Is Aerofly FS4 worth buying?

[Kalnon 160]

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.

[Kalnon 160]

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.

[HiFlyer 9,363]

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, 2023 by HiFlyer

[Grisu 23]

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.

[jcomm 5,939]

Excellent read Devon !

[dbw1 445]

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.