5 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

Add-on companies used to supply users with "tutorial flights" - PMDG and Aerosoft come to mind. 

Those have mostly been replaced by "youtube tutorials", many of those range from mediocre to worthless. Also, the way the youtube algorithm works, garbage floats to the top of your search. 

Absolutely! While I find some YouTube videos/series very informative (320 Sim Pilot for example) I do miss the printed or PDF tutorials. The latter were probably better as the could be adapted to produce printed quick reference documents.

14 hours ago, andyjohnston.net said:

Would it be at all useful to have perhaps some 'dumbed-down' aircraft so that people like me can use them?  I can do the piston driver guys, but the jets have gotten to be too much.  Even the formerly tame 747 seems to have become to complex.

Thoughts?

There are quite a few simple aircraft, even airliners but these perhaps too simplified. What I prefer is aircraft that are as close to reality as possible but also have virtual crew members to help me when I am new to the aircraft or when I want to start flying instead of spending half an hour programming the FMC and pushing buttons.

Well... the FMC is a part of airliners. But if I recall, stock airliners from FS9 and earlier did not simulate them. They used a simple nav/gps switch similar to GA. It followed the flight plan but lacked procedures and editing flight plans. I guess there’s no technical reason why a developer couldn’t make a model like this. I suspect it’s just economics.... a too small audience wanting airliner simplicity.   

Imho a sim can never ever be 'too much'. I want a flight sim to 'have it all' and as good as MSFS is (it's the best imho) it still doesn't 'have it all'.

Having said that: I usually fly ONE plane for months. If not years (like the Majestic Q400 in the past). That may also help if you think it's all too much. You aren't forced to fly (and master) each and every available plane, you know! 😉

15 hours ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

It would be handy if they released manuals, whilst increasing the complexity of these aircraft. Unless they did and I missed it? 

I agree. There is a German (JayDee) who is producing very good procedure checklists for all default and most of the addon aircraft and publishes them in flightsim.to. They are very helpful to get the aircraft in the air and down again.

Other option is watching Youtube tutorials and note all steps in a checklist.

3 hours ago, andy1252 said:

I know enough to work the flaps, throttle and brakes. As long as I can get off the ground, move around in the air, and get down again ok, I'm happy.

If you can do a landing on the runway without crashing, you are considered a "serious simmer"!

1 hour ago, crimplene said:

If you can do a landing on the runway without crashing, you are considered a "serious simmer"!

Oh no! There goes my self esteem <grin>

17 hours ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

It would be handy if they released manuals, whilst increasing the complexity of these aircraft. Unless they did and I missed it? 

with the multitude of Youtube tutorial videos, made in many cases by real pilots of the aircraft in question, I doubt seriously if many  would waste their time reading a manual. 

18 hours ago, andyjohnston.net said:

I can do the piston driver guys, but the jets have gotten to be too much.  Even the formerly tame 747 seems to have become to complex.

Start with the A320 Neo, it's the easiest of all. Follow the electronic checklist, watch YouTube tutorials (some are very good, made by actual A320 pilots). Stick to one airliner at a time and do short flights.

In a few days you will be able to create and import a flight plan, start a flight from the parking (cold and dark), enter data in the MCDU, use the A/P and do LOC and ILS approaches and landings.

Jets are not that difficult; they just seem overwhelming if you approach them without proper checklists and training. You cannot fly them like you would do a C172.

There are occasions when it would be nice if the Ready for Takeoff setting on the tablet also set up the entire FMC ready for the flight.

54 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

with the multitude of Youtube tutorial videos, made in many cases by real pilots of the aircraft in question, I doubt seriously if many  would waste their time reading a manual. 

I would. I wouldn't be wasting my time. I would if I were sitting through youtube, sifting through the utter amount of clickbait and rubbish, not to mention all of the adds that keep playing. 

YouTube is absolutely not the answer. Sure, if you're linked a decent video by someone else who can verify it's worth spending time on or you have some go-to content creator who just happened to have made something that fits the bill but there's so much rubbish. So many long-winded obnoxious videos, people who couldn't explain concepts to save their lives, videos that aren't even doing things correctly, videos full of misinformation, wrong checklists that just teach you bad flows from the get-go. Nobody wants to sit there and sift through mountains of trash, potentially wasting hours of precious time to find something that works.

4 hours ago, Danno said:

Well... the FMC is a part of airliners. But if I recall, stock airliners from FS9 and earlier did not simulate them. They used a simple nav/gps switch similar to GA. It followed the flight plan but lacked procedures and editing flight plans. I guess there’s no technical reason why a developer couldn’t make a model like this. I suspect it’s just economics.... a too small audience wanting airliner simplicity.   

I suppose that’s possible.  I don’t have any magic marketing crystal ball.  I would think however, that the fact remains that anytime anybody dares to develop a simple airliner, they get raked over the coals and review bombed by a small incredibly loud group of simmers who can’t tolerate anything other than study level existing.  Same folks belittle anyone for having anything other than comprehensive airliner skills.  Which has the double effect of scaring people who might otherwise be interested from even trying, and making sure there’s nothing for them to fly if they do.  

1 hour ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

I would. I wouldn't be wasting my time. I would if I were sitting through youtube, sifting through the utter amount of clickbait and rubbish, not to mention all of the adds that keep playing. 

You have to learn how to pick videos by pro pilots, and skip ads.

1 hour ago, MrFuzzy said:

Jets are not that difficult; they just seem overwhelming if you approach them without proper checklists and training. You cannot fly them like you would do a C172.

Oh sure you can, literally the first thing I do with any new airplane. (For the record, these are study level planes I buy)  I puzzle out how to get it going from c&d and then I fly it around like a big piper cub for a bit.  Then I look at the manual,  maybe.