A new challenge

[Ralph Jones]

Apparently there's a new challenge among MSFS2020 users: taking off deadstick from Lukla, Nepal, with its 12% runway gradient and big dropoff at the end. May have to upgrade my system one of these days...;-)

[Dusty Rider]

I have been teetering on the idea of getting MSFS2020. The graphics are outstanding for the VFR enthusiast from what I've seen and heard from friends. Doing anything IFR-related, especially on online multiplayer platforms is challenging at best. Apparently the simulated avionics behave terribly and have a tendency to crash the simulator. I might still get it for the VFR stuff, though. The scenery for FSX is, well, disappointing in comparison.

[Terry Carraway]

I just ordered a new fast computer. I may have to get back into flight sims overall.

But I was pricing some of the new flight controls and was SHOCKED at the prices. I was looking at the A-10 setup from Thrustmaster and stick/throttle/rudder pedals were around $700.

[Bill Bridges]

I have been teetering on the idea of getting MSFS2020. The graphics are outstanding for the VFR enthusiast from what I've seen and heard from friends. Doing anything IFR-related, especially on online multiplayer platforms is challenging at best. Apparently the simulated avionics behave terribly and have a tendency to crash the simulator. I might still get it for the VFR stuff, though. The scenery for FSX is, well, disappointing in comparison.

I'm using P3dv5.1 and like it. I considered going to MSF2020, but I have read reports that the flight dynamics leave a lot to be desired. PMDG has reported that it will be at least the end of next year before MSF2020 has the SDK where they can start to develop their aircraft for it. It's my opinion that the main audience for MSF2020 will be the X-box crowd where P3d (LM) will continue to develop for the hard-core simmer and use P3d for LM's commercial customers. I've always felt that I was a beta tester for LM and it's commercial simulation programs.

[Ralph Jones]

But I was pricing some of the new flight controls and was SHOCKED at the prices.

Yeah, I drifted out of that a while back and wonder if those units have any real improvements in them. They all have lots of visual appeal, but who cares?

The sticks had a consistently bad feel: the centering was just a spring-loaded plunger pressing against a flat side on a shaft, so you got an abrupt discontinuity at the center. There was one product marketed as "force feedback", but it was pathetically crude: You'd move the stick, there would be a perceptible delay, then a servo would shove back against it. It felt exactly like an instructor in the back seat saying "Not so much, dammit!"

So it will be interesting to try out some of these fancy-schmancy units and see if they're selling performance or just glamor -- but that will have to wait until I can venture into a store again.

Don't put too many hopes in the SDK. FSX had a perfectly decent dynamic model, but MS couldn't be bothered to fill in all the coefficients, and refused to document them. All the stock airplanes failed to model side force in uncoordinated flight: you could put the rudder over, hold the wings level with aileron, and it would yaw to an appropriate angle without changing the flight path -- you'd just keep going in a straight line. Some forums managed to reverse engineer a few of the missing coefficients, and there was a third-party SF-260 that was pretty decent -- but I think that company went Tango Uniform.

[Terry Carraway]

I have not tried the higher end, newer flight controls. I do have a Logitech force feedback steering wheel that is not too bad of a feel.

I will try to work in the A-10 HOTAS and pedals into the budget.

[Ralph Jones]

Now there's a truck driving simulator with realistic Colorado scenery...you can take a Peterbilt up the escape ramps on I-70 <g>.