What is your style of flight simming?

[jclay13]

...anyone else in the market for a bizjet - please - just step away from the Carenado products and give this bird a hard look - 3 years of continual updates by the developer and they just released a massive free upgrade this week with a new model - new PBR textures...

Are there any new screen shots or videos? The cockpit textures look old from what I see in their website. I had considered this bird at one time but passed because of how old the internal textures looked.

[CAPFlyer]

Are there any new screen shots or videos? The cockpit textures look old from what I see in their website. I had considered this bird at one time but passed because of how old the internal textures looked.

The FlySimWare facebook page is much more up-to-date for pictures. The interior has been completely redone on the 35.

As for me, I tend to lean more toward commercial flying since I'm part of Westwind Airlines, but I do spend a good chunk of time doing Corporate-type flights through WWA recently. This has allowed a little more time with A2A on a regular basis and I'm about to spend the whole month of September doing the England - Australia event that Bluegrass Airlines is putting together in the L049. I'm also a fan of the Flysimware products, owning both their Mu-2 and Falcon 50. I'm probably going to be getting the Lear soon, but it's not in the WWA fleet, so it's not a priority acquisition.

[scottb613]

...anyone else in the market for a bizjet - please - just step away from the Carenado products and give this bird a hard look - 3 years of continual updates by the developer and they just released a massive free upgrade this week with a new model - new PBR textures...

Are there any new screen shots or videos? The cockpit textures look old from what I see in their website. I had considered this bird at one time but passed because of how old the internal textures looked.

Hi...

I downloaded the new update on Friday - I mean complete overhaul (model sounds textures fde) and they truly outdid themselves - while they had a good product before - textures were never their forte - the new texture guy made this bird absolutely drop dead gorgeous - 4096 sized - granted I'm using a "PBR" capable sim - I'm sure they might not look quite as good in older sims...

Link to Texture Shots (it's a work in progress thread so the pix get better as you go through it):
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/5552 ... re-update/

Regards,
Scott

[einherz]

sports and fighters(modern or wwii) some heli some bushplanes, i start my virtual career in the 199x with evga sims like f-15 f-117 comanche then svga flanker and il-2, fs95-2000, jane's wwii fighters, apache and hornet, so style i guess free change speed, alt and manuvering... long long time no fight any more, so i stay in love to fighters but only for flight, no fight(i'm not pacifist)

[DHenriques_]

My interest in flight simulator from day one has been projecting it into whatever use it might have when used by a flight instructor in conjunction with a pilot training program. This philosophy has dictated how I "fly" each aircraft in the sim. Along this line of thinking I have advised A2A for many years. Realism, accuracy, and immersion have been my goals while testing A2A aircraft.
As to how I actually fly each airplane; I fly it exactly as I would fly it were it the real plane. This includes all visual effects as well. I sit in the seat as I would view the real panel and peripherals. If what I see on the screen doesn't match what I'd be seeing sitting in the seat of the real plane I call Scott and advise him. Basically speaking this has been the approach of our entire team.
If it ain't real, we can it. This is true for every plane in the A2A stable.
We know it is right when we all agree it's right. Hopefully that carries forward to all of you.
Dudley Henriques

[twsharp12]

I fly strictly on FSECONOMY with a2a planes. I'm flying my cub around the Anchorage area right now with several ORBX scenery. I fly low and slow and usually have a movie playing on my second monitor.

[AKar]

Dudley brings up a good point that makes me want to add something to what I said previously.

Most of my sim flying is something I would not call entirely realistic. For instance, I basically never fly real routes in airliners. It is boring enough to sit those through in physical reality! Instead, I opt for something the Mythbusters would call 'plausible'. My sim flights are usually something that, in principle, could be done, but for the sake of sensibilities of real life, probably won't be done in reality - at least not too often. So, Airbus into Valdez, AK, or South Lake Tahoe? Sounds like fun, in particular if you end up going circling! Or follow some historical highway or railroad route through the mountains instead of going over them in Comanche? Yes please!

So, the flights need to plausible enough to make sense, but not actually true-to-the-reality, or to make sense in... that sense. That's the one big thing for me in the flight simulation: you can choose your flights and destinations at will.

I also don't plan and operate the flights exactly by-the-book, due to limitations of my PC environment, but I do operate the airplanes in a way I'd be comfortable with in reality. For instance, I don't use exact real-life flows (or sequences of some airlines which I think are stupid even in reality!) but my own ones that make sense in the context of PC.

That said, I'm not too nitpicky in things like weather planning, I simply check if the weather allows for the flight - it doesn't make much sense anyway to be more thorough due to discrepancies in sim weather and real weather. Sometimes in the sim I push the weather much more than what I'd be comfortable with in reality. I actually kind of like putting myself into difficult situation in the simulator and then finding my way out of it. That's the second big thing for me in the flight simulation: you can safely play out some situations you'd certainly want to avoid getting in altogether if it was for real!

Third, the most boring point, I sometimes simply use the simulator to refresh myself with 'switchology', if there happens to be a good simulation of some airplane available. If I know I'm getting involved with some airplane that I haven't been involved with in years, then, aside checking the manuals, it is great to quickly revisit the cockpit in virtual. Some common types are different enough to each other to make up some gotchas if only used to the other kind. You recall them better if you can view around the cockpit in 3d.

-Esa

[BrettT]

My style is mostly dependent upon the amount of time I have available on any given session.

15 minutes to 1 hr - Typically spent getting quick fixes. Short trip to a challenging airport for some sight seeing or relaxation. Quick instant action mission in DCS (Dogfights, Helo ops, etc)

1 hr to 2 hrs - Typically spent doing a planned flight following procedures but in a simple aircraft or doing a campaign mission in DCS

more than 2 hrs - Diving into a new system on a complex aircraft or learning a new aircraft and practicing with that. Could be anything from DCS to airliners in P3D.

[DHenriques_]

Dudley brings up a good point that makes me want to add something to what I said previously.

Most of my sim flying is something I would not call entirely realistic. For instance, I basically never fly real routes in airliners. It is boring enough to sit those through in physical reality! Instead, I opt for something the Mythbusters would call 'plausible'. My sim flights are usually something that, in principle, could be done, but for the sake of sensibilities of real life, probably won't be done in reality - at least not too often. So, Airbus into Valdez, AK, or South Lake Tahoe? Sounds like fun, in particular if you end up going circling! Or follow some historical highway or railroad route through the mountains instead of going over them in Comanche? Yes please!

So, the flights need to plausible enough to make sense, but not actually true-to-the-reality, or to make sense in... that sense. That's the one big thing for me in the flight simulation: you can choose your flights and destinations at will.

I also don't plan and operate the flights exactly by-the-book, due to limitations of my PC environment, but I do operate the airplanes in a way I'd be comfortable with in reality. For instance, I don't use exact real-life flows (or sequences of some airlines which I think are stupid even in reality!) but my own ones that make sense in the context of PC.

That said, I'm not too nitpicky in things like weather planning, I simply check if the weather allows for the flight - it doesn't make much sense anyway to be more thorough due to discrepancies in sim weather and real weather. Sometimes in the sim I push the weather much more than what I'd be comfortable with in reality. I actually kind of like putting myself into difficult situation in the simulator and then finding my way out of it. That's the second big thing for me in the flight simulation: you can safely play out some situations you'd certainly want to avoid getting in altogether if it was for real!

Third, the most boring point, I sometimes simply use the simulator to refresh myself with 'switchology', if there happens to be a good simulation of some airplane available. If I know I'm getting involved with some airplane that I haven't been involved with in years, then, aside checking the manuals, it is great to quickly revisit the cockpit in virtual. Some common types are different enough to each other to make up some gotchas if only used to the other kind. You recall them better if you can view around the cockpit in 3d.

-Esa

You bring up an excellent point that is worth additional comment.
One of the first things I noticed when I came on board with Microsoft on the FSX program and after flying the sim personally was what I aptly named " the boredom factor". What I noticed immediately was that if the simmer engaged in LONG flights, after takeoff and before landing there were L...O...N...G...periods after an autopilot was set up and cruise and course were set where (just as in real life) the simmer had little to do in the way of interfacing with the simulation but sit back and eat a sandwich or drink coffee while the scenery flowed by on the screen. I recognized this immediately as a negative IF the main interest for the simmer was an airliner scenario. A2A as well recognized the potential for boredom and quite correctly entered the arena with the "Captain of the Ship" approach which created a scenario where "things would be happening" along the way that A2A envisioned correctly would involve the simmer more deeply into the real life environment. This approach went a LONG way toward fighting the "boredom factor." This approach to simming was further developed by A2A with the Connie. These great programs have placed the simmer more "into" the real world.

Along these lines and directed again at the boredom factor, what I have always recommended to the simmer has been to use the sim for more than these long flights; to learn to fly approaches for example manually or at best using a flight director; to make shorter flights alternating between VFR and IFR as talent and ability increase and more knowledge is gained.
This is why I stressed the inclusion of a civilian Mustang in our stable, so that the simmer could experience the full IFR capability included in FSX at the time; so the simmer could experience what it is actually like to fly a high performance fighter plane on instruments to a destination then fly an approach to a landing instead of simply going for a local flight.

The desktop flight simulator has great potential as a learning tool to educate people and allow many who could not otherwise experience the thrill of flight to do so. It's a wonderful program !
Dudley Henriques

[AKar]

Due to this "boredom factor", I usually plan my sim flights to take about two hours block time, maximum. Often tad shorter, about an hour of planned air time being a good figure. Not a strict limit, of course, but I've found that a good starting point. One of the reasons being that if something doesn't go as planned, you've still got time and energy left to play the situation to the end.

One of my favorites is to take off from Yakutat, AK, and fly to Valdez, AK, in a fast GA aircraft (there are good sceneries for both). Such as A2A V35, as it turns out. Or the Comanche. Navigating via JOH VOR, that usually takes tad under two hours to reach from the initial sim loading. Now, Valdez is one of those places which, when they fog in, are basically unreachable. It has an LDA approach with 4460 ft minima. Because the simulator real weather (ASP4) is based on METAR updates, it usually takes quite long for the weather to get a refresh even if in reality, I suspect the weather sometimes varies significantly every minute in such places. The station simply doesn't keep up.

If I bored myself with a pointless sim flight that took hours, I'd find that highly annoying. The idea of just quitting the flight ("in reality, I'd hold here for an hour" and so on!) would creep up into my mind. But by having limited my planned flight into sensible length, it makes a fun change in the plans to divert into nearby Cordova where you find an ILS approach. It only takes a moment to fly there in a fast GA.

-Esa

[Hook]

I like to save my fights at an airport and continue from the save on the next flight. I also like to recreate flights from books, "The Cannibal Queen" is one I've done several times. I've also done "Fight of Passage" in the A2A Cub. The most recent was a DC-3 flight from "North Star over my Shoulder" from Los Angeles to Cape Town to Shannon and back to LAX, a flight the author made in actor Tyrone Power's DC-3 in 1947.

If I'm not recreating flights from books, I'm setting up long flights, like a Pacific crossing in the A2A Constellation, then back across the Pacific along a different route. I'm currently flying the Manfred Jahn C-47, flying from Los Angeles to Hawaii via Seattle, Anchorage, Adak and Midway, then south to Port Moresby and my next flight will be Manila to Nagasaki, 8.5 hours and I'll end up in North Pole, Alaska to visit trucker. My last 12 flights have averaged 7.9 hours each. My longest flight was 12 hours from KLGA to KLAX in the A2A Connie. At about the 3 to 3.5 hour point I'm ready to land but then I get a second wind and can continue as long as I have fuel.

I stopped using the GPS and autopilot many years ago and found the flights to be more interesting. If I also avoid VOR and NDB and fly pure dead reckoning it's a form of enforced sightseeing. I really enjoy doing long flights over the ocean navigating and flying great circle routes the same way Lindbergh did. The only time I use the autopilot now is in the A2A Constellation if I have to leave the computer for a few minutes. I never use time compression. Real world weather provided by Active Sky. Real world charts provided by skyvector.com which is great.

Flying without GPS or autopilot isn't for everyone, especially on long flights, but A2A makes a Piper Cub that doesn't have GPS or autopilot and it's a popular aircraft, so people are flying that way. I've gotten to where I'm doing mostly pure dead reckoning with limited use of the VORs in the DC-3, flying the same as I would a Cub.

One long flight was in the A2A Chereokee from Central America to the Galapagos, then on to Quito and down the Amazon river. Another was two different Atlantic crossings in the Aerosoft BeaverX with only 450 nm range which was interesting to plan especially since I had to find airports with fuel which I was able to do in all but two cases. I've done an around the world in the MJ C-47 as well.

One reason I'm flying the DC-3 now is that I'd done Cannibal Queen from Colorado to Orlando to Poughkeepsie and got tired of short flights at low level.

Hook

[ImpendingJoker]

I fly just about everything from ga, to heavies to helicopters, to warbirds to modern military aircraft. Just whatever tickles my fancy at the time. Sometimes I'll watch a video with a plane that I have in the sim, and that will encourage me to go fly it in the manner that was portrayed in that particular video. Some times it's aerobatics or tactical approach to a target or sitting an airliner down at Gibraltar. I use the sim to do the things and fly to places that I'll never get to do in real life, which has always been the point of my flight simulation: to do what I can not in real life.

[jcblom]

I spend hours painting the textures, GA, tubes, or my preference, WW2 aircraft, then I fire up the sim, taxi and take off to watch the paint dry, adjust the textures when necessary, if things are fine, I take screenies,, wrap everythong up and upload the new textures, and it's off to the next project. I very rarely land...

[Lewis - A2A]

Local UK flying in FSX/P3D/XP11. Normally just little birds wondering around or the odd warbird flying in and out of Duxford.

thanks,
Lewis

[Hook]

I realized something on my last flight. Because I'm hand flying and manually navigating, the most interesting part of the flight is the long cruise phase. I don't really enjoy the descent or approach that much, but that may be the only time some people are actually flying the plane and the only time they actually have something to do.

I've found that I really enjoy flight planning these days. A plan starts off in Google Earth where I draw a circle with the maximum distance I want to fly and I choose a destination airport somewhere within that circle. Sometimes I draw another circle from a more distant destination and find an airport in the area where the two circles overlap, or intermediate circles at likely stopping points if the circles do not intersect. This is how I planned New York to California in the DC-3 and the Atlantic crossing in the Aerosoft BeaverX. Then I go to skyvector.com and plan the actual flight. Then I check in-game to make sure any VORs I want to use exist in game and I verify their frequencies which can vary from the modern charts. I get wind information at various altitudes from windy.com and use that in my planning, then calculate any drift during the actual flight. I am intentionally not using exact winds in my planning and sometimes I do not check at all. If I don't like the weather as depicted by the Active Sky map, I may either delay the flight or use historical weather, but I've found that if I take off anyway I usually enjoy the flight.

I avoid clouds, especially near thunderstorms, so my path isn't exactly direct. A long flight over the ocean on a great circle route is usually some form of "depart at this heading and turn south two degrees every hour." I can have skyvector calculate the headings to use at each hourly check point.

I don't have time to get bored during the cruise as I'm always busy, but a long flight does give plenty of time for contemplation. My "internal dialog" usually reads like Richard Bach's "Stranger to the Ground" or Lindbergh's "Spirit of Saint Louis."

Hook