24 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

I like Aerofly for when I want to fly in super-clear and super-fast VR that just works, in planes that are not bad, though not perfect.

I find it relaxing to just fly in a headset, in an actually fairly pretty environment (with the mentioned caveats) without frowning after a while and wondering what could be causing the stuttering (or whatever) his time.

I also like that you can start and be flying in literally seconds rather than waiting for however long in all my other sims (I have pretty much all of them and each has its individual charms)

The decision is yours, of course:

 

Interesting video, doesn't look like you can make custom or real world flight plans though.  I like to use LittleNavmap to make my own and I don't believe it's compatible with Aerofly FS4.  Some of AFS4 does look pretty but the thing I don't like is only small parts of the world have good looking scenery in it.  Also there's no 3rd party development scene so the only improvements to the sim would have to be done by the developer and that doesn't seem likely to happen.  Those reasons are my main gripes.

I like sims that are fully customizable and have lots of freeware & payware add-on options to choose from.  It does look very easy to use and fuss free compared to other sims though and I could see a lot of people new to flight simulation or people that don't want to bother with all the tinkering around that other sims require would probably really like it.

The fact that it gets very good and steady frame rates even in VR is one reason I wanted to try AFS4.  I don't use VR a lot for flight simulation (or sim racing, my other hobby) because I can only handle having my VR headset on for about an hour or so before my eyes get strained and I don't know if every VR headset is like this but my Oculus Quest 2 (yes I went cheap and I regret it) is really heavy and the heaviness of the headset begins to make my hurt my head.  I do use it for short flights sometimes though and it's a great experience.

P3Dv5 is also a great VR sim, I get good and smooth frame rates and it looks great with all the high quality scenery I have installed to look at.  It did take some tinkering to get it working well in P3D but once I figured it out, it's a very enjoyable experience to fly in VR.  Plus it's really cool to fly some of my old FSX aircraft that I got working in P3Dv5 that I've flown for years (on a small monitor back in the day) now in VR.

Also X-Plane 11 (using Vulkan) & 12 are very smooth, at least on a monitor, I never tried them in VR yet.  I almost never have any stuttering with either version.  Frame rates are not great though with all the custom scenery and stuff I have installed but both sims still run smooth as butter.

4 hours ago, Grisu said:

@ Kalnon:  Thank's a lot for your useful inputs and your kind worlds ❤️. I'm glad that I could help you !!!  Best wishes across the pond 😄 .

@ Ray Proudfoot:  Thank you for your clarification; now I know it better.  You guys from AVSIM are awesome; thank you for helping to maintain this wonderful site.  It helped me over many years to get useful informations about our beloved hobby, although the language barrier is not always easy to me 😉.

Thank you for that, I appreciate it.

Ray is a good guy as are all the people that run AVSIM.  Even though AVSIM has been around for a very long time, I only started using this forum about 9 months ago.  I wish I would have started using it years ago because AVSIM has the greatest flight simulation community in my opinion, no matter what simulators you use.

I don't use P3DV5, That era is behind me, but I do have XP11 and 12 and just like with Aerofly, I fiddle with them when I'm in that mood. 

I do avoid XP in vr though, as FPS is a real problem for me at any worthwhile graphics setting, which is where Aerofly comes in. Graphically, Aerofly is behind, but so far no other sim is as clear or fast in vr and the systems are (again) surprisingly deep.

I don't expect such a sim to ever take Avsim by storm, people tend to find that "one sim to rule them all" and cleave to that, but I'm a bit more omnivorous, and even have the Dovetail sims still up and running happily on my computer.

Even Microsoft Flight, which makes many people here reflexively spit when mentioning.

As far as automatic loading of plans from little navmap and etc, nope, you program by hand, or use the built-in planner which is (again) surprisingly accurate and honestly works better than the built-in planner of MSFS as far as your plane following a plan to the letter. (Which most people would not know or perhaps even care about, since the user base is so relatively small)

If I feel like it, I faf about with Xplane. Or Aerofly, even if my main sim is MSFS.

Aerofly (for now at least) is still for me the most pleasant (though not most detailed) sim for VR flying.

One thing I do keep in mind is that the program is still out there and slowly advancing, even as louder and flashier efforts like Dovetail Sim and FLIGHT! are long gone.

To me its like that popular little local restaurant that's been there forever, when others are just memories.

That says to me that somebody (Like me) finds value in the offering, even if it's not a 5 star venue.

Long story short, until MSFS becomes as clear and fast as Aerofly in vr, I'll probably always be messing with it. (NOTE: X Plane obviously put a super amount of thought into their vr controls, and it shows! But for me, the sim is just not fast enough in VR yet, and Aerofly still has the better implementation of working vr hands, so....)

Eh.

Different strokes for different folks. This is the newest release. No, not the bestest ever, but pretty cool for head-on-a-swivel vr! 

 

Edited November 29, 20232 yr by HiFlyer

2 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

I don't use P3DV5, That era is behind me, but I do have XP11 and 12 and just like with Aerofly, I fiddle with them when I'm in that mood. 

I do avoid XP in vr though, as FPS is a real problem for me at any worthwhile graphics setting, which is where Aerofly comes in. Graphically, Aerofly is behind, but so far no other sim is as clear or fast in vr and the systems are (again) surprisingly deep.

I don't expect such a sim to ever take Avsim by storm, people tend to find that "one sim to rule them all" and cleave to that, but I'm a bit more omnivorous, and even have the Dovetail sims still up and running happily on my computer.

Even Microsoft Flight, which makes many people here reflexively spit when mentioning.

As far as automatic loading of plans from little navmap and etc, nope, you program by hand, or use the built-in planner which is (again) surprisingly accurate and honestly works better than the built-in planner of MSFS as far as your plane following a plan to the letter. (Which most people would not know or perhaps even care about, since the user base is so relatively small)

If I feel like it, I faf about with Xplane. Or Aerofly, even if my main sim is MSFS.

Aerofly (for now at least) is still for me the most pleasant (though not most detailed) sim for VR flying.

One thing I do keep in mind is that the program is still out there and slowly advancing, even as louder and flashier efforts like Dovetail Sim and FLIGHT! are long gone.

To me its like that popular little local restaurant that's been there forever, when others are just memories.

That says to me that somebody (Like me) finds value in the offering, even if it's not a 5 star venue.

Long story short, until MSFS becomes as clear and fast as Aerofly in vr, I'll probably always be messing with it. (NOTE: X Plane obviously put a super amount of thought into their vr controls, and it shows! But for me, the sim is just not fast enough in VR yet, and Aerofly still has the better implementation of working vr hands, so....)

Eh.

Different strokes for different folks. This is the newest release. No, not the bestest ever, but pretty cool for head-on-a-swivel vr! 

 

As I mentioned earlier it really depends on somebodys preferences. You, HiFlyer, are a perfect example for someone who derives benefit from the Aerofly series:

Interested in...

• ......a butter smooth implementation of VR !!!  I think AFS is still king regarding this topic, although I for myself don't use VR, only can rely on verdicts of others.
• ...and interested in Airliners which fly most of the time above serious weather conditions. Thus the complete absence of a dynamic weather engine is (maybe) not so annoying as for many other like myself. 

By the way IPACS has invested a lot of time in improving and extending their airliner fleet in the last couple of years; in this case the chances are good that they will improve their tubeliners further in the future.

It really depends on someones owns inerests in aviation.

Excellent read Devon !

I had Aerofly2 many years ago and for me it was so so. This version looks like it has evolved into something with a lot more depth. I may watch for a good sale and give Aerofly another try.

no vibrations, no touchdown sounds, no head shake no nothing...still a completely "dead" sim when it comes to ground interactions etc... I can't believe nobody cares about this ... FSRealistic transformed FS2020 and XPR same for XP... as  a real pilot I am telling you all airplanes squeak, rattle, vibrate, shake and bounce on landing... why this is not simulated after all these years is beyond me...

On 6/14/2024 at 11:59 AM, JETPETER2 said:

no vibrations, no touchdown sounds, no head shake no nothing...still a completely "dead" sim when it comes to ground interactions etc... I can't believe nobody cares about this ... FSRealistic transformed FS2020 and XPR same for XP... as  a real pilot I am telling you all airplanes squeak, rattle, vibrate, shake and bounce on landing... why this is not simulated after all these years is beyond me...

On this particular one I have to disagree Peter...

As you answer to your own objection, no sim other than some combat Sims, does that natively... You have to rely on external programs to give you that feel, or some add-ons can include it already, but even in MSFS it is not a native feature... Yes I know there's some trembling programmed into xplane's airliner tail surfaces for when you roar the engines on takeoff, but that's about all...

Aerofly FS has a very detailed and capable flight dynamics model. Just as with any other SIM it all depends on how a given model is designed, but some platforms offer from the base a much more sound / robust flight and overall physics engine, and although it is progressing rather slowly compared to other platforms, it doesn't really mean it is a bad flight simulator, quite on the contrary... For instance, I still find it's rotary flight dynamics second to no other civil flight simulation... 

In Flight Unlimited, which you know only too well, if we wanted an aircraft to be able to perform knife edge then one would add invisible wings, at 90° to it's fuselage, along the longitudinal axis instead of perpendicularly to it... In xplane still that same approach has to be applied... AEFS does it natively because it's core fuselage model is much more detailed and capable... Same applies to the effects of flying in a sideslip, etc...

So either they add it to some of the future updates or someone creates an app for it... Unfortunately the AEFS market doesn't attract developers which are these days mostly focusing on MSFS.

Edited June 16, 20241 yr by jcomm

Aerofly 3 would be interesting were it available.

Well, I must confess after purchasing IPACS's "new" Aerofly FS 4 Flight Simulator , that I was wrong !

Congrats to the developers of this nifty, little sim: Guys, you've improved it really well ! (compared to the previous v.2), and I was wrong.

Because I'm mainly a helicopter, GA and glider pilot, and at the first glance and after watching many reviews I came up to the conclusion, that the new version 4 is primarily done for bus-flyers, but I was wrong after hours of trying and scenery watching in this sim.

Yea, the version of a digital tourist in its finest 🙃:

(but without headset).

Especially five main points have triggered me in a very positive way:

• They've improved the autogen worldwide; no need for extra cultivation files anymore in many cases. It's really impressive how populated and dense the whole scenery looks above from helicopter- /GA distance. AND it seems they also have improved the autogen textures of  houses's roof tops, regarding variation of textures. --> especially in the old version of the sim it was eye-sickening when flying e.g. over Orbx's Palm Springs or Monterey where every house looked like a european style house; very, very generic and unpleasant.
• Some very dedicated simmers from Aerofly figured out how to get to work the beautiful sceneries from ORBX in AFS4 (no dealbreaker for me anymore). AND in combination with AFS's new autogen system the Orbx sceneries now even look BETTER from above - which is an amazing feat, at least for me.
• I've never been a big Black Hawk UH-60 word not allowed in other sims. But the version of IPACS's is great fun to fly, and the systems are very deep. AND THEY'VE IMPELEMENTED A PROFESSIONEL FLIGHT MODEL for the Black Hawk , like in their first Robinson again. Which I've grievously missed in their second Eurocopter (which was a huge complain of mine about version FS 2).
• To me IPACS has shown with the implementation of the Black Hawk, the BF-109, and various glider assets, that the developers still have'nt forgotten the pure GA and rotorhead lovers like myself. Which gives me hope for more to come 😉.
• Surprisingly they even have improved their cloud system with new cumuls clouds. Funny fact after my own experience: The new clouds look far better during live flightsim sessions, compared to static pictures an promotion stuff you can find on the internet. But these new clouds are very VRAM hungry and not well optimized, allthough I can run the sim on ultra settings without any issues locked at 60 FPS. After hours of monitoring and testing I can fairly say that the cumulus clouds are the only thing which the developers must improve (btw: I have no VR, and still running my sims with "old fashioned" headtracking) regarding performance.
• Compared to other flightsims:  Aerofly FS 4 is still king respective "ease of use", "performance", "stability" and "loading times" !

 For those of you who are interested I've listed a couple of links below about how you can make to run and port our ORBX sceneries to AFS4; a big shout out and THANK YOU ❤️! to @ApfelFlieger:

1. US-CA: KSPS Palm Springs Int. (ORBX) on FS 4
2. US-IL: KCGX Chicago Meigs Field (ORBX-Edition) in FS 4
3. LOWI-Innsbruck from ORBX - FS2 to FS4 how to
4. US-CA: Palm Springs - 7x Heliports

 

 Best wishes to all of you!

  

 

Missed this post for quite a while, it seems. Glad to hear you like it! It would suck to pay what they are asking and end up hating it. (I would feel responsible)

Thank you for your kindness. Currently I'm triying to shift further away from too much screen-time, and filling my leisure time with other, more physical, simple and "old school" hobbies.

My "personal wake up call" was the launch mess of MSFS2024, the worst thing I've ever experienced in front of my screen. So many hours of wasted time and getting hypnotized by the infamous loading-bar 🥺; "contless" hours of setting up controls, etc..., you name it.

During the aftermaths I asked myself if it is worth to spend so much time for something bleak and almost useless.

And that's another, quite important and maybe the BIGGEST BENEFIT where Aerofly shines: In company with Aerofly you don't "need" another, unpayed job as a caretaker and DIY troubleshooter of your own flightsim. It doesn't matter if you've not used the sim for quite some time, or how often you use it.

If you want to "fly", just sit down and start your sim; even no internet connection required, no additional dependencies - YOU BECOME YOUR OWN MASTER OF YOUR SIM AGAIN !

This flightsim is almost ideal for someone who doesn't want to spend a good bunch of precious flightsim time with caretaking. Yes, it has a lot of missing features, meanwhile even on graphics level, and it'll take probably antother 20 and something years till we get some decent 3D water, dynamic weather and seasons.

But hey, who cares if flightsimming is not your main hobby (anymore). 😎

I will be watching steam in the future for a sale price to take a chance on this sim.

On 12/8/2024 at 4:32 PM, dbw1 said:

I will be watching steam in the future for a sale price to take a chance on this sim.

Same here, the VR reviews are extremely good which for me is a massive plus point. I've had this in my wish list for ages, just not made the jump to purchase just yet but may well do this Xmas.

Purchased, £30, bargain.