Number 1 with a bullet:
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Who is up for another gorgeous trailer?
Had my first in-game CTD since the patch. To be fair, I was alt-tabbed out of the sim for a while with lots of other stuff running, but slightly annoying anyway as I was most of the way through a 2,800 mile flight.
Iām having a lot of fun playing with the tutorials and just getting a handle on what all the gauges are telling me, where to look to find certain things out. But the tutorials are a bit, I dunno, cryptic at times? Though not in a bad way, they just sometimes make me work to find out info. For instance, the person explaining everything to me will tell me that itās helpful to measure speed in terms of RPMs of the engine, but then sheāll tell me to speed up to 80 knots, so I have to watch both I guess?
Learning to taxi was more complicated than I expected too, for instance she tells me to keep speed at 1,000 RPMs and then stop at a certain point. Sure, no problem - but then when I need to get moving again, speeding up to 1,000 RPMs wonāt get my plane moving forward so I bump to 1,500 but then Iām told to āwatch my speed!!ā as Iām rocketing down the runway. So I throttle up to 1,500 RPM but then pretty much immediately slow back down to 1,000 RPM so Iām moving slowly enough to get into position. Am I overthinking this stuff? Iām getting Aās in my training levels but seems like it shouldnāt be that complicated.
Takeoff and landing is a lot of fun but, oddly, easier than I expected it to be. Just getting lined up and getting altitude and speed right pretty much takes care of everything, the plane will almost land itself. Iām sure it can get a lot tougher, but I didnāt have to do nearly as many retries on takeoff and landing training as I did for taxiing, paradoxically.
No, youāre correct. You need a certain amount of thrust to overcome the inertia of the wheels on the ground. So throttle up until you start moving, then immediately throttle back to the appropriate power level.
Not to diminish your accomplishments, but landing is extremely forgiving in this game unfortunately (or should that be fortunately?). As long as you donāt faceplant yourself onto the runway youāll generally walk away from every landing.
I figured there must be some kind of assist going on behind the scenes. Just seemed a little funny that in some spots, the physics seems to be working hard against me, but landing was just like nature going, ānah, you know what, give him a pass.ā
I mean, if you set up an excellent approach then landing really is easy - provided you arenāt in shitty atmospheric conditions with crosswind, icing, and all that fun stuff.
But yeah, itās not so much an assist as more that the game just doesnāt damage your aircraft unless you literally fly into a solid object. You can bounce or float on landing, sure, but youāll never damage your aircraft unless your nose is more or less pointed straight down at the runway.
Not even that though, I just find that gliding in and doing the little flare maneuver to slow down as the instructor suggests just seems to flow really easy for me. Iām not even coming down hard or bouncing really. Now as I said, I realize it gets tougher, stuff like shorter runways, poor weather and/or visibility, Iām just talking about the mechanics of landing. It just seems to āhappenā, kind of, with less work or prep or scrambling to correct required of me.
I mean, real life seems to be set to āmediumā difficulty on landings. My first IRL landing in a small plane, a Mooney 231 back when I was in high school in the 80ās:
Weāre approaching a very rural airport in Louisiana or Mississippi (itās been a while). Mark, the pilot, literally has to key the mic on a certain frequency to turn on the runway lights. (Wish MSFS simulated that level of detail!) Super dark no-moon night.
The dude heās giving a ride to this airport is in the back staring at his work stuff. As weāre on final, he pipes up uninterestedly, āOh, last guy who flew me in here said the trees at the end of the runway are taller than the paperwork says.ā
Mark peers forward, I guess he spots the treetops, and hauls back on the yoke and slams the throttle. Good reaction.
THEN he goes ahead with the landiing! Pushes over, throttles back, pulls up before the runway, and we slam down (momentum, not stall) and bounce like hell all over the runway, Mark keeps it on the runway, slows us down, and taxis to parking. He lets the guy out, we close the door, and he starts heading back to the runway.
My reaction is āUm, Iām not an expert, but donāt we need to HAVE THIS PLANE INSPECTED FROM PROP TO TAIL BEFORE WE TRY TO FLY IT AGAIN AFTER THAT LANDING? Um, sir?ā
Mark replies, āNo, itās fine. Just a little bouncy.ā We take off and continue (safely) to Buffalo, NY.
TL;DR: These little planes are built pretty tough. Mooneys, at least.
A lot of trainer aircraft are built the same way. They take a beating and students continue to be able to use them, daily.
Hey, so can anyone explain to be what is up with the rudder controls on the Xbox controller?
It seems like they are really wonky, and it makes taxing almost impossible. Like, if I pull the trigger, the rudder will move in that direction, but then come backā¦ So I need to kind of keep pulling the trigger to get the rudder to stay in one direction. It seems like this is not correct.
Nope, thatās how the rudders are supposed to work. With rudder pedals, the rudder only deflects when youāre actually pressing one of the pedals. As soon as you let off the foot pressure, the rudder returns to center. So for taxiing, you just press one direction or another a small degree until you get the sharpness of turn youāre looking for.
The triggers are analog, so a gentle, partial press is like pressing just a bit on the rudder pedals. If youāre not seeing that level of precision, you might need to adjust the sensitivity.
No you are misunderstanding. (Which is understandable, because the behavior Iām seeing makes no sense)
When I hold the trigger down to rudder right or left, the rudder will flip in that direction, and then go back to center, even if I keep holding the trigger down.
I think that I may have figured out the cause though.
It seems that if I donāt set an arrival airport, it doesnāt do this, and I can control the aircraft as expected while taxiing. It seems like maybe there is some kind of weird auto taxiing that is trying to take place, and screwing with my rudder?
Sounds like a bug for sure.
Find this, which seems to be referencing it, that is what gave me the idea to not set a destination, which worked.
Oh, bizarre. Sorry, i didnāt understand your description. Yeah, that sounds like a bug. Weird one!
Trying to decide on the Aviat Husky. Looks nice, but I have the Super Deluxe MSFS, so I already have the XCub, Savage Cub, and Shock Ultraā¦ (Plus the awesome GotGravel Savage Carbon/Grravel mods, and the Bush League Legends XCub modsā¦)
Iāll probably pick it up for $5 after I earn another $10 in MS Rewards credit at the end of August.
Same for me. My first thought was, oooh, that looks like fun. Followed by, how much time have you spent flying most of the Super Deluxe aircraft you already have.
One thing I did notice though the Husky does seem to have a much higher airspeed than most of the other pure propeller aircraft. So it does at least have that going for it.
Iāve been trying to figure out what sort of avionics the Husky has. I did find one videos showing the cockpit view and it looks like thereās some kind of touch screen with auto piloting on there but it didnāt look like a standard G1000. Iām not sure I want to learn another system before I even have the G1000 mastered.
I found this pretty extensive video on the Husky. The center avionics unit is a Garmin aera 796. It has a touch screen and actually seems pretty straightforward (easier to deal with than a G1000).
However, apparently the airplane has not autopilot. So depending on your flying habits, that might be a major downside.
You can go into the controls menu and bind keys to specific autopilot functions which will give you autopilot for planes that lack autopilot capable avionics.
That sounds like racing games that give you traction control (if you turn it on) for cars that donāt have traction control in real life. Iām okay with that! :)
So, just curious, your control issue bugs aside, where in the world have you been flying so far?