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

For the aircraft using that 3X mod its like a whole new aircraft! As an example, its lofts the Icon from a flying scenery browser to something legit enough to plot a much longer course with. The added features from stock make it a much more respectable ride. I didn’t try every AP and GPS unit feature but got through quite a few of them.

I am going to have to try the G1000 mod. The default G1000 is just different enough from the real thing to be annoying.

Not sure why, but it’s taken me until now to reinstall the drivers for my X52 and get some of the buttons/wheels on my throttle bound. I can now set ALT and VS without the mouse. Huzzah! Sadly it seems the mouse nub on the throttle has drift, but it’s easily disabled and it’s not like I ever use it (used to a bit in ED but it’s not essential).

Flying routes with generally <3 passengers these days, so taking the opportunity to buy some addon aircraft.

Oh wait, that’s not it. In all its binnacled glory, the Socata TB21GT Trinidad:

Nice, sexy dash it has going on. I like when design and engineering work together for a change. It sounds like a very beefed up Bonanza with 1+3 or 1+4 passenger capacity and decent range and weight capacity.

How does she fly?

She’s…sturdy :D

I was quite surprised, it looks quite sporty, and you can bomb along at 180 knots…I wouldn’t call it sluggish but it generally feels heavy and has a bit of heft. It’s the most solid-feeling GA plane I’ve flown so far (Mooney, C182, Piaggio) and I really appreciate that as it has a distinct feel.

There are some bugs. The most jarring is sometimes your guys appear outside the cockpit in flight, sitting on the wings 😆. And I don’t know if it’s a bug but turning on the AP immediately trims out the plane and holds altitude, without pressing the Alt button. Might be me.

The default view kind of feels like you’re pressed up against the dash and is a little oppressive (not great forward view, great view out the side windows), and also the yoke obscures the AP buttons, so I use the mouse wheel to roll back to a wider view.

It’s kind of a cheap and cheerful version of the Mooney in functionality, with the distinctive dash being a bonus. I like it so far, I could see it being my go to plane for a while.

Taking it up to Canada. I’m thinking all that short hopping with few pax will allow me to get to know these planes a bit better.

Oh! Using time acceleration while in interior view definitely resulted in a loss of frame rate and made things ever so slightly stuttery on my pc, so that might be a dealbreaker for folks.

Edit: hmmm, I guess the Bonanza would be the thing to compare it to, but the bonanza feels so lightweight compared to this that I didn’t make the connection at all.

Yo Skipper, I heard you like twin engines

I might get it for a laugh. It has a jet variant and a seaplane variant :D

Cri-Cri? It needs to be renamed Noisy Cricket.

Okay that gave me a good laugh today. I thought, “this can’t be real.”

But no, it IS real …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GflVGc6Yet4

I have the Cri-Cri. It’s a very… interesting… little plane. It looks like this video was probably made with the original version, which had very intrusive engine noises. They toned that down a little bit in an update, and made the handling slightly less unstable. It still needs a very delicate hand on the stick, but once you get used to it it kind of does feel like you’re a little cricket zinging through the air. The visibility is amazing, too.

It’s worth noting, if you’re interested in the floats variant, that, at least when I tried it, there was very little maneuverability on the water. I don’t think it has a water rudder, and I guess with the location of the engines there’s not enough of a movement arm for differential power to be very effective.

Also, the jet engines are very surgey, it’s a bit hard to find a steady state with them that’s anything less than full speed ahead.

I love it because it’s truly unique and I’m a fan of strange planes. But it’s not something I fly every day, and not something you’re likely to use for anything more than local sightseeing and joyriding. As long as you’d be OK with that, I can’t advise against it. :D

Edit: Here’s a 10 minute test flight video I recorded when it first came out that gives a better sense of what it’s like than that hyper-kinetic promo video. Like I said, the sound has been slightly tamed since then.

Yes, got it, crashed it twice - both water related. It’s quite stiff and as you say, has no maneuverability on water, which is a bit of a shame.

12 euros though…happy enough with it!

@Skipper - very big in France apparently :D

The prop version has two 15-hp engines. You’re flying with 30 horsepower?!?!?!

Cruise at 180 kmph :P

It looks damn close to just sitting on a wing in the sky with two engines. I may try it just for that reason. I did see there were some glider, ultralight and paragliders out or in the works. Those might be fun as well.

I wonder if it’s easier to fly at low altitude among skyscrapers in a plane like that? Like NYC or Singapore, etc. Fly between buildings.

I kind of wonder the same thing. Some of the aircraft are a bit too fast to do that with in-game, while others are just sluggish trying to wind around buildings.

Speaking of low flying, we were at a beach in SC over the weekend and had our dogs with us. While walking from our lodging to the beach, about a 2 block walk, two thunderous sounding helicopters started barreling down the coast, and at very low altitude. From the looks I believe they were AH-64 Apaches. It was close to dusk and it’s still too cold for people in the water for the most part so the beach wasn’t populated with many people but man were they low, 150’ or maybe 200’ or so. They were so loud you could feel the ground shaking. Crazy to see but what the hell they were doing there makes me wonder.

Hotfix is out. Fixes the flap scalar and a scenery issue, along with some SDK problems.

Sim Update 3 is now pushed back to next week. I guess if they had just incorporated the hotfixes into Sim Update 3 (originally scheduled for tomorrow) the additional testing would have pushed it back anyway.

Nice.

By the way, @Pedro, I’ve been borrowing the TBM a bit as I push toward the Longitude (only $200k to go!). I’ve been leaving it where I found it, but I notice you’re moving it a fair bit. Is there a direction I should be heading in?

Also, I forgot to post my screenshots:

Very British shot of terraced housing in Birmingham:

St Andrews:

The Bullring and Birmingham city centre:

Villa Park:

Climbing out of Cochabamba is pretty scary in these conditions:

No restrictions, take it wherever and leave it wherever. It was in Cochabamba - the home of the villain in Scarface :D - for a while but the return corporate trips have dried up a bit there so I moved it.

Highly recommend the corp pax trips down there; usually there are a few outward then return legs to the same place.