I love how my town looks like a dystopian, post-apocalyptic nightmare in Microsoft Flight Simulator

[FlyingPenguin]

Decided to pickup MS Flight Sim today. Spend an hour configuring my InterLink-X R/C flight controller that came with RealFlight 8 (a radio control flight simulator). This is a real R/C remote control configured as a USB joystick (hey, I'm an R/C pilot, it's the way I fly).



Took a while, but MS Flight Sim is flexible enough to let you configure just about any controller, and the InterLink has a dozen mapable buttons on it. I could even program the auxiliary thumbwheels as flaps and elevator trim.

The first thing I did, of course, was fire up a Piper Cup at Love's Landing, which is a fly-in community 3 miles north of my house. Flew over my house (MS is using aerial photos from 4 years ago for some reason so the old house is there, but not the new one), then flew around The Villages.

Everything looks wonderful if you're at normal flying altitude, but of course, I wanted to fly as low as possible, and that's when MS Flight Sim starts looking funky because it can't interpolate details at ground level, unless you're in a major city where MS decided to encode the scenery in detail.

So flying low over the main part of my town, everything looks like it was melted by some sort of alien death ray.



Looks like I finally found a game I can rationalize buying an RTX 3080 for. I barely get 35 FPS on high quality settings, and around 45 on medium.

[FlyingPenguin]

Geez the game is buggy. I thought by now it would be okay. I've started a couple of flights and been stuck on the runway like the brakes are on, but they aren't. Crashed a few limes. Last time I just clicked on the navigation map and it crashed to the desktop. Once all my monitors went black. Windows was apparently still running, but I couldn't see anything and had to reboot.

[Losbot]

That's odd. I too held off then finally picked up MSFS but didn't experience any of those issues.

[FlyingPenguin]

I turned off a background app I run that gives me an overlay with my FPS, and switched to windowed mode and it seems a bit better behaved as far as the menu not coming up sometimes, but it still crashed to the desktop a couple of times. I'll try updating drivers. I'm always a few versions behind,

The stuck on the runway issue doesn't seem to be brakes. I release the brakes, and it's still glued to the ground. If I restart the mission, that seems to clear it.

I think GTA has ruined Flight Sim for me. I fly low, and I expect things to look like Los Santos. LOL!

From altitude, it really does look nice. Fun to fly around Miami and look for familiar things. Found Hialeah Race Track, then flew over down town, then up US1 to find my old townhouse. Took a tour over the grand canyon.

Physics are pretty good. It did let me snap roll the Pitts Special, and inverted flight feels right. Haven't been able to coax it into a flat spin yet, which that plane is capable of IRL. May need to make the controls more sensitive. I'm also a little rusty. It's harder to make a full scale Pitts flat spin than a model. You have to feel for the stall and snap at the right moment, but it is one of the coolest aerobatic maneuvers. Pity there's no smoke system in the game.

I'm delighted that I can program the actual trim buttons on my R/C flight stick as the trim buttons in the game. Feels like I'm flying a real model - especially when it's something overpowered like the Pitts (model planes have a much higher power to weight ratio than full scale planes, and the Pitts comes closest to feeling like an R/C plane).

[Losbot]

I believe the game has more pros than cons right now and with some time, they'll smooth things over. It's also got a strong community following that cranks out new planes. I haven't looked into how you add them to this version but I will get around to it.

[FlyingPenguin]

My old house (the terrain data precedes the construction of my new house) looks okay from the north side. It looks like a melted ruin from the south. Seems like the satellite took the photo from the north.

[FlyingPenguin]

Heh. Took a tour around Miami with the wife watching, and her having a good time picking out landmarks. Then, of course, we had to buzz Sunshine State Industrial Park, which her father built. Since legend has it that he once flew under the arch in a helicopter (and got cited for it), I tried to replicate the incident in his honor.

Sadly I did not succeed. Either the open area under the arch is treated as a solid, or else I need a plane with a narrower wingspan. Will try again with the Pitts Special. I'm on a mission from God.

[FlyingPenguin]

Nope. Space under the arch must be treated as a solid. I tried the Pitts which has half the wingspan, and it's clear from the still below I would have cleared, but it still crashed