While the time “logged’ using X-Plane or Microsoft Flight Simulator doesn’t count toward the required time for a certificate or rating, and it won’t give you the kinesthetic feel for the aircraft, it can still help reinforce concepts learned in lessons.

According to a newly published study from the Flight Simulation Association (FSA), those who use home flight simulation technology as a supplement to their flight training are able to receive their certificate with “5.5 fewer flight training hours than those who don’t, and in almost 20 hours less than the FAA average.” The study surveyed some 1,000 pilots and air traffic controllers who use home flight simulation.

“We have always known that enthusiast flight simulation impacts pilot training but have never had a way to quantify it,” said Rick Parker, an airline pilot and co-founder of NextLevel XR. “This survey is a great first step to showing there is serious benefit from complimenting aircraft training with structured or unstructured time in a home flight simulator.”

For a pilot training under a Part 61 program, 40 hours is the minimum required for private pilot certification, but decades of data show that most people have 70 hours or more before they get their ticket. 

Procedures Training

Using home flight simulation allows the learner to perform a more robust version of chair flying—the practice of sitting in a chair as if in the cockpit and running through procedures such as engine start, takeoff and landing. A home flight sim setup provides an opportunity to build muscle memory as you throw switches, press buttons and manipulate controls.

Cross-Country Prep

Getting lost is one of the number of concerns new pilots have. Practicing cross-country flights in the home sim before making them in the real world can help prepare pilots.

It helped Michael Puoci, a 50-hour student pilot in the Seattle area who also works in the computer gaming and virtual flight training industry designing virtual cockpits. Puoci, like so many low-time pilots, was a bit anxious about basic navigation, and worried he’d get lost.

“I would plan my route and use X-Plane to fly it. The graphics were good and matched the topography so I was able to pick out my landmarks,” he said.

When it came time to fly the route in the real world, he said the home sim practice flight, “helped a ton, because I could quickly glance out the window and recognize where I was. It became easier to stay ahead of the airplane.”

The sim is often a better learning environment because the action can be paused and mistakes undone with a keystroke.

“You can pause and learn how to troubleshoot and solve problems,” he said. “You learn how to do that in the sim because in the airplane things can get worse quickly if you don’t have that skill.” 

Sometimes real world flight training helps a sim user diagnose a problem. Puoci was having an issue with his virtual airplane—the engine ran rough shortly after he taxied out of the virtual hangar. His real-world CFI asked him if he had leaned the mixture for taxi or attempted to clear the magneto prior to takeoff. As he had never learned about this, he had not. It was demonstrated in the real world, and when he returned to the virtual world, he applied what had been learned and it fixed the issue.

Accept Limitations

One of the common complaints about simulation technology is that it doesn’t “fly like the real thing.” No it doesn’t. And it’s not supposed to. Once the learner accepts that, they can take advantage of the application of sim technology. The CFIs who regularly make use of simulation technology will warn you the sim is significantly more challenging than the airplane to fly, as you do not have that “seat of the pants” feeling, therefore you need to develop a better instrument scan. 

Virtual ATC

When the home sim is paired with a virtual air traffic controller, such as PilotEdge, it can be an excellent way for the learner to develop the skills they need in the real world, because there are usually multiple aircraft on frequency—just like the real world—and these controllers will tell you when you have clipped controlled airspace or you are at the wrong altitude. But unlike the real world, your certificate won’t be at risk.

The FSA survey also looked at the impact home flight simulation has on air traffic controllers. The results show that home flight simulation could be an undiscovered source of air traffic control recruitment—perhaps even training—that is likely being overlooked by regulators and civil aviation agencies.

 “The advancements in home-based simulation hardware and software have transformed a community once seen as purely hobbyist into a pipeline of motivated and focused individuals with readily accessible tools to explore and prepare for a career in aviation,” said Jon Standley, an air traffic management industry professional and graduate of the FAA’s Collegiate Training Initiative program.

The Home Sim Set Up

Some home simulation setups can cost thousands of dollars, depending on if the user wants a full set up with yoke and rudder pedals, a special chair and multiple screens and speakers for a full immersive experience. And on the other side, are the desktop devices created by flight simulation companies that cater to professional pilots, such as Redbird Flight Simulations from Austin, Texas. The company makes the FMX, a full motion device that puts the user inside an enclosed cockpit all the way to the J-Bird, which is a desktop model.

“For years Redbird Flight has helped countless aviation professionals achieve their career goals,” says Harvey Madison, a learning development specialist at the company. “For pilots from all sectors of aviation, including Parts 91,121, 135, and beyond, Redbird plays an integral part in learning, mastering, and maintaining top performance skills.”

The FSA is a free to join community of flight sim enthusiast pilots and industry developers and organizer of FlightSimExpo, one of the world’s largest dedicated flight simulation conventions. The next event is scheduled for June 21-23 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The post Survey: Home Flight Sim Helps Prepare Real-World Pilots appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

It was a great place to attempt to simulate in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS2020)—a low-level, risky flight that barely cleared terrain. 

As I get older, my real-life flying is becoming more conservative. In a flight sim, however, I’ll take risks. 

I targeted three unique destinations in Washington state, starting at Ranger Creek Airport (21W) near Greenwater, then Tieton State Airport (4S6) in Rimrock, and Strom Field Airport (39P) in Morton. I downloaded freeware scenery for each field in order to enhance the small airport feel and theme. Custom scenery for all the airports is available to download free here. 

High Terrain

This route brings you over some pretty high terrain, so I chose the recently released Beechcraft 60 Duke by Just Flight. 

The Black Square Duke is a “study level” complete version of the real thing, an airplane you must take care of and maintain realistically. This airplane is powerful, with turbocharged engines and a healthy climb rate. It will have no trouble getting over the peaks, even on a warm day of 70 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Ranger Creek sits east of massive Mount Rainier and is perhaps the closest airport to that famous dormant volcano. I have always wanted to go there in person, because it sounded mysterious and backcountry-ish. 

• READ MORE: Simulated Austria Is Wild, Wonderful

The scenery in these airports adds enough added objects to increase the immersion factor. I don’t believe it reduces any FPS performance to any noticeable effect over default, so most everyone should be able to use it well.

Choosing the recently released Beechcraft Duke was easy. The flight sim community has been awaiting this some time now, as beloved Black Square designer (famous for the redos of the default Bonanza, Baron, and TBM) had decided to design this entire airplane from scratch, modeling everything perfectly.

It doesn’t disappoint, and the couple of hours I spent on this article was not enough to begin to learn this fully detailed aircraft. It is a “living, breathing plane,” one of the new popular approaches designers have been employing lately to many releases on the commercial side. 

The route to Tieton State Airport took about 15 minutes as the direct line wasn’t easy with terrain, but I also enjoyed some relatively low-level, summit skimming and side swiping on such a perfect day. The live weather of MSFS2020 and sunshine will provide some thermals, updrafts and downdrafts, as well as proper shadowing of lift, such as lakes and ponds, having no updrafts, and fields providing the most thermal-induced results. The terrain is great practice to follow along with on a sectional chart, noting the accuracy and landmarks along the way, imitating the visual world almost perfectly in MSFS2020 default photo scenery. 

• READ MORE: Healthy Obsession: What Flight Sim Has Done for Me

The Duke has been completely retrofitted with the latest and greatest modern technology, as you can see. Engine analyzers and proper technique are required to maintain health. This really made me think back to my piston-twin days when I experienced the most complex flying of my career. I had nothing modern, sometimes no autopilot, flew in IFR alone, and often had to know how to perform holds and ADF approaches with passengers on a timely schedule.

The sectional via ForeFlight on iPad and the GNS750 doesn’t portray the huge, steep descent you’ll need to make to enter the pattern, losing many thousands of feet. It is one of the most breathtaking areas I’ve ever seen. (For Top Gun: Maverick fans, much of the recent movie’s high-speed chases were filmed here over Rimrock Lake. That is something to re-create using the F-18 available in Marketplace, coupled with the Top Gun: Maverick add-on for effect. 

An eerie pattern emerged with the mummification-style face rising from the terrain. It can get right in your way on a downwind. 

New Lessons Learned

The mummy face becomes much more of a huge rock as you maneuver a right downwind-style approach. You cannot do a left downwind at all due to the other mountain on the base at the final to that runway, so you must land over the lake—one way in and one way out.

Over the right base leg above Rimrock lake, it’s hard to not spend all the time rubbernecking the area. The calm winds made for a mirror of tranquil water below, perfect for a floatplane digression perhaps. But with terrain and uneven heating at work, I was not set up well for my first attempt, as I was clearly too high and unstable. That meant it was props full forward, power up, gear up, and get out for another try.

When writing about sim flights, I always learn a new thing or two. The sim behaves in many ways like real life with various parameters cropping up that you hadn’t planned for—which is fun. It’s also a valuable learning experience. You think pilots probably don’t go around in real life as much as they should, and this is really an issue in the sim world. I hardly ever go around on my PC, as it’s hard to be hurt in your computer chair. This is a bad habit to get used to. I am trying to go around more often now in my serious sim sessions as it’s so necessary to keep that real-life mental readiness in full swing. 

• READ MORE: Ultimate Realism ‘X-posed’ in 747-200 Classic

Along with go-arounds, even flying simulated low passes across an unknown field is good practice too. 

The leg to Strom Airport was quite scenic as I detoured south a bit over the lower valley, along a road, river, and lush farmlands. I could see the Randle-Kiona Airpark (WN55) along the way to my south, although I didn’t land there. 

I felt a jolt going over the terrain with lift initially then a noticeable downdraft on the leeward side. All fabulous fun with live weather. 

There is an endless world to explore with almost perfect photorealistic scenery worldwide. The freeware and payware airport enhancements out there really do add some immersion to low-level, small backcountry airstrips that may be worth getting on a case-by-case basis. 

I am not a huge fan of add-on scenery, in general, as the default world seems almost perfect. But in MSFS2020, it is easy to add without any real performance degradation. The details of handmade airports are really cool and often match the real-life counterparts perfectly. 

The new Beechcraft Duke (and Turbine Duke) are lots of fun and will get you in and out of anywhere without concern. These three airports can be accessible by any lesser-powered single as well in the sim. It would be fun to redo these legs on hotter days in weaker aircraft as well to see what kind of trouble I could get into. 

The post Taking Risks at a Trio of Mount Rainier Airstrips, Virtually appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

1. Learjet 35A by FlySimWare

I think my favorite thing of 2023 was the sudden release of the FlySimWare Lear 35A. This is a humdinger of a masterpiece even if it’s still at the “early access” stage. I can’t recall another aircraft that has been so great right out of the box, with so little wait time or hoopla. I mean, we have the greats such as PMDG and Fenix, but they don’t get dropped suddenly without any long waits. 

The Lear 35A is a fabulous addition to the bizjet genre and one that will be continually upgraded. I have not flown an actual Learjet in real life, but since this product was designed with the input of real Lear 35 pilots, I can safely assume it’s been done well. From what I can see having flown bizjets for 20 years now, it’s spot on. The handling quality is sweet, balanced, and well tuned. Trimming, momentum, and effects of gear and flaps all seem accurate, as well as the feeling of liftoff and touchdown. The amount of float, touchdown quality, and steering on the runway seem good to me as well as the powerful reversers that will do most of the work after landing. 

The only thing is since it’s early access, some of the sounds are still lacking or missing. I would love more of the environmental system sounds, as well as a more robust thrust reverser roar, which would be quite loud. However, the engine spool-up and high rpm harmonic “humming” you’d hear from up front is spot on. Brilliant in that audio regard. 

This aircraft is so beautiful to look at, and all parts externally are replicated to perfect scale. My trained eyes usually find things not designed to scale or size, but in this case, I can’t find anything. It’s a perfect visual blueprint of the real thing. With a product this great, the problem is we wish for the release of many more bizjets immediately. Gimme more now!

Grab your Learjet 35A from the FlySimWare store.

2. Kuro 787-8 Dreamliner (freeware)

This little gem is a remake of the default 787-10 that brings forth the smallest 787 variant, the 787-8. This somewhat stubby-looking (perfect in my mind) version makes for an amazing private jet conversion with beautiful liveries available (any airline you want is an option too). This freebie comes updated with Asobo’s default 787-10 stretch (only in the premium deluxe Microsoft Flight Simulator installation), where service upgrades to panels and systems are already complete. The flying quality is great, and I have been able to perform perfect autolands with this model, a sign of a great build. It comes with its own sound set as well. It’s truly a great add-on and one of my favorites of the entire year.

It’s continually updated and available at the flightsim.to website (the greatest place to get all your MSFS 2020 free items and mods).

3. A2A Piper Comanche

This A2A gem is probably most GA flyers’ No. 1 product of the year for sure. I am not an expert on the smaller things, and haven’t used this enough  to give my expert opinion, but sometimes you need to rely on others. This is a living, breathing airplane that has to be maintained and treated well. 

This is a new function that a lot of designers are bringing into their products and MSFS supports constant-state aircraft that save flight times, wear and tear, health and maintenance practices as you fly. It remembers this so even after flying other aircraft, when you go back to this one, as long as you have a constant state toggled, you’ll be using this feature. Real Comanche pilots are heralding this is the best airplane ever for the MSFS series. Some folks have given up flying anything else. 

In my limited experience, I did enjoy the fact that I damaged the engine by not following procedures, proper warm-up, and fouled plugs. You can use a built-in tablet to view engine health as it runs live. The sounds are great and will accompany any problems with accuracy. A2A is known for top-quality sim aircraft and add-ons, and this one has certainly kept its reputation on the top of the pile. 

4. Carenado Turbo Stationair 207 

Recently released via the MSFS Marketplace is the Carenado Cessna (stretched) 207 Turbo Stationair— a spectacular looking replication of the real-life workhorse. For a mere $14, you can grab this beauty. I loved the appearance, sounds, and feel of hand flying this fabulous, fast-and-furious, do-it-all airplane. From short mountain strips to long-haul journeys, this works. And it kinda has that feeling that “maybe someday I could buy one of these things.” 

The aircraft comes with many fabulous variants, like passenger, cargo, pants or no pants, etc. A good variety of paint jobs, or liveries, are also included. I wasn’t expecting this either, and it’s a great addition to my sim that I really enjoy flying again and again.

5. Black Square (Anything it does is amazing)

Fairly new to the flightsim genre is Black Square. It has been making fabulous enhancements to default aircraft like the Bonanza, King Air 350i, and Baron 58 for a while now, complete with more realistic systems, panels, displays, analogue options (six-pack) with aircraft health and vulnerability built in. 

Just a few months ago, Black Square released its first entire airplane, the powerful Daher TBM 850, to compete with the default Asobo version. Some of us really enjoy the slightly older mix of steam gauges and modern stuff, and Black Square has certainly fulfilled many of our wishes. Everything it does is fabulous, and these products really stand out. The Just Flight store has them all here and here on the website.

6. Felis 747-200 for X-Plane 11/12

In my recent article, I went crazy over this X-Plane marvel. The classic 747-200 is simulated from head to tail in “study level” fashion. This is, by far, the most realistic airliner I’ve ever used for any sim, period. It may have to do with the built-in flying properties of XP itself, combined with brilliant programming and realism put into this production. You can actually feel the momentum, weight, and physics all at work as you hand fly this beast, unlike any other heavy jets I have tackled prior. It’s so good that I would recommend getting XP11/12 just for this. 

However, because of the unrefined status of XP12 currently (graphical and performance issues are still a problem when compared to MSFS), I’d recommend it on XP11 for the smoothest experience. Sometime by March, XP12 will be receiving a graphical and performance fix as noted by developer Laminar Research. This may be the actual piece XP fans have been waiting for to challenge MSFS performance and refined photorealistic visuals. 

7. FSRealistic or XPRealistic for both sims

Anyone who has followed me knows I am a huge fan of XPRealistic and FSRealistic. Both are an absolute must have during sim sessions. It adds everything that was left out of the native simulator versions—both by X-Plane and MSFS default programs—including wind, gear thumps, gear drag, flap noises, speed brakes, prop wash, touchdown sounds, thrust reverser roar, water landing sounds, screaming frightened passengers, turbulence-shaking rattles, and added motion and vibrational effects. All these things and more are now available and customizable by the user. It’s easy to use and I could not imagine sim flights without it. Not sure why base sims don’t include more of this style of immersion, but they don’t. These great add-ons are available from many outlets such as mine. 

8. FSLTL live traffic injector for MSFS

Since getting a new, more powerful laptop to run MSFS, I am now tinkering with live traffic. I had always avoided using any traffic due to the hit on performance and increased likelihood of stutters with such a draw on the CPU. But now it’s no longer really an issue. So after trying the built-in default traffic and getting screen freezes, I kept default traffic off and went to freeware third-party vendor FSLTL. 

FSLTL grabs live ADS-B data worldwide and puts the real traffic in sim with actual visual models of the traffic and their airlines if it is an airliner you’re supposed to see. The visual realism is great, and the immersion of seeing lumbering airliners in cue out to the active runway is jaw-dropping. Then they takeoff with a roar over your head or a trail of water vapor in tow if the runway is wet… wow! Seeing contrails in motion or distant aircraft lighting is very realistic. 

If you’re a fan of traffic watching, you can find out who you’re seeing either from the web, apps like FlightRadar24, or a built-in screen that you can open which shows exactly what traffic is being created, aircraft type, airline, and where they are going. 

All of this creates a performance hit. At large airports, it will take maybe 10 to 20 percent off the frame rate compared to what it would have with no traffic selected. That is far less than the hit from default live traffic by Asobo, because you can really allow a lot more traffic to display at any one time (adjustable). On a fast machine, you won’t care. 

For more information, check out the website.

9. FS-ATC Chatter for both sims

This little program available from Stick and Rudder Studios is available for both X-Plane and MSFS platforms. It will automatically play realistic ATC chatter from around the world, depending on where you are and what your current flight regime is. So you’ll hear accurate accents and dialects in each phase of flight. If you’re in Canada, you’ll hear its controllers. You’ll get accurate ground, tower, departure/arrival, center chatter, etc. The program features regular updates, and voice files are added often so you’ll never be bored hearing the same thing over and over. This is another little gem of a program that adds so much realism for both XP and MSFS.

I could keep going, but these are the 2023 add-ons that stand out to me as being exceptional products. There are many more items in my library that I use daily that could be honorable mentions. And it’s possible I have forgotten something. I am sure that 2024 is going to be another super year for this industry.   

The post Best Sim Add-Ons of 2023 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Since that beautiful day in August of 2020 when Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS2020) was born, some of us have had a pretty delightful time of it. Little trouble and mostly a great experience. There are others, however, who have had nothing but headaches and misery. 

Why is that? Let’s look at some issues and their solutions, along with general operating tips and hints, that have helped me through a recent upgrade to a better flight simming machine. 

I must say immediately that “less is more.” Anyone using a computer for work, office, graphic design, etc., probably won’t have as much luck with MSFS2020  as someone with a dedicated gaming or flight simming PC. It’s just that simple. A PC that is not crammed full of the extra programs the average office computer is bloated with will always serve you better.

I recently purchased a high-end laptop to use for all my sim needs. A 4090 GeForce graphics card is the highest you can go. However, the top-rated MSI machine I chose at first didn’t have “GSYNC” technology in its display which meant that running MSFS2020 resulted in choppy graphics and screen tearing issues despite blazing fast frame rates. In the past, I had always chosen GSYNC computers, but for some reason this one slipped right past me. I returned it immediately for a GSYNC Asus ROG 18 gaming laptop and couldn’t be happier with the smoothness and performance. 

All that is to say I highly recommend a GSYNC based computer and video display. I now see frame rates over 100 where my old 3070 laptop maxed out at about 50 in rural areas. I have to give a shoutout to my local Boston Microcenter for being such a great place to purchase technology such as my new beast of a laptop. You’ll probably never find a good sim PC in a typical store. Specific online retailers specializing in high performance PCs and gaming laptops are pretty much the only way to go. Personally, for something this valuable, I like being able to return it in person if something goes wrong.

Let’s face it, MSFS2020 is very demanding and requires a great gaming-style PC with high end hardware. That said, most computers and laptops built since 2020 do a pretty great job of running it right out of the box. The problem is no two computers are the same and everyone on earth will have a different set of experiences to report. Many having non-stop issues with the sim have an old or slow computer. Some may have newer, powerful machines that still run everything poorly due to outdated drivers, bloatware, overly clogged hard drives, or actual hardware issues. 

In my recent upgrade to a better gaming laptop, I had a some @#%$!!! moments myself. I would say if you’re having trouble with poor performance, crashes, freezes, and nonstop aggravation with your sim, then simply reset windows to new and use the option to do a complete restore. This will wipe the drive clean, leaving nothing behind. Doing this will ensure getting as new a PC as possible with no bad files or programs left behind to do bad things. In my experience, the time it takes to do a reset (about an hour is all) is way faster than spending days trying to troubleshoot.

Let’s say you do this or actually get a new computer. There is a lot of “junk” to be done before you install the sim and hopefully the things I’ll talk about here will help someone out there! If I can help at least one fellow pilot or flight simmer solve their issues, it will be worth it. 

Before anything can be done, make sure you have a great internet connection. This program will not install or run well on slow internet, period. This can be a major issue for folks in places where the internet is poor and spotty. It can make using MSFS2020 nearly impossible. This is where X-Plane can be the sim of choice, as you can use it easily offline without any internet. 

Here are some important steps to take (in order) after a new install of Windows or getting a new PC:

Windows Updates 

Go to the search box on the bottom area of the desktop, (the one with the magnifying glass symbol). Type in “update” and then click on “Check for updates”. You’ll be brought to the main update interface. Next, click on update and let it go. Now, you may be prompted to do this several times and some “restarts to take effect” will occur. If it hasn’t been done in a while, this could take time (possibly hours depending on your internet speed). Once it says  “your computer is up to date,” you’re ready to do more. 

Startup, Sleep, and Shutdown Options

Type in “Closing lid” in the search box. Click on “Change what closing the lid does” which will bring you to the options to select variables under the heading “Define power buttons and turn on password protection.” Be sure to stop all sleep, snooze, and lid closing options. Having a computer “hibernate” when attempting to run a sim for hours will cause issues! Also, click the “Change settings that are currently unavailable” link to get access to the “Shutdown settings” section. Once there, uncheck “Turn on fast startup” to disable that feature. Experts say to shut off this option as it can introduce problems and system hangs since using fast start was originally meant to speed things up, but can also cause instability and issues if not everything got loaded properly. I have always shut it off on my computers and honestly my laptop boots just as fast and with less worry.

Editing Advanced Power Settings 

Editing these settings will enable you to change the way the processor and other components run. First, type “Edit Power Plan” into the search box. Then click on “Change advanced power settings.” Don’t allow them to reduce less than 100 percent off the max settings, and if on a laptop, don’t allow anything less than 100 percent unless the machine is not plugged in, like on battery. Spend time to look around at all the options and don’t just accept the default ones as good. You need all the power you can get! Hard Disk,  Desktop background settings, Sleep, PCI Express, Processor power management, Display, and Battery options all need to be tweaked for power and not rest. Computers don’t need naps, only pilots do.

USB Controllers

Type “Device Manager” into the search bar. Click on it and then navigate down to “USB serial bus controllers”. Click on that and find “USB Hub” in the dropdown menu. Right click on USB Hub and select “Properties”. Click on the “Power Management” tab, where you will find another hidden option allowing you to uncheck the “Allow the computer to run off this device to save power” box. As we use many connected hardware devices, having a USB port suddenly napping away, can cause the sim to freeze or lock up sometimes. This option may work if you have any issues where the controls aren’t working fast enough or you get sim lockups. 

Game Mode 

Go back to the search bar, type “Game Mode” and select “Game Mode settings.” Click the toggle to turn OFF Game Mode. Most experts say not to use “game mode,” so (to be honest) without much evidence, I leave it off as well. Hopefully it’s not just a placebo. However, once you search for game mode, you’ll find an option under “Related Settings” called “Graphics.”  Click on that and you’ll see a list of programs. Look for Microsoft Flight Simulator or X-Plane and click on it. Next, click “Options”  and choose the one for  “high performance.”. Click Save. This is a new feature and seems to be one that many experts suggest. 

HAGS

Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling (HAGS) is necessary for 4000 series NVIDIA cards to get the best quality and performance as well as the new DLSS and frame generation technology. This can also be enabled on the “Graphics” page (if needed, you can navigate back to it by typing “Graphics” in the search bar and selecting “Graphics settings”). Once there, click on “Change default graphics settings” and make sure the Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling toggle is set to ON. Below HAGS, also set the toggle for Optimizations for windowed games to ON. If you have a lower card like a 2 or 3000 series, it may be better to leave HAGS off. Experiment to see. 

Windows Defender 

Next, type in and click on “Windows Security.” Go to Virus & threat protection and find Virus & threat protection settings. Click on “Manage settings” and scroll down to “Exclusions.” Select “Add or remove exclusions” then “Add an exclusion.” From the dropdown menu, pick “Folder.” From there, find and select your install directory for the sim you use. Now processing power won’t be used to scan this while you’re busy flying. Less intrusion is necessary! MSFS2020 and all my other games run from the Steam network so I just have the entire steam folder selected to ignore my games and sims I use. Defender is all you’d ever need to keep your PC safe in the first place. It is well made and doesn’t slow down your PC by keeping it active. 

Nvidia Drivers 

I personally prefer Nvidia graphics cards. For a long time, it’s been widely accepted in the sim community that they provide the highest quality and power for a sim. Nowadays, I could be wrong on this as gamers have accepted–and some even prefer–Ryzen. For me, I am sticking with Nvidia. If you have a Nvidia or Ryzen machine, you’ll need to upgrade to the latest or near-to latest drivers. Realistically, something less than a year old will do. Googling your specific card  is probably the best way to bring up your upgrade options. As always, when upgrading on Nvidia, be sure to choose the “Custom Installation” option and check the “Perform a clean installation” box to completely clear out old drivers and do a fresh install. 

Nvidia Control Panel or Other GPU interface 

It’s extremely important to make sure your main graphics card is listed as either the only one or top priority. On my laptop, I have a Nvidia Control Panel whereby I can select my 4090 graphics card as the priority and main card to use during any gaming or simulation, or just always use it bypassing the internal one on the motherboard. You can’t run any sim on an internal graphics processor. Usually this hassle is only on a laptop. With Nvidia, I have found that customizing settings to anything other than default usually doesn’t result in any added benefit to performance or quality. Some may disagree and have had good luck. The only thing I might change is the option to always use maximum performance vs. normal, but then again, even in default normal, the GPU will go to highest performance when required. Snake oil? No clue on this one. After years of fiddling I still have no proof. All I can say is less “tweaking” seems to result in the best performance and quality overall.

Getting Rid of Bloatware 

One of the most beneficial and satisfying things to do for me is to get rid of system hogging, clogging programs like any outside antivirus software. It’s not necessary and will cause system slowdowns, intrusions, and worse. Windows Defender is plenty all by itself. So via the search bar look up “Add or remove programs” and click on it., Go down the list and uninstall things like McAfee antivirus, Norton antivirus, Windows Office (a massive hog), and other junk a flight simmer will never need. Years ago, virus were a big threat. They’re much less these days, and I used to always find computers so bogged down, so slow and unresponsive, because they are plagued by antivirus software that everyone is told to use. Throw it all out. Just be careful not to delete something either Windows requires or you may need later. 

• READ MORE: Tips and Tricks for Flight Sims

Installing MSFS2020

Once you install the sim for the first time you don’t have to do anything with the so called “community folder.” However, if you have either a pre-existing installation or items you had downloaded or purchased, those are going to need to be re-installed. 

That “Community Folder” Thing…

All the addons you purchase or download for free will be placed into the “community” folder. Become familiar with it as during updates it’s important to temporarily either empty it out (i.e. select all, cut [ctrl-x] and paste the contents elsewhere [ctrl-v], or rename it to something like [Community_backup]. This must be done prior to any Asobo Studio pushed updates. You’ll know it’s time as you’ll be prompted to update. Just exit out the sim, and do this procedure, then re-start the sim and let it do it’s update thing. Once done, you can place your community folder contents back where they were prior to the forced update.

The location of your community folder depends on whether your MSFS2020 is from the Microsoft Store or Steam. 

The location for a Microsoft Store installation is:

C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Flight Simulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages\Community

The location for a Steam Store installation is:

C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages\Community

If you’re redoing a new installation from scratch–or just a new one from a new computer–do not just “copy” over your pre-existing community folder. I ran into trouble when I did this by just dragging the community folder over onto my new PC, and trying to install the sim. MSFS2020 failed to update properly on installation and all my addons didn’t work right. The sim was unusable and crashed, as I believe the underlying paths to installed options made the new installation think they were still in the area they were on the previous PC. In any event, a new installation with you re-downloading your add-ons and not including them in the community folder during the installation is the only way to do this error free. You should be flying high now.

I hope this helps at least one person out there get the best out of their sim with the least amount of anguish. For those of you who are real pilots, I can hear it now, “it’s much easier just to fly a real plane.” Well, kinda…But addicted sim geeks like me know we can’t live without both, real and virtual.

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