Airbus pilot tries Microsoft Flight Simulator [video]
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It's not a deal breaker for me - I just left it running for a couple of hours, but the process seems sufficiently fragile that many people had quite serious problems getting it to download.
I'm not a game dev, but it feels to me like there's a few areas where FS falls short of what I'd be expecting as Microsoft. I'd want it to be responsive and start quickly (at least presenting something on the screen), and I wouldn't want it to be using full GPU in the menus. Teething issues are to be expected, but the downloader is critical and it's the first experience people have. A shame they didn't use some more reliable file transfer tech (or even just thread it!) The general lack of multi core use on the sim is definitely quite disappointing though for a 2020 release that's doing lots of general calculations and other tasks that benefit from threading.
The issue is, as you say, a single-threaded "download-extract-next" flow... It's 2020 and that's what we'd expect from a 90s game launcher. Steam and other game launchers/downloaders can all saturate an arbitrarily fast network connection. Heck, even Windows Update (BITS?) can do this well. A shame Asobo wasn't able to leverage any of this.
The amount of GPU is indeed strange - I think there's more than meets the eye here. There seems to be a lot of HTML/JS type stuff in the UI here, and I wonder if they are doing some kind of GPU-based full-screen rendered surface, rather than just having a simple oldskool Windows Forms app that does the downloading without GPU acceleration.
Ugh, yeah as a VR flight sim enthusiast this is just sad. Essentially every semi-realistic flight sim on the market is main-thread bound even on high-end on modern CPUs. I was really, really hoping that MSFS2020 would finally be the modern engine sim we've been waiting for so smooth VR flight could be enjoyed.
Quite strange, as in the tech world we normally super optimise the initial onboarding user experience. Especially when many will try FS through Gamepass, it seems strange to not focus on the "onboarding ramp" to try and convert and retain users.
Essentially all the reviews I've seen of the actual game and experience have been extremely positive.
That's not been my experience. I had a game which wouldn't even run on my system, and they refused to refund it. Even when the problem was documented and it obviously didn't work.
There's no effective way to dispute it either. If I did a chargeback of the game, then Steam would revoke my entire account.
Needless to say, I've not bought anything from Steam from that point, though I still use my account to play already purchased games.
[1] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-08-20-valve-assu...
- As others have pointed out, you can't background it during a 100G download. It continues to capture keystrokes.
- There's no way to mute the annoying music. So forget about passing the time on Netflix or YouTube.
- If the download craps out midway, it frequently gets stuck. Meaning you might have to delete those 80g you already have & start again. (Unless you tell what is complete & isn't.)
I'm not a pilot, and my knowledge of dogfighting is next to non-existent, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd expect that it would be much harder to utterly dominate one's opponents when there are a lot of planes in the air, any one of which could take you out when you think you've got an advantage on someone else.
A busy dogfight would probably be more exciting to watch, too.
Something like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWa7NrSd55w
Tons, yes, here's one to get your started:
Superior Dogfight: 4 x Navy F-18 vs 4 x Air Force F-15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80rDX3pANeE
The video is a reconstruction from the radio recordings. I learned that air traffic controllers are rarely themselves pilots and that finding someone with King Air experience during an emergency isn't easy. This video is recent, but the incident happened in 2009. News story from that year:
https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2009/april/14/u...
[0] He'd earned a private pilot's license 18 years prior, but had quit flying shortly after with only 80 hours total time logged.
It’s kind of the argument for basic first aid training and other things like that.
One of the controllers who helped get him down realized she had to simplify the plane for him. He had been struggling with the autopilot and she got him to turn it off and fly it manually. He was fortunate to have some great controllers to help him and a clear day with no wind.
After the incident, he started flying again and went on to become a rescue pilot.
Now knowing it's an actual event being recreated, I might have to go give it a watch!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEGH965Dvp8, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjDhZ2Qx2bw
Turns out: Quite hard. I have a newfound respect for airline pilots.
On a related note, even my RAF cadet experience 20 years ago counted for naught. Whilst I could keep the plane in the air, landing proved the most difficult, and I crashed and bounced and would not have survived without invulnerability switched on.
It’s not that difficult to land; especially in a sim where you can experiment without worry.
It’s all in the setup - as you line up on your final approach, make sure you are at a prescribed speed and rate of descent; generally in a small plane (172 etc), you’re aiming for around 300-500ft/m at 70-80kts, and the plane is pointing to hit the runway at the threshold (piano keys / white lines).
Counter intuitive: Throttle controls rate of descent, elevators control speed. Mess around until you feel these two things clicking.
When you’re around 20-30ft above the threshold, reduce power to idle, keep the aircraft straight and level or the nose just slightly high and just let the plane drop on to the runway!
Whatever you do - don’t force it, take your time and you’ll have far more fun actually going to places and stopping there!
For flying jets though (assuming this is what the GP means when mentioning the respect for airline pilots), you'll have some higher numbers, and you'll use the thrust for speed rather than the "counter intuitive" approach you'd use in a smaller aircraft.
The things to remember at first are that you're moving faster than you think in the air, so you need to take a longer final approach than you may think as a newcomer, as you're "consuming" that distance rapidly. You'll also need to get used to lining up with the runway (assuming you're doing VFR approaches, which isn't how airlines do it in reality) and find a reference in the cockpit. And chances are you'll be coming in far too high as well - you will feel lower down when you get the view from up front (compared with a side window) and often end up too high. If this happens, go around and try again - if you dive down to compensate, you'll end up gaining too much speed and miss your touchdown zone on the runway.
A good way to learn and practice landings is to wait until ILS and autopilots in FS get their bugs fixed, and learn enough to configure them to fly the landing. If they're accurate replicas, the A320 neo should be able to land itself from ILS. Learn what the approach looks like, and get used to the height and view of the descent. Then try some ILS approaches with flight director on, but autopilot off, so you're flying the approach yourself, but with guidance. This can be tricky if you're not used to the auto throttles on an Airbus though.
Minor point - fairly certain power applications are used regardless of the size of aircraft to control the rate of descent.
Pitch + Power = Performance
You're essentially trying to get back on your landing descent profile.
Too low? Add power, pitch up slightly to maintain speed, reduce rate of descent. Too high? Remove power, pitch down slightly to maintain speed, increase rate of descent.
It is somewhat counter intuitive, but power does not have a "direct" relation with speed, but certainly impacts it.
Even if you fly straight and level, and start adding power - the increase airflow over the wings/elevators will cause a pitch up / lift, your speed will decrease which will need counteracting by a slight downwards pitch to maintain straight / level, and only then would you see a speed increase. There will always be a point where the aircraft just settles into a given configuration of power and pitch/attitude, giving you a specific horizontal/vertical speed.
You yourself mention pointing the aircraft down (pitch), thus gaining speed (without touching the power), which is exactly the counter-intuitive approach to power/speed.
I may not be explaining it well but here's a decent article:
http://txtopaviation.com/pitch-power-performance/
And you'll find quite a few more if you go searching.
I also highly recommend looking up the pilot owner manuals, they give you performance tables for given configurations (rpm, power, density, altitude, fuel, temp etc), and of course what power settings to use and numbers to hit for various stages of flight.
I do concur with all your other points though, it's an absolute blast - especially in VR. And of course, I can't encourage folks enough to try out the real thing, I find it easier than driving a car! :)
The current ones from Panasonic seem to have caught up to the original iPad: https://www.panasonic.aero/our-offerings/systems/x-series-bl...
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/04/21/game-of-throne...
I've always wondered why screens in the back of seats were allowed, as they seem to clearly be an additional hazard compared to a nice soft cushioned seat back that they displaced.
I know some airlines supply an iPad which can be mounted to the back of the headrest and needs to be stowed at takeoff or landing. I wonder what kind of testing would be required for those setups.
I thought modern airliners can auto-land? All you need is someone to walk you through dialing in the numbers.
Even assuming everything goes perfectly up to that point, the plane can only /land/ itself -- assuming you're approaching an ILS autoland-capable runway, in a plane with autoland equipment installed. You still have to idle the engines on touchdown and engage reverse thrust. You may have to keep the aircraft on the runway centreline after touchdown. Then you need to shut down the engines so emergency vehicles can approach and passengers can evacuate safely.
It's not as simple as "dialling in the numbers".
Read the instruments. This is non-trivial with modern glass cockpits as the readings on the screen don't necessarily have labels.
Set the flaps at the right time. Too soon and you'll tear the wings off or run out of fuel before you make it to the runway. Too late and you will be flying too fast to land.
Lower the gear, again at the right time to prevent them being torn off by airflow or not being down when you hit the runway.
Know that, once on the ground, the nose gear is steered with the footpedals and not the sidestick (Airbus) or yolk (Boeing).
Set the autobrake so you don't need to brake manually at touchdown. If you get this right, you don't need to mess with reverse thrust.
It would be helpful to know how to turn off the cabin pressurization system so no one is blown out the doors when they are opened.
Even if you're lucky enough to get all this right, you're only going to make a smoking hole somewhere near the runway if there's any significant crosswind.
Note it's called a yoke. :)
Once you find the radio and manage to reach anyone, I'd assume they can get someone to relay information to you on that frequency. At that point it becomes a matter of them being able to give sufficiently idiot-proof instructions and you following them, i.e. as long as whatever bad thing happened with at least a couple hours of flight time remaining and you don't mentally shut down, I'd say it should be recoverable.
It'd definitely help if whoever is in the cockpit has played some flight sim before, because "gear down" is a lot faster to convey than describing what the gear lever looks like and making sure they actually found that one instead of something completely different that will crash the plane.
And assuming you figure out how to use the radio at all, that's still of no help whatsoever unless you happen to know how to tune to 121.5 MHz (the international aircraft emergency frequency) or are still in range of the previous controllers!
[1] https://live.staticflickr.com/7443/27038444724_18cc73d82c_b.... In the right of this image, there is an empty pencil holder on the far right pillar (like the A-pillar in your car). Immediately to the left of that is a set of 2 black buttons and a white dial. The microphone button is the left black one. It only has "MIC" written above it. The unmarked single button on the yoke is indeed the autopilot disconnect.
EDIT: I should also add that the microphone button doesn't mean you'll necessarily be talking on the radio either. The headset also serves as a PA system and an interphone, and it can use the satphone too. This is all controlled on the radio panel next to your leg.
Even assuming for a moment that yes, all you need to do is dial in the numbers...
Have you ever tried to run tech support over a dodgy phone connection to someone who's never touched technology before? Where one wrong button push turns off all of that automation? Where there's no chance to go "Ooops, undo that!"? Where it's a very high stress situation, involving a huge number of acronyms?
Even just managing radios could be a major problem - you may quickly find yourself out of range of the controllers, and if you haven't figured out how to ask for and change frequency, well you're now not talking to anyone.
I am not sure how class enters the equation, although it seems to me likely that travelers would prefer to hear neither George Plimpton nor an East-End eelmonger over the intercom.
In the USA, if you want to learn to fly for free, rather than with "enormous debts", it's simple.
All you do is go thru the US Air Force Academy. They take black, white, male, female. They will train you for "free". Yes it requires a service commitment but it's by-and-large a meritocracy.
In the USA you're not entitled to pilot training merely for the sake of "diversity". Pay your dues, earn your way.
I had a cousin who did it. He flew jets for the US Air Force for years. He then became a commercial pilot.
Does it matter much for piloting? It's quite a mechanical job. I'd argue diversity matters more if you have a team of movie writers (how many movies have terrible female/minority characters because of the diversity problems?) or UX designers, but I don't think your race or gender matters much when piloting a plane...
Of course there is probably currently an excess of white male pilots, but that seems cultural and a socio-economic problem, if you fix the culture (e.g. if little girls also get asked equally as often as little boys if they'd like to be a pilot (instead of a nurse; or if the same percentage of black folks can afford pilot school as white folks), shouldn't this problem fix itself?
Personally I'd cheer on a pilot scholarship for disadvantaged groups, because it'd be nice to see them having some sort of advantage in reaching their dreams after hundreds of years of disadvantages, but I don't think having more black or female pilots would change the job, since, as I said, it's quite a mechanical job. Whereas having a woman or minority in a movie writing crew would probably make a better story due to a more diverse perspective.
Different voices in the boardroom? I'd say a good thing. Different voices in the cockpit? What the hell difference is that going to make, will the plane fly better due to diversity? The pilots are presumably trained to fly the planes as optimally as they can, and their gender or race shouldn't make a difference to the way they operate these machines...
Tom Wolfe has a great novel about Yeager and other test pilots called "The Right Stuff."
[1] https://www.wearethemighty.com/history/silky-smooth-chuck-ye...
A great example is Endurance by Alfred Lansing, which tells the story of Shackleton's incredible expedition to Antarctica in 1914. It is apparently a very accurate re-telling, and a book that I highly recommend. Even though I knew the outcome of the expedition, the book was suspenseful to the very end, and surprisingly character-driven.
I asked our teacher (who also made us memorize the opening to beouwouf) how Angelou could remember some of the quotes. I recall the teacher’s response being something like, “this is what she remembers”
Looking at that book now in the context of this thread I found this:
>Reviewers often categorize Caged Bird as autobiographical fiction because Angelou uses thematic development and other techniques common to fiction, but the prevailing critical view characterizes it as an autobiography, a genre she attempts to critique, change, and expand.
Also while I am totally floored by such a man maybe his place is not in a schoolbooks yet. If the US is similar to Canada school education wise I suspect that kids in US are in desperate need of basic fundamental knowledge. This should come first I believe.
I probably butchered that story a bit.. anyone recognize it and have a link to the original?
Now the thing to understand about Center controllers, was that whether they were talking to a rookie pilot in a Cessna, or to Air Force One, they always spoke in the exact same, calm, deep, professional, tone that made one feel important. I referred to it as the " Houston Center voice." I have always felt that after years of seeing documentaries on this country's space program and listening to the calm and distinct voice of the Houston controllers, that all other controllers since then wanted to sound like that, and that they basically did. And it didn't matter what sector of the country we would be flying in, it always seemed like the same guy was talking. Over the years that tone of voice had become somewhat of a comforting sound to pilots everywhere. Conversely, over the years, pilots always wanted to ensure that, when transmitting, they sounded like Chuck Yeager, or at least like John Wayne. Better to die than sound bad on the radios.
https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blac...
Is MS opening a big wallet or is it the other way around where these companies want their newest planes in these type of games? In the video you see "unbeatable fuel efficieny" and I remember seeing Iberia on one of the boeings in the launch trailer, seems like adverts to me.
I took a class in performance driving once. They say to cinch the belt down as tight as you can so that your seat feels every nuance of the road. And it does, and it works. With some practice you can feel when the tires are right at the limit of their grip. It's just like reaching the stall point in an airplane when the wings lose their grip.
Also, airplanes have a "feel" in the control column, and they definitely fly by that pushback. It's so essential that Boeing jets have a "feel computer" to push back on the stick to simulate what the pilot would feel if he were directly controlling the surfaces. There's none of that in the flight simulator games.
Are there haptic chairs or force feedback joysticks or yokes on the market?
I thought that modern fly-by-wire fighters don't let you stall during a turn. i.e. you just use full stick and the computer gives you the max turn rate.
In MS Flight Simulator so far, I noticed that I quickly developed a habit of flying almost 100% from instruments even when there’s great visibility outside. I don’t know if that’s because of what you describe here, or because it’s difficult for me to manipulate the camera and fly the plane at the same time, or because this is actually just the best way to fly a plane. Either way, it’s worked pretty well for someone like me who had no flying experience. I’m also terrible at racing sims for what it’s worth.
It kind of has the same over the water coastline approach.
It’s also a huge amount fun and let’s you do things that would be unsafe in IRL.