Hello, just saying hello, should fly soon around North Spain + South of France

[Miguel Madruga]

Hello, I'm just saying Hello to the rest of the community, and I should be soon in a few days start flying a C172 around North Spain and South France between small aerodromes. 

 

Cheers everyone, hope to see you in the "air".

[Alistair Thomson]

Hi Miguel! Welcome to VATSIM. Nice to see a VFR pilot flying a light single. Are you going to use MSFS2020?

[Miguel Madruga]

19 hours ago, Alistair Thomson said:

Hi Miguel! Welcome to VATSIM. Nice to see a VFR pilot flying a light single. Are you going to use MSFS2020?

Good morning Mr. Thomson, thanks, I am waiting for my new PC to arrive, may arrive in a few days, and I am interested in MSFS2020 but I have not committed yet. 

My previous experience in a C172 was in flightgear which has a great built-in C172P model, which allows one to save the state of the aircraft between flights, which means that one has to manage the state of Oil consumption, water accumulation in the fuel tanks, and other damage. I don't know how this is in MSFS2020, if that is the case as well. Would be great if so.

My other previous aircraft was the A320 which I was doing a virtual airline "air berlin", doing daily shuttle flights between EDDH and EDDT, using jeppesen charts. Also EDDL to EBBR. Those two airports allow full route on airways and SID/STAR, as they are so well meshed. The A320 is impressively well modeled by a team outside of the flightgear inside team. But I want to use a sim that has TrackIR enabled. For some reason I think the Xplane TrackIR integration is not as good. At least from when I tested it. Seemed to be constrained/modeled by Xplane, making it feeling less direct than expected. That was my perception.

At this point I am looking to use the amazing french app that you can use on android and gives you so many charts for the smallest aerodromes spread out in France, which is what I am looking to fly to. App is called: "iVAC atlas france". The charts have all you need to land and take-off uncontrolled if there aren't any controllers available.

If MSFS2020 is easy going as far as connecting to VATSIM directly with few steps or issues, and all that, that may be a big plus to make me decide to get it, which I suppose would mean getting the premium version so I can get the analog instrument version of the C172. 

I don't know exactly which C172 simulator is best rated overall. I am not interested, however, in mods. Would prefer built-in.

Do you use MSFS2020? If so do you have comments to make about it? Feel free to PM me about it, appreciate your reply.

Best regards, Miguel

[Alistair Thomson]

No need to be formal on VATSIM, Miguel! The French would say, "Tu peut me tutoyer" because we're all on first-name terms here. :)

The only reason I mentioned MSFS2020 is because I believe that it offers a truly spectacular VFR experience, although I don't use it and I have no knowledge of its default aircraft. Actually I don't fly at all on VATSIM at the moment because my real-world experience has made it difficult for me to accept the very poor substitute of flying with a mouse and keyboard. I just don't like it. So I'm building a full-size 767 flight deck from scratch, and although it's taking forever, I'm really enjoying doing that. And once it's flyable I'll be back online again.

Apparently one serious issue which MSFS2020 has, is in its automated flight management systems. You'll see many posts on the forums advising pilots  to say "unable" when ATC issues instructions which the MSFS2020 just cannot be made to follow. But for VFR flying, it is absolutely the best platform in many people's opinion.

I tried using TrackIR and found that I didn't like turning my head to simulate looking out a side window while keeping my eyes fixed on the main screen. But I know that lots of pilots like it.

Anyway, bonne chance with your new system and I'm sure you'll just love it here on VATSIM.

[Miguel Madruga]

Hello again Alistair, 

good luck with your cockpit project, I like the Boeing yokes more than airbus joysticks. If I was to build a cockpit I believe I would maybe choose an MD80 or maybe something easier like a Cessna. Are you going to install those chair vibration equipments?

So you mean to say that MFSF 2020 has autopilot issues? And what is your opinion of xplane in general?

Thank-you, Miguel.

[Alistair Thomson]

8 hours ago, Miguel Madruga said:

If I was to build a cockpit I believe I would maybe choose an MD80 or maybe something easier like a Cessna.

I started my build with the intention of using a light single, but I've flown and instructed on these in RW quite enough. But I've never flown a commercial jet, having neither the money nor the inclination to go through all the work involved mainly because my real world job wasn't in aviation. So I chose a nice 767 and although it was (is) a lot of work, I'm learning all the time.

8 hours ago, Miguel Madruga said:

Are you going to install those chair vibration equipments?

No. That would add too much complexity to the build for very little gain - you just can't simulate the real situation unless you spend a LOT on Level D functionality.

One of the main things regarding realism, from my point of view, is the feel of real elevator trim. I've designed and built a system for that which feels and works exactly like a real aircraft, and that was really worth doing. I also built in motors to the throttle quadrant for the two throttles and the speedbrake, to fully emulate the real aircraft.

I'll probably configure the main 767 flight controls to emulate a light single for flying with MSFS2020 VFR, but use the full sim for IFR passenger flights of course.

8 hours ago, Miguel Madruga said:

So you mean to say that MFSF 2020 has autopilot issues? And what is your opinion of xplane in general?

That's what I've seen on the forums. If you do a search for MSFS2020 you'll get lots of hits, some of which will describe what I've found.

Re. the X-plane, I have no experience of that at all, sorry. Same again, probably: search through the forums for opinions!

[Miguel Madruga]

On 5/29/2021 at 3:23 PM, Alistair Thomson said:

I started my build with the intention of using a light single, but I've flown and instructed on these in RW quite enough. But I've never flown a commercial jet, having neither the money nor the inclination to go through all the work involved mainly because my real world job wasn't in aviation. So I chose a nice 767 and although it was (is) a lot of work, I'm learning all the time.

No. That would add too much complexity to the build for very little gain - you just can't simulate the real situation unless you spend a LOT on Level D functionality.

One of the main things regarding realism, from my point of view, is the feel of real elevator trim. I've designed and built a system for that which feels and works exactly like a real aircraft, and that was really worth doing. I also built in motors to the throttle quadrant for the two throttles and the speedbrake, to fully emulate the real aircraft.

I'll probably configure the main 767 flight controls to emulate a light single for flying with MSFS2020 VFR, but use the full sim for IFR passenger flights of course.

That's what I've seen on the forums. If you do a search for MSFS2020 you'll get lots of hits, some of which will describe what I've found.

Re. the X-plane, I have no experience of that at all, sorry. Same again, probably: search through the forums for opinions!

Hello again, just to update you, in case you were wondering, past few days finally got every single thing set up correctly and started flying on VATSIM, I have enjoyed very much the stock c172, and as I mentioned I have flown from North Spain to France, and then started flying the non

stock x737 between Geneve and Zurich, however a small bug has popped up where the yoke center is re-centered upon disconnecting autopilot, having the effect of badly trimmed and unflyable controls, so I am now waiting for that to be possibly confirmed as a bug and fixed if it is, and while I wait I am doing cargo VFR flights in a swissair DC-3 in Switzerland.

 

Cheers! Hope to see you some day. 

https://ibb.co/tHbtmHp

https://ibb.co/0MnhKWJ

https://ibb.co/ZTPJ7Bt

DC-3 in an ILS final to 34 Zurich.

https://ibb.co/XWykXBp

 

Edited June 7, 2021 at 10:49 PM by Miguel Madruga
Photo links

[Alistair Thomson]

On 6/7/2021 at 6:47 PM, Miguel Madruga said:

a small bug has popped up where the yoke center is re-centered upon disconnecting autopilot, having the effect of badly trimmed and unflyable controls

Painful. I don't know yet how the LevelD 767 handles trim and there may be a similar issue once I get this pit flying. We'll see! I think all the variables for that are available via FSUIPC/Lekseecon - at least, I hope so - and I can interface my trim system to that to perhaps avoid that issue.

For real world light singles if course the trim is purely mechanical:  for the Piper Tomahawk, it's simply a spring which adds to the pilot's trim forces to cancel out the aerodynamic effect on the elevator, while on the PA28 and (I think) Cessnas it's an anti-servo tab on the tailplane which does the same thing aerodynamically.  But still controlled entirely manually from the cockpit.

Edited June 9, 2021 at 12:37 AM by Alistair Thomson