Flight Simulator X - A Photo Diary (Broadbandy)

[v4moose]

A warning this is a bit bandwidth intense, I might try and find a better method of uploading these photos without losing to much quality.



I've had a love/hate relationship with this simulator for many years now. I started off on FSX on a laptop with keyboard and mouse, needless to say the passion died pretty soon. Fast forward 18months and I took it up again as a training aid to for my RL pilot training. This time I went out and bought a joystick, and while fun, the 'immersion' factor simply wasn't there because of poor frame rates (party due to my laptop, party due to me not bothering to tweak,) and playing on a 15 inch screen.

Thanks to fellow GONers I've rekindled the love. FSX, on a decent rig, with a few payware addons is really a sight to behold. I've taken to just flying around, seeing the sights and snapping shots. It's kind of like the navs we used to do where they would tell you a destination and you would go out and take a picture of it to prove you'd actually been there.

I intend to put to good ones in this thread to share.

If anyone else has nice screenies please share also, I know there's a few people on here who fly and it would be great to see what you all have.


My Cessna parked out the front of RACWA, Perth Jandakot - I've enjoyed many a overpriced meal in the second story cafe.

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My Cessna again parked out of TAC, where I did my pilot training. Unfortunately the company went into administration in late 2010 so the only place you'll see it these days is the digital world.

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A view to Jandakot airport (YPJT)

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A look to the Perth CBD from just north of Jandakot airport.

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The little ultra light trike on approach into Perth airport. (YPPH)

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Overflying the CBD in the trike, with Kings Park and UWA just behind.

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A sneaky shot of Subiaco Oval, unfortunately the games not on.

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Wide shot of Rottnest Island, just a short 10 minute trip from the mainland.

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Decided to do a quick touch and go on the airstrip of Rottnest (YRTI), I'm bulk high, so sideslipping it in. Gotta keep the nose down to avoid a stall.

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Mandurah Coastline from the cockpit of the Grummin. I love how this plane handles and the look of the cockpit

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Outside views of the Grummin, nice weather today. Shiny

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Heading away from Suburbia, a shot over Cervantes and Namburg National Park - Home of the pinnacles.

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The 737 coming onto the northern Tassy coastline from bass straight. Slowing down using the air brake. Think there was an issue with my landing gear as it wouldn't retract.

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Hard to see, but was lined up for takeoff at Launceston airport (YMLT.) I think the pilot of the Bombarder is running late and getting a little ansy

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Takeoff from Launceston airport (YMLT) in the 747. Not my favorite airliner but still nice.

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So far I've really only explored very small parts of WA and Tassy - keen to see some spots in the rest of Aus. If anyone has any suggestions for good landmarks let me know!

[cyclobs]

heading to Beijin tonight. I'll be sure to grab some photos of the great wall as i fly over

Also do some flights around Asia and up to Japan, very pretty. Singapore airport was massive when i landed there. Hong Kong is interesting the first time you're landing there, gotta keep an eye out for all of the mountains on approach

[brimlad]

nice pics,

So far I've really only explored very small parts of WA and Tassy - keen to see some spots in the rest of Aus. If anyone has any suggestions for good landmarks let me know!

A few of flights I always enjoyed when I did fly fsx were:
canberra to tumut via mt Kociuszko, you fly to brindabella ranges from canberra follow the goodradigbee river then along the main range round kosi then down the tumut river valley to tumut, great scenery and challenging with dynamic weather in a cessna.
Sydney to moruya: great scenery as you fly through the numerous valleys and gorges in the national parks that hug the coast all the way south to moruya.
and for bigger planes or jets try Kabul to lahore: follow the panshir valley then past tirich mir then onto the Karakoram range then head back west and follow the indus river valley and a fly past of Nanga Parbat then south to Lahore; very dramatic scenery.

cheers

[v4moose]

Have ventured a bit further into paid addons Still adding a lot more realism and flair to the Sim.

Grabbed a 152 from Carenado, and the ORBX RWY100 livery. I've flown a plane extremely similar to this in RL so it was great to feel the plane again. a very true to life sim from what I could gather

Went back to Uluru again for some comparative shots

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Closeup of the Cessna, real nice livery for freeware

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Comparitive shot from RL - Uncle on the left, instructor on the right (gay handholding aside )

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Was playing around with the map functionality. This is what happens when you drop a Cessna from 1000000000 feet.

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Trio of quick shots over Syndey in the Piper Cherokee, another plane I have flown in RL. Somehow Sydney experienced a slight sprinkling of snow, even though it was the middle of spring.

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So now that I've done a fair bit of 'messing about' I decided it was time to learn for real. I chose the PMDG 737-800 NGX as it seemed to be the most true to life simulated plane out there at the moment. This plane is great because you can still pick up and fly (to an extent) but will also consume many hours of learning and patience to fly it like the professionals do.

These picks are in a different resolution because I was flying in windowed mode, and reading the tutorial on the other screen.

Quick shot of takeoff - this was a great experience after sitting on the tarmac for 2 hours programming the settings into the FMC.

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A few shots of the plane passing through Gatwick, the modelling in incredibly detailed.

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I thought this was 'artsy'

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The incredibly complicated cockpit - slowly learning what every button does.

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Cool shot of the vortices created by the aircraft at high speed.

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Final approach into Amersterdam. All I had to do was sit back and enjoy the view as the approach and land was completely programmed into the FMC.

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I was going to show some pics with REX installed, but on second thoughts I'll save that for later as I'm downloading the overdrive (HD) pack as I type. Its going to kill my machine though so some tweaking and 'performance balancing' will definitely be on the cards.

Also - if any one is interested, here's a couple of vids a put together a long time ago but only recently reuploaded to youtube. The first one is of my first Solo flight outside the local circuit area, (a big deal for me at the time!)

The second vid is more of a rush job, its from a gopro strapped to my head as I went out for a training run. It includes a startup and landing but unfortunately the view is occluded by the roof a fair bit

Plane is a Diamond Da-20 flown at Jandakot.





Re-watching those vids brings back good memories of something I'll probably rarely or if ever do again

[Mearehear]

Very cool stuff Moosey

And being a WA boy, it's great to see the local stuff. Expect some stuff from my points of view over the next week (Mainly been flying WA too, down Bunbury/Busselton way. *EDIT* in FSX that is, no real flying like your vids)

[DarkMellie]

Can't see the pics from work

You guys are getting me really keen for some more Cessna flights... why can' you all convert to BlackShark instead?!

[brimlad]

again great pics and vid v4moose and curious to know how the sim relates to real flying; close far, or just fun ?

You guys are getting me really keen for some more Cessna flights... why can' you all convert to BlackShark instead?!

my thoughts exactly (though dcs p51d would be ace) and I think these guys would really enjoy dcs.
I spent most of my short flights (the first 2 I mentioned above) in the P-51d mainly because it had a great climb rate and required a great deal of rpm/engine managment or you'd blow the engine which I managed a couple of times around Kociuszko and did a succesful emegency landing once on the alpine way just out of thredbo, great fun but the p-51d is a testy bird but well modelled in fsx.

cheers

[Mearehear]

I have Black Shark, but due to the requirements of the rest of the DCS range, I will need a system upgrade before tackling them.

Black Shark I can just get away with on my system, but with ArmA 3 approaching as well game like the DCS series, I will a few reasons to step up and get with the times, with a modern OS and jumping into 64bit (still making use of WinXP 32bit here, but its run really has been dragged further than it should have been)

[brimlad]

definitely Mearehear, w7 64bit is the prefered os for the dcs series mainly because it can use more ram which eliminates stuttering. The dcs series needs about 4gb of ram and 1gb of vram to perform well and that is more than a 32bit os can provide. If you upgrade with arma3 in mind then dcs will no doubt perform well.

cheers

[Mearehear]

Yep Brimlad, Win7 64bit and a newer system will be the target very soon, then I will be very keen to dip my toes into the DCS range, especially the P51D. To be honest I am surprised I have been able to stretch out WinXP this far Gives me a bit of time to learn more in FSX until then anyway (still very much a Flight Sim newb here).

Was hoping to have a vid or more done with FSX this week, but have had my attention stolen away by the DayZ mod in ArmA, so will have to do some more flights and get more shots over the weekend. (All things below are with default FSX scenery at this stage)

F/A-18 - Broome WA : Seeing as the GOV can't get things right, I decided to go for a flight, tracking down boat people off our N/W coast

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Maule Orion - Uluru : Just doing some sight seeing in the Maule.

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AgustaWestland EH101 - Melbourne CBD : Taking a chopper for a little run over Melbourne

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Bell 206b JetRanger - Berlin, Fernsehturm (TV Tower) : Just short vid of a flight while testing out Bandicam with FSX (also was my first flight and landing with a chopper in FSX)

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[v4moose]

Nice pics Meare

How do you find bandicam for recording in FSX? Once I'm more familiar with the 737 I was thinking of doing some vids. Is there much of a FPS hit for you?

I've said this in other forums re: the racing games GON play - I really don't care what it is, if enough people decide on a title and wanna fly I'll be there.

again great pics and vid v4moose and curious to know how the sim relates to real flying; close far, or just fun ?

Cheers

For me it's really hard to determine how it 'relates' as there are so many factors. In some respects it's very realistic, in others not so much. For instance:

Default FSX planes: The small GA planes are good. But the larger airliners are a bit of a joke. They are essential modelled as just overly large Cessnas. To be satisfied with a close simulation you really need paid add-on planes.

Once you do buy a couple of planes tho, its accurate. PMDG, claim that their aircraft is within 5% of Boeing specifications. They also do other background tricks, to work around FSX's insufficiencies. (The surface drag coefficient is too high, pushback is wrong, separate engines for fuel and load calculations, turbulence is poorly modelled etc)

So yes once you spend a bit of money the sim is accurate. Then theres just a few niggly things that can pull you out of the realism.

Obviously, its a bit of a pain having to flick all the switches with the mouse (I don't have trackIR)

The method you use to trim an air plane is different. In a real plane, you trim by setting power and attitude, letting the plane settle, and then releasing pressure on the yoke with TRIM. In the SIM tho you have to trim the aircraft so that it flys straight and level with the stick physically centrered. Its a subtle difference but I think it's quite an art to get a plane flying straight and level in the sim because of this.

The other big thing, is the absolute lack of any G-force sensation. There's no feeling of G-force as you pull back or push forware, no physical feeling of drag as you lower flaps, gears, or encounter turbulence. You have to therefore fly a lot more by the gauges and then control inputs are slower. Its definitely harder to fly planes in the sim than RL (believe it or not) mainly because of this reason. You often end up 'chasing' numbers on the dash so you end up flying your plane in a sine wave fashion rather than straight and level. (well I do anyway)

Ramble over

[DarkMellie]

Can someone write up a guide like Meare's RBR guide (now best practice) for FSX?

I always got confused by too many options for scenery and jets and so on, a free-to-play guide to add-ons and install procedures would be really helpful. Looks like I've more a chance of organised Cessna runs than I do getting you pussies onto DCS

[v4moose]

sure i'll have a stab at it over the weekend

[Mearehear]

How do you find bandicam for recording in FSX? Once I'm more familiar with the 737 I was thinking of doing some vids. Is there much of a FPS hit for you?

I actually prefer Bandicam most of the time, it has many more options than most recording programs. In FSX I barely notice much impact when recording with its "Youtube 720p" preset (direct capture to a format for uploading to Youtube - no recompressing needed). That's what I did with the chopper over Berlin vid test. It should be noted my computer is starting to become a dinosaur too.

Its not without a few faults, but its demo is well worth trying. I'm pretty sure you get all the features, with captures up to 10min long. It was good enough for me that I paid for a full licensed copy.

write up a guide like Meare's RBR guide (now best practice)

Aww shucks! haha

Looks like I've more a chance of organised Cessna runs than I do getting you pussies onto DCS

My newbie flying skills are mostly spent flying the Cessna in FSX. I find it quite enjoyable to fly without being overly complicated. Getting up in the air with a few other Cessnas would be fun.

[Ash_Williams]

I'm assuming your running at 5670x1080 for a resolution? I can't get the cockpit properly on the screen on mine, what things did you change to get it? Everything is uber-zoomed in whilst I'm zoomed out to max and everything looks warped when I start messing around..