For me, it's "good documentation".

Good documentation should be required for all payware planes.

A good example of excellent document is DCS' documentation for their A-10C.  695 pages!

An example of a plane with non-existent documentation: the default Longitude in the MSFS Premium Deluxe edition.

 

"Wanted plane".

I opened HowToFlyYourTanteJu.PDF.

And it said: "Use your stick!"

-----------

I remember a cartoon where Porky Pig and Beans tale a long journey into the desert and they dig up a treasure chest with a pick and shovel. Inside is a book.

 

 

Unfortunately it's kind of a trend for products to be released as "early access" and usually, initially at least, without documentation.

None of the default aircraft have manuals afaik.  You'll have to take to YouTube to learn about them.  For tht longitude I highly recommend the Dakfly mod with WT G3000 mod.

https://flightsim.to/file/3655/asobo-cessna-citation-longitude-flight-dynamics-modifications-project-version-1-0

https://www.workingtitle.aero/packages/g3000/

Additionally there are still some great products with docs like the Milviz C310 and FSW C414.

19 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

Additionally there are still some great products with docs like the Milviz C310 and FSW C414.

And the Hjet

The JF Arrows have some very nice documentation.

For me I like to have documentation that I can open beside me and follow along as I go through the steps necessary to fly the plane.  Having a pdf file on the computer doesn't work so good because you have to go back and forth.  So I like to print mine out and I have a binder system to make it into a booklet.

The only drawback here is I did the FBW Beginner's Guide which is 130 pages.  A lot of pictures in it showing the various gauges, all with black backgrounds.  Lots of ink. Cost me $41.00 for a new ink cartridge to print it.

I still have my book that came in the box with Microsoft Flight Simulator in 1988.  Bound book. 219 pages.

Now I have all these default planes that I don't know how to fly and nothing except Avsim and YouTube to help me.

Roy

I have downloaded a POH for every aircraft that I can.  I also print out sections of these manuals and store them in 3-ring binders (referring to a PDF while flying doesn't work for me either).  A few of the mods have also come with decent manuals or guides.

I don't print out the complete manual (huge waste of paper and ink IMO).  I print out complete operational procedures from pre-flight through shut-down, settings required for operations under certain conditions (such as weight/altitude for some turboprops), short field take-off and landing charts and V-Speeds.

I had to put in a ton of work with one excellent mod, the CJ4.  Though it came with some good documentation, there were some gaps and the order didn't always match procedures (the information just wasn't linear).  I had to put in several hours of work finding and absorbing some YouTube videos (taking extensive notes).  Then, I rewrote the procedures by blending several of these resources and my notes until I came up with a guide that takes me from pre-flight to shut-down in about 10 pages back-to-back.

I consider paper documentation that you then print out a waste of time and money. 

For almost every plane there are literally thousands of videos on youtube, every developer has a discord channel, or online documentation. 

Because I simply don't have the time to work my way through -usually dead-boring, often times badly written - "documenation" I make a cheat sheet for every addon plane entitled "Things I need to do to get this plane airborne without crashing". The rest I pick up as I go along, or go more in-depth, as time permits.

Documentation, though, is a good way to cure insomnia. 

 

Edited July 6, 20223 yr by Ricardo41

Just made an important discovery for me.  I have a second monitor.  I put the PDF file on it and follow it along as I set up the plane on the main monitor.  Works better that the printed documentation because it's right there beside what I'm doing.

Roy

22 hours ago, bofhlusr said:

A good example of excellent document is DCS' documentation for their A-10C.  695 pages!

 

695 pages for one plane. Sound more like the Starship Enterprise.

7 minutes ago, icewater5 said:

695 pages for one plane. Sound more like the Starship Enterprise.

The real world A-10C flightmanual is over 1000 pages. The non-nuclear weapons manual is about 470 pages. The DCS single manual is likely very abridged considering all the pictures.

1 hour ago, hs118 said:

The real world A-10C flightmanual is over 1000 pages. The non-nuclear weapons manual is about 470 pages. The DCS single manual is likely very abridged considering all the pictures.

Ironically, I have ridiculously excessive manuals for things I don't want manuals for. My SUV's Owner's Manual has 671 pages. It has a separate Navigation Manual with 143 pages :-(.  And the view from the driver's seat is, when compared to views in MSFS is, shall we say... un-inspiring.

2 hours ago, icewater5 said:

695 pages for one plane. Sound more like the Starship Enterprise.

DCS: A-10C Warthog Flight Manual (digitalcombatsimulator.com)

I've poured over thousands of pages of so many sim aircraft over the years, and they still flew rather badly. It has become a kind of false bragging right. So many "manuals" are just elongated technical manuals, some of which are useful but others are a substitute for actual sim quality.