VOJu24

Thank you very much for this great post. This made my work commute one exciting read 🙂

I think you are talking about free route airspace (FRA) where you just have entry and exit points pretty much https://www.eurocontrol.int/articles/free-route-airspace

I absolutely agree, the frame rate is a whole different aspect of performance, but here I'm less concerned. Thank you so much for your help. So I guess after spending the last 4 hours scouring around, despite mixed reviews I think I'll still go for the C177 and then probably also the DR 400 (maybe not right now but eventually) since it looks like it's an amazing plane even if the looks aren't quite up to the standards anymore. I considered many other planes, for example Ant's Eaglet, which definitely would have been an affordable alternative, and Alabeo's DA40 who has pretty good reviews but in the end, sometimes the looks just catches you and for my VFR encounters I can definitely live without an autopilot and the view from the C177 cockpit is just great (doesn't mean I won't ever use spot view 😉 ) So thanks again Bill, and I'm convinced your list will help many more simmers! Best, David

Hi Bill, Thank you so much, what an amazing list! This will go right into my bookmarks, it's pretty much exactly what I need to make a good purchase decision! Thank you for taking the time to compile this. I had started to compile my own but yours covers almost all the aircraft I have, and I know it's a lot of work to compile such a list in a consistent way. I will definitely look at the Vertigo Stearman, Lionheart Quest Kodiak and the Aerosoft Robin as well as some others from your list. The problem is that performance as in fluidity or frame rate does often not correspond with VAS, the C400 has low framerates but takes less VAS then the more fluid A2A products. That's why I think Bill's list is so amazing, it doesn't talk about performance it really focuses on VAS, which is usually not obvious to the sim pilot!

Thank you, Yeah it's a good idea! I have been tempted to buy once of them many times. I think the warrior or the archer would both be great. In this context maybe the c152 makes more sense. I'm just a bit concerned with all their amazing features that they would be more in the A2a region. I guess the socata tb10 and tb20 could be more friendlyto the VAS. There really just the layout/looks of these cockpit put me off a bit. But definitely something I might get at some point. Best, David Ps. P3DV4 is currently not an option for me.

Hi everyone, Recently, I've reviewed the VAS usage of my planes, since I've had some OOMs or close calls. To my 'dismay' I discovered that the A2A planes actually take much more VAS than even the Alabeo C400 which has the G1000 (that supposedly needs a lot of VAS). (Obviously that's for good reason and I enjoy flying them, but sometimes I want to fly more to enjoy the scenery.) Since my very well-used A2A planes aren't quite as VAS-friendly, I'm looking for a lighter simulation. I'm looking for a nice-looking VFR aircraft to enjoy VAS-hungry (ORBX and other) scenery. Important is that the visibility from the cockpit is good for enjoying the scenery. Actually, the default Maule is already pretty good, but it looks too dated inside (and the "reflections" on the window are driving me crazy). Of course I don't mind if the systems are a bit more extensive than in the Maule, but priority is VAS-friendliness over extensive systems. So far I've seen the Alabeo C177 as an option. It probably needs less VAS than the C400, I'm just not sure how much I enjoy the "Alabeo"-isms. So, I would love to learn about some other planes that you think could be a great fit for exploring scenery at high settings. I tend to favor single engines over twins (because I somehow believe the smaller the plane the less VAS it uses), but that is not set into stone. Overall the question is just, what aircraft would you use that looks and flies nice, with basic systems, when you want to crank up the scenery settings? Thank you for your suggestions! David

I also vote for the TFDI 717, which should be out of beta very soon, hopefully. Definitely a beautiful and nifty aircraft

Hi Ray, Thank you for testing! Too bad it didn't work. It's probably that they changed the function which I used to delete the planes. So the first time it might not have had anything to delete, until you put down the refresh time. Sorry that it didn't work. Best, David

No Worries. Hope it will see plenty of use :) Best, David

I should have read that more closely :D built a 64-bit version. But now it's time to plan a flight and fly :) (with my very old custom setup of ai traffic though :P ) If somebody was really interested in trying, I was able to build a 64-bit version, but it probably will only crash the simulator because I use a direct call into an FSX DLL that probably changed format to delete the aircraft. But so if anyone really wanted to try shoot me a pm and I'll send you a link to test, whether it works or not. Anyways, Thank you Oliver for the link :D (well it only took me an hour to make stupid Visual Studio find my header files ;) )

Thank you Ray and Oliver, Yeah I used the Traffic Explorer from the SDK in the passed and then it's just like yeah on Saturday this flight will depart, that's in like 1.5 days xD One problem is that it's a 32-bit DLL at the moment :/ ... And I assume I'd need the 64-bit SDK to be able to recompile it if it should work with V4 ... Is the SDK publicly available or would I need to buy P3DV4 first? @Oliver or anyone who can recompile it the code would be available here: https://github.com/DKlaper/AIDeleter/tree/master/SimConnect Best, David ps. I guess now I know why it wasn't a good idea to do the In-Process DLL, but it was just easier at the time :/

Hi everyone, Some time ago I was annoyed by airports with no open gates so I wrote an utility that deletes aircraft that won't depart for a long time in a radius around the user regularly: https://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=ai+deleter&CatID=root&Go=Search Just to be clear the current version only supports 32-bit Sims. I will send Ray a version for 64-bit to see if it works. However, I have no idea if the SimConnect API that I use for it changed in P3D so I cannot guarantee it'll work. Best, David ps. I'm not a professional FSX developer, so I'm sure other people like Oliver could probably build something even better.

I guess for me it's really understanding the systems. Reason based on the physical facts, why certain things need to be done. I like understanding complex systems and an airliner is very complex. I will never fly 16+ hours or something like that. I'll do short flights even if they are not absolutely realistic in the 747, to understand how it handles. Also play with the amount of fuel and weight to understand the actions required based on the fuel configuration, and also sometimes train failures. Jobwise I'm a programmer, so the failure system is like fixing bugs in software. You see the outcome but the reason why something happens might not be obvious, and I love the challenge. So really I love flying GA, but for playing with a system airliners are amazing, even if I might not use the long-range ones in entirely realistic scenarios.

I can only second what Chris said. I'm running a Samsung Evo M2 SSD for my main FSX installation plus a conventional Samsung Evo SATA SSD for scenery. For me the performance improvement is noticeable but minor. The important thing is to avoid hard disks at all cost. Whether it's really worth to invest into M2 at 150$ more is questionable. I also did it just because I was curious to see how it's installed and how the connection works. It was a nice adventure, but I think for me the difference wasn't that big between the SATA and M2 versions. Best, David

If you want to use it with PF3 yes you do have to export it in both formats. PF3 doesn't understand .gfp. Best, David