I'm willing to bet that most of you guys are just like me. You decide where you want to fly and you begin making your flight plans, either in SimBrief or using the flight planner within MSFS itself. A minority of you are skilled enough to hand-program an FMC, and so you instead use your FMC alone to set sail.

But I'm also willing to bet that a lot of you, again like me, have long overlooked some really enjoyable stuff MSFS has to offer. For example, ask yourself these questions:

• Have you explored any of the Bush Trips?
• Have you enjoyed a Discovery Flight?
• Are you perfecting your piloting abilities by tackling the Landing Challenges?
• Have you undertaken the superb in-sim Flight Training?
• Have you ever participated in the weekly Community Fly-In?
• Are you learning to fly the new gliders in the Soaring area of MSFS?
• How are your skills progressing in the new Helicopters? (Please don't ask about mine!)
• Have you even installed the free Top Gun Maverick add-on? (And to those of you who believe your piloting skills are "above" such Top Gun "game play," then I assume you'd have no problem whatever landing that F-18 on the moving aircraft carrier at night. No problem at all.)

The fact is that a lot of these "extracurricular" activities within MSFS -- the very activities I'm accusing you (and myself) of overlooking -- are actually a far greater testing of our piloting abilities than flying on autopilot from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh in clear weather, in the middle of the afternoon (one of my favorite flights). Again, I'm the worst creature of habit there is. So see whether there might be something within MSFS that you've thus far overlooked and therefore not fully appreciated and enjoyed. 
 

Edited March 7, 20233 yr by David Mills

Yup...good idea to try out some of the "extras" MSFS has to offer.

@David Mills - you're so right, and no I have not done most of the things on that list!

One thing I have done, though, was to switch over to GA flying about 10 years ago (after more than 20 years of simming in commercial jets, and the whole fmc sid/star vatsim thing). Switching over to GA did exactly what I had hoped it would do for me and that was to spend more time simulating hands-on flying skills more closely related to activities I might do IRL.

I may return to the big iron one of these days, but for now I have not missed it much because flying around in aircraft which I see every day at my local airport and shooting hand-flown approaches in real weather conditions gives me alot of satisfaction. I feel that switching to GA has taught me to be a better "pilot".

I think you make a good point and I plan to actually try at least a couple of those activities you mentioned.

Haven't done any of them. Really not interested. 

No! I have found the Hjet, have well over 300 USA GA airports, and the greatest challenge I face here in 2023 as I near a flight simulation career of 10,000 hours, is reaching that mark when the speed of the Hjet has shortened the segments of my sports-teams games-based flight schedules.  Despite that, the Hjet and addon airports have me in total bliss.

Now if Asobo or REX can accurately mate actual flight conditions with ATIS/AWOS I would have no complaints.  But when I constantly hear MSFS ATIS/AWOS report obvious winds aloft as surface winds (like 270 @ 64 knots when live metars report 090@08), and dew points higher than ground temps (like temp as 8°C and dewpoint as 13°C, as a former USAF meteorologist I am totally embarassed.  Never will DP be greater than temp! 

Over 2 1/2 years and these persist.  Shame.  Rymes with game!

I am an aviation and simulation enthusiast.....

 

Edited March 7, 20233 yr by fppilot

I'll admit I still haven't finished the Breckenridge bush trip (it's quite the time commitment in the lil Cub, but the individual legs only take an average of 10-25min). The legs I did finish had me checking Google maps afterwards to look up some of the landmarks. Found some cool pictures and got a bit of a history lesson in the process. A few of the tiny airports have reviews on Google maps to help point them out for folks not finding them in the sim. A very cool experience, even if some of the navigation directions are lacking at times.

I've completed almost all the landing challenges, but be forewarned that the high wind challenges make the limitations of the flight models painfully obvious. Some are borderline broken after updates, and even one of the latest New Zealand challenges had me yelling at my monitor as the 172 refused anything greater than a 350fpm descent with idle power and full flaps. Forward slip? Another unfortunate casualty to a flight model that still has a ways to go when it comes to the limits of the flight envelope. Even with those complaints though, you'll be introduced to some cool airports and areas you likely wouldn't have found otherwise.

I've been discovering the F-35B. 

1. Hovering/landing over covered up runways at Camp Pendelton

2. Downloading the BlackSheep squadron livery and doing short field takeoffs/landings at from their hanger area at Yuma AZ (thanks to the freeware mod airport)

3. Hover landing/takeoffs from carriers

I usually start a flight at Yuma, head to Miramar and hover land.  Takeoff from Miramar over to Camp Pendelton for some bush landing practice at that base (which specializes in real world rough terrain training).  Takeoff from the bush and head to the Lincoln CVN-72 off the coast of Long beach (LVFR Carriers), and then over to the Seal training base on the island of San Clemente (another freeware offering).

I have a whole new appreciation of the F-35B and understand why the Marines love it over the older Harrier.

Edited March 7, 20233 yr by Dillon

For the bush trips and discovery flights, I’d do them all if I could select any plane in my hangar. I stay away from the default planes as my payware is just more entertaining and realistic in just about every scenario. 

29 minutes ago, fppilot said:

No! I have found the Hjet, have well over 300 USA GA airports, and the greatest challenge I face here in 2023 as I near a flight simulation career of 10,000 hours, is reaching that mark when the speed of the Hjet has shortened the segments of my sports-teams games-based flight schedules.  Despite that, the Hjet and addon airports have me in total bliss.
 

I have taken the HJet all over the US since getting on MSFS back in October. Been using the heck out of the Longitude since AAU1. Planning on going back to the HJet in late spring/early summer as I have yet to see Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia or Australia. Will be taking it on an Asobo handcrafted airport tour (I can see all of them via MSAddon Linker Map feature as pink dots) with the longer northern hemisphere summer days. Looking forward to it!  Oh, I chuckled at your career hours, I am approaching 13,000 hours on Vatsim. All done in real time mind you, no time acceleration for me. 

54 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

Haven't done any of them. Really not interested. 

I wasn't at first but after doing some VFR/IFR training, some landing challenges and discovery flights.... it had me interested.

I need to try a community fly-in but I don't like landing etc when there are too many other's around (people on the runway, goofing around etc)

Mostly disregard these but had great fun with my son recently taking turns trying to beat each others scores on the Top Gun low altitude courses and a few landing challenges. 

I’ve always been stuck in this mode where I do the robot procedures IFR flights in the a320/737… recently I’ve been in the King Air, Kodiak and 414 flying lower and learning new things, really enjoying it. 

I haven't done any of the arcade challenges. Those are not what I bought MSFS for. 

I haven’t tried most of those things, mainly because I can’t imagine they’d offer more than the sheer pleasure of seeing parts of the world I’ll probably never get to see in real life.

So many places still to explore in msfs for me to go into many of the things on the list.  Most of my flying is in the C172, though I've spent a bit more time with the eggbeaters and gliders of late.

Exploring downloaded airports and photosceneries takes up a lot of my simming time as have exploring the world updates as and when they come along.

I am hoping to find some time over the next year or two to get back into scenery development, but programming an FMC is a step too far for me at the moment having only just learned to use the Garmins properly.