Having Great Time playing the Maverick Challenges ...

[jcomm 5,936]

While the Canyon courses are difficult to track at high speed / low alt, I am doing my best to get an "A" on all of those. So far only one remains at "B" 😕

Do you know what exactly drives the "Ghost" plane ? Is it based on other users tracks available "Online" ? Does it refer to previous tracks flown by ourselves ? Or is it simply a "follow me" mode that always flies the same track, suposedly an optimal one ?

The DARKSTAR Stratospherc flight is yet another very interesting challenge that so far I have failled miserably to complete because I always crash before landing 😞

What exactly is the stall amd landing speeds of that aircraft ?

On a side note, I should share that this is as close to the remarkable experience of flying MS FLIGHT "Challenges" as I've been since then, so close that I fear the same fate 😞Strongly hope that's not going to happen this turn around because in MS FLIGHT just as I was feeling happy like never before with a flightsim it collapsed ... But MFS is a different gal !  Isn't she ?

Edited June 16, 2022 by jcomm

[RaptyrOne 1,411]

I tried the Darkstar challenge and flew all the way to a successful landing but received no score. Obviously I did something wrong for it not to register. 
 

As far as I know, the ghost plane is your highest scoring previous attempt. So don’t follow it too closely if you are attempting to get a higher score.

[Lord Farringdon 493]

23 minutes ago, RaptyrOne said:

 

As far as I know, the ghost plane is your highest scoring previous attempt. So don’t follow it too closely if you are attempting to get a higher score.

That would be my take too. At least as far as I can tell after every attempt when I look at the ghost it took the same left /right or centre path I took on the previous flight and even busted the boundaries when I did. 

[tup61 1,563]

1 hour ago, jcomm said:

On a side note, I should share that this is as close to the remarkable experience of flying MS FLIGHT "Challenges" as I've been since then, so close that I fear the same fate 😞Strongly hope that's not going to happen this turn around because in MS FLIGHT just as I was feeling happy like never before with a flightsim it collapsed ... But MFS is a different gal !  Isn't she ?

I did share your fear but only during the first months of beta-testing MSFS. By now it has become very clear to me that MSFS is indeed a totally different gal! 😉

Having said that... I do wonder every now and then how long these things are going to last, specially since so much is happening 'in the cloud'. And then I am not mainly or only thinking about MSFS (I am sure it will stay for quite some time to come) but what about Fenix... or for instance FS Hud (which isn't interesting right now but might become in the future) or Navigraph. More and more add ons are becoming 'online only': the days where it didn't matter if a dev would leave the scene because you'd have the cd's and dvd's anyway are long gone. The need to register add ons online has been here a long time, and that's a but worrying on its own already, but the need to be online constantly does worry me a bit...

[jcomm 5,936]

An additional note regarding the F-18 Challenges through the various canyons... 

It makes a big difference having at least "Bing" enabled on the GENERAL / DATA settings.

I was really getting out of clues on how to get an "A" on that last challenge before the Darkstar Stratospheric Flight and it trned out to be the fact that since I have been using MFS with Bing and Photogrammetry disabled I was not getting the best perspective of the ridges and failling to identify in advance the best tracks. With Bing enabled it's a lot "easier" 🙂

[Cpt_Piett 4,648]

53 minutes ago, jcomm said:

It makes a big difference having at least "Bing" enabled on the GENERAL / DATA settings.

Wouldn’t the sim without Bing data look very basic? 

Anyway I’ve spent quite some time in the F/A-18, doing valley runs around the world. I’ve no idea how close to the real thing it is, but it’s great fun and can be quite challenging. Never tried the challenges though. Been doing a fair bit of landing practice too, and it’s not the easiest thing to land. Too low speed on short final and the risk of a stall is quite high. 

When I can land the thing consistently on runways I’m probably up for the carrier challenge 😊

[jcomm 5,936]

22 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Wouldn’t the sim without Bing data look very basic? 

Anyway I’ve spent quite some time in the F/A-18, doing valley runs around the world. I’ve no idea how close to the real thing it is, but it’s great fun and can be quite challenging. Never tried the challenges though. Been doing a fair bit of landing practice too, and it’s not the easiest thing to land. Too low speed on short final and the risk of a stall is quite high. 

When I can land the thing consistently on runways I’m probably up for the carrier challenge 😊

Give the Challenges a try - they're worth the try !

After the challenges I will try to make full flights in the F-18, and also, why not, in that UFO-like Darkstar :-)

[Cpt_Piett 4,648]

32 minutes ago, jcomm said:

Give the Challenges a try - they're worth the try !

After the challenges I will try to make full flights in the F-18, and also, why not, in that UFO-like Darkstar 🙂

I’ll give it a try. Managed to start the thing from cold and dark using the checklist. I’m sure some steps are skipped here vs the real thing. But I guess we have DCS for that. Not the real thing of course… you know what I mean.

She’s a pretty thing though - here from a quick spin over Toronto

Edited June 16, 2022 by Cpt_Piett

[jcomm 5,936]

Great !

I have to make a full flight, from Cold & Dark to parking.

DCS was once my beach, far goes the time... It can be great but in some aspects is inferior to MFS. It's a FLAT WORLD, weather is not by far as good / detailed... I only used the UH-1H, and the WW2 Fighters / Bombers, but I found that I prefer IL2-Sturmovik in terms of flight dynamics / overall feel of flight.

Edited June 16, 2022 by jcomm

[pete_auau 1,159]

16 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

When I can land the thing consistently on runways I’m probably up for the carrier challenge

should be  a piece  a  cake  compared  to the  dcs  version 🙂

[jcomm 5,936]

2 minutes ago, pete_auau said:

should be  a piece  a  cake  compared  to the  dcs  version 🙂

Yet, it's still tricky :-)