thepitts

The Stropopause: The prequel to the menopause due to initial instability in oestrogen / progestogen levels marked by excessive ...... . Now who am I to remark; never having had to deal with a massively varying hormonal environment for half my life or losing 50 ml of blood every four weeks (I start blubbing after a pinprick.) Kudos to the fairer sex.

Such sentiments make you a completely inappropriate candidate for modern day air crew training ! 🙂

Thanks for the additional inmformation. Cheers Tim

Forgot to ask ! Does it work in X-plane 12 ? Cheers Tim

Thanks Costaldriver/bendyflyer. (I think I understand the origin of the first moniker, the second one ...eeerrhh slightly worrying.) Always appreciate criticism and validation from the "Been There, Seen That, Got the T-shirt" brigade; coupled with a zero level of monetisation or conflict of interest. So your positive experience of the simulator in its' present state and Manky's Dash 8 actually means something real in an ocean of fake. Also good to see a still thriving Freeware community in x-plane able, through the skills of hardcore flight simmers, to design test and produce quality addons. Downloading Manky's Dash 8. Blue Skies ..... or not ! Cheers Tim

Hi Jcomm, Not x-plane related but would still value your opinion on Aces of Thunder; in particular the quality of the flight model, ballistics model and damage model. Cheers Tim

Looking forward to round 2. Which hopefully will be better than the second test is shaping out to be, at least from an Englishman's perspective.

Another recommending the JF BAe 146, a great value deal. Interesting market / flight profile niche coupled with 70's era "you have to get off your word not allowed to operate/monitor" systems. If you can't afford a C-17 Globemaster then fly around in it's "Love Child."

I'd like to add my congratulations to the above posters with that of the Moderator for an illuminating discussion on a potentially contentious subject. In thinking why the discourse represents such a statistical outlier in on-line behaviour I think I've hit on the reason. The Forum is a virtual form of the UK Light Aviation Association whose president / chief officer noted in a recent interview that there were more over 80's members than there were under 40's. Thanks for the interesting Sunday morning read. Cheers Tim

I've not been on the forums for a week so a delayed further thank you for your time and effort in detailing some of the idiosyncrasies of seaplane flying in the real and virtual worlds. Cheers Tim

Hope that helps ! ........ it certainly does ! Thanks for the time and effort . Who needs Large Language Models when you have access to Coastaldriver. I know next to nothing about seaplane operations so I'll need to do a little digging. I'm looking to get a "flavour" of this type of aviation so someone knowledgeable saying the models are good and the simulation's representation is , with caveats, okay spurs my interest. Picking from the eclectic range of aircraft you have provided I think i'll test the water (pun intended) with the float plane version of the default C172. If that "learning to crawl" phase goes okay, being the word not allowed I am, I fancy skipping the "walking phase" and going straight into the PBY Catalina before ascending to the responsibility of paying passengers with the Boeing 314 Clipper. I vaguely remember a review of the Catalina back in XP11 era. What you lost in workload through sedate airspeeds you more than made up for in seaplane operations and old school engine management. Thanks again for your time and effort. Cheers Tim

Any x-plane 12 seaplane recommendations ? Any tips on configuring the simulator for seaplane ops ? And finally any recommendations for on-line resources for seaplane flying ? Cheers Tim

Appreciate the "Been there, done that (properly), got the T-shirt" educational input. I can well understand the need to "knock out" the Get-Home-itis" from us GA. "The Force is strong Luke, the Force is strong !" Thanks Tim

Depends on what you want. If your are chasing the "As Real As It Gets" fantasy then I'd agree with the last poster adding that it would also need to be area specific as VFR ATC in the UK is a different thing to VFR ATC in the USA. If on the other hand your aim is to use the Flight Sim for fun and as an adjunct to flight training then the present state of X-plane ATC fulfils my requirements; those are simulating the additional stress, over and above flying, of simultaneously processing another stream of information. Another good example is BMS Falcon 4. If I want to practice ATC for real I'll go to the nearest field and listen on the airband (or do the equivalent through the magic of the internet.) Cheers Tim .

Thanks for the alert, downloading (1.4GB ?!) as I type. Following your technical / historical summary an aircraft which previously I hadn't given a second thought about has now become fascinating. In modern parlance "my bad". Stick and rudder that needs to be flown. Sounds good to me. Cheers Tim