Microsoft Flight Simulator

[Parappa]

You can change all the options on the PC version to make everything very easy or adjust to other levels. Only tried small jets and the cesena but it's easy to take off. Landing however is another story.. 

[deerokus]

There's a small private airfield about 10 miles away from me which you often see single seaters, cessnas etc flying around from in summer. They do lessons from there. Obviously where I'll be spending a lot of time in this game. 

[Mike S]

2 minutes ago, Lovelyman said:

Do you have to learn to take off or can you start in the sky?

 

In the little planes, taking off is pretty simple if you don't get into all the pre flight checklists, taxiing, communicating with ATC, etc.

 

Just floor it and keep it pointing straight. Left nose and you're away.

 

I almost always start in the air though.

 

[K]

The environmental modelling is quite odd in places. I’m just flying over Morecambe, and it’s put lots of small spits of land out into the bay, with pine trees all over them, which look strange. The nuclear power station at Heysham just isn’t there at all - or at least, isn’t modelled in 3D, it’s just a flat texture of satellite imagery. Presumably this is for security reasons, although I’m not sure what nefarious intent you could get from the whatever random buildings Microsoft’s AI threw in. 
 

The post-apocalypse vibe gets even stronger, as you get areas of houses where there are just a few models of houses laid onto satellite imagery of a housing estate, so that from a distance it looks like bombed out rubble, with a handful of houses still standing. Which is about right for Morecambe. 

[pinholestar]

Started with the Giza discovery flight.

 

Watching the sun set over the Western Egyptian Desert, threading my Cessna between the Pyramids, over the head of the Sphinx and then flying out over Cairo as it lit up at night-time was a pretty spectacular introduction to the whole experience. It's a truly wondrous thing to behold and my jaw was on the floor the entire time.

 

Just circled over one of the hugest cities on Earth in absolute awe for about half an hour and then headed for an airport on the outskirts and actually managed to land pretty perfectly on the runway first time! Something to do with flaps and easing off the throttle but it was pure beginner's luck if I'm being honest. I imagine the ground crew came running out asking me what the hell I was doing sat there in the middle of the runway like a fucking lemon just flicking random switches in my cockpit with a big grin on my face.

 

Astonishing piece of software and an absolute technical marvel. I'm going to lose hundreds of hours to this easily. Next-gen has truly arrived on Xbox at last with a huge bang. Truly amazing stuff. 

 

 

[the_debaser]

Taking off is easy, press left on the dpad to remove the brakes, a to accelerate and pull back on the left stick once you have enough speed. Can’t believe pilots go through so much training tbh. 

[Stanley]

14 minutes ago, Eighthours said:

World updates just stop downloading at present. Very frustrating.

Yeah it says downloading in background but when I go into content manager it appears to start downloading again losing anything it may have downloaded so far, I don’t quite understand it. I’ll just sit on the screen and wait I guess. 

[Dan]

26 minutes ago, deerokus said:

There's a small private airfield about 10 miles away from me which you often see single seaters, cessnas etc flying around from in summer. They do lessons from there. Obviously where I'll be spending a lot of time in this game. 

Then go and get a lesson in 5 years and be shit hot!

 

”I like the fly…”

 

 

[Nosejam]

Downloadgeddon aside, this is absolutely spectacular and everything I hoped and wished it would be like to play. I’ve done most of the tutorials, a few discovery flights and had some custom flights around North Wales and Bristol. 

My only real problem so far is that when I have HDR switched I get a bizzare graphic flickering effect on some ground textures. It very odd, I’ve tried recalibrating HDR but still there. 

 

[footle]

Given up on the pc update for now. It’s much more accessible with these controls mapped to the controller than it was at launch on PC, also the towns/villages are marked/waypointed!

[K]

Currently flying around Blackpool listening to Kool and the Gang on the Spotify app while getting stuck into a bottle of whisky and almost crying at how incredible this game is. 

[FatOldGeek]

Had another couple of hours this evening and loving it.

 

First of all flying around the Leeds area and then into Leeds Bradford airport. I then took a trip up the East coast past Skegness in the dark. I was planning on going as far as Bridlington but it felt to be taking an awfully long time so I gave up somewhere around the Humber estuary. 
 

I’m finding trimming quite tricky using the control on the throttle of the Thrustmaster HOTAS One? Anyone got any tips?

[spanx]

Just now, SplashWaveUK said:

 

 

I’m finding trimming quite tricky using the control on the throttle of the Thrustmaster HOTAS One? Anyone got any tips?

Very fine adjustments are the key, it’s actually very hard to trim an aircraft perfectly. What type of control is it, digital or an analogue axis?

[FatOldGeek]

It’s a rocker switch thing on the front of the throttle. I think it’s digital but that could be more to do with my crack handedness / how hard I’m finding it. 

[spanx]

4 minutes ago, SplashWaveUK said:

It’s a rocker switch thing on the front of the throttle. I think it’s digital but that could be more to do with my crack handedness / how hard I’m finding it. 

Had a quick look on the website and the rocker is an axis rather than a button. So if that’s controlling your elevator trim it is very much about just feeling how adjustments let you take forwards/backwards pressure off the flight stick. 
 

Oh, and watch the Squirrel vids on it, explains it much better than me

[carlospie]

This is the nicest looking most boring game ever. Well I know it's not a game it's a sim. My wife walked in and said why would you spend all that time flying places and you don't even get to enjoy all the food and drink there

[iwan_canobi]

I caved and had a quick play tonight, and I'm blown away. It looks incredible even on the series s, and I loaded up the small grass airfield next to me and it's pretty accurate, and flew to Glenforsa where I flew at the weekend and it's amazing.

 

Wasn't getting on with the controller at all though, I fly RC planes and I'm used to roll and pitch being on the right stick so it was screwing with me a bit as I kept looking around whilst trying to roll. Can't wait to get the HOTAS and really sink some time into this, can see it becoming quite addicting!

 

Real:

 

Sim:

 

[SharkyOB]

13 minutes ago, SplashWaveUK said:

It’s a rocker switch thing on the front of the throttle. I think it’s digital but that could be more to do with my crack handedness / how hard I’m finding it. 

 

I use the hat switch for trimming (pitch and roll) instead, much easier to make small adjustments.

[Eighthours]

13 minutes ago, SplashWaveUK said:

It’s a rocker switch thing on the front of the throttle. I think it’s digital but that could be more to do with my crack handedness / how hard I’m finding it. 

 

 

6 minutes ago, spanx said:

Had a quick look on the website and the rocker is an axis rather than a button. So if that’s controlling your elevator trim it is very much about just feeling how adjustments let you take forwards/backwards pressure off the flight stick. 
 

Oh, and watch the Squirrel vids on it, explains it much better than me

Yeah, the Squirrel vid about landing that was released either yesterday or today explains the trim well. Very fine adjustments seemed to have a big effect. Not sure if you can adjust the sensitivity, but you can for everything on the pad it seems, so hopefully on the HOTAS too.

[Mortis]

No idea how to get active pause working on series X - looks lovely though compared to my ageing PC. 

[Lyrical Donut]

5 minutes ago, carlospie said:

This is the nicest looking most boring game ever. Well I know it's not a game it's a sim. My wife walked in and said why would you spend all that time flying places and you don't even get to enjoy all the food and drink there

 

It's probably the best thing you've got while you're still stuck in Plague Island, to be fair.

[bear]

3 minutes ago, Pockets said:

Yeah, trimming’s a pain in the arse, that’s wh

y you need to go to manscaped.com/secondcuntiestforumontheinternet and use the promo code RLLMUK to get 20% off the Lawn....

 

 

 

Sorry, I've been listening to too many podcasts advertising that thing lately. 

[djbhammer]

Just managed a landing in one of those activities/missions at the second attempt!  My son and I have enjoyed  the discovery flights. They are awesome as a starter to just get into flying from the off. It looks like you are watching an aviation documentary tbh, it’s that realistic. Utterly bonkers. I’m loving it. 

[footle]

12 minutes ago, Mortis said:

No idea how to get active pause working on series X - looks lovely though compared to my ageing PC. 

Left stick in, brings up menu. Scroll up with right stick controlling the cursor and hit the pause button. Then look up the drone camera controls, though I’ve never 100% worked out how to switch between drone and plane control (though switching to the cockpit camera seems to help with getting back just before you crash).

[footle]

16 minutes ago, Eighthours said:

 

 

Yeah, the Squirrel vid about landing that was released either yesterday or today explains the trim well. Very fine adjustments seemed to have a big effect. Not sure if you can adjust the sensitivity, but you can for everything on the pad it seems, so hopefully on the HOTAS too.

The main struggle I have with trim is that the indicator goes up in increments of 0.1, but the actual setting is finer than that and you’ve no way other than the behaviour of the plane to know what it’s actually at.

[Stanley]

So after some mucking about I took a 747 out from Heathrow just about to land in Ireland, I hope.

 

I am blown away. 

[djbhammer]

Yep same here @Stanley Not many games have me speechless but this has this evening.

 

A rllmuk group flight session is needed in the future! 

[iwan_canobi]

2 minutes ago, djbhammer said:

Yep same here @Stanley Not many games have me speechless but this has this evening.

 

A rllmuk group flight session is needed in the future! 

 

Count me in for that! 

[Indy @ S.E.]

I have flown through the two towers of Tower Bridge, mission accomplished for today.

[tobert]

Is there a way to trigger the training objectives, I am currently sat in a plane with the objective "Discover the flight controls" but it's not giving me anything specific to do, or is taking ages to do so. Also the instructors voice is very quiet