In Progress I can show you the world - Let's fly MSFS 2024

[Hag]

IT HAS STARTED !

Part 1 : Eastern Tasmania - Launceston (YMLT) to Hobart (YMHB) - 162NM - And I've already managed to get lost.
Part 2 : Southern Tasmania - Hobart (YMBH) to Strahan (YSRN) - 225 NM - Do you like ridges ?
Part 3 : Western/Northern Tasmania - Strahan (TSRN) to Launceston (YMLT) - 127NM - With an altitude record, nice sunrise, and plateaux.
Part 4 : Australia ! Horror ! Disappointment ! Promontory ! - Launceston (YMLT) to Avalon (YMAV) - 410NM
Part 5 : From Melbourne to the Blue Lake. - Avalon (YMAV) to Mount Gambier (YMTG) - 213NM - Meet the Apostles.

Distance flown so far : 1137NM


**********************************************************************************

So as you may have seen from the screenshots threads I've dived into the latest Flight Simulator, which is quite incredible. After trying my hand at various airplanes and flying styles, and buying a flight stick, I come before your esteemed company with a mission : a cross continent flight.
If you're interested in seeing beautiful screenshots of our Earth, nature and human-made structures, if you like airplanes and if you're crazy enough to read my aviation ramblings, here's the deal : choosing one thousands miles long route to come back to Caen airport in Normandy, NW of France, arbitrarily chosen because of sentimental reasons.

Option A : Africa !
A1 : Starting from South Africa and coming North along the Western coast. Deserts, Rainforests, the Sahara, many places that I don't know anything about. It'll end up coming through Spain, probably. Quite the "I have no idea what to expect" choice.
A2 : Same start, but this time along the Eastern coast. Savannas, Kilimanjaro, giant lakes. Possibility to follow the Nile downstream, before reaching the Balkans and from then finding a way. The "out of Africa" theory.

Option B : Asia !
B1 : The Northern way : starting from Kamchatka, then Japan, Best Korea, the vast emptiness of Mongolia and Tarim, then either to the Ural, Turkey and Balkans, or climbing North to Russia and Northern Europe. The "airborne Mongol" trip.
B2 : The Southern way : from Solomon Islands or Australia, Indonesia, South-East Asia, the Himalaya, Iran, the deserts of Arabia and then Europe. The "longest fucking way".

I plan on doing this to discover shit, so I'm open to suggestions, and your valued opinion will be asked before taking important decisions.

I may also do away with external navigation cheat tools so if you want to see me lose my way and crash land in some desert that's always a possibility.

Come and vote, and let's have a good trip !

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Any choice is good, A2 and B2 seem like the most varied. I vote A2 for East Africa. You can fly along the the coast of Mozambique with its tropical beaches, make a detour in Madagascar, or maybe fly inland to see Victoria Falls and the savannah. Definitely a lot of options.

 

[Andnjord]

This here is the Codex and by rule any Let’s player has to suffer the most for his audience’s enjoyment. Therefore, B2, « the longest fucking way » is the only reasonable option.

 

[v1c70r14]

B1, I want to see how MSFS renders the best parts of the world.

 

[Hag]

B1, I want to see how MSFS renders the best parts of the world.

Which ones in particular would you like to see ?

 

[v1c70r14]

B1, I want to see how MSFS renders the best parts of the world.

Which ones in particular would you like to see ?

I'm a sucker for mountain ranges so the Urals or the Altay would be nice. When it comes to planes I can't tell a Cessna apart from a Concord, but I do love aerial photography and from that I know that the most attractive photos are typically of mountains, farms, be it wheat fields or rice terraces, and desert dunes. Rivers, or larger bodies of water are excellent too. So if you pass Mongolia you might for example stop by the Gobi Desert, and later swing towards Iran. I have no idea how high-fidelity the latest Microsoft flight simulator actually is and if MSFS can actually live up to reality at all. This for example is lake Maharloo in Iran.

 

[Hag]

Well map quality does vary on the region, but even "low-res" parts are decent up-close so from high above it should look good.
As for mountain ranges, B1 has the Himalaya for sure, A2 has good ones too. Western Africa seems overall flatter, but you still have the Atlas range. Here's my elevation reference :

I'll wait a couple more days before starting, time I do need to finish learning some airplane systems such as on-board computers.

 

[Sinilevä]

Preferably B1.

 

[Demo.Graph]

B2

 

[tindrli]

B2

 

[anvi]

Is the game better than the last version?

 

[Hag]

Is the game better than the last version?

Hard to say as I had limited experience with MSFS 2020. In my opinion I'd say yes, because it ticks the boxes on what I'm looking for in a flight sim (decent range of gameplay from casual sightseeing to complex flight planning, beautiful visuals, runs well on my setup, full scale Earth sandbox, does work). The UI is also slicker, though in the same way that a walrus is slicker than a dead whale. The flight planner has been moved to an external website but is arguably better than the old version, and you can still import pln files if needed.

However, despite its huge potential, plane rooster and technical achievements it is still marred with bugs. Sometimes some specific thing (there's a plane you can't cold start for example) won't work and you have to live with it until it's fixed. Career mode is also a target of complains, but I haven't gone far enough to check myself. If you're happy with the previous version maybe stick with it until things are sorted out.

 

[Ol' Willy]

I may also do away with external navigation cheat tools so if you want to see me lose my way and crash land in some desert that's always a possibility.

For any entertainment with long distance flying you had to disable cheat navigation.

If a plane is equipped with modern nav equipment, the most of the deal is just to properly set it up, then it will do most of the job for you.

More interesting is visual navigation + compass only. Before flight you had to consult the map from start to destination and build the legs of the route, writing down the headings and approximate time in flight. Checkpoints between the legs are usually easily distinguishable visual landmarks (which would also make for good screenshots)

The flight plan may look like "take off, fly 90 for ~15 minutes until dick-shaped forest patch is located, there turn 70 and ~10 until you get to the city split in two by the river, then ~20 at 90 until you finally reach the destination airfield"

You can also use the old trick of flying along the rivers if possible

 

[Hag]

I had done some VFR flights with compass and stopwatcg in DCS, you can read my reckless adventures here. I agree that visual flight is the most interesting (and challenging), but as an aviation geek I'm also interested in modern IFR systems, if only by curiosity. And since this trip may be dozens of thousands of kilometers long, I don't exclude flying via autopilot if I need to cross long stretches of water or reposition to see some specific region.

But yeah, I just learned the basics of the A320 computers and the plane flies itself, it's so boooring.

 

[Ol' Willy]

But yeah, I just learned the basics of the A320 computers and the plane flies itself, it's so boooring.

This is what I don't like about modern airliners, you interact with machine mostly trough autopilot. After take-off you lay your hands off and it flies by itself. You can even dispense with landing if autoland is available.

Since you go for a long trip, you may switch planes or approaches. Break the trip into shorter and longer parts; shorter could be flown with VFR and longer with IFR

 

[Sinilevä]

This is what I don't like about modern airliners, you interact with machine mostly trough autopilot. After take-off you lay your hands off and it flies by itself. You can even dispense with landing if autoland is available.

That's also the reason why we get accidents like this one:

Spoiler

12:45 The pilots trusted automation so much, so not even the sun being in the wrong spot could raise any suspicion. They just blocked the window with the paper lmao.
There are also a couple of other crashes where pilots in Brazil flew into a completely different direction despite the Sun telling them the correct direction and then crashed in the jungle and other aircraft crashing, because a company never bothered to properly train their pilots to fly manually and even discouraged it, so in a moment when automation failed they were helpless.

 

[Ol' Willy]

This is what I don't like about modern airliners, you interact with machine mostly trough autopilot. After take-off you lay your hands off and it flies by itself. You can even dispense with landing if autoland is available.

That's also the reason why we get accidents like this one:

Spoiler

12:45 The pilots trusted automation so much, so not even the sun being in the wrong spot could raise any suspicion. They just blocked the window with the paper lmao.
There are also a couple of other crashes where pilots in Brazil flew into a completely different direction despite the Sun telling them the correct direction and then crashed in the jungle and other aircraft crashing, because a company never bothered to properly train their pilots to fly manually and even discouraged it, so in a moment when automation failed they were helpless.

The difference in percentages of crashes and ordinary flights is colossal for modern airliners. Including the models with no crashes at all. Which means that either automatics are reliable enough, or pilots train for emergencies - or as it should be, both.

But regardless, today an aircraft with autopilot malfunction wouldn't even be cleared for take off. In busy airspaces, the altitude margin between passing flights could be as smol as 1k feet, and you can't really maintain it reliably by hand

 

[Hoodoo]

A1 fly up the Nile and then up Italy please.

 

[v1c70r14]

But regardless, today an aircraft with autopilot malfunction wouldn't even be cleared for take off. In busy airspaces, the altitude margin between passing flights could be as smol as 1k feet, and you can't really maintain it reliably by hand

Thanks for giving me a phobia of airplane flights.

 

[Sinilevä]

This is what I don't like about modern airliners, you interact with machine mostly trough autopilot. After take-off you lay your hands off and it flies by itself. You can even dispense with landing if autoland is available.

That's also the reason why we get accidents like this one:

Spoiler

12:45 The pilots trusted automation so much, so not even the sun being in the wrong spot could raise any suspicion. They just blocked the window with the paper lmao.
There are also a couple of other crashes where pilots in Brazil flew into a completely different direction despite the Sun telling them the correct direction and then crashed in the jungle and other aircraft crashing, because a company never bothered to properly train their pilots to fly manually and even discouraged it, so in a moment when automation failed they were helpless.

The difference in percentages of crashes and ordinary flights is colossal for modern airliners. Including the models with no crashes at all. Which means that either automatics are reliable enough, or pilots train for emergencies - or as it should be, both.

But regardless, today an aircraft with autopilot malfunction wouldn't even be cleared for take off. In busy airspaces, the altitude margin between passing flights could be as smol as 1k feet, and you can't really maintain it reliably by hand

Of course it is reliable asf. That's why pilots trust it to the point, that they start ignoring celestial bodies and magnetic compass in the rare cases it malfunctions.

 

[Hag]

So, the results :
A1 : 1
A2 : 1
B1 : 2
B2 : 3

Let's roll with B2 then, the longest and arguably most open trip, since we can still see parts of continental Asia and Africa.
I plan to start this weekend. Meanwhile, time to start thinking about what we want to see. Once again, YOU can decide :
- Where to start ?
- What to see ?

For the start, you can choose any location within the blue area :

I myself choose the Solomon Islands in the Northernmost part, before going to Papua then island hoping toward the Philippines.

And as for what to see, well, shout away if you know some place along the road that looks great, or somewhere you've traveled and would like to see from the sky, or your hometown, or whatever you wish. The only rule of the trip is that each leg must bring me closer to my destination, but it doesn't need to be in a straight line. Here's the area we can cover :

You have until Sunday to choose a starting position.

Until then, do not disturb the holy cows :

 

[Sinilevä]

I myself choose the Solomon Islands in the Northernmost part,

Maybe start with Tasmania and then go to Solomon Islands.

 

[Hag]

Maybe start with Tasmania and then go to Solomon Islands.

Ask and you shall receive, let's have a tour of Tasmania to get started.

Here is my reference map with landmarks I found by querying the Internet :

As you can see I've started to look for places of interests that may look good from above :

Feel free to submit your own (as long as I can find their longitude+latitude), I can easily register them into Little Navmap and it will be helpful to plan our route.

 

[Hag]

And here we go ! Delayed after some technical issues and unplanned alcohol poisoning, the day has finally come to start this 9500 NM (17600 km) long trip.

Today's flight :

A 162NM journey from Launceston to Hobart, to see the Wineglass Bay and Tasman's Arch.
So I'm actually going farther away from my end destination but fuck it, I've spent over an hour looking for landmarks in Tasmania, I'm going to see them all.
Playing real time, live weather, haven't checked clouds or wind because who cares about visibility when doing sightseeing ?

LET'S GOOOO !

And to celebrate, let's choose an auspicious airplane. France is famous for its aeronautical marvels, jewels of engineering. Yes, everybody knows about the Concorde (I guess thanks to the Brits for helping out on this one), the Mirage series, the Caravelle, or those marvelous 30s seaplanes and prototypes that all shared a solid case of looking pretty good and being hopeless death traps.
But none of them can compare to the one we're going to fly today :

The Robin DR400, staple of aeroclubs, and a solid piece of kit that is still produced to this day. If you've learnt to fly in France in the last 40 years you've surely learnt on this friendly machine.

Basic cockpit, with half of the switches not working because thanks Microsoft, who needs a clock and chronometer ? But that'll do. Onto takeoff.

Clear sky, no wind. Easy.

And we're off to a freaking long adventure !

Eastern Tasmania here we come

We're quickly reaching our first navigation landmark, the Stack's Buff (1528m).

It was morning in Tasmania so I had the Sun in the face for some time.

Nice cliffs.

Jumping to the second target, this pointing teat, also called St Paul's Dome.

The valley in-between.

The ocean appears. We're going to this weird peninsula at 1 o'clock.

Reaching the coast. And a few minutes later :

The famous Wineglass bay !

Coming around over Mount Amos.

Yeah, would swim.

Moving on.

Leaving the islands of the Freycinet National Park toward Maria Island.
Also a national park.
But from my research most of Tasmania is made of national parks.

A 20NM stretch of water.

Did you know that Tasmania is named after the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, first Westerner to reach New-Zealand ? He had four of his crew clubbed to death by the locals there.

You can notice the 22% fuel. That's not much, luckily it's a short trip. But I'll check it beforehand next time.

Most of the place looks nice and wild, must be a trekker paradise.

Passed Maria. Front of us is the Swan Lagoon, and the small peak at its right is Tasman Hill.

You may have notice how cloudy the day became. I had to stay below 2500ft to see anything.

Noice cliffs.

Then, it was getting late in Western Europe, and my navigation map was not precise enough to see the shape of the islands, so I may have fucked up. I turned West way too early, missing the Tasman Ark location entirely, and wondering where was Port Arthur, my Southernmost target.

So I headed West toward Hobard.

Oh shit.

So I had to fly very low to escape those scary clouds, giving me limited visibility.

And, amongst the lush rolling hills of the South lands, I realized I was lost.

But after some tries, common sense and a bit of luck, I eventually found the airport (straight in front of the plane in the previous screen). The light effects were not half bad as you can see.

Notice the 7% fuel and the threatening sky.

Flying alongside the runway looking for the windsock I almost hit a tree. This may be a mere video game but it really shows how fast disaster can strike.

There was a decent crosswind but the DR400 is one docile plane. Fuel warning light was on.

Good to be back on land.

And that'll do for today.

Onto debrief :

As you can see I flew right on course for the most part, but fucked up completely at the end. The funny thing is that I was supposed to fly the last leg with a 290° bearing but I was tired and instead starting to follow 270°. However, since I was too much up North it was actually the correct bearing for the airport, so sometimes two wrong can make a right.

Stressful last part. The North notch at the end was an emergency climb to check my surroundings since I had no idea where I was anymore. It allowed me to see the ocean to the East, so i knew I was East of the Hobard bay and I resumed my course (with a nervous eye on the fuel gauge).

Not a very glorious beginning, but still a victory. Next trip will therefore start from Hobart and I'll check that Ark, before moving West then North for more national parks. Maybe on one go with a faster airplane, I still need to plan it.
Thank you for coming along !

 

[Andnjord]

unplanned alcohol poisoning

In France we call it Monday.

who needs a clock and chronometer

Don’t you guys have phones?

How do you rate your chances to crash before the end, Hag?