Flight Simulator

As well as flying my real aircraft I’ve also been a fan of various computer based flight simulators over the years. The latest (and most realistic we are told) is Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 which was released in November. I’ve not yet experienced it but over the past few weeks I have been experimenting with its predecessor, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (msfs2020).

This was also ground-breaking when it was launched and I decided to give it a go when I found that it was being offered at a significantly reduced price, not because I’m a skinflint but because I wanted to see how it would run on my PC before making the enormous (and expensive) leap into the 2024 version.

I only have what nowadays might be described as a mid-range PC set up – Windows 11 Pro 64 Bit, Intel Core i5-12600KF processor running at 3.69 GHz, Nvidia RT3060 GPU and 32 GGB of DDR4 RAM. What makes these new sims most interesting is that they can be run in Virtual Reality (VR) mode and I run msfs2020 in VR in a Quest 3 headset which I acquired from LeBonCoin.

VR mode allows you to ‘sit’ in the cabin of the simulator aircraft with full 360 degree vision. This means that as well as being able to look out of the front of the aircraft you can also turn your head from side-to-side while flying it giving a lifelike viewing experience that makes ‘flying’ the simulator very immersive. The downside is that this naturally requires considerable computer processing power and graphics resources. Nevertheless, I’m more than pleased with the performance I’m getting. I can’t do crazy things like fly through the skyscrapers of London or New York which would reduce my frame rate to single figures but I enjoy an extremely immersive experience for the kind of low level general aviation flying that I like to do in real life.

Shown below is a video which I shot earlier flying out and back from my real life airfield, Chateau Malbec here in France. The strip appears in the simulator but only as bare grass so I’ve had to make it into something more resembling real life. We used to have two green hangars on the airfield but now only have one. They looked a bit different to the ones I’ve used but that doesn’t matter because the overall effect is strikingly similar.

The runway slopes exactly as in the scenery with trees on the approach and there are two barns which don’t look exactly like the ones I’ve used but again, that doesn’t matter because it’s the effect that counts and only I and anyone who’s actually been to the field know what it’s actually like in real life and the latter would recognise it I’m absolutely certain. I have more detail to add, like improving the tree coverage and trying to add some fences, which are difficult to do on sloping ground, but I’m reasonably confident it might be possible.

I’ve included the mobile phone tower which stands close to the top of the runway in real life and also another significant feature, namely a very tall TV and radio broadcasting tower with flashing lights which is almost always visible in the distance, depending on the weather, on a direct line looking down the runway. The tower is at a commune called Audrix and if you google that name and click on ‘images’, you’ll see lots of pictures of it.

The video is of a flight from Chateau Malbec to Audrix and then to the town of Le Bugue just to the west of it which is instantly recognisable in the sim. Then back up to the river Vézère and along to Les Eyzies which is also very recognisable.

Les Eyzies is famous for being where prehistoric man used to live in caves on the cliff faces there and yes, there are houses there today built into the cliff faces. Not quite as per the simulator, as seen in the video, but the program designers did a pretty good job even so. Then again, they were Asobo, a French company.

Finally, from Les Eyzies the video takes you back the short distance for a landing on Chateau Malbec’s sloping runway which is a test in the sim just as it is in real life. The landing was not the tidiest ever, but then again, I don’t usually fly taildraggers 😉

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