9 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

Good to see so many real life pilots use MSFS 2020 for IFR training! If you don't mind me asking, are you using MSFS for IFR training because the Garmin avionics by Working Title are that good and come closer to reflecting how the real Garmin avionics work in real life?

@SAS443 already said it very well. For me it's the whole package. Both GNS530/430 and GTN750/650 are simulated very well in MSFS 2020, at least I can't tell the difference from the real thing I'm using as far as my IFR training is concerned. . 

For quick practicing, I just zoom in so all I see just cockpit, almost exactly the same as in real flights wearing a hood that blocks the outside view. I have honeycomb yoke and throttle, a DIY USB box that gives me six dual encoder knobs configured for radio, baro, hdg bug etc. Plus a GNS530 I bought from flightsimbuilder. I found these minimum hardware are critical for practice.

I connect ForeFlight (which almost everybody uses in IRL) to MSFS2020, and use it exactly the same way as I'm in real flights. 

Plus, it's nice that I can set the weather as I want. I agree though, making weather presets for IFR with minimum cloud ceiling and visibility is a bit awkward, and I still haven't figured how to set the wind/gusts exactly. I now just use more real time weather since I'm "under the hood" anyway, and my IRL training flights were actually flown mostly in VFR conditions (with the hood on). 

Oh, SayIntentions.ai is a game changer. It's far from perfect, but being able to communicate with ATC by push-to-talk voice is surreal - a super way practicing radio communication while flying instruments against all the distractions/stresses the radio communication creates. 

When I was doing my PPL I flew once or twice on the FAA certified Redbird FMX Flight Simulator. Seriously, except for its cockpit hardware, that thing is just so laughably 1990. MSFS 2020 beats it by a thousand miles. 

Edited November 4, 20241 yr by FlyIce

29 minutes ago, FlyIce said:

@SAS443 already said it very well. For me it's the whole package. Both GNS530/430 and GTN750/650 are simulated very well in MSFS 2020, at least I can't tell the difference from the real thing I'm using as far as my IFR training is concerned. . 

For quick practicing, I just zoom in so all I see just cockpit, almost exactly the same as in real flights wearing a hood that blocks the outside view. I have honeycomb yoke and throttle, a DIY USB box that gives me six dual encoder knobs configured for radio, baro, hdg bug etc. Plus a GNS530 I bought from flightsimbuilder. I found these minimum hardware are critical for practice.

I connect ForeFlight (which almost everybody uses in IRL) to MSFS2020, and use it exactly the same way as I'm in real flights. 

Plus, it's nice that I can set the weather as I want. I agree though, making weather presets for IFR with minimum cloud ceiling and visibility is a bit awkward, and I still haven't figured how to set the wind/gusts exactly. I now just use more real time weather since I'm "under the hood" anyway, and my IRL training flights were actually flown mostly in VFR conditions (with the hood on). 

Oh, SayIntentions.ai is a game changer. It's far from perfect, but being able to communicate with ATC by push-to-talk voice is surreal - a super way practicing radio communication while flying instruments against all the distractions/stresses the radio communication creates. 

When I was doing my PPL I flew once or twice on the FAA certified Redbird FMX Flight Simulator. Seriously, except for its cockpit hardware, that thing is just so laughably 1990. MSFS 2020 beats it by a thousand miles. 

Really good information! Thanks for the response!

I decide for the A330 to fly. Plain and simple. It should be good at last. This airplane is jinxed in MSFS throughout all of the years.

It should end now. High hopes of inibuilds, it will be good enough based on what we've seen from them in recent years.

Next asobo 737 max. Not the highest hopes, but perhaps good enough to compete somewhat with EA-ifly.

For me it will be a split focus on both sims as usual with new stuff.

When updates are done the older gets phased out, as usual. Can take up to 2 years. That is also granted.

13 hours ago, arbt said:

Agree with you Lotharen. Trim in MSFS 2020 has been unrealistically sensitive from day 1.  In most aircraft I fly, mainly GA, nigh on impossible to achieve stable flight for any useful period. At least in my hands and using my basic thrustmaster twist joystick. So great to hear that this has been addressed in MS24

Depends on the aircraft. The SWS PC12 takes forever to use something like a trim wheel. Some other planes.....it can feel like a jolt

9 hours ago, ErichB said:

Not at all.  There are so many new aircraft to fly now if you like airline simulation..  For VFR there are so many places I still haven't even seen yet.  Even if Microsoft hadn't announced a new sim, this would still have been good for a few more years.

This is very unlike the time when MSFS was first announced (on the last day of Flightsim Expo 2019) when the visuals blew everyone away.  From that day on, I struggled to enjoy P3D anymore.   But that was a  complete chalk and cheese comparison.  This is more like a mild cheddar and mature cheddar comparison.  Both very edible, but one is so much better.  

Hahaha. Good analogy. But I guess it depends on whether your using it for a charcuterie board or a toasted cheese sandwich. 🙂 Or both haha

36 minutes ago, Piotr007 said:

Next asobo 737 max. Not the highest hopes, but perhaps good enough to compete somewhat with EA-ifly.

The avionics will at least be excellent as Working title is doing them.

The airline simmers who flew it at the Grand Canyon event seemed impressed.

I can appreciate a little bit of angst on this.  Right now I really enjoy 2020 w/ SLC and APL essentially daily and it runs so well I'd be bummed I think if 2024 somehow left me feeling short staying in 2020 while I explore 2024.  For those who tasted the alpha did you find it hard to go back to 2020 in any ways?  I may even hold off w/ 2024 until my major players are on board...or not 🤔

I haven’t yet, and normally I’m quite distracted by new shiny things 😀

I imagine that once it’s out though, I’ll have a hard time going back to 2020 even if not all addons work in 2024 immediately.

I'm sure I'll jump on 2024 for a bit of GA to start with, but it'll take a while before FSHud with AIG traffic and the PMDG 737 are all working smoothly, and so I'm not getting too excited about moving quickly.  

The career missions were fun, but I didn't see any massive graphical upgrade (which may have more to do with my system) to get me counting the days down to release.  I get most of what I want from MSFS 2020.  

I switched to MSFS 2020 a few months ago because I was still in Prepar3d.

I'm enjoying MSFS 2020 because it's all new to me.

For now, I'm in no rush to upgrade to FS2024.

12 hours ago, qqwertz said:

Interesting, I hadn't heard of that one before. I'm gonna check it out.

Thanks for keeping me flying 🙂

Hmm. I just checked out the SimFly web page. I found the web page itself not very clear and was also surprised by the steep price tag. I dug a bit around and found a crypto miner alert. OK, it's on Reddit and might be unreliable, but it would be nice if anyone could share their experience with SimFly. But I definitely don't want a crypto miner running on my PC.

Quite happy flying away, best internet speed for me is just over 60Mbps - so not sure how good '24 will be when I hear it can grab over 180Mbps - not even sure if Sky will class the amount I fly as exceeding their fair use policy if it's on that much.

Will get FS24, but won't stop my enjoyment of other sims as I'm (currently) flying in XP 12, also use P3D5 as well .. .. 

G

I uninstalled MSFS 2020 back in the summer and won't be looking back. To begin with, I'll enjoy the default aircraft in MSFS 2024, especially the Honeywell Avionics suite. 

It will be a while before all the kinks have been worked out. 

On 11/3/2024 at 11:24 PM, arbt said:

Agree with you Lotharen. Trim in MSFS 2020 has been unrealistically sensitive from day 1.  In most aircraft I fly, mainly GA, nigh on impossible to achieve stable flight for any useful period. At least in my hands and using my basic thrustmaster twist joystick. So great to hear that this has been addressed in MS24

Referring to the part I have boldfaced, this is quite astonishing to me. I have to believe it is somehow related to your joystick setup. If that's the case, I wonder if MS2024 will really solve this problem for you. 

C172s in MSFS is quite twitchy, requiring constant trim/re-trim, but this is not too different from real 172s. Many of them, especially those old beaten-up ones in flight school, just can't fly straight on its own unless in perfectly smooth air. 

Besides, I would say having a trim wheel is a must - it makes flying GA planes in MSFS a magnitude closer to the real flights.