HGNK

A comment about the real world and simming and aircraft performance. Many years ago I did 2 hours of circuit training in a real piper warrior at my local field. I came home that day and fired up MSFS. The closest plane I had was the mooney bravo (a completely different aircraft). I left the wheels down and did my entire circuit training (what I had done a few hours before) - used the same engine and similar flap settings (the numbers) and was amazed to see that it behaved much the same. I have never looked at simulators the same again - they are sophisticated engineering simulations with inertias and accelerations etc, most of the physics coded in. Only wind modelling (and some other special things) seems to be sometimes lacking. That was my experience - others may vary, but I was very impressed.

Weird is good! Yes been doing this for years. I started in VATSIM decades ago, then found that the realism of live ATC was my preference (no disrespect to online flying - it is a great experience I did for years). My present routine is to have live ATC on during a sim flight as chatter, because mirroring an actual flight can be a bit stressful. I prefer a more leisurely experience now. I tend to avoid ground and tower frequencies as I taxi to a runway or when landing to avoid a clash between the real world and my sim airport. I simply tune into other frequencies at that time, but the rest of the flight I am tuned into the correct frequency. I shadowed/mirrored an Air France flight from LSZH to Paris a few times a week for a long time and learnt an enormous amount about this particular flight. What you learn from this cannot be fully summarised. After decades of following ATC (without flying the route) online, mirroring a flight is the ultimate experience. But it can be stressful (in a similar way to how a real flight is - I would get an airport high for days after a GA flight at my local field). Some tips for shadowing: 1. avoid difficult airspace like New York with a huge number of frequency changes (depending on your aircraft choice of course). I liked the heavies and the frequency changes are hectic and rapid. I found Paris Zurich the perfect blend of easy frequencies for me to follow. I have done others in the US as well - short regional flights, and quite a few long haul transcontinental flights 6+ hours - that is a real challenge. 2. departures are the easiest to shadow. Clearance delivery, ground all take a long time and it is easier to follow. Delays and weather add an extra dimension to your simming you can't get any other way. One hour+ delays can be annoying though. Clearance delivery is patchy - I prefer to simply monitor ground. 3. don't worry if you lose a flight enroute. If you are familiar with the flight and frequencies you can often pick it up enroute later. 4. landing is the hardest. I tended to follow a flight to the runway intercept/tower handoff and then tune out to another frequency. Matching the landing is super hard - I think I managed the timing there once. 5. flightaware will often show you the flight plan including STARS and SIDS and waypoints just before a flight is scheduled and shows historical data for your flight. After a while you get familiar with the route and need this less. But this helps with planning. 6. the shorter the flight the easier it will be to match especially the arrival. The closer you get to the destination runway, the harder it is to shadow. I think the transcontinentals I only ever did a departure or an arrival - not a whole flight - too hard. Its fun, but done right you will feel the stress of the timing and ATC handoffs all while flying the route. Glad I did it and may do it again soon. With regard to the stress I should point out that the simmer's stress is more often a case of computer stress than actual flying - managing the liveATC frequencies/lags and dropouts, internet connections, timezones, etc...

Ah that's great thankyou Michael. Looks fantastic. I should correct my original post regarding FSX - the default FSX airports were pretty bleak with little more than a runway and taxiway - it is the surrounding landscape and overall look which was amazing in FSX. I always thought I would visit Seattle one day after years of simulated flying there. I would go to Chisana and Alaska first.

Can't believe this forum is still going! Havn't posted for 10 years... I don't have FS2020 (wish I did) due to a bad internet connection but I know what I would be doing if I did. One of the gems of the old FSX default scenery was Chisana Alaska. I imagine it would look even more amazing now. It is possible that even microsoft are not aware of how good these Alaskan airports looked (they were modelling the whole world). Stray a few miles away from the following routes and the scenery becomes pretty rubbish in FSX, but between these airfield it is simply amazing. My favorite ride was the Bell helicopter. I only discovered this scenery by accident 2 years ago. I recommend the follow flights in a light GA, you will be flying down glaciers and over peaks (if you send me a screen shot would be amazing). Highly recommended for any GA flyer. A very remote and isolated part our planet. Chisana CZN to McCarthy 15Z (PAMX) my all time favourite. Choosing the right mountain pass to approach McCarthy is a challenge - they all look the same. Chisana CZN to Yakutat YAK (PAYA), coming down from the escarpment to sea level is amazing. If you head South East from Chisana looking for a mountain pass you will see some great scenery. You have to climb some ridges - there is no direct glacier path to the coast from here. But that's all part of the fun. You have to fly these routes at low level - up high they may not look so amazing. The real scenery must be awesome if it looks this good in a simulator. Enjoy...

I don't have any other heli sim other than Real Flight 8 RF8 and FSX, but I am pretty happy with FSX and the R22 c/w mods online, though I have no real world heli experience. The blade slap mod is great. I hope MS can do that or purchase it off the modder. I think they should seriously look into blade slap to incorporate with the fixed wing propeller GA planes as well, because during my flying lessons on a piper warrior I recall many times hearing blade slap on short final in the flare just before landing as power goes to idle. Scared the hell out of me the first time I heard it, but you get used to it. Its a great sound and very loud. The Xbox angle is an interesting one - it will match my favourite controller for PC Heli sim flying - the PDP Xbox Win 10 USB controller. Its the cheapest and best controller I own with radio-control type configuration which I have a preference for. The paddles at the back give rudder control as well with both hands - complete control. The RF8 usb controller is not bad as well. To be frank, I am surprised that I like the FSX heli flight model, as I always assumed it was rubbish, until I got into heli flying. Feels very real to me now..it augers into wind and is reasonably hard to hover properly....in high cross wind its a challenge to fly...but no doubt there are better heli sims out there.

PLEASE PLEASE keep the current and traditional MSFS open-architecture of the file systems allowing users to modify things easily. Alot of games are write protected and you need to unpack the data files first to allow modifications, which is overly complex. I like to play around with the runway and taxiway textures in world texture folder, swapping them around. My favourite mod is to replace the tax_concrete file with the taxi_sand texure, which gives airport concrete aprons a yellow sheen they often have on bright sunny days. I use the taxi_dirt texture for Bangkok VTBD, which gives the apron a tan color like the real VTBD. The coral texture for taxiways is also possible in the Pacific with some airports exhibiting a white-bleached look in full sunlight. With replacement texture programs like REX, the possibilities for airport customisation are endless, but I have found the original textures to be sufficient for my needs. MSFS has always been about easy modding and an extensive add-on community - that has always been its edge and made it the King of simulators, would be shame to see that go.

Yes I agree, VR is fantastic and I am sure superior to a 2D wide screen TV. I had a 3D MS flight simulator set up in 2001 on a 19" monitor with electronic shutter glasses, and at the time thought I would never go back to 2D. It was a game-changer and a radical improvement in flying simulators. Unfortunately life got in the way and the software was very complicated with issues back then, and I am hoping one day to get back there. Haven't used 3D since that time. Some day soon. VR is definitely the future.

Forgot to mention the 50" widescreen TV display - that makes a huge difference. Sims look much more real on a big screen - lifesize. Anyone who hasn't experienced a big screen flight sim I cannot recommend highly enough - I simmed for 20 years on a small laptop, desktop monitor and I wouldn't go back there again.

I agree with KBUR about heli fyling and realism. They should have three settings - easy for those who want a casual experience, hard and ultra-hard. Notice I don't say 'Real' because I don't expect a sim heli will ever be as hard to fly as a real one - I have never heard a real world heli pilot say they are easy to hand fly - exactly the opposite. They are what in engineering is know as "inherently unstable" unlike fixed wing. Inherently unstable in engineering speak translates to mean DANGEROUS, BE CAREFUL. People like me who are interested in flying helis in sims is because they should be hard to fly. My top tip, in my endless quest for brain-crushing hellish difficulty is to take your favourite controller and go into setup screen and purposely off-centre it slightly, so it will always want to roll off in another direction. The trick is to let someone else do it for you so you don't know where the new center is. You will have a ride which will never sit in one spot and will need constant slight correction. My choice of controller is the excellent PDP Xbox Win10 controller. I also have the real flight RF8 USB controller for Windows, but this controller is so precise that it takes up a fair bit of computer memory so I prefer the PDP, but the RF8 is a superb and precise heli controller with very fine inputs. Heli flyers want a challenge. I haven't got the AF2 sim, but every other sim I have is a bit of a walk-over without improvising to make them harder. My particular interest is hovering and taxiing in high wind conditions. Its a blast.

Sorry - just noticed your post mentioned 'yoke'. I thought it was a joystick. I have never had a yoke controller, only joysticks. Can't help, but your 'lubrication-sticking' problem sounds suspiciously like mine was. I would investigate the self centering spring as the culprit before I would blame the bearing or lubrication. Lubricating plastics is probably tricky, but I wouldn't know - you would need the correct lubricant - would discuss with someone who knows. A plastic safe lubricant is a good idea.

Note - my set up is I have clamped the central coil with one cable tie, on only one side to get the smoothness I want. What you are doing is effectively are weakening the coil which means there is a lower self-centering force, which means less force input by you to push or pull the stick off centre. This over-stiff coil is basically clamping, forcing the stick hard down onto the bearing base which is the reason it feels hard to move and 'sticking' or 'locking'. I wish I had known this solution 20 years ago - would have solved alot of joystick frustration. At one time, when I was convinced my joystick was too cheap in manufacture (they are never that cheap to buy as you know!), I went into the store to complain about my latest stiff joystick purchase and had a look at some super-expensive sticks on display, which I was told would solve my problems. "You get what you pay for" sales line. After handling some of their sticks 2-5x the price of mine, I was not convinced - they felt just as cheap as the ones I had, just with some extra gizmos thrown in, that I don't need. Didn't trust them and now I know I was wise to stick with a cheap stick. I doubt the good ones are as good as they claim. I like cheap, and now I have cheap and cheerful - perfect control when I fly on a sim with my cheap 50c cable ties. Best of luck. My present stick is 5 years old and no problem. Though I have found over the years that the Saitek/Madcatz sticks do tend to fail with the rudder-z twist turn of the stick. Only my most recent sticks still have working twist stick rudder. I don't like the twisting the stick rudder anyway so it doesn't bother me. Trying to land in a crosswind twisting a joystick does not do it for me. Its a ham fisted solution. In the past I prefer to use the keyboard for rudder control but now with the PDP Win10 twin stick controller I don't need the keyboard.

Haven't had the time to properly read the replies to this post but your problem 9Gturn, is not the bearing, its the ridiculously stiff and over hard central coil spring - the spring you can see at the base of the stick when you tilt it. I have bought about 6 Saitek (now Madcatz) sticks over the years and they all had the same problem. I had to sort the problem recently because I wanted to fly helicopters on fsx and the stick 'stiffness' and 'sticking' made it impossible for smooth control. Like you I thought that lubrication would solve the sticking problem. Their are a few youtube videos online but the solution is really easy and simple. Buy a 50c pack of plastic cable ties. Clamp the central coil spring with a pair of pliers and cable tie one side of the spring, forcing the coil together, thereby weakening it. The tighter you clamp the coil, the weaker it will be. You can experiment with different configurations but I found by only clamping the middle three turns of the spring (not the top and bottom which would be difficult to access) which are easy to see and access, I get a stick which is about 50% less stiff and never sticks ever. Pretty smooth control now which requires very little force to move around. This way I still get some self-centering. Having a stick with no spring at all (no self centering) would probably be hard to use, but I have heard of someone doing just that. I hardly use standard joysticks anymore because of their price and stupidly stiff self centering spring stiffnesses which 'locks' the stick so hard you need to wrench it sideways...been there done that sick trick too many times! Its horrible. In a real plane the pilot would refuse to fly it and send it back to engineering! Now I prefer the excellent and far cheaper PDP Xbox and Win10 controllers (USB) which have twin sticks (like radio control controllers) and paddles at the back for rudder control. This controller gives full control with 2 hands. My set up is throttle on the left stick and aleron and elevator (right stick), flaps and brakes via its buttons. Never need to touch a keyboard now when flying. Its a great product and the paddles are better than rudder pedals for me. Highly recommend. FYI - before I found the solution on youtube, I had a conversation with a Professional Joystick service engineer - a colleague of mine who supplied joysticks to the industrial market. He didn't know the source of my problem but told me that the reason his joysticks never 'stick' and are smooth as butter is because they cost $1000 AUD + and hundreds of dollars to service. At the time I thought that it was all about money, but eventually discovered the cheap solution to my cheap chinese joystick.

I don't have Aerofly FS 2 (only have the original) but I suspect they dumbed down the crosswind modelling, which is one of the reasons I never upgraded. If I was the developers, with the approaching FS2020, I would focus on limited regions (key airports and areas) that connect the world, allowing both GA and long haul enthusiasts, similar to what Flight Unlimited 3 did (it was superior to MSFS imo at the time) of Looking Glass Studios. I would go the Looking Glass route, and focus on flight modelling, wind and weather to compete against MS. FU3 had good weather and crosswind modelling. Because MS is going to do the whole world, it makes it easier for them to provide an alternate sim experience by focusing on key locations for a superior result. Flight fidelity, improved weather and crosswind modelling (stick and rudder skills) would be my route to market. They are smart guys and certainly can do it. I like the real engineering type layout of their flight model files, which are highly customisable. I like to play around with the thrust power and 'aircraft weight' to modify aircraft behaviour (runway takeoff lengths). By this method and consulting performance charts for a particular aircraft you can get some very realistic take off runs and flap settings - makes a short runway look extra scary. In a word - seeking to emulate Looking Glass Studios FU3 is the way I would go. Aerofly FS1 and FU3 are the only sims I have flown that made wind a factor and landings hard. The damage model in AFS1 was good too - a hard landing becames a crash!

For anyone interested my vote goes to the PDP Wired Controller, Xbox and Win 10 which I use on a PC - its the best controller I have for flying simulators and also the cheapest. https://www.amazon.com/PDP-Wired-Controller-Xbox-Verdant-Green/dp/B073X515PL?th=1 with two hands you have throttle, elevator and ailerons, and two paddles on the back for rudder control you can access with your spare fingers at the back. It gives full control and this full control makes it closest to the real thing imo. The only downside is that I have the throttle set up on the right stick and the self centering spring means you have to hold it down to idle - but you get used to it, and one advantage is in the centre it will maintain a good thrust level for cruising. After years of trying pedals for sims I have given up on them. Found the pedals in a real aircraft not that comfortable to use either. The paddles as rudders works well for me. The self centering springs on this controller (similar to radio control controllers) work much better than on joysticks. I have to modify my other joysticks with a plastic zip tie to make them useable, since every joystick I have bought had springs which were far to strong and made using the joystick sticky and hard to use. There are youtube videos showing how to modify a joystick, that is reduce the spring force with a plastic tie (its a 50 cent investment), by clamping the centre spring under the base. It works well. I had to do this when I started flying helis on fsx, to make the stick smoother, but now I use the PDP controller.

Yes we should avoid using the term "eye candy" as though it is something redundant. The purpose of a simulator is to "simulate the real world". The closer to reality it looks, the better it has performed its function. I have always been 100% into graphics - the more gorgeous the sim - the more I want it.