I cannot yet recommend it. I’m getting some weird behavior when I use it with ETS2/ATS. It seems to be pressing keys that I’m not pressing, which continues even when I shut it down. Not sure if it’s OVR Tookit or something else. I need to do some more testing.
Editer
3008
Performance is great – as good as the built-in planes. The only ones I’ve tried that had any performance issues were the Iris Jabiru glass-cockpit versions, and that was fixed in an update.
The MB-339 from IndiaFoxtEcho is my favorite plane, followed by the P149D and the Long-Ez. I’ve bought most of the add-on planes, except the Cri-Cri, the two ultralights at SimMarket, and the Bleriot. I’m gonna have to calm down once the SDK gets finished and more planes start appearing. :)
I bought it! It’s a fun little plane. Feels much more alive then the defaults, if you know what I mean.
Though in vr I’d say the cockpit is maybe over textured? I like a retro cockpit, but this one is not really working in vr for some reason. The textures are pretty harsh looking. But there’s enough great about it to make it my default tourer for now, I think.
Pedro
3010
The best thing about trying new planes is your first landing…
The runway’s just a guideline.
Hey, I played that game on my iPad, too!
Skipper
3013
Touch and go! (The Cars song starts playing as a soundtrack)
Well, okay. Forget that I was pretty ho-hum on this in VR a couple of days ago.
I got the settings dialed in about as well as they are going to be for now. I mean, it’s not super-crisp and as gorgeous as pancake desktop, but it’s good enough.
And it turns out that good enough is pretty mind-blowing. I took a few flights around Alaska and the late day lighting and snow-covered mountains were gorgeous. Then I started doing a tour of New Zealand south to north, which is something I’ve always wanted to do in MSFS, but the visuals never made it worth it. Flying in the South Island right now and the green farms and twisting waterways and mountain peaks carved by fjords … I mean, sheesh. It’s all just so pretty and immersive in VR.
That combined with the P149D that @Editer suggested upthread, which has great visibility and is so much fun to fly. A perfect VFR touring plane.
And many of the texture issues I was seeing have gone away. Maybe it’s because I’m outside of the photogrammetry areas in Washington. But I’m fine getting out of my home state and seeing a bit of the world.
So, yeah, color me a bit gobmacked. I am sure it will only get better.
Does anyone have any suggestions for handling VFR flight planning? I like to do regional tours. Right now I just setup a short flight in the main menu, and remember where I parked when I quit. Are there any addons or 3rd party sites that would allow me to set up a flight and track my progress on a tour?
There is a big difference in avionics between the two that makes them not really fill the same niche. The P.149 only has a single nav radio and an ADF. No GPS, no NAV2, not even a DME. You can still fly it on instruments – I recently did a 90 minute flight in almost 0 vis using only the single NAV radio and a DME gauge I created on one of my Stream Decks because it’s almost impossible to find instrument approaches that don’t require DME in Europe – but that’s probably outside the comfort zone for a lot of simmers.
(There’s also the lack of autopilot to consider… although, again, its not a deal breaker. The plane trims out nicely and needs only gentle corrections in level flight.)
Still, if you’re looking for a reasonably quick plane with good visibility for sightseeing, or like me you like challenging yourself doing radio navigation in “primitive” planes, it’s a truly great one. There are a few v1.0 issues, but the developer is really responsive with fixes usually.
(And if you don’t challenge yourself with minimal instrument navigation from time to time in the sim, it’s something I’d encourage everyone to try a couple times. It’s richly rewarding to break the ceiling after an hour or more in the soup and see the runway directly in front of you just like you planned it to be, and with no magenta line in sight.)
It hasn’t, and from what’s been said it probably won’t be until they move to DX12. That said, a lot of folks have seen some relief by editing their configuration file manually to turn of the sharpening in the post-process options. I found the “graininess” a lot less notable after that, though it’s still definitely there at times.
There have been a pair of mods released recently which can practically give you “trees to the horizon” if you have the horsepower for it:
“flightsimulator.blog” is a kind of shady looking site that I’d never heard of, but the mod is legit and it’s the one I’ve been using because it also contains a “giant tree” fix, which the one on flightsim.to didn’t have. It looks like there’s a new version of that which provides smaller trees, too, now, though.
If really does make a huge difference in verdant areas.
Also, if you’re looking for some amphibious fun, the classic freeware Grumman Goose has been ported to MSFS. It’s not a hack-job, it’s a fully native conversion. Still a bit rough around the edges, but nice regardless.
Editer
3018
Great bird. I just wish Jankees could figure out how to make his repaints drag-and-drop. Editing .cfg files is soooo FSX.
I know. I’ve been thinking of repackaging one of his to give him a template so he can do it the new standard way. Maybe I’ll do that now, it won’t take long.
Editer
3020
I actually emailed him about it and he said when he tried to do that it didn’t show up in the sim. So if you can figure out what’s awry there and share it with him, that’d be awesome. Oddly, his MB-339 repaints are drag-and-drop.
Skipper
3021
You have a couple of questions in there, there are several flight trackers mentioned around here so far. It depends on how much you think something akin to a tablet on your lap is for getting too far out of VFR feeling flight. Typically they connect and you pull them up via an app or web page (that works vis simconnect to MSFS. Mobile Companion App is the lead for those as far as my use has been.
For flight planning, Little Navmap seems to be a lead but man it’s intense. They have some tutorials and a few people here use it as well and -might- be able to give you some help depending on questions.
But to track a tour you want a flight tracker and I’ve seen a few of those online, from 3D trackers that show your actual flight up and around a map, to ones that are like virtual logs showing your trips over time and the tracks taken, etc. I don’t use any of these regularly but you can certainly find them with in-depth searches based on what you want for log tracking or past flight views.
Nice to hear your VR has picked up. I need to nail down my tweak settings and alt-tab use before I’m completely leaving pancake mode. Plus I kind of like laid back morning flights in pancake mode for FSE. We’ll see.
Skipper
3022
WOW that looks good. Both the aircraft and the screenshot!
Editer
3023
Where were you guys when I posted the Goose 9 days ago? @kaosfere shows the value of doing good screen shots! :)
@Skipper, FWIW I posted my VR settings over in the VR topic. Still smooth enough that I’m going to try enabling reflections too.
Interesting, I wonder what problems he was having?
Anyway, I now have drag-and-drop versions of one livery of his each for the Grumman and the P.149. I’ll reach out to him to see if he’s interested in having them.
Yeah that came in the latest update and it’s killer. It really does help the immersion flying around in BC in December. Everything looks great.
