7 replies to this topic

[FSXman]

Does anyone else think that this may be a great alternative to "McFlight"?
AeroflyFS

[Cortez]

No, Aerofly is only a certain area of the world. It's a great concept, but very limited.

[ChaoticBeauty]

Great base, but needs much more development.

[FSXman]

I believe it is only Switzerland right now, but it is an outstand scenery of this beautiful area.  The aircraft aerodynamics are supposed to be very good also, much better than FSX and maybe even better than X-Plane.
I am not going to buy it until they have a secure website or Paypal to purchase it with.  I would be reluctant to put my cc# in anything that doesn't say "https" at the top.
I believe it will be worth trying.
McFlight will be a complete rip-off in my opinion, since it will use McLive and McPoints for expanding the sim.  They will have complete control over the costs involved in expanding the McFlight game.
FSX will continue to be my main sim long into the future, next would be X-Plane 10 then maybe this AeroFlyFS.

[touchdown]

I think the Aerofly has potential, but is similar to MS Flight in that it offers only a small area to begin with. We will see.
Btw, this thread title sounded suspiciously close to one of those proflightsim ploys

[EduardoSpaz]

touchdown, on Feb 18 2012, 10:24 PM, said:

I think the Aerofly has potential, but is similar to MS Flight in that it offers only a small area to begin with. We will see.
Btw, this thread title sounded suspiciously close to one of those proflightsim ploys

  That is the only similarity between the two.  Microsoft is aiming more and more at making this a "game" rather than aerofly as a realistic sim.

[FSXman]

I am definately going to try out AeroFlyFS.  It is worth it even just to fly around in GA in Switzerland.  I was checking out their forums and the scenery really looks awesome and the flight dynamics seem to be very realistic.  They show a Cessna performing a stall and several real pilots on FSBreak say that the characteristics are pretty darn good and light years better than FSX.
They are telling me know that just because the HTTPS is not at the top it doesn't mean that the actual transfer of payment data is not secure.  The website says that it is encripted, so I'm going to try it.

I have no intentions of every installing McFlight on my computer.  Microsoft has it set up like a scam, just flying around a portion of Hawaii and haveing to purchase a little more of the islands for $20. Anyway, it just looks like a childs game to me.

Edited by FSXman, 18 February 2012 - 11:37 PM.

[Jonay]

DrWatson on this site already has this game

Dr...Watson, on Jan 14 2012, 10:15 AM, said:

Hoi zäme

Since buying the game a couple of days ago I have managed to play it for a few hours.  I won't write a store, I will just make a simply list of some positives and negatives and a short conclusion.  Let's be optimistic and start with the positives!

- Load times are vesy fast, on the games first start, it requires 20 seconds from start to incockpit, then 5 seconds to change aircraft. Exit the game and restarting, it then requires 5 secs to load game 1 second to change aircraft or location.
- Aircraft sounds are very realistic, good mixture of bass and treble, dynamic sounds outside, very atmospheric.
- Cockpit lighting/self shadowing is amazing.
- External aircraft self shadows are amazing.
- Cockpit detail is very good in parts, all parts apart from gauges are very well modelled.
- Game runs at 60FPS ALWAYS, I haven't not managed to get it below 60FPS with any combo of AA & AF setting, resolutions settings or in game detail settings
- There are no blurries and no pop ups what so ever. Graphics are clear and crisp always.
- Turbulence and wind is very well simulated.  Light winds results in the aircraft bobbing around gentle, landings require a bit of concentration to conter the breeze which throws the plane arond randomly
- Track IR is fully supported
- Sense of speed is better than FSX.  Flying 150kts at low level feels fast, flying the F18 at 500kts is extremely fun, especially since the ground textures stay sharp.
- Wind noise from cockpit is realistic.
- The flight model for most aircraft is very good throughout the normal flight envelope.  There are some negatives though.
- Graphics are amazing, I thought this would be like FSX with Swiss Pro (I have Swiss Pro for FS9 and FSX) but it is another level.  Much sharper, much higher resolution and no blurries.
- Winds and fog and very realisitic
- Wind noise sounds change depending on flap and gear settings, works very well.

Negatives
- No clickable cockpit
- Engine is always on
- No light systems (no landing lights etc)
- No start from Ramp, choose start in air or start on runway for a variety of airfields
- I think Birrfeld is the only detailed airfied, everything else looks great from height but is just flat phot scenery in the ground.  At Zurich airport, from cockpit view, you would not know you were on an airport.
- No navigation possible with aids, vor, ndb etc.
- Time of day is fixed
- Weather can be change but max cloud is around 3/8 cover.
- Pressure is fixed, no way to change altimeter anyway!
- No AI aircraft
- No ATC system
- Joystick sensitivity is a general slider, no tunning of axis (although this wasn't a big issue)
- Lack of sounds from moving flap level and gear lever etc
- Flight dynamics when near stall, or spinning are not well modelled.  Some aircraft flick roll which is fairly realistic, other don't really do anything and continue to climb or turn with the stall warning sounding.
- No multiplayer/online play
- No sloped runways
- Crash dynamics are not that good
- No rudder is required in any aircraft during turns, turns are always coordinated.
- Menu system looks extensive but is actually very repatitious and poor. ( you can change the wind, clouds and graphics from any pull down menu, it's just worded differently in each menu "change wind" "set conditions" etc)
This is certainly not a replacement for FSX, you buy to use as a seperate simulator.  The graphics are stunning and flight dynamics are very good but with some weak spots.
On takeoff and landing, the rudder works well, you can sideslip the Extra 330 on approach with full rudder to see where you are going, then straighten up on the flare, this works perfectly and is how it's done in real life.  But then you do some 45 degree turns and the bubble sits in the middle, the rudder isn't moving, its just always coordinated.  The Pitts seems to have a mega fast roll rate at any speed, 60kts, you can do 2 rolls a second.  Landing in a cross wind is fun, but on contact with the ground, the aircraft rolls very violently, requiring full joystick input to keep it level (10 kt breeze)
I have had  A LOT of fun flying the glider, set the winds to fairly strong and the updrafts up the mountain slopes gives you +1000ft a min, not sure if that is realistic but it is fun.  The flight dynamics of the gliders is very accurate.  This is very close or on par with Condor soaring. With a 20kt wind, you can fly the glider all day if you want if you have the right slopes or find a thermal.  You can have the thermals and wind direction shown on screen if you need some help, wind direction is shown by a coloured arrow, which points the exact direction, ie, it points upwards if the air is rising.
The F18 flies suprisingly well, takeoff and landing are great fun, flying at 200ft and 500kts is really fun, the aircraft handling feels spot on, the HUD is easy to read and functions well. The only downside is that there is no G lock, you can pull back at 500kts, 11G, the speed bleeds of nicely until you are at 180kts, then with full burner you can hold 3 G loops for ever, not realisitic but not a big deal.

The game is made by Ikarus, a German company based just over the Swiss border in the Black Forest.  The founder and owner is a helicopter RC champion.  He has developed Aerofly series for RC training over many years, I have flown the there RC sims a lot, I used to fly RC years ago.  Aerofly FS flight dynamics are much better than expected, I ma having a lot of fun with it.  It seems that the followers of this sim are very patient and realistic about the future.  Nobody is bashing the developers because of all the negative points I listed (how can you compete with FSX if you can't navigate, switch off the engine, have lights etc).  The sim is a starting point for the developers to developing something better.  I am also not sure if I am biased towards it since it is I live here, I can takeoff from Birrfeld and follow the roads, rivers, towns for an hour or 2 without getting lost, I enjoy spotting all the places, if I get lost, a keypress brings up the name of every town and village on the screen, cool.  If you didn't know where you were, I am not so sure it would as interesting, I can't really say.  I certainly think it is worth the money, it would be really good if someone else could try it and give some input too.  
If you are looking for airliner flying, forget it, if you like low and slow, gliders, some aerobatics and you don't mind having stunning scenery then you should seriously consider it.  Ikarus have basically said that they are listening to the community and plan and new version of Aerofly FS.  I don't know if this is a major update or a complete new version I would have to buy.  

Info, features, gallery, forum are below

http://www.aerofly-f...n/about-us.html

http://www.aerofly-f...m/index.php/en/

http://www.aerofly-f...s/features.html

http://www.aerofly-f...fs/gallery.html

http://www.aerofly-f...en/forumen.html
I will add plenty of screenshots later today or tomorrow.  If there are any particular shots people would like to see then please let me know.  Considering it takes 1 sec to change location and change aircraft then it's easy to get a variety of shots.  Any other questions, fire away...
There are plenty of video's on youtube now, head over to Avsim FSX forum for some more discussions.

http://forum.avsim.n...-forward-to-it/

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