@Thrag I think you were the one flying the Wilga. Is it the Wilga 35/80 series from Just Friends? That thing has an amazing review score and looks quite cool, just wondering if that’s the one you are flying and what you think of it?
@Skipper, I was flying the Wilga. I’m the one who bought the one that’s in our group.
I really, really like it. Only downsides are a very basic autopilot (direction, angle) and limited payload. But for flying into small airports, it’s a ton of fun. Can take off and land from tight spaces, eight different instrument/engine configurations, and flight and instrument modeling is top-notch.
And it supports both Sky4Sim and the GTN 750xi.
Excellent, I’m picking that one up. I’m also picking up the Cessna 310R by Blackbird Simulations. Thanks for the pics and reminder we had it in FSE!
Those are both excellent birds. You won’t be sorry!
Ah! I was away this week and forgot to notify you about this plane, but happily you found it.
No worries. You would think FSE would like, notify you or something. It does not. I dunno who they have as their programming staff but that whole interface needs an uplift.
I guess I’ll never get my dream game of flying through circles in the sky. But that’s ok.
Finally tried one of the treasure hunt missions in NeoFly. This one was off the coast of the Florida keys. I found a aquatic Beaver for sale in the area and spent the cash to teleport my pilot to it.
Cool!!! I never had an aquatic treasure. How much did you end up getting from it?
5 gold bars sold at 45,000 each.
It was about 50k each way to teleport my pilot there and back. I sold off the Beaver after the mission.
Haven’t flown the Trimotor yet, but stumbled across this on the Reddit, very cool:
Good lord, Thrag, every screenshot there is amazing. That first shot though, is that a storm system behind you?
Very cool indeed. I’m kind of amazed that’s where the cargo was kept on those things too.
Picked up the following over the weekend because apparently I have money burning a hole in my pocket …
Cessna 310R from Blackbird Simulations
Wilga 35/80 Series from Just Friends
But I couldn’t just be done with those two, I also had to pick up the Cessna 414AW by Flysimware:
I can’t stop buying twins.
Don’t feel bad, @Skipper, we understand. :) I bought the 310 because it’s actually the second plane I ever had a chance to take the controls of IRL, so of course I wanted to fly it in the sim! But I didn’t really have any interest in the 414 as I thought the 310 would fill the bill. (Along with the Carenado Piper twins I also bought….)
But the buzz has been so positive on the 414 I finally caved. Haven’t had much time with it yet, but it looks great.
I finally have a deep enough library that I’m starting to get some ability to resist, though. Virtavia released an A-4E Skyhawk — one of my favorite planes — last week, but apparently it has some issues due to the dev not having fully grokked how work around MSFS limitations. Air brakes don’t work (he says MSFS doesn’t support it, funny, I have a ton of planes with them plus airliner spoilers are a thing…), nor does the tail hook.
Since IndiaFoxtEcho has a TA-4J in the queue, I’m going to resist Virtavia’s unless Phil brings the systems up to par eventually.
Initially I jumped on planes I wanted or similar to what I’ve been in before but at this point, I also incorporate flying in FSE with my choices, what I prefer to fly and most importantly, now I pay more attention to reviews/comments.
All of those I picked up have a lot of praise and hype around them. The 414 is going to take some training for me as I’m not familiar at all with the avionics installed and had to rely on my drop down 750 for NAV and autopilot control. That worked, but I’d much rather use the beautiful installed package in the plane itself. Sounds and sights in the plane were great as well.
It’s hard for me to say no to anything Cessna, Beechcraft or Piper.
BeyondATC made a bit of a splash at FlightSimExpo, claiming to be both powerful and simple, but at that point all they had to show was promises and a short trailer, so I just filed it under “keep an eye on it”.
There’s now a full flight video (obviously who knows how well it would work on a different flight plan):
I was planning on picking up Pilot2ATC to enhance the experience as I learn the Boeings, but I might hold off until this is out now.
I’ve been doing a lot of traveling, so other than a couple of quick sessions on my ROG Ally to (1) keep from going into full withdrawal, and (2) realize how horrible console controllers are for flying MSFS, I’ve been pretty much cold turkey.
So today was spent checking out some planes (GotFriends DoubleEnder – a must for bush flying! – and the Boeing 377) and playing around with NeoFly 4. I went ahead and paid the $21 for NF4 and all the add-on modes, and I’m really impressed. NF3 was fun, but I knew the pilots wouldn’t transfer to 4 so I focused on the time on FSEconomy instead.
I miss the social aspect of FSEconomy – seeing what y’all are up to and sharing planes with the group – but i love the added details:
- Voiceover narration of mission phases
- Scoring based on your flying smoothness and landing quality
- Wide variety of missions
- Ability to use any plane in the sim
The really cool addition to NF4 is Freelance mode. If you really want to fly a particular plane from a particular airport, you can have it generate possible missions based on the airport/plane you currently have loaded in the sim. I’d recently bought the Cessna 414 so I set up a mission from Victoria BC in that.
One cool thing about that, as well, was that it was my first time trying the 414 from “cold and dark.” Wow, the preflight walkaround in that plane is unmatched – super cool. Can’t see doing that more than a couple of times (though I guess if I turn on all the wear and tear, maybe I’ll need to), but it’s a really slick look at what real pilots do before flying.
Only downside to freelance mode is that the pay is terrible. It’s more a way to make a few bucks if you want to fly something else in your hangar than a primary way to play NF4’s career.
Anyway, starting an airline career in NF4, I’m really impressed. First run I had a couple of two-seat planes and I was super-limited in the missions I could take because I couldn’t even do single-passenger flights in the Pipistrel due to weight limits. Restarted with the just Flight PA28 Warrior II as my starter plane and I can do a lot more. Currently have my freelance pilot flying a $41K mission in the Warrior II while I’m putting around in the FlightDesign CT until i can sell that useless little thing and get a Wilga in its place.
Ooh, I’ve been away from NF4 for a couple of months, didn’t realise they’d added Freelance. Shame about the pay but I suppose they didn’t want to sideline the regular career. Of course, if you don’t care about the career at all, the low pay won’t matter.
I think all of us that have played NeoFly wish that FSE, or any of the multiplayer involved MSFS add-ons, was as rich and detailed as NeoFly is, but also as FUN as it is.
I need to pick up NeoFly4.