Posts by madpat

Quote from donka

I had all but given up on Aerofly mobile but swung by here to see if there was anything new. I didn't realise a new version had been released. Given I participated in beta testing on the prior version and did a lot of promotion through YouTube content and forum r...

I agree on most terms of your statements. Maybe we should consider this a „soft launch“, with us a testers of a release candidate version?

To me, the developers‘ strategy makes some sense. Maybe they weren‘t so sure of this new version or the timing themselves, but wanted to give an Xmas present to those that look for it. I certainly did, but was totally caught out by surprise myself.

Considering the most work went into streamlining the iOS version with the PC version code-wise, this is actually a new programme. But one that looks almost identical to the previous one, but lacking features (Switzerland). Hence the new compatibility. And so it even makes more sense to market it as a new programme, so that the FS2 can stay in the App Store for users that can‘t play the new FS2019 or want to fly in Switzerland.

I really hope this is just the beginning now, which helps the developers to respond faster and develop new things faster as the code might be shared now in significant amounts. I also hope that there won‘t be any disappointing tradeoffs. If the unavailability of InApp purchases for regions or aircraft turns out to be one, wow, this would be a disappointment. Switzerland is a must, not an option, to me. Not because I‘m flying there that often, but because it is available in FS2 (although it took some time to find it‘s way there, too).

For now, I‘m happy with the Dash8, better textures where before was just washed out colors, the whole new dimension of a helicopter.

Nevertheless, I will open a new thread with a collection of issues I already encountered.

Keep up the good work guys, and don‘t let yourself get turned down when reading ridiculous App Store reviews or requests like ‚I want to have a real time boarding experience‘

Patrick

It‘s the same rudder that you use in airplanes, on the bottom right of the screen. Have you tried to change the rudder assist in the control settings? I have them on manual and had no problems with the R22.

In manual mode, you have to use rudder more intense while starting and landing, almost not at all when flying straight with the helicopter.

I realised what the problem is with flaps in the King Air. Although the button says 50%, after pushing (or: touching) it feedback says "flaps 35". Can't remember now whether its degrees or perecent. Either way, the button stays white. Confusing.

Patrick

Some more feedback.

Sometimes the flap settings when flying manually are not indicated. In an approach, I set them to 50%, and when I wanted to set them to 100, the other setting was not indicated green.

Flight director bars are still a mystery to me. In a flight with a route, and Autopilot on in between, there were none. Then, just placing the plane somewhere in the air, the bars were there.

I like all the new warnings, like gear up, master caution etc. Adds a lot to immersion.

Almost forgot: This hud Option only affects the hud view, but not in a good way. There is no need for an additional hud horizon there. The hud view itself is somewhat broken yet anyway, Compass is way too below, can only be seen when zoomed out max.

Haven‘t seen th HUD Option affect any other view.

Patrick

As suggested by the team, maybe we should post our experience or tips on the copilot of the new FS2019 here. At first, I felt like in Bruce Dickinsons biography: What does this button do?

Ok, so the On-/Off-Button should be easy to start with....or not? In FS2, I just found out that just pushing that button and none else will set current heading, vertical speed while keeping manual thrust (and altitude set, by default or intentionally). In FS2019 this also seems to work that way, but thrust is in auto mode with keeping the speed when copilot is switched on.

The two buttons left of the arrows are for increasing/decreasing selected speed. In the King Air I tested, the changes in speed settings did not always display, but the thrust settings changed. In one mode, the speed setting showed in numbers above the speed bar, another time a marker on the speed band changed, but sometimes at just noticed a change in trust.

The buttons right of the arrows are to increasing/decreasing the selected altitude of the copilot. In a Glass Cockpit, this is usually displayed above the altitude band of the MFD.

The new CTR button will center the aircraft, with zero vertical speed and wings level, thrust according to selected speed. The arrows allow for heading change (left/right), or changes in vertical speed (up/down). Again, in a glass cockpit MFD this is displayed in numbers near the altitude band, and a pink spot on the VSI?

Finally, when close to the airport selected in the navigation for landing, a new button auto-land appears. It will do that, but don‘t expect the copilot the follow the route unless on short final. At least that‘s what I experienced once (and did not try again yet).

Correct me if I‘m wrong or post additional/other actions.

Patrick

Updated - push

Since flying with the new copilot, I had at least two severe occasions where it almost killed me, and once actually did. Hard to reproduce as it happened very randomly, with different planes and different locations. But the pattern that lead to it was the same:

When flying a route with copilot engaged in ALTSEL and HDG mode, I switched it off shortly before reaching the final waypoint toward the final approach.

After turning into the approach I selected flaps one. Altitude, sink rate etc. were OK. Then suddenly I noticed a click, and had to realise the flaps were retracted again. I did not do it, neither was I too fast. Then, thrust changed on its own as well, and trim was running away as well. I really had to fight to get control back, and one time did not manage to do so. This happened twice with the KingAir, and once with the Dash8.

No idea what happened there, but it really felt as if someone else had taken over control, although flying manually.

Apart from that, even when co-pilot is off, sometime MFD announces different AP modes as active, as well as flight director, sometimes not.

Although I really appreciate that for added realism and limited interface options on mobile a lot of automation seems to happen in the background, some documentation would be very, very useful. I know that when it gets really busy, documentation is the last thing there is time for, but, please.

Thanks,

Patrick

Updated - see above

Quote from AeroflyMobile

I agree 1000%! Please IPACS

Yeah, but ... isn't that the case? If you just switch the copilot on, and use heading/alt/pitch/speed buttons, shouldn't that work? Using the autoland button does exactly that-auto land, incl, flaps and gear, of course.

Quote from Jetjockey10

Maybe someone will report back on the compatibility of the Steel Series Nimbus and Aerofly FS 2019 IOS. This sounds like a match made in heaven.

Ray

i tried a controller once, but it did not feel as natural as with tilting the device. On desktop with a real yoke etc. thats a different story of course, but with a mobile game, I'd stick with tilting. The only downside is, that especially with bigger devices, moving your thumb to reach a button usually leads to an attitude change when flying manually. But not such a big deal.

First impressions after about 90 minutes of flying:

Scenery

The extremely high-res images of some areas look a bit more blurry now. But still very good. But the "patchwork" of FS2 is gone, thankfully. At least where I checked. There are still quadrants with a lower resolution, and you still notice the borders, but overall, it looks more homogeneous now than in FS2. The colours etc. seemed to have changed a bit as well, as if the images were taken in a different season or time of day. So far, its neither a plus or a minus for me. I hope that these changes might be the base for future add-on regions.

Clouds

Great! After I tried FS2 on a desktop, I noted how much immersion these clouds add. But the really eat performance. Setting these to max and flying close to them, significantly decreases frame rate. Still quite fluid of course, but compared to FS2 (or no cumulus clouds) frame rate seems to have dropped. And I have an iPad Pro 10.5.

Navigation

Great that VOR is back. Checked in King Air and Dash8. In the Beechcraft it did not seem to work. Same behaviour as in FS2.

Lights

First I was afraid something did not work, but I was at Dunsmuir at Dusk. This airstrip isn't lighted obviously. Next one was, as well as others I tried. But the visibility of the PAPI lights changed. It's much harder to spot now what they show. The previous ones had some kind of halo around them which made it easier to recognize from a distance. If current behaviour is closer to reality, then OK.

Saw no landing lights on the King Air.

Planes

Great stuff you added the Dash8 and the Heli. This alone would have made me spent the eight euros. Also, there seems to be quite a bit more logic or automation behind the planes behaviour now? As one user mentioned concerning the Dash8. I had to abort my first take off attempt with it as well, as it accelerated way too slow!

Some planes have different flap settings: King Air now only 50/100 (compared to five settings in FS2), the F15 only one setting at 100%. Guess thats due to alignment with PC versions?

Heli is cool. Would not have been necessary for me, but it's nice. Flying is easy enough, landing challenging enough. First attempt at Alcatraz pad took ages

Flight director - sometimes it's there, sometimes not? Didn't figure out yet when and how this appears.

Menu

OK, so no graphics settings any more (apart from frame rate).

HUD settings: Err, what do they do? I think the Dash8 has a HUD on the desktop version, but on mobile? What do these settings affect?

Copilot

Will open a new thread for this, to collect all tips or issues. Autoland is a nice feature, worked when I tried, at least on short final. The way there was a little, well, awkward.

More maybe later, gotta work now! But overall, I'm happy as hell, nearly jumped from the sofa yesterday evening!

Patrick

ABSOLUTELY AWESEOME!!! Thank god I just upgraded to a new iPad Pro 10.5. If not, I would have bought one tomorrow! I did not hesitate one second to pay 7,99 € again, really. So now I have FS2 still on my device for Switzerland.

Just took a quick glimpse into the app: clouds are great, heli and Dash8 as well. Scenery-wise - it looks a bit different, but need to spend more time with it. One reason for my iPad upgrade was the much better textures of the landscapes compared to my previous iPad Air 1st gen. Hope they did not became blurry again.

Great Xmas present!

When I upgraded to a new iPad, I also reinstalled Aerofly. Then re-purchased the sceneries (no cost, of course).

Installing the sceneries was a bit tricky in the past as well. For me it worked best to download one after the other, when one download was finished. While downloading, I did not do anything to the ipad, just left the Screen where it downloaded.

On my new iPad, download stopped in between as well - even at 38 percent, I think. But then I just tried to fly, and when I went back, it said "installed".

In the end, it worked fine.

I had an iPad Air (1st gen), with the newest iOS (12.1). No issues with red dots or missing runway lights. Two weeks ago, I upgraded to an iPad Pro 10.5 and installed Aerofly 2 again of course. No issues either!

Is there a way to install this version instead of 2.3.5? I had a few issues with the current version, but the older one worked fine.
Or is there a new version scheduled which will include the graphics option again?

Patrick

Good bye, Aerofly

I am very disappointed about the update. As mentioned in my recent post about free space influencing performance, I found a way to play on an iPad Air (1) with medium graphics settings. It all worked fine and I was more than once absolutely struck by the graphics, the impression of really flying over california, almost recognizing hotels where I stayed once. But now what did I have to see? It all a large blurry something, you don't have any feeling for the altitude, and the general impression is bad. That makes me go for X-Plane instead.

I understand that IPACS wanted to deliver a stable performance for older devices, but I certainly won't buy an iPad Air 2 just for Aerofly. Even less since it ran fine.I urge IPACS to put an option back in, as suggested for experienced users who know how to handle and mainatin their devices. Until then, I fly with X-Plane.

Other than that, update seems ok in most places. Missing interiors from external views do not matter for me. Strange though are the shadows. On some airfields planes almost seem to float above the runway, the shadows did not meet the tyres on the ground. That looked akward, and funnily enough, it also felt funny when starting, as if the plane really did not roll but floated one or two feet above ground. But I am not sure about this, because I did not feel to check further due to the graphical downstep.

Controls transparency and turbulence are nice features. Update to navigation I do not like. First, adding waypoints has a glitch, I can't move the added waypoint sometimes. When trying, I only move the map (yes, I pressed on it for some time). Also, placing the plane automatically on the starting point of the route is not always helpful. Example: I created an own "mission" in my mind, visiting all airports close to the shore. I am going there, land, taxi to the tower or certain building, create a new route and start off exactly where I stopped, incl. taxiing. Now, I am immediately at the starting line after having a new route programmed. I know, I can manually choose a starting point on the taxiway, but this is not necessarily where I stopped by myself. I admit, this might not be a serious issue, but made me feel a little more disappointed (although I could easily work around that when at least the rest would be fine).

Hope this helps to improve the game further and looking forward to playing it again after the next update.

Patrick

I can confirm that free space has an impact on performance. I run (or better: ran) Aerofly2 on an iPad Air (1) with 128GB. The game itself ran fine at the beginning (medium graphics settings), still fine with southern California installed, but after buying the airplane package it chrashed almost always (depending on aircraft). Of course I tried resetting, downloading again, and tried all kinds of combinations. Btw: Thanks, Ipacs support. I had about 4GB left on the device.

Then, I cleaned up my iPad so that I had about 11GB free space left. From then on, Aerofly ran almost perfect, also in medium settings.

So, free space seems to have an impact in the end.

Patrick