RobberK

Many thanks indeed, Mike, exactly what I was after. I might just do some weather missions and add to that list.

The winds in most of the more "interesting" weather themes are a minor niggle, for me at least. The Maule, in real life just as in Flight, a bit of a slab as it is, doesn't like excessive crosswinds on landing or takeoff, and although it undoubtedly adds to the challenge of completing a flight, it gets to the point where you really struggle to control the aircraft, even with full into-wind aileron and so on, and in real life you'd not even bother trying. Additionally, none of these planes are particularly fast, and a 68kt headwind is quite a chunk out of your speed over the ground, even in the RV. It also seems to me that the wind-gradient with altitude isn't very steep, if even present, so 60kts at 10k ft means that's pretty much what you'll be dealing with on the ground. I've attempted in the past to descend to seek less fearsome headwinds, without much luck. Does anyone have a good handle on the conditions in each theme (particularly with regards to winds)? I like to fly with a little more cloud and variation than clear skies, but I've yet to find a theme that gets me cloud without a howling gale. As for fog... even a CAT III autoland would probably have to be thrown away in those conditions!

At the risk of opening old wounds here, I've seen this darkly alluded to multiple times in recent days since MS pulled the plug on Flight, and was wondering if someone could give me a brief summary of the history there, because constantly reading between the lines is starting to give me a headache. Clearly someone didn't like something about the proposed set-up, but I'm blowed if I can puzzle out if it was revenue share, or platform, or partnership, nor even who did the objecting.

Pfff, I've only just got started. Thanks in part to issues like Luis describes in actually trying to purchase and download content, I've only had the Maule a week, and I'm still only properly getting to know Hawaii. Yesterday, after a hard slog up the chain, flying job-to-job from Hilo Int'l to via Maui and Moloki to an airstrip on Kauai, and into 68kt headwinds most of the way (making an absolute shambles of my fuel planning back at the start of the day in Hilo), I made the last jump from the Hi 23 strip to Lihue to refuel, tearing along, downwind (finally!) and empty of passengers or freight, and with little more than fumes in the tanks. The sun was just starting to set. I had a bit of a breather, wandered about a little, and checked the job boards for jobs that might take me back, eventually, to Hilo. I pondered the fact that even with those headwinds now on my tail, it would take quite a while to get back with several stops, and wouldn't it be nice to one day have something a little faster to fly? Well, not anymore. I look back through the spitting rain, over the ramp at the honest Maule. Sorry, not this evening. I'll leave you here in Lihue for the night. I'm tired and I want to get home, quickly, and never mind the job "revenue". It's RV-6A time. In a minute or so later, I'm taxying along, trying to keep her straight between the blue lights, as I faff and fiddle with the sectional... let's see, 110 radial outbound from Lihue, that'll take me... hmm, should be able to pick up the Upolu VOR well before I reach Oahu, and then it's only a small course change from there. Ooops, nearly missed the turnoff. I fiddle with the radios; I'd normally fly by dead reckoning, but I want a fast run tonight, and with these winds and clouds... I'll try for 12,000 ft tonight, hopefully above the worst of it. The little RV is off, and dancing in the turbulence as I climb out, turning left over the golf course in a near-180 to get onto course. Fuel pump off, won't need the landing light in this cloud, prop back a touch. I flip on the "autopilot" (mouse control :) ) to take the load off a bit as I get my bearings, turn on course and climb through the clouds into the darkening sky. An hour and a bit later I'm approaching the Alenuihaha Channel, the last sea crossing for the trip. The Big Island is out there somewhere beyond the clouds and dark. There's something else out there too - another plane, some 75 nm away and closing. I've been watching him for some time, since he was 140 miles away. Seems to be on a reciprocal course. And still we're closing on each other. I flip on the landing lights. A little later, and a Mustang comes booming out of the night, screeches past me and pulls hard, turning in behind me, and easily catching up again - he flies off my starboard wing, a little lower, keeping station for a moment, and then, pulling up hard, is away into the night, the tough-looking planform of the P-51 visible against the high cirrus for a few moments. Nothing is said between us, but here we both are, comrades if but for a brief moment. I'm on approach to Hilo not long after, and parked up shortly after that. Time for bed. I wonder who that Mustang pilot was, where he was going. Not the kind of guy who needs instruments, even at 12k in cloud tops and at night. Ballsy. And, strangely, that encounter has cheered me up. I still see a future here in Flight.

Another angle on this argument is the assumption that an App-Store style cut of the retail price would have meant 30% less for the 3rd-part devs. An equally plausible scenario is a 30% hike in prices of 3PD content - and frankly, that might not have bothered folk too much when it came to the purchase/don't purchase decision. Instead of paying $24.99 for an FSX add-on aircraft, you'd be paying $32.49 for an aircraft in a new-release sim that has dynamic shadows in the virtual cockpit, much better out-of-the-box sim performance and a seamless purchase and installation route (GFWL flakiness notwithstanding. That would have to be fixed). The dev gets the same revenue as they would have in a non-app store environment, MS make their cu for developing the platform, and everyone's happy. I doubt that the extra $7.50 would make such a huge difference - I'm pretty sure hardcore sim add-ons are fairly price inelastic. I've been amused at times by some posts where people have been justifying their disappointment in such-and-such an add-on by bemoaning the thousands of dollars they have spent on hardware and software, only to go on to claim that such-and-such an add-on is badly overpriced at a tiny fraction of what they claim to have already spent on the hobby, and that they are clearly very cross about it (before generally going on to add that they'll buy it anyway, but under protest). Let's face it, if you're even thinking of breaking out the credit card to buy a virtual plane, you're already addicted...

I still don't know if I buy this Guns vs. Real Flying thing. There is an enormous amount of presupposition that Flight has been cancelled because it totally failed financially, and that it failed financially it was because it reached out to a broader audience. More specifically, there is a great deal of schadenfreude being displayed at the apparent comeuppance of not just a corporation, but a named individual, over their perceived slight* of the "real flight sim community". By "real flight sim community", I think what most people have meant is those that spend a lot of time, money and effort in pursuing a recreation of a highly specific tranche of aviation activity. And if that sounds a bit niche, it's almost certainly because it is. I think there are a lot of casual gamers out there who would be, could be, and have been tempted into flying around in a visually attractive environment without actually feeling the need to blow things up. And not all of us are compelled to spend most of our precious virtual flying time monitoring myriad, high-fidelity systems while at FL 380 - in fact, I reckon there are probably more folk out there who'd enjoy poling about the clouds for 30 minutes without ever having considered the critical importance of radar service or fuel imbalances than folk for whom such minutiae of managing an aircraft of any complexity are paramount. I guess what I am getting at is that there's been quite a lot of unpleasant "I told you so's" (often followed or prefixed by "and that's why I never even bothered to try it"), which presupposes that Flight was a flop. We don't know that it was a commercial flop - it may merely have been not stellar at a time where management were asked to cut x% of not-stellar programs, and the dice fell badly for us flight simmers. It's never pleasant to see people full of their own importance, so can I just make (an arguably self-important) plea for folk to throttle back on the gloating; the exit of a deep-pocketed player in this niche market cannot be a good thing. And more to the point - had MS succeeded in broadening the base of people flying simulated aircraft (and I think there is decent circumstantial evidence from users of these forums that they have), how could that possibly be a bad thing for those of us who care so much about our hobby? *yes, I've read the interviews. And yes, it is easy to read a "you guys aren't the be-all-and-end-all, so quit whining" into them. Ok, minus about 10 million points for style, but I am willing to entertain the notion that it doesn't make the man objectively wrong, either.

Haha, Mr Stokes, if you will permit me to assist you in removing that stick you have so enthusiastically shoved into a hornet's nest there, let me agree with you in widening that statement to say that, in general, my observation is that people who fly or have flown in real life (and who have a concurrent interest in simulation) tend to be fairly accommodating of all sims. I don't think I have seen as much falling one side of the fence or the other when it comes to the pros and cons of one piece of software over another; rather there is general amazement of what is in fact achievable within the limits of a desk-bound medium coupled with realistic criticism of shortcomings. I am generalizing of course, but that's my observation. Mr Adamson is perhaps one of the more prominent examples here at AVSIM, and long may he continue to be. As to Flight, I do think it does do a better job of the feel of flying light aircraft than most. Hard to put my finger on exactly what it is, other than the aircraft feel like they're the proper size - it really feels like a not inconsiderable miracle that you're heaving this vehicle off a runway, where perhaps in other sims it feels that way in a 747, but light aircraft are just that - light, and inconsequential. Highly subjective stuff, I know, so I'll leave it there!

Ok, true - you don't need to set the altimeter as Flight exists in a perfect world of ISA atmosphere, and clearly pitot tubes don't ice up much in Hawaii or Alaska or surely the checklists might've mentioned it! But, on the whole, the feel of the planes is "right", and at least I can switch on the pitot heat even if the consequences of not doing so are nil... and, for whatever reason, I feel that it is more important to get it right in Flight than I ever have in any other sim, so it must have a certain something that I can't put my finger on but makes me feel more "there".

I think we're deluding ourselves if we think the CEO of Microsoft had much input in the decision to go ahead with, and subsequently to terminate, this product. It would, at best, have appeared in a list within a summary of the performance and decisions of a sub-group of a sub-group of management at MS. This is middle management territory - which might explain some of the poor decision-making, come to think of it.

jimmydean, interesting that it's not just me, then. GFWL has been nothing short of a nightmare; several accounts (which you can't delete) because of incorrect country settings (which you can't change), credit cards that work fine on amazon, Apple, you-name-it, but are somehow not palatable to MS and which customer support tell you must be invalid... right up to, having finally purchased MS points, not being able to download the actual content with "Try again later" errors... it has been months and months and i have only now finally, finally got the Maule which i have been coveting. No, GFWL has not helped Flight's revenue one bit in my case, despite my best intentions. If my experience isn't unique, then am certain, certain, that in the Flight team's offices, GFWL would have been one of the most common sources of water-cooler moaning. I wonder how much it contributed to Flight's demise.

Ok, a poor choice of word. I meant that Flight, in its design and structure, suggests it as a possible future, and not that it was ever promised by the development team in black and white. (And, by the way, how many people seriously fly trans-oceanic in real time, ever? The guy had a point, even if it might have been more delicately put, given the audience.) And while I'm at it... FSX allows you to drive a boat, too - but it doesn't do it very well. It is universal, for sure, but "simple" (as you term it) GA isn't done particularly well in FSX. Flight, on the other hand, from the scaling of its scenery (trees in particular, but higher res textures and that clever texturing of cliffs as well), to its flight model, comes an awful lot closer to the experience of flying a light aircraft - it focusses on doing one thing well rather than being average at lots of things.

There seems to be a developing folk-wisdom around here that Flight has failed because it tried to appeal to too broad an audience, when it should instead have been tickling the FMS's of real simmers, with STARS in their eyes and for whom RNAV is the only kind of nav. And didn't we teach them a lesson, eh, by refusing to even look at Flight (the core of which is, lest we forget, completely free)? I am struck, in fact, by quite how many folk on this thread appear to have been introduced to the joys of civilian flight sims through Flight, and how quite a few of whom, in waiting for new scenery or aircraft, have gone on to purchase FSX. That, if anything, says to me that Flight was serving its market fairly well, if perhaps a little too slowly in terms of dishing out the new content. And that suggests it was probably under-resourced from the get-go, and not helped by a flakey platform in LIVE - I have had endless problems just trying to pay for DLC on LIVE. I suspect the decision to axe development (which remains confirmed only by an unattributed source, by the way) comes from a lot higher up the Microsoft food chain, and it's simply a false sense of our own importance to suggest that either whining on forums or brave, staunch abstinence from the product somehow taught this corporate behemoth a lesson. (And what lesson is that, by the way? Stay out of flight sims? Well done, everybody.) I like Flight. I'm a reasonably nerdy flight simmer, and I'd avoided it because it looked dumbed down and game-like until, bored one Sunday afternoon, I downloaded it anyway. And I was instantly hooked: here was a flight model that felt right, in exactly the way that FSX and all its illustrious forebears hadn't. More than that, the real nerdy guts of flying were all still there - radio navigation, checklists (a particularly well implemented feature, I feel)*. The visuals are fabulous, and the universal lighting casting shadows in the cockpit add a whole new level of spatial reference. And cranked up to max settings, it runs in a way that FSX never did, on the same PC. I like the jobs, and the missions. I like that you have to buy a bigger, more serious aircraft to start hauling cargo. And that you then have to have earned enough XP to be able to fly passengers in it. It all gently pushes you in the direction of gaining experience as a pilot, without structuring it along the rigid lines of lessons and tests, which are frankly anathema for the majority of us trying to escape reality for a few hours a week. I think quite a lot of thought has gone into the structure of the game, and it held the promise of gently guiding us on to bigger territories and better aircraft over time, mirroring perhaps a real career without being too formal about it. So I am very disappointed that it is all ending so soon, given the sense of promise I think that Flight has - or had. I had dreams of returning to Hawaii and flying inter-island hops in a tired old 737-200 and looking back on the days when I droned across the watery miles at 120 kts (if I was lucky) with a coughing old lady in the back, while looking forward to when that shiny new Challenger would be released and I could upgrade to ferrying VIPs... That was the experience that Flight promised. Alas, I suppose, no longer. I'll still enjoy Flight, as the best GA sim I've flown. But with a slight twinge of regret that it won't be leading anywhere further from here. * ok so the lack of carb heat bothers me - but then, there's no carb icing, so the omission is logical, if not for the right reasons.

Points through Amazon? Oh for... had I only known! Thanks for the tip. Although my problem now remains that Haiwaii doesn't want to download. Will try again when I have time. Good to know I am not alone in my woes, though. Thanks guys.

Am I the only one who is having endless issues with Live and the Games for Windows Marketplace? I have been very pleasantly surprised with Flight itself. I had intially decided that it didn't look "serious" enough, but the other weekend I downloaded it anyway, just to have a look. And I was sold within minutes - I love the look, the feel, I love the idea that it gently guides you into progressing as a pilot, and, most surprising of all, I found the restricted map liberating - I felt that I could actually explore the whole thing, realistically, rather than being faced with an entire world of limited quality. All good, I thought, I'd like to drop some cash on this. More islands. A Maule. Brilliant. Except that's where it all started to go wrong. At every single step, there've been issues. I had the issue with the registration key when signing into Live. I then had issues with the GFWM Client, which was needed as a workaround to the registration key. I then had issues with my Live acount (it had seemingly decided on its own that I was somewhere I wasn't) so that -eventually, once I had figured this out - I had to start from scratch with a new Live account. But, it's ok, we're up and running now, logged into Live. Add a credit card.... no, can't do that. It just refuses to accept it. Error, temporarily unavailable. Ok, try again later, same thing. Same thing a week later. More trawling the web, more attempts at workarounds. Try a third credit card, for some reason this time the details stick. Woohoo! Try and pay and.... Sorry, we could not validate this card at this time. Gah! Ok, try a paypal account. Added no problem, try and pay and... Sorry. Tearing my hair out by now, I trawl yet more forums and FAQs. No joy. In game or on the markeplace website, it's impossible to pay MS a cent. I try one more time, in game, just because I'm an idiot (repeating the same action again and again expecting a different outcome every time!) and... wouldn't you know it, I just bought 2000 Microsoft points! Astonishing! Quick, use 'em for the Haiwaii Adventure Pack! Yes! It's working, click download, it's working, it's... it's telling me it can't download it right now, Status 80070426. Deep, deep breath. Another hurdle. Ok. More forum searches. Reboot. No joy. Someone clever on Avsim describes a workaround using the GFWM Client .. try that... gadzooks! It's started to download. Slow, but... oh. No. GFWM Client has encountered a problem and needs to be shut. Great. I howl at the moon. Ok, so maybe the servers are slow or something. Let's try a smaller download in the meantime. That Maule. I want to haul cargo and passengers. Oh, not enough microsoft points left - buy some more, yes please. Sorry but your credit card could not be... the words disappear into the red fog that is my impotent rage. Is it just me? I'm almost beginning to feel picked on! All I wanted was to pay a few bucks to MS, and bimble around the Pacific skies... it can't be this hard can it? Can it? Apologies for the lengthy post, I just had to let it all out. And if anyone else has had these constant and seemingly insurmountable issues... let me know how you're getting on! I am not giving up, just yet. Flight is brilliant. Live... not so much.