Concorde comes to Microsoft Flight Simulator

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In his younger days my father-in-law worked on the Concorde based in Bristol giving tours around the plane. The aircraft now lives in a spiffy new museum but I’ve got very fond memories of visiting the plane when it was parked on the BAE site and having him show us around.

There is now a rather good simulation of Concorde for Microsoft Flight Simulator available. We got it running on the Xbox and it is great fun. Just about all of the controls work and there are some useful automatic controls for things like fuel weight distribution (a big thing on this plane) . It turned out to be a really good way to reminisce together (you can walk around the cabin as well as the cockpit) and we could even take the plane up for a flight, which was not something that they were allowed to do in Bristol.

Concorde was a classic piece of engineering the like of which we will never see again. It is nice to see it being kept alive like this.

Happy Flying with Microsoft Flight Sim

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we think this plane is definitely happy

Going flying is now a big social thing in our house. Three of us go flying together once a week and on weekend afternoons we get together over coffee and then go for a flight using the TV in the living room. Today we took a flight round Australia, what with the new landscape pack just having been released. They keep on about this “metaverse” thing. I think bits of it are already here.

Microsoft Flight Sim on the Xbox Series X

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I must have been a good boy last year, because I managed to wangle an Xbox Series X as part of my Christmas present. I got a notification that Shopto had got some in stock so I pounced. The machine arrived on Christmas eve, two days after I’d ordered it, which was most impressive. I’m now going to have to sell the old console and a bunch of other bits and bobs to pay for it. The machine is super. It works a treat and I’ve loaded all my Game Pass games onto it, including Microsoft Flight Sim.

I can’t believe how good Flight Sim looks. And the loading times are pretty speedy so that it is very easy to go for a quick flight during a coffee break. The only slight snag is that I’m having to control the plane with an Xbox controller, but the good news is that the flying skills I’ve picked up from my weekly flying sessions on the PC have transferred across. Although I still managed to plant my aircraft into the runway a couple of times in front of everyone.

Flying the Junkers Ju 52 in Microsoft Flight Sim

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Junkers.jpg

You’ve probably not heard of the Junkers Ju 52. It was around in the 1930’s and was one of the first ever passenger planes. It’s just appeared in Microsoft Flight Sim. You have to buy it (it costs around 12 pounds) but I think it is worth the money. It’s just great fun to fly. We spent a very happy evening flying around Iceland hopping from airfield to airfield. Number one son found the flight plan here. Things I learned about the plane:

  • It has three engines. These might only be mapped to two of your throttles. They were for me. My first take-off only used two of them, so I was flying sideways for a while before I figured this out. I mapped the two outer engines to one throttle lever and the middle one to the other one. This worked for me but it may be more useful to have independent throttle control for the left and right engines because….

  • I found that the plane really likes to fly sideways. The rudder didn’t do a lot for me in respect of turning. Perhaps you are supposed to steer with the engines sometimes. Anyhoo, this wasn’t a problem, except when landing. I found that pointing the plane in the required direction and giving it a burst of throttle would get it going the right way long enough to land.

  • It will land and take off at stupidly small speeds and will happily burble along at a few hundred feet. Braking after you have landed can be a problem though. The plane loves to stick its’ nose in the ground if you brake too hard.

  • The cockpit is awesome. Lots of metal and leather. And the view out is very good.

  • There is a version with floats so you can land on water. You can take off using the floats on dry land, but it takes ages to get up any speed and you fell really bad about doing it.

  • It is very forgiving. At no point did it fall apart in the air or collapse on landing. It was originally designed to have one engine, then they added two more. This means that there is plenty of power on to tap to get you out of trouble at low speeds.

It may seem a strange plane for Microsoft to choose to release. Why not something fast and exciting? Well, for me the problem with fast and exciting is that you whizz past everything and find it very hard to fly in a group. With this plane we were able to stay together and admire the scenery (and each other’s planes) as we chugged over the countryside. And landing and taking off were a hoot.

Don’t try this unless you want a very slow takeoff,,,

Don’t try this unless you want a very slow takeoff,,,

Microsoft Flight Simulator in "even more awesome" shock

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At the end of last month a couple of things happened to Microsoft Flight Simulator. The first thing is that it got smoother and faster (especially the loading times) and the second thing is that it now runs on XBOX. I’m not lucky enough to have an XBOX that it will run on, but number one son has and reports that it works rather well.

It is an astonishing piece of software. If you’ve not had a go with it you are definitely missing out.

The Humber Bridge is now on Microsoft Flight Simulator

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When I first saw the new Microsoft Flight Simulator I muttered that the Humber Bridge didn’t look up to much. It does now. The wonderful people at flightsim.to have spent ages making a really nice looking model that you can add to your installation of the program. It makes a bridge that is truly worth flying round. I’ve no idea if you can fly underneath it, but I’m going to have a try.

You can find the model here. Its a free download once you’ve signed in.

Night Flying

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The view of the runway

The view of the runway

Tonight we thought we’d fly over Mont Blanc. Which was sensible enough as people say it looks fantastic. Although doing the flight at night might have been a bit more adventurous than we’d bargained for. I find it hard enough to stay in the air under normal circumstances, but it is even harder when the invisible ground keeps coming up to say hello.

Anyhoo, we made it as far as the unlit runway that was our destination, but I was as usual unable to land successfully. Oh well, there is always next week.

Quick Landing

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It turns out that going flying is a social thing. We meet up on a Monday, someone suggests a flight plan and off we go, trying to keep each other in sight. Tonight’s flight was going well until someone remembered that there was a TV program on in 8 minutes that they rather wanted to see. This was a cue for everyone to drop 10,000 feet and head for the nearest airfield. It was all rather exciting. I’m even planning on getting a proper joystick because although it is possible to fly a plane from an XBOX gamepad I’m pretty sure that the professionals don’t do it that way.

Formation Flying in Flight Simulator

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If you look very carefully at this picture you can see the two other planes I’m, ahem, flying in formation with….. It was a lovely evening. The plan was to take off from Elvington airfield and then land at Humberside airport. And we did. Mostly. My goodness, flying properly is hard. Something simple like keeping a constant speed and height seems to involve constant control fiddling.

After our Yorkshire flight we went down to London City Airport and then flew over to Filton near Bristol. London looked magnificent in the evening sunshine. I managed a very bouncy touchdown and then crashed into a tree taxiing for a group picture. But it was all great fun and something we will definitely do again.