Imagine this: you board a plane, sit beside the virtual pilot, and watch him fly the plane: cold start, taxiing, take off, climb, traffic pattern, auto pilot, VOR navigation,  ILS landing, etc. When doing these things, the virtual pilot can also explains what he is doing, and the instruments can be highlighted accordingly. You can take over if you are confident enough, or just watch the virtual pilot doing these, or just look at the beautiful view out side the window, or walk to the passenger compartment to meet some beautiful air hostesses. The flight plan can be set to some most scenic route of the world, so you can focus on sightseeing, or taking pictures from whatever angles you like without worrying about losing controls. It's all about relax, freedom, tourism, and some kind of flight tutorial.

I know there are a lot excellent tutorials on Youtube, but we can't sit beside the pilot and turn our head or walk about freely. There are also tutorial missions such FS Academy, but you have to be the pilot and nervously follow the instructions, and you don't have much freedom to enjoy the view of the scenery either. There are other missions, and you have to fly the plane and you can't relax and escape the duty either. Can we combine all these, and have a more free and interactive "leisure + tutorial + sightseeing mode"? I think there is quite a big market for this mode. The newbies would love this. Even the experienced simmers can take advantage of this for learning and sightseeing in more relaxed ways. 

I'd like to pay up to $10 for such a mission, if it's good enough. What do you think?

Excellent idea !

Could feed the thoughts of some developers and, become a really interesting use for MFS !

Thanks for the suggestion. Add me as a potential customer. I would *love* to enjoy this.

Kind regards, Michael

Do the inbuilt ai piloting capabilities (not 100% sure how its called) not cover most of these requirements?

12 minutes ago, mrueedi said:

Do the inbuilt ai piloting capabilities (not 100% sure how its called) not cover most of these requirements?

I don't think so. These lessons are strictly on different aspects of learning to fly, similar to a flying school, under given situations and with the goal to earn achievements. The idea of the OP, as far as I understand it, is something providing much more freedom, with switching between sightseeing and piloting at will and without the strict requirement to collects scores.

Kind regards, Michael

When I tried the ai pilotting, I made a flight plan between any two points, jumped into the aircraft, opened the flight assistant popup, enabled the AI PILOTING slider, and that was it! Fully automated my little C152 flew for about 45 minutes from the departing airport to the destination. The arrival pattern was strange (= totally unrealistic) but in principle it worked:

5 minutes ago, mrueedi said:

When I tried the ai pilotting, I made a flight plan between any two points, jumped into the aircraft, opened the flight assistant popup, enabled the AI PILOTING slider, and that was it! Fully automated my little C152 flew for about 45 minutes from the departing airport to the destination. The arrival pattern was strange (= totally unrealistic) but in principle it worked:

I doin't think either that's what the OP (exactly) has in mind, but it's remarkable and nice to know it works. I never tried this yet.

Kind regards, Michael

As someone who learns better and faster by watching than reading, I see this as a good idea. Sitting next to someone while he goes through various procedures has an appeal.

Put me down as a plus 1

Great idea.  I have been thinking along these lines for several weeks, although I was thinking of a flight instructor, like you were taking flying lessons.  He would set in the co-pilot's seat and verbally guide you through the flight, pointing out all the switches and controls, until you became proficient and could solo.  Kind of a virtual flight school. You could pick the airplane that you wanted to learn how to fly.

The problem I have with YouTube, is something is explained and then I have to go back to the sim and push the button, then play a little more of the video, and go back and do that.  Something like this would give you a free flow with the flight.

Roy

Thank you all for the support. When he is not explaining his operations, the virtual pilot can also act as a tour guide introducing famous landmarks, as the real pilot does when flying a sightseeing plane.

Technically this is not hard to implement. It’s basically a pre-recorded flight that is done by a professional pilot, adding some voiceovers and highlights to the instruments, which can also be turned off if you want just peace.

Oh, imagine this in VR!

Great idea!  The ultimate virtual classroom.  Would be great for a certain complex MD-80.

Very good idea. I'm not doing much mission flying but this suggested "leisure + tutorial + sightseeing mode" I would enjoy.
 

On 5/3/2022 at 4:25 AM, mrueedi said:

When I tried the ai pilotting, I made a flight plan between any two points, jumped into the aircraft, opened the flight assistant popup, enabled the AI PILOTING slider, and that was it! Fully automated my little C152 flew for about 45 minutes from the departing airport to the destination. The arrival pattern was strange (= totally unrealistic) but in principle it worked:

This is an interesting alternative to my idea. The biggest problem is that AI piloting is still very buggy. I tried several planes and they never avoid mountains and always crashed onto it. Really wish this could be improved.

10 hours ago, yanfeng12342000 said:

This is an interesting alternative to my idea. The biggest problem is that AI piloting is still very buggy. I tried several planes and they never avoid mountains and always crashed onto it. Really wish this could be improved.

Haha, yes, that's true. The only thing you can learn, is how to not fly! But, if used within certain constraints (provide a high enough cruise level, fly over flat land, ignore the strange landing pattern it applies, accept many "what is it doing"-moments), it can be helpful. E.g. to share workload on long flights on aircraft that have no autopilot.

There are a lot of cockpit vids on YT where you can see all that you want for different planes. Even from Cold and Dark to Taxi.

And several YTers make flights from Cold and Dark to Shutdown with MSFS planes.