Spock
1624
Ah, I didn’t realize that. Oh well. :(
Thanks, though. Hopefully before Christmas I’ll get my hands on a new card!
That’s who I was thinking of. Their 737 is due out first quarter (I think) next year.
Matt_W
1627
So I’m trying this OnAir thing. I created a pilot profile (Sunita Whitson, after 2 famous U.S. astronauts) and an airline (Chiroptera Aloft–not sure that bats are the best image for an airline, but whatevs) and a home base, KGEG - Spokane International, my hometown airport. I started the tutorial and got a flight to Pasco, a route I’ve driven many many times. Flew the flight:
Spokane Airport!
Eastern Washington is kind of boring
I pulled up the IAP for KPSC LOC approach for runway 21R, set the localizer frequency, dialed it into the nav system, and let the autopilot fly all the way to a graceful touchdown, only touching the throttle and brakes. Look at those PAPI lights, right on glide slope.
Now apparently I have to wait 20 minutes for OnAir to catch up since I used time compression… The tutorial won’t even advance.
Skipper
1628
That climb out pic looks awesome. So to you and @Spock, I noticed you both flying C172’s, does OnAir let you fly anything you want mismatched with what it is simming within the site? Or is it like FSE where your aircraft must be the same as in MSFS gamewise?
Also, no time compression? Eeek!
I answered a post from Dymond aviation for flyers on FSE. Looking to try other aircraft and hauling so it’ll let me dip my toes into that I think. Most of their FBOs are where I’ve been flying anyway, NC/SC/TN, and one of their large hubs is in KILM, aka Wilmington.
It seems we can belong to multiple groups, but I thought maybe trying out another one will give me more info on how assignments work, etc.
I also followed a post on FSE about how to load liveries and then use them to simulate “similar” aircraft in FSE, mapping them to close MSFS equivalents. This allowed me tonight to fly from Shanghai to Nijong in a Beechcraft Bonanza V35 versus the in-game G36. Everything worked well, but I popped into Shanghai in a horrible foggy rainstorm and had to fly a pretty overloaded Bonanza for 90 miles in it. Talk about being tossed around! Even my climb out took 10 minutes, lol.
Spock
1629
Yeah, OnAir will let you use time compression, but then your pilot is in “warp time” after you land, and you have to wait for them to catch up.
I had a really entertaining OnAir flight from Kenai Muni back to Anchorage tonight. It was raining in Kenai as I taxied out:
Pretty hazy and rainy during departure, too.
Wind was very gusty aloft – here’s a 40 knot gust. This was the most jostling I’ve had in MSFS. I got a tad green, but we Vulcans are supposed to be green.
The weather at Anchorage was better, though still instrument conditions (which gave me a bonus in OnAir). I heard lots of other aircraft missing their approaches. Pretty mountains.
Safely on the taxiway.
Skipper
1630
You using VATSIM?
Also, it sounds like it tracks the game a lot more stringently than FSE. Did you just use the default IFR flight plan and it forces the route or could you GPS across instead of the NAV points and then switch to ILS approach?
BTW, speaking of weather, still not fixed. I get ONE flight of the actual Live weather, then it defaults back to what we had, fairly clear with SW wind of 3mph. Annoying. I also noticed the Bonanza weather display was strange in that it worked for a bit, then completely stopped. :(
Spock
1631
@Skipper We posted our screenshots at almost the same time – and it seems we were flying in similar weather! I really dig how MSFS portrays rainy weather. It feels right.
As I mentioned above (responding to @Matt_W), OnAir does permit time compression, but your pilot will be in a “time warp” afterwards and will have to wait to catch up. With AI pilots, I imagine this system wouldn’t hold you back much.
As for aircraft, OnAir tells you up front which aircraft are supported by which sim – a very nice feature. And there are tons of aircraft available to fly. At my home airport alone, Anchorage, there are 13 pages of aircraft available, but if I filter for MSFS planes, I get this list. On the “easy” server, Cumulus, I already have $200,000, so I have some purchase/rental options apart from the C172. Bear in mind, this is just Anchorage; I could shop elsewhere – but I’d have to move my pilot there, either by flying myself or putting him/her on board a commercial jet.
Spock
1632
Nope, I’m just using “live traffic,” so I’m not sure if I was hearing players or AI aircraft representing actual flights. I was #4 to land, but two of the big jets ahead of me had to go around.
OnAir does indeed track many things much more stringently, which I enjoy – but ATC is one exception. You don’t have to worry about filing flight plans, and you can ignore ATC if you like. In this case, I normally would have filed an IFR flight plan with Anchorage clearance while I was sitting at the ramp. As it happened, I started MSFS at the wrong airport, and rather than exiting the MSFS flight and restarting at Kenai, I just allowed OnAir to “slew” me 50 miles to the Kenai ramp. That works fine, except it confuses MSFS’s ATC. I did eventually get to talk to Anchorage on approach.
But without ATC at start, I just used the Kenai VOR to guide my flight out, then caught Anchorage’s VOR radial and turned toward that. I had no GPS at all, as I had put in the wrong plan to MSFS when I started the simulator. I actually enjoyed this: it was old-fashioned fly-by-VOR in very low visibility.
One glitch I often get with OnAir: just as I’m about to take off, OA says it’s lost its connection with my simulator. To fix this, I just alt-tab out of MSFS, tell OA to “resume flight,” go back to MSFS, taxi a bit more, and the flight always “resumes” after a few moments.
A lot of people are seeing this, but curiously, I’m not. I ran 4 flights in a row yesterday and they all had different weather. The one bug I am seeing is that occasionally my PFD gets dim for a few moments. It happened twice on the taxiway before takeoff but then didn’t happen again.
Skipper
1633
I hope this isn’t indicative of the future, swapping bugs for bugs. With what @ChiTownBluesFan mentioned on the tubeliners, it sounds like they hosed a few things IN the patch, versus fixing more. The same for the sensitivity menu item not showing up either.
Spock
1634
Yeah, I hope so too. How many testers do they have? I’d gladly test a beta build.
Incidentally, I’ve been meaning to post a link to a basic flying tutorial I watched just last week, by Squirrel. This little video has helped me a ton, even though I’ve been flying in simulators for decades. TLDR: use power to control altitude; use attitude to control speed; adjust power/attitude before trim. My flying has improved a LOT in the past week just keeping those things in mind. I used to stick the nose up when I wanted to go up. Dumb! Here’s a link:
Skipper
1635
Question to you FSE folks:
I’ve banked quite a bit to the group and will probably pad that to about 200K by early next week. Instead of something smaller I’m unsure if I should plan to add a medium passenger plane say, a Diamond DA62 (6 PAX, 684kg max) or keep going and shoot for a Cessna Grand Caravan 208B (13PAX, 1685kg max) or Beechcraft King Air 350 (14PAX, 2297kg max.) All are usable by the base-game.
The sweet spot seems to be the Grand Caravan, with prices as cheap as $780K in-game.
The next tier up goes 1 million plus (TBM 930) and is more about speed or one of the tubeliners for massive weight/PAX carriers.
vyshka
1636
For FSE other than the 100 hour maintenance and the engine overhaul do engine/airframe hours impact anything, like increased chance of random maintenance or something?
Matt_W
1637
Yeah, both 100 hour maintenance and engine overhauls get more expensive over the life of the aircraft. And supposedly running the aircraft engine mixture rich will affect engine longevity, but I have my doubts.
Skipper
1638
Random is supposedly completely random. I’ve had one of them, approx $1000 or so. 100 hour and engine overhaul are based on your “tier” of aircraft and number of engines.
So in my Baron I just had a 100 hour that ran me $5137 on about a ~300K base price plane. However, when/if I hit the 1500 hour engine overhaul, I’m kind of screwed with it being a dual engine. My guess is that will run about $100K-$150K. I’m far, far away from that.
Monthly costs on aircraft run fairly cheap, 1K-5K range from what I understand, based on the tier. You can make that in such a short time, it’s not really a bad deal at all.
Crap, also very important mention, the costs are based on WHERE you have them done. Some hubs with player owned FBOs offer very cheap discounts on the service work.
Second edit: BTW, note the price on 100LL and Jet-A from one of the local FBOs there and how cheap it is. This is why I pick the hubs to fly in that I do. Every little penny counts. If I’m refueling for a buck less a gallon and filling to 75% (106 gallons) in my plane, that adds up quickly.
@vyshka if you’re interested, do a search on some aircraft you like, then note their location and pull up that airport. You can then click on that aircraft there and look at all of the records on it, seeing how much it cost for their 100 hour, etc.
I have my doubts on that too. They pass so little between SimConnect to FSE I doubt that would be one of the items.
Spock
1639
That would be my vote, but I am playing very casually on FSE right now, so my vote shouldn’t count for much.
vyshka
1640
Did the last VFR training flight tonight. I’m surprised they don’t have IFR training like the older versions.
Editer
1641
For those of you with access to the FSEconomy forums… Has there been any hint on when they might start taking registrations again?
Skipper
1642
I asked in forum, Denny. I’ll see if I can find out. The DNS issues are resolved, I’m not sure what the additional item is?
Matt_W
1643
Early morning takeoff from KSAN
Lake Murray, where I’ve jogged, biked, and boated many times
