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Too much, Too much


macca22au

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Is there a case that FSX and all its great add-ons, and primarily FTX, are making it all too real.

No, my wife doesn't want to go back to a hand-turned wringer for the wet clothes, and I don't want to go back to FS98.

But with new hardware and great aircraft and scenery design are we not risking the same boredom as the kids.  And aren't we risking becoming junkies, adding bits of this and that to give more realism, and grabbing ever more quickly for the next.

For me it has to still be accurately flying an ILS approach by hand, but isn't it all to easy to hand it over to the autopilot, then go into external view and sit there and watch the scenery and the aircraft. Then like a real world pax, stop looking and reach for a book and FSX becomes background noise and light.

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I don't do autopilot, GPS or tubeliners. Fly bush planes, single or twin props, VFR and a map (Plan-G) not showing your current position.

Have to  find my way around and get there. With the current FSX crop of realistic sceneries, it makes VFR (with a map) somewhat easy and definitely fun to do. Can't get more realistic than that!

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Is there a case that FSX and all its great add-ons, and primarily FTX, are making it all too real.

No, my wife doesn't want to go back to a hand-turned wringer for the wet clothes, and I don't want to go back to FS98.

I know what you mean.FS9 FSX FTX... all started as a Hobby which has become a Habit and leading to an Addiction.And some of your friends tell you to...''Get a Life''.  ;D

BTW  I remember the hand wringer for the wet clothes.

Regards,B_F

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I would say from my point of view, I shall never bore from my hobby/addiction.

I fly them all, GA, tubeys, gliders, boats, cars, buses.

If I'm in the mood for eye candy, I'll forgo the tubeliners and fly the 182RG in all it's high def glory around a scenic airport like Coffs, Hervey bay or Caloundra.

Then for realism, I'll drag the J41 out of the hangar and go throgh a walk through, FMS set-up, start-up via the book and fly a SID or practice ILS approach.

The level of realism can be customised for every situation.

I'll never be bored with it, I'll always buy add-ons to breath some new life into my hobby/addiction and give thanks that there are so many great companies like ORBX and PMDG and Carenado and A2A and.........

Frank

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Hmm ... I actually think the complete opposite. I could never be bothered with MS flight simulator in years gone by because it was not real enough. Now though, with FSX and it's ever increasing realistic addons, we a reaching a point where we can do things that match very closely to reality. You still can't get the pure feeling of flying (although, the tubeliners fly like buses anyway so my nice stable study chair is pretty close  :P), but we are getting so close with aircraft performance, navigation, virtual cockpits, the views outside, procedures and so on that it is finally becoming "worth" non-combat simming.

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When it looked like a game it got boring pretty quick. But the more real it gets the more interesting it gets for me.

When I show FTX to friends, even non-flyers, invariably their initial comment is "Wow, it looks so real!". There are so many different aspects and new challenges now that I can't imagine it could ever become boring.

Greg

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But what about those of you with extensive real world flying?  Can anything replace the feeling of the G forces, the sweat down final, the cross-wind landing with top rudder.  Is this enough?

I am just a glider pilot, but I can say that I love virtual flying just as much as real flying. Virtual flying gives you possibilities that you can never have with real flying and vice versa. What is great about flight simulator is the diversity you have. You can fly a small Cessna over the country side and half an hour later you get into a Concorde and fly to New York. 

I am really looking forward to the home 3D technology that is going to get a boost the next years. It will extremely enhance realism in flight simulator and it is a technology that is rather inexpensive, compared to full scale home cockpits or motion platforms.

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But what about those of you with extensive real world flying?  Can anything replace the feeling of the G forces, the sweat down final, the cross-wind landing with top rudder.  Is this enough?

Geez, I often have the adrenalin pounding and sweaty armpits on many of the tricky approaches .... and I'm a real RL pilot.

Except for the G Forces, the smells and the turbulence ... it's pretty real ... and a tad cheaper! ... but it will never replace being there.

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My reaction was mainly to the suggestions relating to moving humanoids on the ramp, boats and cars in FSX.

Were we beginning to dilute our immersive flight sim.

On the other hand, I am in two minds.  If we used the same scenery engine and simobjects management then there is no reason why we can't combine flying with ship simming, cars, trains, buses and farming.  All of which are on the market seperately.

Ships for instance would require channel markers, reefs, rocks and wharfs, all the detail we don't have now, but entirely possible.  Just imagine if a scenery designer was to attach this sort of detail to Manhattan X or Venice X for instance. If only Microsoft would sell the basic code, just think what a hugely diverse world we could create.

On the other hand, the scenery would have to be server based, and much would change.

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What we need is a way of importing photorealism into the sim, not just for scenery (which looks bad below 1500 ft right now, unlike FTX) but also for aircraft. Otherwise, no matter how good the artists get, we will still run into the 'uncanny valley' syndrome, where things look real only for seconds at a time. This is a big stretch for PC hardware, but the main problem is access to the imagery, which would simply not exist for most locations around the world. But imagine: a fully photoreal plane against a fully photoreal scenery at all viewing distances, including close up. We are nearly there with RealFlight...

http://www.realflight.com/new/index.html

Cheers,

Noel.

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But what about those of you with extensive real world flying?  Can anything replace the feeling of the G forces, the sweat down final, the cross-wind landing with top rudder.  Is this enough?

I'd have to say that no matter how "real" the virtual aviation world gets it could never beat the feeling of pulling 5g up into a loop and beat crabbing it down on the runway with an 8 knot crosswind.
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It definitely beats the feeling of trying to unstick the plane after it has settled in the wet grass for a few days, going arse over tit in the process and landing full square on your back in freezing mud, to the hilarity of everyone watching, followed by a grim, cold aircraft cleanup session post flight ("don't think you're leaving it covered in mud...")

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Tonight I was testing my cfg set-up, so I headed due east from KSEA, using real weather, and enjoying a fine climb out over the mountains. 

Rather than just fly, I selected an airfield, Moses Lake, KNWH as a destination. 

Ran into cloud.  Put on the Pilatus de-icers, and let down toward KNWH estimating the MEA as I descended.  Close to the destination I ran into a full-on snow storm. I crept along at mimimum altitude, when in the RW I'd have headed to the alternate. No time to find the ILS frequency ..  to pause the game would have been cheating.  Manouevered to a well lit runway, did a fairly bouncy cross-wind landing, finally stopped and reversed thrust.  Sat in the snow storm, and couldn't even figure out where the terminal was, let alone taxi to it.

Wringing wet with sweat:  yes, as good as it gets, and for a moment it was real, very real

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