Antipodeslonghaul

I'm picturing a weather engine that would for example take extensive data from just a few select locations, i.e. Buenos Aires, Cape Town, and Melbourne in the Southern Hemisphere, and say San Francisco, London, and Tokyo in the Northern Hemisphere, just as an example, interpolate for everywhere else, plus add a random element to it, and go back as far as 1903 (Wright Flyer). I'd use such a feature when flying historical planes, say somewhere in the 1950's for the DC6 or 60's-70's in the DC8. 100% accuracy wouldn't be the key, but rather plausibility. It'd probably just be a tiny nook within an already very small niche, but if you can imagine it, it just might be possible.

Hear, hear! One of my best sim memories is still a PMDG 747 and using Active Sky departure out of Singapore late one night close to MTOM with massive thunderstorms all around, the weather radar all lit up in different shades, perhaps microbursts and then crashing into the ground shortly after departure. Upsetting after all the planning, yet exhilarating and a great learning experience all the same.

There'll be an update where pause at TOD will actually do just that. It will be nifty for 777 long haul flights. Sure, if you wait too long the weather might change quite a bit, you can't have everything. But if you're into lazy longhauling, you can finish your dinner or whatever you were doing before heading back to the sim to do your approach and landing, both fuel and TIME! will be frozen in place. Nah, probably won't happen. We'll see about FS2024.

Just had a look at your channel and itinerary, nice! I thought I recognized GUM as Guam. Cool to do flights from there as well!

I've experienced this a few times as well. Once approaching the Arabian Peninsula on a flight from Singapore to the Gulf region, mid day, bright sunshine, enjoying the view, and all of a sudden, boom, it's the middle of the night. I've stopped paying attention to time, since pause at TOD doesn't stop time anyway, but at least it stops the fuel. So I just see if my fuel calculations work out. But generally a good idea to note wheels off time. Your elapsed time timer shouldn't be affected by such sudden time shifts, so one might just need to re-adjust the sim time.

The PMDG 737-700 BBJ with all the fuel tanks will take about 5 passengers and maybe a few extra bags, but not much more, about 6,200 nm, depending on the winds. Not bad, and great for smaller airports. Comfortable cruise is about 0.78 - 0.79 mach, so a bit slow if you're trying to mimick 787's. The 777 will get pretty close to a 787 speedwise, if you're following some longhaulers on Flightradar. I'm pretty happy with the BBJ and don't necessarily mind being a bit slow. I'm of course expecting the 777-300 to feel entirely different, "heavier" and cool to really pack it to the gills. But I'm not 100% sure it will be objectively "better" than the BBJ, just different. And yes, the A310 and A300 seem very good too.

Just running a cleaning program on my computer, some message about out of date apps, resolving issues, seems to be stuck on the same message now for at least 10 minutes. How long does one wait? This is exactly the type of thing where I'd welcome an AI assistant into my system. I don't know squat about computers, and like most people who don't know how their car engines work, I don't care. I just want it to work. I don't want to see some little spinning circle and be left wondering how long to wait before giving up and starting over. Mr. AI, what's going on? How long do I need to wait. But of course, like out of scifi novels, there are scary sides to it. "Good morning, I saw you were sleeping a bit fitfully last night. I analyzed your brainwaves and went ahead and accesed your phone and messaged your boss and all your coworkers, letting them know how you really feel about them.'

I was just thinking if I do a flight today (laundry day), the AS DC8 might be the only plane that could lure me back into FSX. I also like to spend some time sitting on the flight engineer's seat, seeing that perspective also makes me feel really involved with the flight. Not sure about X Plane B720 and B742 might be good. One of the things I've heard on here about the more modern jets is that certain failures are intentionally left out as per agreement between the aircraft manufacturer and the sim developer. Not sure it that's true. But it shouldn't be an issue for say a 707 or DC8. Potentially a developer should be able to include every switch, every single thing that could go wrong and then some, plus every single manual in full, for those that really want to get into it. For me it's a lot to do with the preflight planning and seeing how fuel and time work out. I like busy AI traffic, waiting in a longer than anticipated line up before departure, cutting it close with the fuel requirements, the anticipation, we're either going to be late or we might be shaving it too close on fuel. But during cruise I'll only check in every few hours and have a look around, so for me, I'm excited about the 777 in MSFS.

Thanks so much guys, I appreciate any feedback. I can understand A B C might be better on one side, D E and F on the other. But then someone else might say no no it's everything's better on this side or an that side, and ultimately the thread gets closed down. Never mind. The ice shedding sounds really cool! But I also like to be able to save my flights and tend towards long hauls or even ultra long hauls anyway. On the Airbus side I might wait and see what's happening with MSFS 2024 after a while, maybe Fenix will make an A330 or A350. But from the other thread, the 777-300ER, it might be the first time that I'll actually buy anything right when it comes out, I might not be able to hold off, so it got me a bit excited.

Ok, your post there just really caught my attention! Can't help it but really wish to get some feedback here. Is the Fenix in its current state now really better than PMDG for example realistically simulating icing conditions? Decisions decisions in flight simming. It's not only a question of money, but also time. The time one spends researching topics here. The time one spends actually simming. And then the time one spends doing all the other merde that needs to get done. I was just excited about the 777-300ER, but might instead decide to enter a whole new world I'm unfamiliar with. Airbus (except the A310), which I quite like.

I'm glad the 300ER will be first. I actually go down to 6 fps using the Riva Tuner enroute on longhauls in the BBJ1, and fuel and time seem accurate. Can't go below that or becomes too unstable. But computer stays nice and cool and quiet. I boost the frames during taxi, takeoff, and landings, and still keep temps somewhat comfortable. I don't mess around with any other settings anymore. I hope the 300ER will behave similarly. I never got P3D or XPlane, went straight from FSX to MSFS. I'd still been using the 200LR in FSX for really long hauls like SYD-LHR nonstop up until recently, and have never tried the 300ER up until this point. But I'm glad to I'll be able to get the chance with flights like SIN-LHR or LAX-SYD with very high payloads should be possible.

My most recent flight between Germany and Taiwan in a 787 was pure hell. Nearly 16 hours in a fully packed in like sardines economy class of a 787. At least the food was edible and I got 3 small cups of water. I wanted cheap and I got it. I can imagine many business class passengers also want cheap and will try any trick in the book, opening and soon after closing new credit cards, throwaway ticketing etc. to pay as little as possible. Ok, that doesn't relate to Boeing, and penny pinching by everyone involved is certainly nothing new. I'm just wondering if the wish for 100% safety is unrealistic. Skirting some sensitive topics, but we have to accept a certain degree of risk with diseases. We also seem to accept dangers driving on our highways, since achieving 100% safety for all cars and trucks out on the road might be seen as placing too much of a strain on the economy. Imagine it became accepted as normal that say if there are around a hundred thousand commercial flights per day, one in a million went down in a great ball of fire, roughly one 737 or 787 (or A320 or A350) every 10 days. I can't imagine it, and most definitely favor striving for 100% safety in aviation. Maybe economics have nothing to do with these reported troubles at Boeing, just rambling about factors that might be at play after observing my own penny pinching habits.

I feel it is. Unless maybe there's a showdown at high noon.

That's really funny about Ben Franklin and Parisians. Yeah, Fisterra Spain for example is about as far west as Killarney Ireland, but Spain is on Central European Time, same as the eastern extreme of Poland, quite a big span. So it also matters where one lives within one's time zone. I think financial traders in SF and LA generally get up early to follow Wall Street office hours. I think the major exchanges in London, Frankfurt, Zurich, Milan also keep the same hours. But schools or smaller businesses should be able to set their hours locally. We open for business at 7:47 am, because I like the Boeing 747 and it's a good time to get started in this neck of the woods. So really seems like it'd be better to quit changing the clocks back and forth each year. Or at the very least Europe and North America should meet halfway and change their clocks on the same weekend. But better yet, just stop this nonsense altogether.

I'm also a bit sceptical. Air rage gains a new meaning with harried commuters getting in each others airspace. If they were made as completely autonomous air taxis, and communicated with one another, keeping out of each others way, it'd be fine, but of course much less fun. I think they might become common fairly quickly in some metro areas like Sao Paulo. Well I'm neither in Sao Paulo nor do I have much spare cash to try one, but still I'd certainly be curious to try one. https://foundandexplained.com/2021/07/07/brazils-helicopter-city/ Reason I mentioned Sao Paulo as a likely market.

I remember only about one year ago I was having a conversation about AI, I was still mocking any concerns over it. Imagining Terminator robots running around shooting people. But recently I'm starting to take it more seriously. I think it was a news article from the UK about how AI is getting involved in the hiring process of companies, analyzing people's body language, and quite frankly since then it's been giving me the creeps.

I remember hearing Paul Harvey on AFN when I moved to Europe as a teen. It was the only sort of non lame radio station I could listen to back then. At least it slightly resembled KMEL or KFRC or whatever I used to listen to back home. Now that I know the rest of the story, Greta did have mixed feelings and did experience discomfort. Still if it were up to me, I wouldn't order the removal of the photo from all VA facilities. It's still an iconic photo capturing a tremendous moment in history. Really hope this isn't perceived as overly religious or political. A long time ago I was lucky to get a place in a summer intern program in New York. One weekend I was walking down the street in Lower Manhattan, and there was a demonstration going on in a plaza, blaring megaphones, people holding up signs, the works. Having no idea what was going on and naturally curious, I wandered in and saw it was a gay rights demonstration. I was a young straight guy, and some guy approached me and asked me where I'm from. I said San Francisco and he said oh wow and tried to grab me. I got really angry, don't stereotype me because of where I'm from. He said then why are you here? I said it's none of your business, I'll go wherever I please, I fully support your demonstration but don't you dare touch me! I had gay friends and roommates and no one had ever acted in such a manner towards me, we always treated each other with respect. But of course I realized many girls face inappropriate advances from guys, and it's not right. But still I wouldn't remove the photo. Knowledge and understanding is better than censorship.

Ha! Good one! Far more elegant than hurtling one's monitor at the wall.

Talk about door access got me thinking about Germanwings 9525, where the captain went to the loo, and unfortunately didn't have enough time, axe, fire extinguisher? to get back into the cockpit. Speaking of loos one could simulate the sound of the whoosh when one flushes, or the light flickering and only turning on properly when you've fully secured the latch (on the lav door). There are a lot of things one could simulate before getting into details of cockpit door access, maybe more outside walkaround preflight items in more detail would be good. Overall I like as much realism as possible, but top priority would still be the plain old flight characteristics, flight controls free and correct, flaps, etc. taking any plane big or small for a spin, simple traffic patterns, stalls, engine failures etc. All those tablets, efb's, FMC's and such are secondary. Ha! Making fun of PMDG. But with greater demand for detail, I could picture them putting which type of toothbrush or eyeshades in the ammenity kit in the equipment options in the FMC.

Such an iconic photo. I'm sure they don't know now at this point whether the guy might have said "How 'bout a kiss darling?" right before, and she might have said "Sure thing!" There may be efforts to ban the use of landmines, but that doesn't necessarily mean efforts to protect people from stepping through just any type of "minefield" in this modern world.

I suppose a bean counter might have calculated that stunt cost the airline €48.28 in extra fuel or thereabouts. Take it out of his retirement pay. Nah, I'm sure it was fine, and safe enough. I don't think I would have even noticed in the back of economy right after takeoff in an aisle seat, probably not really listening to the announcements anyway. I do like the A380 though.

Huge Thank You for pointing this one out! I had no idea about that function. It's something I'd been missing. The PMDG pause at TOD does stop fuel burn, but not time. Also the PMDG pause at TOD doesn't seem to work if you're going back into a previously saved flight. I also suspect other pause at TOD apps aren't using this one, at least not yet. But I can just set a timer for now and quickly go and use this developer pause if I'm busy with something else. Really great to know. A few years ago I never would have imagined getting excited over a pause function in a flight sim.

I was taking the 310 out on a relatively "short" flight from DXB to LGW yesterday, happy with the overall "feel", still mulling over getting the 300. But I had to go out and do a lot more stuff than I'd initially planned, so before leaving I saved the flight about half way through and shut down the computer. When I got home in the evening I loaded the saved flight and sheer chaos ensued. Not falling out of the sky chaos, but lots of crazy stuff. So I'm back to the PMDG BBJ1 for now, where I know I can save and re-load any time. I'm wondering if the 300 lets you easily resume saved flights. I really like the "feel" of the 310, and am keen on the heavier experience the 300 would offer. I overall really like iniBuilds and could certainly live without the save function, just that it's very practical for armchair long, or medium, or perhaps even some short haul flights.

I saw the V1-Simulations video from the other day, where he's landing at KFLL, around 2:09:00 into the video, and he sounds really happy. You can see his sidestick and tiller setup in the corner. I definitely cherish such moments from rw pilots who fly the model being simulated. For the non rw pilot vloggers I tend to like Q8 pilot. I'm thinking of some non race car mundane driving simulator, go to work, pick up groceries, take the kids to soccer practice. An occasional crazy driver cutting you off. Probably quite a few people on Avsim are rw drivers. Probably everyone would agree pc driving isn't the same as rw driving, just how close it gets would be a point of argument. But really cool to see this Fenix A320 seemingly making significant strides closer to reality, however close that might be.

This has almost got me sold. The price aound 35 GBP really doesn't seem exorbitant. I've been using the BBJ1 mostly, since I like long hauls, and have used the A310 quite a few times. This A300 looks like it can do LHR-JFK no problem at all. YVR-NRT, even westbound looks like it should be possible in most cases. That's a pretty decent range. You could probably go between any two points on the globe such as London to Auckland, or Shanghai to Sao Paulo with no more than two stops. Sounds like a really good addon plane to me. I couldn't figure out if Pan-Am ever used the -600 series. Hope I can link this video I happened upon. Doesn't feel that much different from boarding and watching a safety video today, but does somehow also feel old fashioned in a nice way.