Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020)

I'm still pretty much completely absorbed by this.. game -- if man can call it that. You can relax once you are on stable flight, but you also need to pay attention to whats going on, specially if, like me, you don't use autopilot.

Now I've realised that I can use Radio Garden to listen to (some) local radio stations for a even more genuine experience (well, not really, since I think you're not supposed to listen to the radio while flying in case you need to hear instructions from ATC, but whatever). So I had some fun flying over Croatia while listening to Split Radio.

Things I learned playing MFS:

1. Flying is relaxing as hell. I love the challenge of maintaining a stable flight by ever so slightly touching the controls, increasing or decreasing thrust. It reminds me a little of how when I drive I try to keep a constant velocity and changing speed as gently as I can (I hate driving, though)

2. The world is lousy with airports, airfields and airstrips. I'm doing a bush trip along the patagonian Andes and the whole friking place is littered with runways, even in the some of the most remote areas. Some of them are just straight areas of cut-down forest in the middle of nowhere. Some of them not even that; just a designated zone of slightly shorter grass that's barely visible from the air.

3. Flying with a cat on the lap is not the better, albeit less realistic, way to fly.

   

I guess I shouldn't complain since this is a simulator, but I'd hope for more tutorials or some way of organically learning the ropes. Right now you've got eight tutorials that teach you a bit of how to fly, take off, land and navigate, but it doesn't teach you anything else, such as flight levels, communicating with air traffic control, energy management, etc... It's all on a Cessna and there's no tutorial on any of the other planes.

Still, it's quite an interesting experience (hard to call it a game, really). I started a big 7-hour tour of Patagonia and it was actually exiting to fly over Ushuaia just a few weeks after I visited there. I think it can be a pretty good podcast game, since most of the time your just making small adjustments to attitude and watching the scenery while waiting for the next waypoint.

On our trip to Ushuaia, my girlfriend and I started talking and reading about planes and stuff. In particular, we were puzzled about the old runway. It's incredibly short and oriented north-south in a place with strong and persistent westerlies. Even worse, it points toward the city, so landing planes had to fly really low over buildings. Why did anyone think it was a good idea?

Anyway, all that lead me to think about giving flight simulator a try. I vaguely remember playing Flight Simulator 98 and crashing the training Cessna a couple of times. So here we are... again crashing the training Cessna 🤣

Talk about your bad first impressions...

Was very intrigued to play this game and learn. I realized it had a lot of complex controls so I started with the tutorials. The 1st tutorial got stuck! I tried performing all the objectives it asked and it wouldn't advance to the next step. This was only the 2nd step wherein you are supposed to move your camera around; I wasn't even controlling the plane yet. Tried to skip to the 2nd tutorial but I was operating at a huge deficit and crashed the plane.

Googled this and apparently it is not an uncommon problem. The workaround suggested: Watch someone else play the tutorial on YouTube. Not sure if the game is worth my time anymore.