Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020- First Impressions

[UAL277 Tim Haibach]

This "simulation" should have been renamed to "MS WORLD Simulator". On one hand, MS did follow through with the promise of being able to fly anywhere in the world VFR. If you want to explore the world flying low and slow, this is the way to do it. On the other hand, the default aircraft were an afterthought and probably left in half working order upon release so that third party devs can offer something more realistic/study level where all the controls actually function instead of one after another, INOP, INOP, INOP.

The trees and water are amazing. The roads except major highways are grass streets- worse off than default XP11. My home town in default XP11 (KERI) is much better modeled and even has a working railroad line next to the airport as in real life. But the FPS on high end systems isn't where it should be. On my system in the A320 cockpit on the ground at a busy custom airport EGLL with weather set to stormy, I'm only getting 27-29 FPS. However, flying in the upper 20's seems much smoother with no stutter compared to XP11. The A320 is a joke in my opinion and the only smaller airliner of the 3 offered with Premium Delux. I've reached the point I miss flying by real world procedures.

All of the default aircraft have at least one issue with the autopilot or nav systems and all default aircraft have several inop gauges. Overall, its a great baseline "sandbox" to improve on, but with the half hearted models except for the lipstick pretty looking skins, I'm going back to my beloved Zibo for the time being. I'd rather fly realistic flight models until such a time a study level 737 is available for MSFS and FSUIPC7 works well without a 20+ fps drop. So don't bother trying to connect to VATSIM. Ending on a positive note, it will only get better as time goes on, and the screenshots are worthy of plane porn, lol

Should you buy it? I would wait until 3rd party devs offer noteworthy aircraft. There is also an upcoming patch due on Aug 27th to address some bugs and performance issues. If you are itching to bush plane around the world, I would say go for it now.

[UAL909 Filipe Nunez]

im gona wait, i built a new pc for this sim and still not convinced its worthy to buy.. staying with FSX for now even considering P3d v5 atm.. MS2020 great sim for VFR but left all us va simmers out on the cold

[UAL006 Pat Schoof]

I would not spend the money to get in at the lower tier. They have a bunch of aesthetic candy, but there is still much to do.

[UAL124 Joel Wolk]

FS2020 is "interesting"- no doubt. And no one can deny the visual imagery is stunning. But serious flight simulation is about a whole lot more than just pretty landscapes and skyscapes. I would guess the serious simmers (for the moment) will remain with X-Plane, FSX, and P3D and wait and watch what happens as things go forward. I would not consider it in its current form, if for nothing else the fact that it has no representation of changing seasons. When I am flying over northern regions in mid-January, I expect a snow-covered landscape. I am sure this is on the Microsoft's roadmap but I'd like to see when and how first. Also I've seen and read of excessively long load times for a flight, even on really high end machines. That would probably drive me batty, personally.

So who knows what happens going forward- could be that as issues get addressed MSFS2020 becomes the end-all-be-all flight simulator for serious simmers... well maybe... and if so, how far out is that, exactly?

There is a more dystopian view here- and sorry for being so dark and foreboding... but let's keep in mind Microsoft obviously has a huge investment in the development of this product and clearly wants to recoup that investment. Sure, this has all appearances of being an ongoing offering but at some point down the road if financial performance does not live up to Microsoft's expectations I wouldn't put it past them to cancel it- in fact I'm sure that's exactly what they'd do.

Bottom line- I am hopeful yet pragmatic... and it's just going to take time to see where it all goes.

[UAL277 Tim Haibach]

9/10/2020 UPDATE:

Things have started to improve for commercial pilots in MSFS2020. The A320 has a freeware project called FlyByWire A32NX and version 2 (V2) of the mod is available on the GitHub website. Megaliverypack V8 now includes United livery and previously only American was available for our VA. There is a glass cockpit FPS mod (all airliners), a thrust mod, and a fuel mod for the A320. The VNAV is still messed up and manual MCDU edits can't be made for SPD/ALT restrictions, so its more basic autopilot flying for now. There is a YouTube Channel- "320 simpilot" who is a real world Airbus pilot and gives his take on FS2020 and reviews of updates. It's getting better day by day.

Time to start exploring more outside my home region I'm going to do an A320 United States tour by linking as many airports as possible. First flight will be KIAH-KAUS.

[UAL152 Tom Hartigan]

My quick opinion on it is that you can see they were appealing to the masses by really focusing on what us "Simmers" would call the VFR side of things. This makes sense, because your casual gamer would never understand how to do any IFR flying. Then the flip side for us "Simmers" is that the game honestly just isn't quite there yet when it comes to IFR flying. The way I look at it is that its a great game, but not quite a full "Simulator" like previous versions were. I'm sure that will change in the future though because the trend now a days is to just keep building the game after launch. Still fun to mess around on though, but for trying to be as realistic as possible, I'm sticking to P3D for that.

[UAL115 Brian Plumb]

I'm going to try my first vUAL flight with a A320 sometime within a week (need my monthly flight anyway). I plan on doing a writeup on here on what you need (FSUIPC7 for ACARs). The big news has been the continuing modifications to the base A320 by FlyByWire. The have been adding more study level additions and fixes to the plane. The main site:

https://github.com/flybywiresim/a32nx

They have an installed which will automatically install the files to the proper place. There is a United livery available for download, however, I haven't tested or download it yet. For those more adventurous:

https://flightsim.to/file/930/united-ai ... k-textures

[UAL124 Joel Wolk]

The way I look at it is that its a great game, but not quite a full "Simulator" like previous versions were. I'm sure that will change in the future though because the trend now a days is to just keep building the game after launch.

I think you're spot-on there, Tom. For economic reasons, I think Microsoft aimed this at the general and even casual gaming communities (in addition to flight simmers). Out of pure curiosity I have watched quite a few product review videos on YouTube both from gamers and flight-sim type people. The gamers all just seem to rave about it... and why not, considering the amazing visual acuity of MSFS. The flight sim people are a bit more circumspect... calling out the cool bits but also pointing out things that are lacking (one of the obvious being nonfunctional components and controls in default aircraft).

I agree that over time (especially with third-party releases) MSFS will likely serve the needs of the true flight sim community in addition to those hordes of casual gamers. And as long as the economics continue to work out for Microsoft, they will continue to support and further develop it. I'll continue to watch the whole thing unfold with avid curiosity.