MSFS 2020 Tips

[Theodore Martin]

WOW, that looks outstanding . Which version did you buy, my guess is the Premium Deluxe Edition?

[Harold Henderson]

Yes, I first bought the standard and then upgraded to Deluxe Premium. BUT you pay a premium of about $40 upgrading like I did. Go for the version you think you want right off the bat.

As far as I can see, there is no functionality difference between the versions, just more a/c and more detailed airports. My previous screenshot is with the Standard version.

[Abe Werda]

I also have spent lots of time trying to match the controllers to my yoke. When I think I got it, I need to start all over again. I would like to have set it, so I would Be able to use the same set up to all the aircrafts.

[Harold Henderson]

I also have spent lots of time trying to match the controllers to my yoke. When I think I got it, I need to start all over again. I would like to have set it, so I would Be able to use the same set up to all the aircrafts.

Abe, probably going to have to wait until FSUIPC7 is working with MSFS 2020.

[Harold Henderson]

Some of the MSFS a/c have issues. Example: fuel consumption is waaaaay too high for the Cessna CJ4 and Longitude business jets. The longitude is shown in MSFS 2020 to have a 3500nm range. I set out with half tanks and only was able to make about 600 miles. Should have been able to go twice that.

[Harold Henderson]

Another photo to make your mouth water. This is a DA62 overflying NIS, Nissan, Papua New Guinea.

MSFS DA62 at Nissan Papua New Guinea.jpg (285.44 KiB) Viewed 5336 times

[Harold Henderson]

Also a patch out. Fixes mostly installation issues, but it also fixes the simconnect.dll slow slide show problem!! FSUIPC7 now WORKS with MSFS 2020.

[Theodore Martin]

Harold,
Glad your MSFS issues are starting to be cleared up. Looks like my year hold out may be right on time.

That's a great pic at Papa New Guinea. I've been following a bush pilot on YouTube (Missionary Bush Pilot) who flys around Papa New Guinea carrying freight (and sometimes people) to grass strips. He flies a turboprop very similar to a B208 Caravan.

[Harold Henderson]

Just did a circuit to full stop at KPDX on VATSIM with all positions manned.

Flew in a C172. Tried to tune the ATIS frequency in COM2 but it did not get ATIS. Had to use COM1. Yes, I turned on COM2 to receive. I left COM1 to receive, too, thinking you can hear simultaneously from both.

Overall - as real to life (over 120 hours in C172s) as I have ever seen in a simulator!!! Biggest complaint for me was the taxiway signage was a little small and thus difficult to read. Your mileage may vary.

There is a new version of vPilot that auto recognized MSFS 2020. Didn't have to do anything different in vPilot - it just worked. Did have to delete the key mapping in MSFS 2020 that I had designated in vPilot for toggling my mike.

Here are my OPTIONS GENERAL settings for flying in VATSIM:

TRAFFIC: I set AIRCRAFT TRAFFIC TYPE OFF. I set the three AIRPORT LIFE DENSITY settings as shown. You could probably play with these, BUT even though I had SHOW TRAFFIC NAMEPLATES turned ON, I did NOT see any labels on VATSIM traffic. Of course, they aren't there in real life either.

MSFS 2020 OPTIONS GENERAL TRAFFIC Settings for Vatsim.jpg (183.91 KiB) Viewed 5314 times

DATA: Probably the only significant setting is MULTIPLAYER ON.

MSFS 2020 OPTIONS GENERAL DATA Settings for Vatsim.jpg (202.64 KiB) Viewed 5314 times

[Harold Henderson]

Just flew a leg of my current FREQ from KSLC to KTUL in the MSFS 2020 A320. Was really shocked at how much functionality is built into this initial release. In fact all the functionality I really needed for autoflight was there!! Can I lay claim to the first FREP flown in MSFS 2020?

ABout 30 mins out of KSLC with a band of dawn's gleam.

MSFS 2020 A320 Flight 1.jpg (171.26 KiB) Viewed 5304 times

At the gate at KTUL. On the approach one of my waypoints was RICKK. Made me think of our "good buddy" Rick Stevens from Tulsa.

MSFS 2020 A320 Flight 2.jpg (383.87 KiB) Viewed 5304 times

[Harold Henderson]

This morning I flew a night flight between 2 New Mexico general aviation airports with the steam gauge C172. Departure was from an airport @6500 feet and had to climb to 13,500 ft to get over some "hills". Made it but she was climbing 200 fpm at the end. The autopilot worked fine. Used SkyVector for maps for altitude minimums and nearby VOR freqs to see where I was relative to the "hills" - especially during let down for landing.

Almost as real as it gets! Come on Ted!

p.s. Don't tell the FAA I went that high without supplemental O2 BUT I may not have been above 12,500 more than 30 minutes.

[Harold Henderson]

Here are some pics using the MSFS 2020 Flight Planner.

1. Add your departure airport and starting position (gate, ramp, runway, etc) and then the same for the arrival airport. You might want to do frequent saves as you build your plan. As I learned the hard way, going back to change the arrival runway deleted all my added waypoints!

Then, start adding your waypoints by selecting them on the map or by searching for them.

MSFS 2020 VFR Direct GPS multi waypoints 1.jpg (130.31 KiB) Viewed 5303 times

The white dots are airports and navaids. You have to zoom in to see the symbology and to select them.

MSFS 2020 VFR Direct GPS multi waypoints 2.jpg (258.79 KiB) Viewed 5303 times

Flight plan in the GPS:

MSFS 2020 VFR Direct GPS multi waypoints 3.jpg (118.92 KiB) Viewed 5303 times

2. I went back and inserted several other waypoints between existing legs. Found 2 ways to do this:

1. Click on the map leg-line you want the new waypoint added between the leg waypoints.

2. Select the existing waypoint (in the text flight path line, not the map) you want the new one added after. Then select and add the new waypoint.

It appears you can also create and add Custom waypoints using lat/long entered into Search. Lat/Longs are entered in the format 9.999N, 9.999W. Of course "N" can be N or S; likewise, W or E. You can also use this trick to hunt for a "missing" airports. Note the flight plan "text" does not show the custom waypoint and it does not have a label in the map; however, it was loaded into the GPS as "Custom". I did delete a few waypoints before Custom so it would show on the first page.

You can delete a waypoint by clicking the waypoint on the text line and selecting Remove.

MSFS 2020 VFR Direct GPS multi waypoints 4.jpg (240.45 KiB) Viewed 5303 times

MSFS 2020 VFR Direct GPS multi waypoints 5.jpg (118.81 KiB) Viewed 5303 times

[Harold Henderson]

There is open source work going on to improve several of the MSFS 2020 aircraft. Here is a link to a project for the A320 https://github.com/flybywiresim/a32nx

"The A32NX Project is a community driven open source project to create a free Airbus A320neo in Microsoft Flight Simulator that is as close to reality as possible. It aims to enhance the default A320neo by improving the systems depth and functionality to bring it up to payware-level, all for free."

[Fareed Abdool]

Just flew a leg of my current FREQ from KSLC to KTUL in the MSFS 2020 A320. Was really shocked at how much functionality is built into this initial release. In fact all the functionality I really needed for autoflight was there!! Can I lay claim to the first FREP flown in MSFS 2020?

ABout 30 mins out of KSLC with a band of dawn's gleam.
MSFS 2020 A320 Flight 1.jpg

At the gate at KTUL. On the approach one of my waypoints was RICKK. Made me think of our "good buddy" Rick Stevens from Tulsa.
MSFS 2020 A320 Flight 2.jpg

There's an American livery for the A320 in the MSFS Livery Mega Pack, and it's all free. You can get it on their Discord channel.

[Wayne Pierce]

Can I lay claim to the first FREP flown in MSFS 2020?

No. A new pilot had filed before you using MSFS 2020 In the training HUB. It is in the management forums.