Bernard Ducret

That would be a fine approach, BUT, you can bet that the plane (like many other addons or software in general) won't be completed upon release day, and if you want to really experience all feature of your product, you may have to wait (and subscribe) a few more months/years (?)... then the one-month "trial" period is of little value! This new trend of software subscription model sticks in many other areas such as the office suite of Microsoft or Quicken, where developers argue that they keep developing their products, hence they want a constant cash inflow to finance their R&D, however, they keep quiet about what they are actually developing so that you remain hooked until you finally get the feature you were hoping for. Personally, I like to know what I buy at the time of purchase and have little interest in "future (often unknown or unnecessary) feature" that I will need to pay for to see them implemented in an undefined period of time.

Sorry I am away from my sim, but I believe that one can select which GPS you want in the iPad EFB in the plane, am I correct? The livery selection refers to the FSW C414 and Learjet if I remember well.

I had a good look at this extraordinary plane, the A350 (the real airplane), inspired by this IniBuilds video, because, coincidentally, I finished today several readings evoking French aviation pioneers (Jean Mermoz, Saint-Exupery, Guillaumet, etc), written by those who worked, flew, met with them, Joseph Kessel among others. Then I paused, and thought: We owe so much to these men who risked - and often lost - their lives for what we take today as a given! How many people know that these pilots flew before 1930 on airplanes made of wood and fabric, with no cockpit, but an open space with no protection from rain, winds and snow, no other instruments than a watch, a compass, an altimeter, an anemometer (Badin invented it in 1911), during day time first, and soon at night, in what we now call IMC, sometimes as low as 200 feet below a CB cell with heavy precipitations and turbulences, above the sea, or the desert, to deliver... letters on time! Which pilot, today, with a sane mind, would take off in rain and overcast (IMC) with the instrumentation listed above and road maps to navigate, no VOR, no ADF, no GPS, no radio, on a plane equipped with an unreliable engine - as they were then - putting the probability of an engine failure above 50%?... When you now look at the sleek and elegant silhouette of the A350, its tons of instruments, computer screens, radios, with an endurance of 16 hours to cover half the globe, compared with 16 hours to cross the South Atlantic ocean between Dakar and Natal on the Couzinet "Arc en Ciel" (Rainbow), how many passengers (and even pilots) know, or can imagine, what these pioneers did? How many of these passengers and pilots realise that, back then (1930), pilots were forced to cross the Andes with planes that did not have the capability to climb above the highest peaks, and then had to navigate between summits, amidst clouds with nasty cold weather, winds and snow in an open cockpit and no oxygen at 14'000 feet? Alone! I have the uncomfortable feeling that we are so arrogant today with these electronic machines, that all the past heavy human sacrifices are forgotten for ever, less than a century later. We pretend to fly (I mean this as a former real world pilot myself not as desktop "flyer") when in fact we barely manage an assemblage of various brilliant technologies, but where is the real flying experience in all this? A few years ago an Air France crew - coincidentally between Rio and Paris the very route that Mermoz developed in early 1932 - lost control of their A330 at night in the Pot-au-noir on the South Atlantic crossing, because their cockpit bells and whistles were not functioning as they should have. Isn't that the demonstration that the real art of piloting is lost on those superb machines? To such a point that Airbus is hard at work on a cockpit without pilots. What are your thoughts, do you know your country aviation pioneers, how are they celebrated or remembered if at all? What are your views on today's aviation piloting skills?

May I suggest you first try and check your PC performance without using GSX boarding as Howard suggested, pan as much as you want, and see if it makes so much difference, you may be over estimating the performance impact. As long as you don't see those "passengers" your PC should not be affected by a drop in FPS.

I have been flying to KDCA for years as a pilot (a long time ago), quite often by night, and was always nervous about the whole region with its numerous restricted areas, heavy traffic (including GA), many visual approaches (no GPS RNAV at that time), and pilot visual separations which are never safe at night over a heavily urban and brightly lit area, since in a busy area as this one, it can lead to dramatic mistakes. It seems to me that in a tricky environment, the controller should never ever rely on a "visual" separation especially at night regardless of whether it is or not VMC, in that specific case, the "construction" of the drama started with: The change to RWY 33 when the AA plane was already on its approach for RWY 01, presumably to clear RWY 01 for heavy departing traffic, adding last minute workload to the AA crew, the RNAV VGF is at IDTEK at 500 ft before getting over the Potomac, when they should focus on the final approach leg and not worry about conflicting traffic. Relying on pilot visual separation (pilot of military helicopter only) on a potentially conflicting trajectory with arriving traffic. Had the controller issued an immediate instruction to change the heading of the helicopter, 67 people would be happily alive today... We are always more intelligent after, but the reality is stubborn and does not like to be ignored.

This was not part of the discussion so far, but I thought I should mention for those suffering of arthritis or chronical inflammation a long term cure that I experienced first hand. When I consulted my rheumatologist, the first recommendation was NSAID, with the consequences you all know when they are taken for a long period of time. On WebMD (which by the way I recommend to anyone curious about alternative treatments) I discovered S Adenosyl methionine (SAMe) with no side-effects and gave up on the NSAID without medical clearance. This supplement (SAMe) is natural and used by Mount Sinai Hospital and Mayo Clinic in the States, but also in some countries in Europe like Italy, Spain and Germany. Upon my next semestral arthritis check, my inflammation (and pain) - as shown by blood tests - had gone away, totally, so the rheumatologists thought their treatment was working, when I broke the news to them, their first reaction was: "It is not scientifically accepted". My question to them: "Is SAMe dangerous?", and their answer was "Not that we are aware of". Separately, my generalist approved and I am now totally discharged from the arthritis department... No pain, no chemical, no inflammation, no side-effects after two years (and regular blood controls).

Financial viability was not there anymore as explained by Urs the developer. Aivlasoft was only sold through its own web site thus limiting its already low profile market visibility, and this is really a pity since it was far easier (for me) to use than any other existing similar software, with a well thought out and clear UI. Cost-wise it was also a real bargain compared with Navigraph (although it used its AIRAC updates) and offered essentially the same information. I still use it (MSFS 2020) on a separate PC and screen and makes taxi, take off and arrival planning so much easier, re-routing or changing a STAR on the fly in particular.

Carl, the Development version is fine and I cannot really comment on the ground handling other than say that I don't have a problem with it at all (I use a tiller).

Are you flying the Development or Stable version? The Development version gets updates at the same time you have updates for the A320.

Anything we can help you with to get you back on board the SWS PC12? I am currently on a round-the-world tour with it and have yet to experience anything unpleasant.

Right, but I don't like the colour of the pillows that you tested... 🤪 Jokes apart, another talented developer forgotten with a splendid FSR500! My mistake, I usually focus exclusively on steam gauges, that's why I forgot FSReborn and a few others all with screens, thanks for rectifying my shortcomings. Plenty of excellent suggestions, I did forget the RVs because I don't know them to be honest as they are rare in Europe (at least in my area), but knowing Bert's qualifications, I have no doubt SWS did a good job! Nobody mentioned the Kodiak yet, I don't have it, is it also part of that same league and worth acquiring (also not too well known around here)? The Milviz PC6 certainly belongs to that club though, thanks Martin.

I landed my SWS PC12 this afternoon at Gilgit (OPGT), an airport I have known well in the very distant past (IRL as we say...), and was thrilled by the excellent handling of the SWS plane during this technical approach to RWY 25, job well done really and a confirmation of how well GA aircraft are modeled nowadays in MSFS. In the past years, we - GA pilots - have been rewarded by several successful releases from another brilliant new developer, BlackSquare, who has grown his skills progressively from the default airplanes steam gauges mods (Caravan, Baron, Bonanza, King Air, TBM 850) to a fantastic duo of full fledged new design of the two Duke(s), piston and turbine which are setting new standards in GA simulation going deep into the technical aspects of managing our engines properly. Then we had the great FSW C414 and Learjet 35, constantly improved by several updates, adding a host of unexpected details and refinements from a dedicated and passionate developer. I do not own the A2A aircraft simply because I don't like the plane they propose (for the time being), but I understand they have done an outstanding job too. Which one did I forget? What GA aircraft do you fly the most in MSFS 2020? In closing, it is thanks to the very concept of MSFS 2020 (and of course 2024 which is not not discussed here since I don't own it) of providing us with the faithful reproduction of Mother Earth that we can now fully enjoy flying low and slow (well... relatively speaking...), something that was far less interesting in any previous simulators. For example, flying this afternoon in the middle of the Indus valley in the Himalayas range was absolutely extraordinary and stunning since I could recognise a number of spots we used for visual navigation (no IFR was possible in those areas) bringing joy and nostalgia!

Ray, I don't know if your remarks are for 2020 or 2024, I am still on 2020 until such time I feel 2024 offers the same stability and all my add-ons are supported, then I will make the move, the same way I migrated from P3Dv4.5 eight months after MSFS 2020 was released. But getting to your questions, I am using 14 GoFlight modules all easily programmed with FSUIPC, my Aivlasoft EFB v2 (on a network PC) works flawlessly, and as far as airports add-ons are concerned, most of the reputable developers do pay some attention to their AFCAD. The only part where I sympathise with your feelings is about being dependent on a working server that is not under my control, fortunately MSFS 2024 will become similar to 2020 so all your software will remain on your hard disk, only the world scenery will be delegated to the goodwill of Microsoft servers, and that I can live with, whereas the initial total streaming concept of 2024 was an absolute no-go for me. All my previous simulators were essentially used for airliners where ORBx high altitude sceneries had little to no importance to me, now with the high fidelity of the Bing world rendering, I switched to mostly GA flights because I can visualise the real sceneries I have known in the real world. I realise that - in your case - flying Concorde at 60'000 feet will reduce or negate the interest of this aspect, not to mention that whenever you take off and land with that wonderful aircraft, there is no time to contemplate any scenery at all however beautiful it may be...

True and the proper way to operate, however, today I experienced twice a total engine shut down when I switched from GPU to Battery even though I moved the switch very fast. So I tried the start on Battery only and it worked fine. Regarding the throttles, I also have difficulty getting down to 14'200 rpm at cruise level, even with my throttles almost fully back, I am still at 15'000 rpm, having said that, I believe it may be due to my hardware calibration which I will refine tomorrow in FSUIPC and see if it makes a difference. On ground, I had no problem at all to taxi at slow speeds. ILS on AP performs as desired. As for landing speed, 110 knots is preferable on short final Russell. No floating then. Strange your AP did not follow the GS correctly, did you put full flaps when stable on the ILS (other factors may have been wind and weight)?

I just completed a short LOWS-LOWW flight and now have a reasonably good grasp on most items. What a brilliant piece of work done by this freeware developer who gave us back in FS9/FSX the Caravelle 12. That is his first delivery to MSFS and what a masterpiece! Decidedly this community of freeware developers will never cease to astonish me with their passion that they want to share! This release was done quietly, and I almost missed it, it is only because I saw one livery on Flightsim.to for a Fokker 27 that I stopped and thought "Hold on, what is this, I never saw a F27 in MSFS...", and that livery led me to the plane package. Kudos to the discreet Bgaurant!!! 5 stars are in order, not enough publicity on AVSIM where freeware planes are generally ignored or looked down upon....