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  • Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

    Post 16 Update

    Post 17 Warning

How do you fly

Most of the flying I do is FDE development and testing. With some 22,000 hours of plane flying since 1973, it's how I know to fly. An exception has been with the S2 project, trying to get the nose wheel to flyoff correctly at the rit speed. Every landing is replayed from the outside to critically examine the touchdown and rollout. I only regret that with moving ai ships carrier landings are not re playable.

I find that pitch and bank reference are much mor rprecise from inside.

T
 
The Henschel looks gorgeous Fleurdelys! Thanks for sharing your thoughts and you definitely made some good observations.

For me its not really clear whether I'm a VC or spotview man. I like to take off in the VC, however as soon as I'm in the air I like to go to spotview. I Normally I try to land fomr the VC, but somewhere during the landing I have to go in spotview.

When I work on repaints I often use the "Y" key and F4 to enable me to look at the model I'm painting from all angles.

Cheers,
Huub
 
Fleurdelys,
First of all, beautiful aircraft, well done.
As for your comments, I see them as a cross section of our community as a whole. There will always be folks to the left, right or dead center and I guess we can't really chide any of them for their opinions since that's what makes SOH so interesting. My perspective, since FSX, is in the cockpit (VC) and I'll tell ya why. You can walk around an airplane and admire the lines, the beauty of a machine that can take you away from the stresses you mention. You can smell the fuel, maybe still feel the heat from an exhaust, you can touch it and marvel at it. . . .but even if you've never flown an airplane before in your life, the second you climb into the cockpit and slide into the seat. . . .if only in your mind, you are a pilot. You can feel the controls, the switches, the knobs the ambiance of the moment and it will take you to another place. You can imagine all sorts of scenarios and you just know you could be that person, you could make that tough landing in a storm and get home safe. Our imagination is boundless and some of us have moved beyond that to the real thing and have had the reality of piloting a craft, while others, many more of us I suspect, will just have to do with a healthy imagination. You can dream about flight as you walk around the airplane and admire it, but nowhere is it more real than in the cockpit (VC).

So coming briefly back to earth, if it doesn't have a VC, it won't get a second look. That says nothing about the abilities of the designer or the external beauty of his/her creation, it just says a lot about where IMHO, many of us feel the sensation of true flight is the strongest.

Again, thanks for your efforts and for sharing your thoughts. Good stuff!:salute:
 
It's all good for me.

Every way possible! Start up, Take off and landing from the cockpit. Taxi from spot view and tower view. Navigate from the cockpit. Admire the paint jobs and detail from any and all angles. We are blessed with such a wealth of beautiful artwork I could not limit enjoyment to any part. That being said, the whole reason I fly sims is the immersion factor. I want to know what must the airplane feel like to fly and land or even fight. I also fly R/C so if a fine model doesn't have a VC then I fly it from tower view. Its all good. -Jim
 
Well, okay, true.
But you certainly can do maintenance from the outside while in flight... :icon_lol:

J3Maint.jpg


VC man myself, the more detailed the better in my book.
Has to have a great VC as I will be spending most of my sim time in the "office".

I've tried it like this, but it's more comfortable sitting on the wing!! For takeoff, landing, and course corrections, it's VC; but I do spend
a lot of time outside the cockpit while in flight. The VC is fun especially if you're going through mountains.
Good pic, Dain!
 
VC only.


I've spent three years on a Do-328, but never fly it as it doesn't have a VC (yet). :icon_lol:
 
VC, and Spot View mainly. But I tend to cycle through all the views. A full walk around to enhance the immersion always gets the best of me. Especially when I have a nice paint scheme in progress. Tower view is a great vision too. Any R/C flier will agree!
 
I originally come from race sims and in those I never felt connected to the car in outside view so when I discovered flight sims the VC was the natural choice.
I do tend to taxi tail dragger's from spot view though, more from laziness than any other reason, also I can hover and land helicopters easier from spot view. But other than that its VC all the way.
 
That's a mighty fine Henschel "Eins-Zwei-Drei" you've go there, Fleurdelys.
I certainly hope one day you'll reconsidere and share your work with us!

....... I can appreciate that the mostly VC feel that way at having fun checking gauges, turning knobs or pushing buttons as they would if they were really flying that particular plane. What I feel left out a bit is when some of you flatly say that if there is no VC, then that plane wont even be downloaded to your PC because you can't have that particular piece of candy that you prefer...

Fleurdelys

Uhmm, you can actually look outside of the cockpit and enjoy the scenery when you sit in it.
To me it's just part of the immersion to sit inside the plane and look outside rather than the opposite.
Nothing better than controlling your plane from the seat of your pants, looking around, have a quick glance over your gauges, do some corrections if necessary and continue enjoying the flight.
 
Mostly VC for take offs and landings with outside views for admiring aircraft and scenery and replays.
 
Similar to the above sentiments:

1. I look for a good to high quality virtual cockpit.
2. I also look for a good to high quality exterior model.

I fly a mix between VC and spot-view, and sometimes use 2D pop-up panels to access quick things if it's easier.
 
VC. I do like to poke around a bit and admire the scenery and the airplane.....but mostly VC.

And since I paid for and own the simulation, as well as the models I fly, I figure I can fly it any darn well way I please, and heap foul scorn upon any prince of Europe, that should dare to invade the borders of my realm.

Or are we at Tilbury?

 
I come from the combat sim side, where it's much easier to select Wonder Woman View. Before that I flew FS3, 4, 98 and wanted a proper cockpit to sit in, so I prefer VC: panel view just says FS Old to me, sorry! I also model and a fine, functioning VC is a wonderful thing to aim for. The more I learn about flying and aircraft, the more I want everything working.

@fleurdelys: that model is nothing to be ashamed of - and it's skinned too! :applause: :applause: :applause:
 
....VC only. Perhaps because after FS2000 it was possible to fly from the VC, a matter of actually "being there", the cockpit, the office, from where YOU control.

For repaints I go spot view, but I guess that would be obvious.....!:icon_lol:


Cheers,
Hank
 
Dear fellow simmers,

But I wonder how much of this is lost to those who swear by the VC or mostly VC alone option as far as looking at textures from inside the cockpit or listening to the cone manipulation of the sound as the plane flyes to or away from the observer...
If I recall, the sound inside the VC is different from that of the outside view and muffled to the point that if you are concentrating on your panel, you probably don't hear it at all or don't care as long as it's there in the background ...

I counted the VC only or mostly VC fans from the start of this thread and you stand at a whopping 82% with the rest of us being left out in the cold or spot view mostly...
I know that it takes all types to make a world and I can appreciate that the mostly VC feel that way at having fun checking gauges, turning knobs or pushing buttons as they would if they were really flying that particular plane. What I feel left out a bit is when some of you flatly say that if there is no VC, then that plane wont even be downloaded to your PC because you can't have that particular piece of candy that you prefer...

I think that building a plane or skinning it or making it fly as closes to specs or sound like or whatever takes time, patience and a particular dedication from those that are willing to invest their skills (however good that may be) and by limiting oneself to a particular part of the plane is akin to leaving out those that are not up to your specific standards...

Fleurdelys

I understand your concern but I think you might be "over-estimating" the problem here, or perhaps "mis-understanding" would be a more appropriate term.
For example, I wrote that I fly from the VC only, just like many others. That doesn't mean that I don't check the external views from time to time ! I just don't use them for piloting/controlling the aircraft, but I surely use them for admiring the aircraft and taking screenshots !

That means that the work that has been done by the texture artist, or the sound artist or the 3D artist, is FULLY appreciated.
I don't think that anybody's here is willing to fly a plane that has a nice virtual cockpit but a bad external model, right ? Additionnaly, we can often see several threads from people looking for GOOD sounds for those aircrafts. The interest is there !

Finally, the reason I use the simulators is because I want to get a flying experience that is as close as possible to the real world experience that is out of my reach.
I want to get an aircraft that is as close as possible to the real one. I want it to look like the real one, I want it to sound like the real one, I want it to fly/react like the real one, and especially, I want to see what the real pilot sees when he is sitting in his cockpit. That's why I prefer the 3D cockpits, because I want to see on my screen what the pilot sees with his eyes. I want to look up or to the right when the real pilot has to look up or to the right. This precise need makes all 2D panels totally excluded. That's what I mean when I write "VC only". That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the external views at all :)
 
Each to his/her own... diversity is, like variety, a spice of life :)

To me, it is all about recreating the feeling that I am actually in control of the aircraft. The addon has to have a VC, and a good one at that, or I will simply avoid downloading and installing it. I do not have as much free time as I would wish to have and spending that rare time in a model that does not cut it in my mind is just a waste of that time.

Needless to say, I will spend a few minutes from time to time using one of the outside presets or customizing one to a specific view for a screenshot in a competition for example... But the flight will be started and finished up front... I find it almost impossible these days to land in any external view, as I am now used to the various reference points in the VCs...

My hangar consists of A2A accusims, a number of Realair packages, the PMDG MD11X, JS41, and NGX, and a few other oddities... all flown from start to finish from the VC viewpoint...

Andrew
 
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