21 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

Change Airlines, and you will get all different airports, like in real life.

I do. I typically change after a couple of weeks for variety. 

I find their Discord Police worse than PMDG,now thats saying something.

5 hours ago, Noel said:

Thanks for the heads up Peter I will check it out.  Your opinion as to how it's flight evaluation compares to APL's?  I was a big fan of FSCaptain in FSX/P3D but alas it hasn't made to MSFS.

Flight tracking of Newsky is good, but not on the same level as APL. It has a logger that analyzes your flight path and notices events like taxi speed, parking brake, engine status, altimeter change and landing lights change. It appears not to monitor seat belt signs and strobe lights, but it could be that this depends on the airplane. As I said, the best part of the tracking system is takeoff and landing. They monitor vertical speed, centerline deviation, how well you have hit the landing zone, and they even take into account challenging conditions (like crosswind) to determine your score. That part is even better than FSCaptain, which has a similar system, but only for FSX/P3D and only in the current beta version. A full, albeit a tiny bit outdated, description of features can be found at https://wiki.newsky.app/

5 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

I just looked at Newsky, personally I was not impressed with it. No where near the activity and variety that I get with A Pilots Life.. 

Depends on what you are looking for. Yes, as of now the user base is much smaller than in APL, but every time I look at the map there are 30-80 planes in the air. That's significant for a fairly new program. A big plus of APL are real-world schedules. However, in my opinion, a big minus is that you can only fly for real-world airlines. Newsky has no RW schedules but 900 virtual airlines, most of them founded by users. OK, most of them are inactive, but you can set up exactly the airline you want. For instance, I am currently interested in Calm Air, a RW airline in Northern Canada. It does not exist in APL, and my impression is that they do not act quickly on suggestions. I suggested Calm Air and Air Saint Pierre a long time ago, but they are still not implemented.

A big plus of Newsky is user interaction. In APL, you only get to talk with other users on Discord. Newsky has that as well (and a friendly moderator), but in the game you compete with each other for the same payload, you can send each other messages, join each others airline, or form alliances. It is more like a modern version of FSEconomy, and that is an aspect that I really miss in APL. On the other hand, I enjoy the events in APL.

As for variety: for what I am looking for, Newsky beats APL hands down. No schedules where you have to fly 5 times in a row between the same cities; no restriction to a single airline at a time; and if you want to have an airline that only flies between Barra, Saba, and Lukla, you can implement it. What I also like is the economic aspect: you get to see how much your airline earns with each flight, and it tells you the expenses. The numbers appear to be realistic, which sets Newky apart from Neofly and OnAir. APL has a different focus, of course, but it is nice to see that saving fuel during a flight can save you money.

Both are great programs, but at the moment I am more leaning towards Newsky.

Peter

APL has a great start but I feel is hamstrung by artificial limitations and I understand how it got to be that way in their quest to simulate a pilot's life.  They could easily fix these by addressing these things but suggestions basically fall on deaf ears there sadly.  I was very vocal in promoting APL but stopped because of this.  Seems like Newsky is definitely worth tracking and also their scoring criteria trumps some of APL's in some ways.  APL gets a D+ rating for its lack of creativity and is largely stuck not moving forward in ways that would be attractive to new and current users.  And yet its interface is well developed.

11 minutes ago, Noel said:

APL has a great start but I feel is hamstrung by artificial limitations and I understand how it got to be that way in their quest to simulate a pilot's life.  They could easily fix these by addressing these things but suggestions basically fall on deaf ears there sadly.  I was very vocal in promoting APL but stopped because of this.  Seems like Newsky is definitely worth tracking and also their scoring criteria trumps some of APL's in some ways.  APL gets a D+ rating for its lack of creativity and is largely stuck not moving forward in ways that would be attractive to new and current users.  And yet its interface is well developed.

I just read that wiki on Newsky, and confusing is an understatement. I guess it uses VA's for the flights, no real airline schedules, if I am understanding it correctly. I also read on wiki things to do if it causes  your sim to crash. That was enough for me. Got to be a reason why A Pilots life has around 10,000 members, versus a couple of hundred. Let me know how you like Newsky if you decided to try it. I hate to give up my almost 400 flights in APL

Edited November 15, 20232 yr by Bobsk8

43 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I just read that wiki on Newsky, and confusing is an understatement. I guess it uses VA's for the flights, no real airline schedules, if I am understanding it correctly. I also read on wiki things to do if it causes  your sim to crash. That was enough for me. Got to be a reason why A Pilots life has around 10,000 members, versus a couple of hundred. Let me know how you like Newsky if you decided to try it. I hate to give up my almost 400 flights in APL

Interesting.  I'm usually not interested in chasing new products (to me) as I'm pretty much stuck in my ways and that's because I'm generally happy with what I'm doing.  I will check it out though, deeper, and see if it's worth trying.  I'm overall happy w/ APL too and if Ovi over there ever decides to consider addressing the ridiculous schedule generator and the lame pause penalty I'll in large part be w/o complaints.  The interface is very good I feel.  I'd also like to see him develop the scoring element as well there is a lot more to consider and impressive what Peter described for Newsky.   Again, APL seems a bit stuck as it hasn't materially changed since I started using it, some 756 flights ago.  He added ad hoc flights obviating the weird "flight tickets" piece.  I work around lame schedules by buying "flight skips", another goofy adaptation to the lame scheduler.  

I watched the 7 min intro to Newsky and it's got merit for sure and won't be much to try it out.  Much more landing detail which would be appreciated.  I don't get a lot of gold stars for other elements of landing beyond G forces and landing rate so this will make me focus on touchdown alignment.

As @qqwertz said above, it depends on what you're looking for. If you want to simulate being an IRL airline pilot, flying for a real airline with real world schedules (which is what I want) the obvious choice is APL, since Newsky doesn't offer that.

If you want to create a virtual airline and manage the economic aspect (both of which I have no interest in) your choice should be Newsky.

They are 2 different programs that, in my opinion, can't be compared.

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

[1] I guess it uses VA's for the flights, no real airline schedules, if I am understanding it correctly.

[2] I also read on wiki things to do if it causes  your sim to crash. That was enough for me.

[3] Got to be a reason why A Pilots life has around 10,000 members, versus a couple of hundred.

[4] Let me know how you like Newsky if you decided to try it. I hate to give up my almost 400 flights in APL

[1] Correct. That is where APL shines

[2] I could only find something on how to receover your score / restart you Newsky flight if MSFS crashed for some unspecified reason. I think Newsky runs outside of MSFS and probably uses Simconnect to read data. That means there is basically zero chance that it causes a CTD.

[3] APL is around since 2018 or 2019, Newsky is much younger. Also, every pilot first has to enrol in the Newsky Academy (for 1-2 flights), which has about 4500 pilots in it, plus about 250 active pilots. That means 4500 total users, and 250 new ones in the last month or so. Still APL is payware and it numbers are impressive and well deserved.

For me, there was another reason. I first looked into Newsky in early January. Back then, almost all airlines where from Poland, and they even used Polish most of the time in the Discord channel. By now they switched to English almost exclusively, and there are many active airlines in Europe, Middle East, and South America. There are also North American airlines, but there is only 1-2 US airlines with good activity, I think. ANd non from Canada. Having said that, you can still fly wherever you want, and my gut feeling is that their user base is rapidly spreading over the planet now.

[4] I have made 5 flights with zero problems. My last one was my first perfect score 🙂

This newsky looks pretty good! You can even use the CJ4 which is a bonus! I've just signed up. 

20 minutes ago, Alvega said:

As @qqwertz said above, it depends on what you're looking for. If you want to simulate being an IRL airline pilot, flying for a real airline with real world schedules (which is what I want) the obvious choice is APL, since Newsky doesn't offer that.

If you want to create a virtual airline and manage the economic aspect (both of which I have no interest in) your choice should be Newsky.

They are 2 different programs that, in my opinion, can't be compared.

I have been in a virtual airline for years, the most recent on is the one in my signature. I got APL a few months ago, and have only flown in my virtual airline a handful of times since then. I like the idea of flying real schedules. 

2 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

 I hate to give up my almost 400 flights in APL

I forgot to reply to that point: you don't have to give up you career, you may even be able to use both programs concurrently. I have used APL together with Virtual Pilots Association (VPA), Self Loading Cargo, Vatsim, ... I also made one flight with Newsky, Vatsim, and VPA. 

And you can use RW routes with Newsky, just not as elegantly as in APL. You either enter the schedule yourself (I am doing that for my sort-of Calm Air VA), or you can fly free flights and get the route from Flightaware.

15 minutes ago, qqwertz said:

And you can use RW routes with Newsky, just not as elegantly as in APL. You either enter the schedule yourself (I am doing that for my sort-of Calm Air VA), or you can fly free flights and get the route from Flightaware.

Thought Flightware only provided routes for US flights. Isn't that so?

26 minutes ago, Alvega said:

Thought Flightware only provided routes for US flights. Isn't that so?

Nope, you can search for flight number, airports, even plane types worldwide. I am not sure if that requires an account, but the basic account is free.

42 minutes ago, qqwertz said:

Nope, you can search for flight number, airports, even plane types worldwide. I am not sure if that requires an account, but the basic account is free.

Hmm, when I click on plane flying in US it shows the route, but in Europe it doesn't.