Suddenly obsessed with AF2!

  • I just want to connect with others. I am a real world Challenger 300 PIC, and have been flightsimming since 1979. I was design leader on Looking Glasses' FU3 back in 2000. Since then I have been flying corporate jets etc... and use FSX SE and X-Plane almost daily. But suddenly I have rediscovered the beauty of AF2. Despite me griping about the lack of sound effects and vibrations, I have fallen in love with the sim. The smoothess, visuals, Frame Rates naturally, Flight modeling, view from cockpit and interface! I recently discovered a great utility called soundplant.org where you can assign unlimited .wav files to any key board key! I am surprised this has not been discovered by flight simmers world wide. Now, the sounds I have imported will play upon any key press! Gear sounds, spoilers, wind, ground roll, cabin announcements, autopilot disconnect etc etc.

    Happy flying and hope to be here a lot!

    peter

  • Glad you are enjoying it. My current favourite thing to do is flying around Monterey Bay in the Buckmeister biplane in VR. It's just about the right sized playground for a biplane; I take off, fly to the edge of the OrbX scenery, turn round, fly back and land, then do it all again in the other direction. I keep practising shutting off the engine and trying to glide in and land, stuff like that. Great fun, and plenty more to come this year.

    i5-12600K/MSI RTX 3080/Win11/64Gb RAM/Asus Xonar DX+ Beyer DT990 pro headphones/LG 34" UM65 @2560x1080/Quest Pro/TM Warthog+VKB MkIV Rudder pedals

  • great comments and thanks..... when flightsims are good enough for a real pilot who is filling his original dreams of flying jets.. .and then when I get to the hotel room the first thing I want to do after a day at FL450, is to FLIGHTSIM!!! haha, my wife and my flying partner in the jet think I am a nutcase. Oh well, more for me then... their loss!

  • Totally get where you are coming from Jetpeter1! I’ve been simming on and off since 1990, more on when there’s less real flying. Been a long haul pilot on the 777 for the last 9 years, and recently converted to the A330. Aerofly FS2 is head and shoulders above anything I’ve been simming with, and the main reason for that is how it excels in VR. You didn’t say if you are using it in VR or not, but if you’re not - you should! Immersion is spectacular! I’ve recently gone full hog and installed a motion base as well, and now I look longingly back at my VR-rig, when heading out the door to go and fly the jet;-) Go figure.......

    Flying A330 as a day-job and enjoy VR-flying with PIMAX 5k+. NextLevelRacing v.3 Motion platform, Watercooled and overclocked i9-9900k, 32Gb 3600RAM, Samsung 970EVO Pro 2Tb m.2, nVidia RTX-2080Ti FE, Thrustmaster HOTAS, VKB pedals, Cockpitforyou motorised throttle quadrant, Precision Flight Controls Jetliner column

  • I would imagine for you guys that are real professional pilots, the opportunity to just get in a plane, crank it up and then just soar off into the sky, without having to worry about any of the boring bits like looking after passengers and having to follow rules, must be an absolute joy. I love the freedom of it and I've barely been off the ground in real life, but to experience the purity of flight, what it must have been like in the early days when there was nothing else up there and you could go where you feel like, is such a wonderful thing.

    i5-12600K/MSI RTX 3080/Win11/64Gb RAM/Asus Xonar DX+ Beyer DT990 pro headphones/LG 34" UM65 @2560x1080/Quest Pro/TM Warthog+VKB MkIV Rudder pedals

  • You absolutely nailed it John. Airline Flying is so regimented, structured and predictable, that the shear joy of flying is all but drowned out. Don’t get me wrong - it STILL beats Working for a living;-) but the best advise I have to give young pilots is to NEVER EVER lose sight of the fact that with big shiny jets and decent pay, comes a loss of something else - the shear joy of freedom of flight. Many of the guys I work with, are involved in GA, soaring or aero clubs. A great way to stay connected to what brought us into aviation in the first place! So, i see Aerofly FS2 as excelling in providing a “quick fix” and that those who get their kicks out of “deep immersion in systems”, realistic ATC, failure modelling etc. will still be better served with other sims. I really hope that Aerofly doesn’t get bogged down in computer code catering for these things and lose the the beautiful fluidity and shear joy of hopping in a beatifully rendered aircraft in VR and go for a spin at sunrise.

    Now, a HELICOPTER on the other hand - THAT I would pay good money to have included. So much beautiful scenery to explore in the hover - Innsbruck, Manhattan, Monterey and Meigs Field, and this is just the beginning. Please tell me that someone is serious about either developing a chopper for Aerofly from scratch, or porting one of the good ones from X-plane or P3D across!

    Flying A330 as a day-job and enjoy VR-flying with PIMAX 5k+. NextLevelRacing v.3 Motion platform, Watercooled and overclocked i9-9900k, 32Gb 3600RAM, Samsung 970EVO Pro 2Tb m.2, nVidia RTX-2080Ti FE, Thrustmaster HOTAS, VKB pedals, Cockpitforyou motorised throttle quadrant, Precision Flight Controls Jetliner column

    Edited once, last by Ozav8r (January 12, 2018 at 11:56 AM).

  • My impression from the feedback that users wrote so far is that VR is just awesome in Aerofly and that those users also tend to just enjoy flying and not so much clicking buttons in the cockpit. And then there are a lot of people that ask for more system depth, who want to program the FMS and talk to ATC to feel like a real world airline pilot. For these users (I'm one of them) it breaks the immersion when a system isn't modeled and from my point we should improve this area too. We still have a bit to go before we catch up with third party add ons but compared to the other default simulators it is certainly doable to bring Aerofly up to the same level. And on the other hand we're also keeping the people in mind who don't know how to operate a complex aircraft and we will make it easy for them to just hop into the aircraft and enjoy the scenery.

    Regards,

    Jan

  • I use VR for VFR flights because I found pretty difficult to read the instruments and screens. But I'd definetely put AF2 as my number 1 sim if we would have a bit more depth in the systems and ATC. When that day comes, AF2 will be probably the best sim in the market.

  • But I'd definetely put AF2 as my number 1 sim if we would have a bit more depth in the systems and ATC. When that day comes, AF2 will be probably the best sim in the market.

    You forgot the weather. 8) As I posted elsewhere: a flightsim without a weather engine is like a sailing sim without water. Or an F1 driving game without circuits. ;) Unfortunately, as was posted in another topic, ATC won't be here anytime soon so weather is still years and years away... Such a shame. AFS2 has sooooooooooooo much potential! ;(

  • My impression from the feedback that users wrote so far is that VR is just awesome in Aerofly and that those users also tend to just enjoy flying and not so much clicking buttons in the cockpit. And then there are a lot of people that ask for more system depth, who want to program the FMS and talk to ATC to feel like a real world airline pilot. For these users (I'm one of them) it breaks the immersion when a system isn't modeled and from my point we should improve this area too. We still have a bit to go before we catch up with third party add ons but compared to the other default simulators it is certainly doable to bring Aerofly up to the same level. And on the other hand we're also keeping the people in mind who don't know how to operate a complex aircraft and we will make it easy for them to just hop into the aircraft and enjoy the scenery.

    Well said Jet-Pack.

    I should be around for another 20+ years (I hope) so take your time and get it right :thumbup:

    Handy cultivation tools

    Windows 10 64bit | iCore7-7770K| ASUS STRIX Z270E |KHX2400C15D4 - 32GB | Gigabyte Ge-Force GTX 1080Ti| SSD Intel 520 Series | 40" Philips BDM4065UC/75 4K - Oculus Rift

  • Anyone else remember Solo Flight on the C64?

    Big Fan of the FU series flight sims, btw, jetpeter1. Hopefully you are using VR. If not, stop what you are doing this very second and go buy Oculus Rift! It will change your life.

  • I've never tried VR! hmmmm what am I missing? I don't want to wear a googles thing from now on...

    VR completely and utterly transforms the sim- experience! From being on the outside - looking in, to actually being IN the cockpit, flying the airplane. If you already have a PC with a decent graphics card, the investment in money and time to get it up and running is very modest. And Aerofly FS2 is head and shoulders above P3D v4.1 and the new X-plane 11.20 beta with native VR. Having said that! X-plane shows great potential and may well catch up with the shear joy of VR-immersion that currently is the sole domain of Aerofly. Even though I have a 3-monitor setup, I now do all my simming in VR, most of it in Aerofly, and mainly go to X-plane for choppers and P3D for Airbus -stuff. Give it go Peter - you can thank me later!!!

    Flying A330 as a day-job and enjoy VR-flying with PIMAX 5k+. NextLevelRacing v.3 Motion platform, Watercooled and overclocked i9-9900k, 32Gb 3600RAM, Samsung 970EVO Pro 2Tb m.2, nVidia RTX-2080Ti FE, Thrustmaster HOTAS, VKB pedals, Cockpitforyou motorised throttle quadrant, Precision Flight Controls Jetliner column