Posts by aroos

  • Aerofly FS 2 Steam Previous Alpha Builds

    Thanks for the update, guys!

    Just Flight Turbo Arrow departing KMRY (Orbx) runway 10R via SID MRY9.

    GPS shows desired track 83648 deg

    Autopilot ON, HDG ON/NAV. Aircraft flies a continuous rate 1 turn to the left.

    Same result when taking off from 28L via MRY9, with precisely the same DTK.

    Same with SECA2 SID from 10R.

    Here is the Nav

  • Are you a Ctrl/Ezy flight sim pilot?

    Control-Easy is a brand of Aeroplane Heaven that, as you describe, provides aircraft with very basic cockpits and minimal systems that are controlled by control-key combinations. Their first (and to date only) aircraft is the Pucara for FSX and P3D. While I am happy that there are different approaches to aircraft models to suit the requirements of different users, I personally will always want detailed cockpits and systems since much of my enjoyment comes from mastering these.

  • Headset and VR of Google

    Quote from delfinpm

    To fly over Google's VR, it would have to be previously downloaded to the PC. certain regions you want to fly over, but that would take up a huge amount of hard drive. If not, how can you fly over that area of the planet? Please, if someone wants to spend a few minutes writing, please describe it to me.

    You have to have scenery loaded for the areas you want to fly over. FS2 comes with default scenery for the SW USA, and also has free downloadable scenery for Utah and Colorado, which I recommend. The rest of the world is covered by a low resolution elevation grid and textures, which is not nice to fly over. There are payware scenery downloads for Switzerland, The Netherlands, NE USA, SE Florida and probably other areas, as well as payware airports which generally have more detail and animations than most of the default FS2 airports (although some of the default airports, like Monument Valley, are pretty good). There are also scenery downloads developed by the Aerofly community for free, such as the really excellent Kauai (one of the Hawaiian islands) that was released to the public today.

    Most of the downloadable scenery, including the free Hawaii scenery, is way better than Google Earth. However, it is not intended to be 100% accurate. Key landmarks are modeled in detail, but if you want to fly over your own house, it may not look the same in FS2 as it does in real life. FS2 is a flight simulator, and the scenery adds realism and immersion, but it is not intended as a replacement for Google Earth. I could fly from say Hawaii to Monterey, but after I left the Hawaii scenery area, the scenery would be featureless until I arrived in the Monterey area. That would be a very boring flight! However, I do enjoy cross-country over areas with decent scenery, such as from Monterey to Palm Springs.

    I currently have the following loaded: default SW USA scenery, SW USA texture pack, Utah, Colorado, Switzerland and Hawaii. I also have the following Orbx add-on airports: Innsbruck, Eagle County, Monterey and Palm Springs. The total installed size is about 145 GB.

  • Hawaiian Daydream

    I'll bet that many of the forum participants will be flying in Hawaii for a while. I know I will be! Imagine how nice it would be to have multiplayer, so we could meet each other in the air, and a "Kauai Traffic" discord server as a common radio channel. Multiplayer could be like the animations - no matter if the aircraft can fly through each other without damage - we as pilots should be ensuring this doesn't happen, anyway. So really you "just" need a central server broadcasting aircraft models with location and orientation vectors (and their first derivatives to to allow extrapolation until the next broadcast is received), and of course the graphics work to display them. I know the developers are busy on a new release, and they've already given us a fantastic product, so this is not even a feature request. Just an idle daydream . . .

  • OAHU for AFS2 in development - Share our excitement!

    Wow! Wow! Wow!

    It's absolutely brilliant. I've spent a couple of hours flying low level around the coast (unfortunately low cloud has prevented any inland excursions) and I am amazed by the detail and, especially, the animations. What a gift to give the community.

    One minor glitch I noticed was a yacht "sailing" on dry land on the approach to Port Allen. See the attached image.

    Thank you all,

    Andrew


  • Tomahawk, 152 or Arrow?

    Quote from Adam-80UK

    Also considering Lukla...

    One thing to consider when buying airports is the quality of the scenery outside the immediate area since in most cases, 5 minutes flying will get you out of the mini-region surrounding the airport. I find that flying from a detailed airport and its immediate surrounds into low quality surrounding areas spoils the immersion. For this reason, I prefer flying cross country from one of the Orbx SW or central USA airports since the en-route scenery in these areas is convincing with the free SW USA texture pack, Utah and Colorado DLCs. I have reviewed several of these on Steam.

  • Tomahawk, 152 or Arrow?

    The Arrow is my favourite FS2 aircraft. It's beautifully modeled inside and out, flies well, is faster than the others, the systems are well simulated and it has very few bugs. The GNS 430 and autopilot are great for touring, too (not sure whether the other aircraft have these). Although it's a slightly more complex aircraft than the 152 or Tomahawk, if you leave the prop at max RPM and the gear down, you basically have a Cherokee to learn on, but with room to grow. No contest, in my opinion.

  • Just Flight Duchess Autopilot Issues

    I recently purchased the Just Flight Duchess for AF2. It is a lovely aircraft. However, I have found some troubling discrepancies the operation of the AP when compared to the real Century IV POH (March 1981 revision). Most of them are to do with which mode lights are illuminated, so shouldn't be hard to fix, hopefully in a future release (hint to any JF representatives...).

    1. The ATT light is not always illuminated when the AP is in attitude mode. When the AP is engaged, it starts in attitude mode, but the ATT light is not illuminated. This makes it appear as though the AP is not controlling pitch, even though it is. The correct behaviour would be to illuminate the pitch mode light corresponding to the current pitch mode when the AP is engaged.

    2. If you press a pitch mode button when already in that mode (for example, press ALT while already in altitude hold mode) the pitch mode light (e.g. ALT) extinguishes and the aircraft appears to revert to attitude mode, but the ATT light does not illuminate. The correct behaviour is that pressing a vertical mode button when the AP is already in that mode should do nothing. If you want to select a different mode, you should push the button for the desired mode.

    3. If the AP is in Heading mode and you press the NAV button to intercept a VOR radial, then if the CDI deflection is more than half scale, the AP remains in heading mode even though the HDG light goes out and the NAV light illuminates. It will only change into NAV mode when the CDI comes within half scale (possibly never if the heading is away from the radial). The correct behaviour is that it should switch to NAV mode immediately and fly an intercept course for the selected radial (POH p. 5). Note that the Century IV does have a mode where it will fly the bug heading until a radial is intercepted, but (a) that mode is initiated but pushing the NAV and HDG buttons simultaneously, not just the NAV button; and (b) both the HDG and NAV buttons are illuminated until the CDI comes within half scale and the AP changes to NAV mode with only the NAV light illuminated (POH p. 6). If the correct behaviour is difficult to emulate, then it would be more acceptable to illuminate both HDG and NAV lights until intercept as described above, i.e. behave as though the HDG and NAV buttons had been pushed simultaneously even though only NAV was pushed. But at present it is confusing as only the NAV light is illuminated even thought the AP is not actually navigating to/from the VOR.

    4. When performing an ILS approach, the pitch mode light (ALT or ATT) goes out and the GS light comes on as soon as the glide slope is detected. The correct behaviour is that the GS light should come on when the glideslope is detected, but the current pitch mode light should remain illuminated until the glideslope is intercepted (POH p. 28). The danger here is that you could be in attitude mode, descending, below the glideslope and when you get in glideslope range, the ATT light goes out and GS comes on, making it seem as though your descent is being controlled according to the glideslope when it is not.

    5. When no lateral mode is selected, e.g. when AP is turned on, the AP operates in "wings level" mode with no lateral mode light illuminated, which is not documented in the POH. According to the POH, the AP should be in HDG mode when powered up, and should retain the lateral mode when disengaged and re-engaged (p. 5). Although the undocumented "wings level" mode is actually quite useful, in the interests of simulation accuracy it should not be available. In which case, my comments in point 2 would also apply to the lateral mode lights.

    6. The mode lights for modes that are not currently selected, are fully turned off. According to the POH they should be dimly illuminated, presumably so one can see the legends in the dark (POH p. 4). This is a minor point.