ahinterl

Not so long ago I read about a tool that's capable of positioning even complex 3rd party airliners anywhere in the air including configuring them accordingly so that "instant flying" is possible. Unfortunately, I didn't make appropriate notes for later reference, now I've forgotten what that tool is. The closest I found googling is "FS Instant Approach" (http://www.fsinventions.com/featuresinstantapproachpro2015.asp). Is that what I'm looking for or does another software for the purpose of aircraft positioning exist? Andreas

These two Paro approach videos can be easily compared (rw video is shakier, but that doesn't really matter I think): Real world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzcwdYJ1ibE FSX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxYNCFNvzOk My personal overall feeling when watching those videos is that the sim gives me the impression that speed is much higher, terrain much closer, there's less time for maneuvers - all in all the real world video is much "less frightening" to me. The real world situation looks more "relaxed" and "doable" - look how the simmer drives the plane like a racing car onto the runway... That kind of "wrong immersion factor" is one of the reasons I ceased simming some time ago. As long as it's not an approach like the ones into Funchal, Tocontin, Paro etc., FSX is great, but when things get tough, there's that odd feeling... Maybe just a matter of wrong zoom factor or whatever, I'd be happy to read some comments... Andreas

I was away from flight simming almost completely for more than 18 months now (but have followed the sim news and most developments during that time) and now plan a slow comeback (incl. new hardware). Since I'm not up to date information wise, I'd appreciate opinions about what sim and base add ons to use, that would become my setup for the nearer future then. In the past, my FSX was crammed with stuff and big iron (in other words I have tons of FSX add ons, I think I can update most of them to recent versions)... Guess FSX Steam Edition (purchased that "ahead" for 5 EUR today) is a better solution nowadays than the original FSX (I had troubles with Windows 8) What about Prepar3d? Should I favor this product over FSX SE? And there's X-Plane: Is it mature and competitive enough or better to avoid for (ex-)FSX simmers? Andreas

When I look at Lockheed's licensing page for Prepar3d in the web, I see red crosses where the row header says "entertainment purposes". Strictly said, because my one and only reason to use any flight Simulator at all is exactly pure and sole Entertainment, I'm not at all eligible as a legitimate customer. Are there really so many P3D users here in this forum who use the sim in a "really serious way"?!

Developing a good airliner needs more resources, talent, expertise and experience than 98% of any FS add on company can deliver. I'm simming long enough to have learned that only a tiny number of companies are worth buying from. Everything else is waste of time, the best is just good enough. Purchased CS's 757 once ago, that plane is a disaster. Will not buy from them again, and I never expect them to change to the better in a miracle. I know, lots of people don't agree, but I don't really care. Everything's well as long as everybody has fun...

Negative pitch?! You look to be way too fast (long glides above the rwy)...

FSX has gotten aged these days, no hope for a successor from Microsoft, Prepar3d and X-Plane are around - and I wonder in which direction flight simming as we use to know it is heading in the future. Addon developers need to make revenues, currently we see products for either of the beforementioned FS alternatives. I miss a common consense in this respect, maybe it's still too early for a "general decision". What I cannot think of is that companies like PMDG (provided they'll get their Prepar3d licensing issues sorted out one day) will develop for both sims. I'd rather suppose developers have to make a decision for only one sim sooner or later... Any comments on what we can expect?

Sorry, I've been off FSX for several weeks now, and in the meantime I've watched lots of aviation videos. When I compare those from real world with others that show the same or a similar situation in FSX, I almost always have the impression that in reality, turn radii are much tighter than in the sim. E.g. the visual circling approach to Innsbruck rwy 08 (after leaving the ILS to rwy 27): Whereas in reality, a 737-800 makes such a tight right turn that it ends up well to the right of the centerline of rwy 08, in FSX, you find yourself displaced a good amount to the left of it. Bank angles are similar and not excessive in the real world videos. This corresponds to my own personal experiences, where I always felt that those curved/circling approaches look very different from what I see on real world videos, and which frighten me to a certain degree because it's more a fight with aileron and elevator, and the plane (I speak only of airliners and not of smaller aircraft) never seems to turn fast enough. Those approaches look a _lot_ easier to do in real world than they do in FSX, for me! Is it really so that FSX models turns badly or is what I see just a result of the missing peripheral view on my monitor and the restrictions the 3d-to-2d world imposes? Andreas

Let's face it: They're both aged, if you want real progress, look what Bombardier's C-Series offers :Drooling:

All I can say is: Wow!!! I'm really, really impressed by that!

Al, guess you meant PBN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance-based_navigation). RNAV means "area navigation" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_navigation). PBN basically requires RNAV and RNP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Required_navigation_performance). Andreas

For me personally it will be interesting what simulator will replace FSX in the future. Sure there's Prepar3D, but maybe it is based too much on an old and outdated platform so that X-Plane might have an advantage...

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Since more and more plane add-ons are developed without 2D panels, I thought I give the VC another try and ask the community how to transition best. Complex airliners the size of an ERJ and up is what I'm almost exclusively flying. I have tried to become accustomed to VC panels in the past several times using head trackers and camera position utilities and the likes, but have never made it to a point where I was convinced to abandon the familiar 2D pit. The main reasons for this are mainly: During the critical phases of flight (landing,...) I have my hands on the yoke and the throttle, so no time/possibility to use the mouse, maybe the keyboard if keys can be pressed quickly enough In these situations, I prefer to have important instruments (PFD, ND, flaps indicator, warnings...) simultanously on my screen and perfectly readable (big enough) Clearly, a VC would give me more situational awareness during curved approaches, that's another reason why I want to transition to VC. The reasons why I didn't feel comfortable in them are mainly: I found the way to pan around the VC always somehow cumbersome and strange: I either used the mouse, that consumed my right hand which should be on the throttle levers instead a head tracking device which made me like sick because it felt somehow "unnatural" attracted much of my attention: I had to invest a considerable amount of effort in getting the right viewing angle, time that I'd better have spent to flying the plane [*]somethig like EZDOK where I needed to fiddle with the keyboard, what, like the mouse, consumed one of my hands as well [*]I was never satisfied with the handling of the plane in the VC: Because the knobs and displays sometimes are far apart from each other, I constantly had to make big panning movements within the VC. And as I said above, that was difficult because I needed to finely adjust the viewpoint and zoom with the tools available (mouse, head tracker, keyboard). During that time, which consumed much attention, I didn't look out of the plane's window, and my hands where somewhere else than on the systems where they should have been (throttle levers instead of keyboard/mouse). All in all, e.g. during the final turn to the Tegucigalpa runway, I found myself spending more time to adjust my viewpoint in the VC than to actually handle the systems. Because of this, I often ended up in situations where I decided to switch back to 2D and recover from the mess. I found 2D panels more suitable for my requirements until now. I have all important things in front of me there and don't need to pan around, especially when I use a 2nd display. If you ask me, my logical preference would be using 5 displays, covering ~180 degrees of view left to right. Instead of needing to pan within the VC, I'd use my real head to quickly glimpse to the left, and then back to the instruments on the center 2D display. Because of my problems to transition to VC and the many postings where people say that 2D only flyers are already a minority, I wonder how all these people handle their planes. I don't want to fly in a VC where I can see almost all of the cockpit but have unreadable tiny instruments. It's possible to do that in FS because it's a simulated world and a crash wouldn't harm you at all, but that's not what I want. Like in the real world, a certain size of all knobs, buttons and instruments is required to make them usable. So, anyone have some serious recommendations for me?

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