Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) - We're really sorry about Microsoft Flight

Cool! So, what kind of tweaking and modding are you doing in it?

How do I make my Thurstmaster throttle use the entire axis for throttling instead of just after the detent?

Yeah, it is fabulous for that. In spite of the fact that Iā€™ve spent many hours tuning and tweaking the logic in the G1000 and G3X the better part of my flight time is purely visual as well. Thatā€™s pretty much always been the case, though. Iā€™ve soloā€™d the FSLabs Concorde across the pond using the CIVA INS system for guidance, and it has its own rewards, but I still prefer dropping a little Cub onto a tiny spot of dirt in the wilderness most of the time.

Yeah, Iā€™ve played a lot of FSE in the past. Iā€™ve been spending more time recently with NeoFly, though. I really like that it gives you a bit of structure without feeling like a job, which some of the others can end up doing if youā€™re not careful.

Yep! Weā€™ve done the G1000, G3000, G3X, and also have a CJ4 overhaul. The 1000 and the 3X have been my main projects.

The largest part of it by far has been the avionics mods Iā€™ve worked on for Working Title, Iā€™ve gone through periods where thatā€™s pretty much been a second job. :D Aside from that, I have a few other small things like this toolbar handle remover and a simple paintkit for the M20R.

I also created a few utilities for NeoFly that can import airports, plane info, and such. And right now Iā€™m working on a data logger that will record your flight in the format used by the real-world G1000 so you can do things like import your flights into CloudAhoy with rich detail in them. Thatā€™s not ready to show off yet.

Iā€™ve also played with scenery design a little bit, but donā€™t have anything serious accomplished there yet.

(The Working Title repo is by far the most starred github repo Iā€™ve ever been a contributor to.)

Not sure about that one. MSFS relies heavily on the underlying Windows joystick calibration. Is the problem that itā€™s just not seeing the full range of movement on the axis, or does the throttle send something different on the far side of the detent?

Is there a way to make the ATC window smaller? I have text size set to minimum and that still takes up way too much space.

You can resize the windows.

I can make it bigger but not smaller it seems?

It is that, indeed. Which is why, even with some things still being worked on, many of us are infatuated with it. Itā€™s mind blowing at times to the point it looks downright real. Even if it isnā€™t thatā€™s a huge step above where sim-worlds have been before.

Can I recommend a great sightseeing trip? once youā€™re down in FACT, take a hop east over to FAPE (Port Elizabeth, South Africa.)

Youā€™ll need some altitude getting out of FACT, so take something that can clear around 7500 agl but with good visibility from the cockpit. Or just use external view or since youā€™re using the controller, hit the INSert key and use drone view to look around and get screenshots. Itā€™s an amazing trip over the mountains, valleys, along the seashore, over the white sands, itā€™s breathtaking.

Pedro and Ginger have posted some nice looking shots I plan to visit as well. Which is crazy to think about, the entire earth to fly and there are so many spots to see.

Welcome aboard, and as a user of the g1000 and g3000 mods, may I say, THANK YOU. Iā€™ll probably be a user of the cj4 mod when that time comes, to be honest. I think you guys also have some sort of relationship with the bonanza mod and several of us here use that too.

If you do get time with Jorg/Seb again, one thing that Iā€™ve been wondering is if they will ever eventually unencrypt the add-on planes in the deluxe or premium deluxe versions. From what I understand, that is the hold up to mods/liveries for them and that sounds like it was a poor design idea to lock them. I understand the ability to restrain them from being copied to the standard version, but why did they choose that as the method?

Also, Iā€™d love to hear more about what you like to fly in-game (or out?)

@schurem I know it sounds strange, but if you want some good visibility, the Pipistrel Virus is a great sight-seeing plane: high wing with very large glass doors on each side, a big windscreen and plexiglass top area too. Iā€™ve used it sightseeing a few times. Itā€™s got modern avionics but no big deal, still flyable. The ICON is also pretty fun to fly if for no other reason than you can land it on water or ground and itā€™s like flying in a car, very easy handling.

Youā€™re welcome! I honestly got started on the G1000 just because I was annoyed by some of the major flaws in it and wanted to scratch my own itch. But itā€™s been very rewarding to see how many other people have had their sim experience improved with it. :)

Weā€™re working on a new version which I am really excited about. One of the folks on the team has basically completely rewritten the entire UI in a more performant way; it adds a lot of missing functionality and does it while being butter smooth at 60fps. Canā€™t wait for us to get that into peoplesā€™ hands.

If youā€™re talking about the G36 mod by TheFrett, weā€™ve not been directly involved with that, but Iā€™ve worked with him to make sure that our G1000 works with it without conflict. We also helped him update the custom engine display configuration to work with the changes heā€™s made.

(Rob Young, formerly of RealAir, also has a really good turbo-normalized Bonanza mod, if you havenā€™t seen it.)

Yeah, this has been on my agenda to talk about when the time seems right. :) Itā€™s technically possible to read the configurations for the encrypted planes when youā€™re in the sim, because theyā€™re in plain text within the VFS. But Iā€™ve tried to create a mod that changes the configurations and Iā€™ve been unable to get it working. I think a lot of folks would be happy if we could at least mod the premium/deluxe planes.

Only in-game at the moment. I have a number of pilot friends and have some 172 yoke time, but donā€™t have a license yet myself. Within the sim, as I alluded to above, I really love bush flying ā€“ my favorite plane right now is probably the Savage Carbon mod to the Carbon Cub. Itā€™s not a ā€œrealā€ model, but itā€™s absolutely in line with any number of real world customized bush planes, and itā€™s a lot of fun to fly. With some practice you can drop it on a postage stamp.

I also really enjoy the Bush League Legends version of the XCub. It was spending so much time in that that made me want to expand past the G1000 and work on improving the G3X, too. Itā€™s not as insane a STOL machine as the Savage Carbon, but it has a decent cruise speed, modern avionics, and can still drop onto dirt strips of just a couple hundred feet.

Outside of those two I really like Carenadoā€™s M20R. Iā€™ve always loved Mooneys, and that oneā€™s a lot of fun. You need to really stick to the numbers when youā€™re trying to bring it back to earth or it floats forever.

I think everyone loves the Mooney. I know the patches have been rough on some of Carenadoā€™s additions and Iā€™m hoping they are up to the task of patching them over time. That Mooney is a work of passion, it feels like youā€™re in one for sure.

Just caught wind of this via an article and I am soooo excited. Please be good in VR. Please be good in VR.

Iā€™ve been so sad not being excited about playing due to the lack of VR.

Iā€™ve been wondering if anyone here got into the beta for it. I think the requirements were a WMR VR headset and I think there are a number of folks on the forum with that.

Spent some time at the weekend doing a few legs of the Patagonian Bush Trip.

It suffers a bit beside the California/Cascades one - thereā€™s not much down there as regards points of interest, so youā€™re left with long legs, confusing directions (there are only so many synonyms for ā€˜follow the shorelineā€™), and nothing to look at except the scenery, which doesnā€™t look that great from 1,000 feet. It would have been nice if theyā€™d smoothed out some of the worst terrain along these trips.

Iā€™ve also been flying extensively down there in FSE, so I guess the novelty isnā€™t there for me either.

All that being said, I should be getting to some of the more interesting stuff now (Torres del Paine etc) so weā€™ll see how it goes.

Thanks to @kaosfere above for pointing out some interesting mods to check out.

Speaking of mods, someone has made a ā€˜Bush Trip Generatorā€™, where you enter your waypoints and it generates the bush trip for you. I havenā€™t checked this out yet but itā€™s made by one of the first guys to decipher how to make these trips yourself, so should be solid.

Iā€™m half considering doing a southwest U.S. bush trip mod given that theyā€™ve updated the scenery now; itā€™ll be January at least before Iā€™m in a position to do that though.

I much preferred the Patagonia one, but I love mountains and glaciers and such. I found the desert/brush scenery of much of the California one a bit samey after a while, not to mention the number of times I couldnā€™t even see the landing strip. Patagonia was much more straightforward on that front (having a GPS helped of course).

Yeah, thereā€™s undoubtedly a bit of scenery fatigue there for me, as Iā€™ve spent the last month down there. I also like the points of interest/text descriptions of places that I can look up on Wikipedia, so thatā€™s largely what is lacking for me. I realise thatā€™s a pretty individual taste though.

I was thinking the next purchase should be a DA-62 in Europe so that we could partake in seeing the sights there. I also am -slowly- moving the first TBM towards NYC (currently in Chicago) so that if anyone wants to see NYC, DC, etc, it would be there as well. Still leaves out a ton of the US though.

My DA62 is based out of London City at the moment, and Iā€™ll probably be rebasing it in Germany after a while and adding it to the group.

Well damn ā€¦ maybe one in Asia somewhere then?

I was originally planning on Japan, but there seems to be a real shortage of green assignments in Asia. Unless we get an FBO up and running ourselves, I donā€™t see it as being particularly economically viable.

I just missed out on a Bonanza in Vietnam a few weeks ago, was short of the cash. I didnā€™t look at any other airports around, but the airport it was based at had a lot of jobs. You could buy something out there and find a very small network, I guess.