Grisu

Yea, I can understand you !!! For me as a former professional heli-pilot I can say: the more you have to deal with procedures, checklists, ATC and all this stuff in your real life, the more I got annoyed by all these "bondages" and retards. Pure flying in its essence has nothing to do with "study-level-simming and procedure stuff ". Look at the birds: they don't care about any clearance or ATC. With their "build-in" avionics they even don't bother about instruments. During the "Golden Age of Aviation", which I would call the period from the beginnings/WWI till the mid-/late 1930's pilots could do whatever they want and land wherever they want in most cases. Even refuling during this times of FREEDOM was quite easy, because aircrafts and cars run the same gas. The more aviation progresses into the future, the less freedom a pilot has, and the more he evolves away from a pilot into some kind of PC-system-manager or "drone-supervisor". It's really sad 😟 . But here lies the beauty of good flight-simulators. In a flightsim you can still choose to fly without the boundaries of modern aviation, some call it casual .... I would call it the "Longing for Freedom" 🤩. All the best to all of you dear hardcore and casual simmers, and a happy new year 2024 💥

HIGHLY APPRECIATED !!!! Thank's a lot for your valuable explanation; I'm relatively new to MSFS and this is very useful indeed 😉 .

As I mentioned earlier it really depends on somebodys preferences. You, HiFlyer, are a perfect example for someone who derives benefit from the Aerofly series: Interested in... ......a butter smooth implementation of VR !!! I think AFS is still king regarding this topic, although I for myself don't use VR, only can rely on verdicts of others. ...and interested in Airliners which fly most of the time above serious weather conditions. Thus the complete absence of a dynamic weather engine is (maybe) not so annoying as for many other like myself. By the way IPACS has invested a lot of time in improving and extending their airliner fleet in the last couple of years; in this case the chances are good that they will improve their tubeliners further in the future. It really depends on someones owns inerests in aviation.

No way 😦, this looks too real for a simulaltor, look at this highlights and reflections. Honestly, and in this case, I've real problems to distinguish between virtual and reality. Did you use any post process filters ? If it is out of the sim as it is it's staggering.

@ Kalnon: Thank's a lot for your useful inputs and your kind worlds ❤️. I'm glad that I could help you !!! Best wishes across the pond 😄 . @ Ray Proudfoot: Thank you for your clarification; now I know it better. You guys from AVSIM are awesome; thank you for helping to maintain this wonderful site. It helped me over many years to get useful informations about our beloved hobby, although the language barrier is not always easy to me 😉.

Well Kalnon, if you are into helicopters you'll be surprised that there exists a dedicated helicopter-simulator from IPACS/Aerofly. Internally IPACS called it Aerofly FS 3 (yes, there is a version 3 between version 2 and todays version 4); it's software engine is based on Aerofly FS 2 solely developed by IPACS. The pictures as shown in my post before and in this one are exclusively from Aerofly FS 3. But it is sold for professional purpose only. It's training helicopter simulator is even certified by EASA (European Union Aviation Safety Agency). The company was called VRM Switzerland first, later on they've renamed themselves to Loft Dynamics . See the article from Helisimmer here: EASA certifies VRM Switzerland’s VR training system for pilot training, using Aerofly FS2 My biggest grieves with Aerofly will be and forever: Although all the other helicopters we already know from AFS2, like the R22 and H145, are equally represented in AFS3 too, there is still no AS350 (nowadays called H125) in our desktop version, not in AFS2 and still not in AFS4. And you can find the sling loading functionality ONLY in their professional version (AFS3); which is a big shame and no go for me personally. To me after so many years of waiting for new features and observing the selling policy of IPACS, it has become clear: For the "ordinary" consumer market they have strictly focused on Airliners and features, more Airliners, and more Airliners; with tons of autogen objects on the ground (which look everywhere the same in the world. No distinguished autogen differences within different world regions; the houses in e.g. Palm Springs, Europe, Africa look everywhere the same 🤥 . Not only in AFS2 but in AFS4 too.) Their main selling product on consumer market seems to be their mobile app; development was optimized to maintain the app first, desktop version second. Their helicopter simulator and new, dedicated helicopter features are sold for professional purpose ONLY and will never advent us, the ordinary consumers of e.g steam. In the video links below you can find some video footage of AFS3's sling loading capabilities: Opportunity for Helicopter Operators to improve their quality in Sling Load Operations Flying sling load in Zermatt Hope this helps too 😉 The more information someone has, the better it becomes to make right decissions. All the best.

Thank you for your kind worlds. Another point I want do highlight, which I haven't mentioned before and which become more important in Aerofly the more often you fly this sim (an experience which I've made for myself): Because of the total lack of dynamic weather (which is still not implemented in AFS4), always the same looking clouds, the same date, only on summer day-season (still no seasons in AFS4, even not mentioned by the developers), no dynamic 3D water, blurrry textures close above the ground (which gives me the most headache as a former helicopter pilot) - the overall look and seceneries of the sim become very boring and stale very soon. Yes, the flight dynamics are good, but not every aricraft is great. Extra300 - outstanding good flight physics. Gliders - superb. Pitts Special - not so great, pretty basic. Fighter Jets - e.g. the F/A-18 vs. F-15 behave almost the same; boring, not challenging, pretty basic. FBW seem to rule forever 😂. Tubeliner - can't tell because I'm not interested in these. Helicopters ! - debatable; e.g. the R22 even in professional flight mode flys way too easy. Their first rendition of the R22's flight model was really top notch, world class. Months later they have tamed and "fixed" it too much; probably because too many virtual pilots and users of their mobile app were flying the R22 without proper controls. Good luck !

I understand; but for someone like me who is new on avsim it is very handy and useful to get this kind of informations quickly. And this comparison video is done on a pretty outdated, low end system. E.g. my system is much newer and more powerful; someone who has to deal with an "old" system must tinker around much more. From my experience: The most valid performance advices you'll get from people who run their favourite games on low end systems.

Oh sorry , how embarrassing 🥵 I'm completely new on avsim, it's my first post. I've read many posts in this thread before, but I couldn't find something related to the new update v.7.3. May I've overlooked something because English is not my mother tongue. Sorry for the inconvenience !

From my experience with Aerofly over almost ten years I can say: No, it's not worth to buy, and it's not worth the hassle to wait years and years and years till IPACS has improved something substantially. Unless you are totally in flying tubeliners 30.000 feet above weather conditions, unless you are a huge fan of VR or if you want to achieve 60 fps under any cricumstances, than maybe it's something for you. E.g. I've payed some great payware sceneries for Aerofly FS 2, like Himalaya Extreme by Aerosoft or LOWI by ORBX (lowi came out in 2017 under the direction of Jarrad Marshal). These great sceneries are still not updated for Aeerofly FS 4, which is a big loss and grieve for me. I think even JustFlight still hasn't updated one of their great addons from AFS2 to AFS4. The developers refuse to go on with IPACS and AFS4, which I can fully understand. I would deny further cooperation with IPACS too if I would have developed payware for AFS2; a crucial point which I don't want do spread out more than necessary on avsim. Let's say, my own experiences with IPACS on their main site were not the best in the past. But the good thing is, that we as customers can make our own decissions to buy something or not to buy, depending on our own lessons we've learned. Hope this helps. All the best 😉

Hello dear fellow simmers 😃; Bhijan has recently updated his 4 SEASON PACK V7.3 - MSFS to Version 7.3 on November 22, 2023. Quote from the site: Hope this helps. The long break of not updating his product (more than one year) seems to be over, hopefully. Because I love this addon; it adds so much immersion to MSFS. All the best.