I finally picked up a Quest 2 and went to set it up in MSFS but while I saw the touch controller listed I didn’t see a way to configure the sticks or buttons on it. Anyone know?
Heh, you’re welcome. I happened to have just parked my aircraft when I saw your post so I had the opportunity to have a quick look through the settings while I still had a “live” flight to test with.
I can’t stay away from Russia. Back to my trip. Going to find the Russian Gulag that was the origin of the escape in the book “The Long Way Back”.
Finally had a chance to check out the Australia world update and SU8. Very nice. It’s both encouraging and frustrating that the photogrammetry is so much better than London. Hopefully they will give the UK another pass at some point.
Hey guys! It’s been a while since I checked in on this thread and since then I’ve gotten divorced, took time off flying, and changed flight schools. Last weekend I got my solo xcs done and it was pretty awesome. The second one was KSDL through the KPHX Bravo to KAVQ to KPRC back over the Bravo to KSDL, for those of you keeping track at home. Given that it was Phoenix Open weekend there were plenty of delays so the second xc wound up being 225 nm in 2.8 hours. Also kept getting moved around by flight following because of parachute jumpers.
Some pictures:
My check ride is scheduled in less than 2 weeks- wish me luck.
Also, to stay on topic, I got ready with another pilot buddy of mine by flying similar routes in MSFS while he watched my track and pretended to be ATC. Hugely helpful.
Holy shit! That’s a lot of life events to catch up on. Welcome back, Ike! It sounds like flight training is going REALLY well if you’re nearly ready for your check ride. It also sounds like you’ve gotten quite used to bravo space?
Love the pics. That’s a good looking Piper. When I was taking training the two Cessnas I had available for rental looked like sad pandas in comparison. Now you’re making me want to jump back in.
You don’t need luck for the check ride, you’ve got this shit.
I don’t need luck. I need time. There’s a TON of stuff to learn for the oral portion. Also a little bit of luck in the form of weather would be helpful. I’d like it to be nice, but not too nice, if you get my drift.
I hear ya. It’s also the beginning of a big change and with a lot of information and practice needed along the way. Even if you stumble in your journey, you’ve got this. The goal is visualized. Are you going on an off day of the week? Any choice in your DPE or are they assigned based on your date/time/location?
Outstanding :)
Going on a Monday. Shouldn’t be too bad. Scottsdale is always busy, so I’m glad I did my solo xcs during the Open. The flight school reserved the DPE. I think I’ve got enough time. Just need to dial in some maneuvers and study the stuff I’m not confident in. Like weather. Ugh weather.
Nice going on the real reality flying.
Having now done some virtual reality flying with the quest 2, it’s a whole different experience. I haven’t tried to dial in the graphics settings and on the defaults things are pretty low res compared to playing on my monitor. Still, depth makes all the difference. Landing feels much easier now. I’m still mostly reaching for the mouse to work the cockpit controls, but just seeing the little dials in 3D is so nice. Even if I can’t pinch a dial and rotate them with my fingers yet.
Pattern flying and landing in VR do feel so much more realistic. Trying to use the different views without VR is a pale comparison that doesn’t help or feel nearly as real.
@IkeVandergraaf We’re all wishing you luck, man. Keep up the practice. And keep the updates coming!
Just did another leg of the Alaska bush trip, but in VR this time. After googling appropriate settings for my setup the graphics quality is much nicer. There’s still a bit of occasional jank as I move my head around, and a lot of aliasing at the quest 2’s resolution, but even with the somewhat less spectacular visuals compared to my widescreen monitor I don’t think I can go back to 2D.
The cockpit details all come to life. The difference of scrolling around in 2D vs. just looking up at the fuel gauges on the XCub in VR was one of the little thing that sold it. The old school compass on the windshield is another small thing that totally stands out in 3D. The feeling of space in the cockpit. Leaning over to look down out the side window is another thing that makes such a difference in VR. I never noticed before the XCub had a cup holder ;). Looking up through the sunroof is another small detail that is just so enhanced in VR.
As I mentioned above landing really demonstrates the difference. In 2D getting lined up perfectly with the runway when hand flying was something that was difficult for me. In VR it’s natural and easy.
This is going to be mind bogglingly amazing as headsets and computing power improves. I can only imagine what something like the pixmia 8k would look like, assuming the hardware exists to run it on ultra at a super high refresh rate.
I’m going to be honest, I’m a bit jealous of your Quest 2. I have the HP Reverb G2. I will say this, it looks amazing in game. GREAT resolution if that’s what you’re going for.
However I fight with the craptastical Windows Mixed Reality bullshit quite a bit and don’t like how disjointed launching games is. Then comes the cable tether, which is almost like tactile rubber, for some reason it sticks to my gaming chair and when it does so, of course I pull my headset out of position.
I don’t want to turn this into the VR good/bad thread but I have a love/hate with the thing. I long for when we can get that technology without a tether.
Do you use the controllers at all or are you still using keyboard/mouse/joystick?
I’m using a long usb-c cable with the quest. Air link doesn’t work well with my setup. So it’s not cord free.
I’ve used the touch controllers a bit to press buttons, but haven’t tried flying with the touch controller. Using my yoke and throttle by feel to fly. I ended up mostly switching back to the mouse for cockpit controls. Couldn’t figure out how to turn the map range knob on the garmin with the touch controller. I hope one day hand tracking gets really good so you can pinch and turn the little knobs.
I don’t even like using my controllers for normal things, so I’m with ya. I use keyboard/mouse and my two thrustmasters (joystick/throttle.) The immersion is great though. The natural feeling of checking your sides as you turn, then shifting view of things in all directions really draws you in.
I forgot to mention this, but during the Olympics I flew in the town near Beijing where they were holding the downhill skiing type events. It looks like it looked on TV but way better!
You know why? Because on TV everything was brown, but in Flight simulator all the trees had green leaves!
So I guess that’s one “limitation” of the sim is that it makes places look prettier than they are in real life, especially in the winter.
The sim kind of has that limitation with seasons all over. I don’t know how they match up seasons to an area but I could see where it would be hard to know any given location day/time with the exception of precipitation (rain/snow.)
My home area still looks pretty bad but I’m happy it’s at least in-game. It makes me wonder how they would iterate this game into something different though, like Flight Sim 2024 or something. At this point we’re expecting the same full world coverage going forward, and there are only so many updates to global satellite data over time.
As an example, the new Xplane 12 in development hasn’t yet made a comment on satellite scenery. There will be better weather there for that sim and my guess is in-plane graphics will be outstanding. But I’m almost spoiled at the get-in-and-fly-anywhere we’ve transitioned to with MSFS.
There is a seasonal foliage mod, but it looked like quite a faff so I haven’t bothered installing it.