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

Beautiful shots, @Thrag. I’ve been flying a bit in the Himalayas too and been thinking about getting the Orbyx mesh for that area, though I’m not sure if it offers something I would actually notice.

Hello! I’ve been flying quite a bit, though basically via FSEconomy grind, so I have nothing very interesting to report. I bought a DC-6 in FSE the other day and it has forced me to finally start flying the PMDG payware. Lots of fun and frustration so far.

Speaking of FSE, we should probably sell the group’s South African FBOs. They are quite expensive to keep supplied, and even I haven’t been flying there much this last couple of months. I think it’s that I know very little about SA in real life, so it hasn’t captured the imagination for flying in.

All for it, I think Ginger and I are both playing Farming Sim 2022 right now anyway. Um … how do we even sell those? Maybe as a group auction? Do you need any type of privledges to do so? I could advance you to lead of the group with might help, Pedro? I haven’t been checking on my aircraft. I hope everything is okay. :(

Woah, Farming Simulator has gone mainstream? :D

I just read some of your posts and it seems pretty compelling actually. No doubt in a year or two, we’ll all be playing it.

To sell an FBO you just need to go FBO → FBO Management → QT3 → Edit and update this field:

image

They then show up for sale in the sales page and on the map. Some people advertise on the forum too but I can’t be bothered with that).

Prices are depressed, so I’ll bang them in for 125K apiece and we’ll see if anyone buys them. If you guys object, feel free to pop in an edit as appropriate.

Looks like they are all set to sell, we’ll see what happens. Here is the list:

I also repaired the QT3 King Air.

Is Oji still going? Looks like my leased planes there don’t move at all. Should I grab them back or leave them?

Currently trying to persuade myself not to buy the Velocity One yoke and throttle. It’s half the price of a Honeycomb setup, and apparently surprisingly good quality given that price differential, it seems to cover GA and airliners pretty well, and is also set up to work out of the box (with one exception) with bindings already configured. On the other hand, it’s still £350, which could buy an entire console.

I saw a post by a poor guy on reddit. His small child had destroyed the USB plug on the side of his honeycomb yoke after less than 10 hours use. So, I guess it could be worse. Still, 350 is pretty high for a combo. I’m assuming they are good quality?

It’s detachable, so not a combo in the usual sense. Seems pretty high quality for the price, though definitely not Honeycomb level. It was this video that has unfortunately spurred my desire (damn you, YouTube algorithm!):

I’m not going to help, because I actually down/side-graded from the Honeycomb to the Velocity One and I love it. TL;DR: Works well and hella easier to set up/take down than the Honeycomb combo.

Background: I bought the Honeycomb Alpha and Bravo. They are both excellent devices. But if you use your PC for other things, they require a fair amount of time to set up when you want to use them. I’d intended to leave the Bravo hooked up and just swap between the yoke and joystick depending on which sim/plane I was flying, but the Bravo was just too big and cumbersome to leave set up. So both of them spent most of their time gathering dust while I just used my T.16000m HOTAS setup. Then an online friend expressed frustration he couldn’t find the Honeycomb setup anywhere and he was about to buy the crappy Logitech setup. So I offered to sell him mine. He’s happy, he has his Alpha and Bravo. I’m happy, I have money instead of bulky devices sitting unused.

Then I saw the Velocity One design and decided to give it a shot. Looked easy to set up, and I could use it on my Xbox too; I’d have had to upgrade the Honeycomb to do so.

Got it and really, really like it! Installing it takes less than a minute – pop open the cover, grab the hex wrench, and tighten two clamps. Plug in USB and you’re ready to go. Removing is just as fast.

It’s not quite as feature-packed as the Alpha/Bravo setup, but the yoke feels really good, and I really like the vernier push/pull controls for flying single-engine props. The software still needs some work – the indicators behind the yoke are apparently going to work with January’s sim update, and they’re going to add more profiles on the LCD so you can do less configuration in MSFS for various plane types.

But overall, I really like the controls, it has lots of buttons, and the trim wheel’s the best I’ve used on a sim controller. And I had $200 left over compared to the Honeycomb combo!

Note that if you do want the Honeycomb, though, the combo (which is excellent, especially if you plan to leave it set up) is on sale for $508 for Black Friday on Adorama.

How are the “Commercial Jet” throttles. I’ve only watched one review online, so it’s entirely possible this was just specific to the Velocity One he received, but while he overall like the product, his one complaint is that the commercial jet throttles lacked weight and felt too loose and didn’t seem to have an easy way to tighten them. IIRC he thought the general aviation throttle, mixture, prop controls worked fine.

I’ve been using a Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS One on my Xbox and my main complaint is that the throttle is so loose, for some positions, it will start slipping unless I actively hold it in position. I poked around a bit on the web to see if it was user serviceable and it looks a real mess to try to do anything about it.

Yeah, we sold four pretty much as soon as I put them up (must have been desirable in some indefinable way) so these are still up for sale. Might take a while. But we have 700K+ in the account now, so the wolf is being kept from the door ;). If you guys wanted to appropriate some of that to pay your monthly fees for six months or so while you’re not flying, feel free.

Oji is going strong! There has been more of an emphasis on flying better paying flights, so the smaller planes are getting neglected for the moment. These things are cyclical, I’d love to get back to flying the smaller GA planes but financial pressures… The King Air 350 is still seeing use, I think? Maybe ask him if he wants to buy it before taking it back, if you wanted to sell, that is.

Funny story, I spilled damn near a whole beer over my T.16000m throttle a while back. Still works like a champ. Sticky as all get out. You have to WANT to move the throttle. I’ve thought about unsealing it and cleaning it but didn’t want to muck it up further. Within the units there is a fair bit of lubricant, in the case of these I think it’s either lithium (metal to plastic) or silicone (plastic to plastic.) I say this because I believe the beer I spilled probably removed some of that. It might be possible to just use a rag/cloth to do the same to yours.

Very good to hear. He’s a good chap!

No pressure and no worry to sell either. I like my King Airs. I’ll email him to ask about the planes. No sense leaving them there if not used, I’ll move them somewhere common and rent them out for extra cash.

I have enough in the bank to get through many months of aircraft fees.

Does anyone know how to look up nav frequencies in the touch screen garmin that is in the Kind Air 350? I know how to do it in the regular g1000 by going to waypoints, punching in the airport code, and then scrolling down the list. But I can’t find any way to look things up in the King Air’s setup.

A couple of answers …

First, how to enter them and lookup “nearest” points, change them, set navigation to them, etc:

Unfortunately that won’t let you do lookups by airport code. We’ll need to wait on the Working Title crew to hopefully get around to the version of Garmin in the King Air before we get that same capability. So, two ways to get that. Before the flight when setting things up, on the World Map you can select the, “More,” selection on the bottom menu bar, then select, 'Open Filters," then scroll down and enable NAVAIDS to, “ON,” then select, “Close.” That will then let you scroll around the map or select an airport of nav point and you’ll be able to see the frequencies there. This is more for route planning, however, so the only alternative in-flight for a distant nav point or airport frequency is google or some similar flight planning site.

I know that’s not a fantastic answer but remember the bulk of the work by the Working Title team has been on the g1000, as it’s the most common unit on in-game aircraft at this point.

What things look like on the World Map:

Thank you very much for the detailed answer. I have taken to just looking up the approach plates on google, but I just like doing everything in cockpit. I grabbed the Working Title Garmin Nxi mod and that is some nice icing on the g1000 cake.

Took a little flight around Paris this evening.

I love how it renders the cockpit in the external mode. It probably can’t be seen well once the forum downscales it, but the MFD you can see a glint of in the cockpit shows just like in the cockpit view.

I also picked up the FSFlyingSchool mod while it was on sale over the weekend. Haven’t formed a full opinion of it yet. I like the idea of something that reminds me when I’m forgetting things or just doing it wrong. Will have to see how well it works out.

I’d love to see them add more capability to the King Air via the mod for that Garmin unit.

Those night screenshots are fantastic. The small graphics details are really what makes this game. You can do drone view completely outside an aircraft and if you get close enough outside behind the pilot/copilot, you can actually see the correct indications on the displays in the cockpit, charted path and all. I have no idea how they did that, but it’s amazing.

Happy to report that all QT3 FBOs have been sold. We’re millionaires!*

*Can’t remember if we have been millionaires before; based on my own circumstances, I doubt it.

I’ll take my share in Neofly bucks, thanks.

In continuing my MSFS binge, flew a bit around Tokyo today.

The main highlight of the flight is when I went to land back at Tokyo airport I was told to come into runway 34L following the traffic about to land. I got to follow a jetliner in.

I turn to get on to his tail. (may be a little hard to see in the reduce pics but fortunately the plane is orange)

Even though I’m a VFR flight and didn’t file a plan, since I can look up the ILS frequencies anyway you an see I have the locator tuned in and I’m about on the glideslope altitude. The Nippon Air flight I’m chasing looks quite above it. It actually waves off and goes a go around. Since this is using live traffic I can’t help but wonder if that actually happened or if it was an irregularity of the sim. Either way pretty cool to see. Was too busy flying to get more pics as it happened.

Made a not terrible landing. Cool airport.

The vastness of that city is both cool to see and kind of unnerving.

We should possibly consider disbursing the v$ to the group members actually.

I mean, FSE is a pretty fixed experience; it’s hard to imagine a group experience capturing our imaginations in the future, to the extent where we play as a group again.