business of flight simulation.

Edited April 15, 20224 yr by Clutch Cargo

August 18th, 2020 ........best day ever .

I started with FS5.0 - after seeing a short demonstration by a family friend.  I was easily hooked and have flown almost all the civilian simulators since that point.  This also jump started my love of aviation, and lead me to obtaining my pilot's license and encouraged me to start a great career in air traffic control.  I still use MSFS to keep current on instrument approach procedures which pertain to the area I work ATC in.

Well, since you ask 😊 Ive had some good experiences going back to MS95 ( i thinks). I dont know why i got into Flight Simulators in general but i know i did.

Even back then i "imagined" what it would be like to fly from LHR to say for example Leeds intl airport with real world scenery (especially at night) ....

 

.... and here we are  

So i think my answer has to be (lol i havent got it yet) but tbh when i saw MSFS 2020 was realeased.

Thing about all my past flight sim experiences is that they weren't MSFS so now I feel fullfilled with my best sim yet.

ns

I should also add, that in terms of educating, my background knowledge of aviation all acquired from Flight Simulator accelerated me through ground school and my flight training for my PPL except for those obscure and misleading questions on the Transport Canada exam! 
Aspects of aircraft speed, distances and height for circuit training, approaches and landings were almost like second nature in real life as a result of several previous years of flight simulation. 

Thats very good to hear. I wonder what those obscure questions was .

I think my 2nd favorite experience was passing some exams to pass vfr flights tests in a cessna (FS2004/FS9 i thinks?).

 

Edited April 15, 20224 yr by icewater5

I started with FS2 in 1985 but one moment I remember was seeing FS5.0 for the first time.  I saw it on a demo computer in a Sears store in Columbia, MO -- this would have been in 1993. 

I could not believe what I saw.

Up until that time, FS4, as good as it was -- was all I had seen (and FS2 before it).  Those sims were great for their time but FS5.0 moved the bar.  TEXTURED objects??   What is this?  Amazing.  From that point on I had to buy a computer that could run it (I think I was still using a 386SX/20 at the time, which wasn't really up to FS5 standards) -- and the rest is history.  History repeats itself every now and then, too.

"My best experience ever with MSFS" ... I actually got it to work properly once LOL

Actually, it has been absolutely wonderful since ironing out problems following the last update and every other update.  I am dreading the new updates but all in all, I am very happy at the moment.

I just wish they would put a little more work into VR, particularly with the controllers.

Tony