Flying adventures: A Flight Simulator Travelog

 I must have been tired on Saturday night. Rubbish landings and struggles with career missions left me feeling like my piloting skills were regressing. I finally completed enough Parachuting flight missions to be able to do aerial advertising. It's actually pretty tricky. You need to fly very low with a tail hook retracted, which picks up the banner. I managed it on my first attempt. Yahoo! Only, I was travelling too slowly, and the drag of the banner caused me to stall and crash land. It took several additional attempts before I could connect the banner without it dragging me in, Completed...but COUNT THOSE CRASHES  Not as easy as it looks! Two more ratings! I picked up the Night Currency. I can now ply my trade all ours, day and night. I then completed training lessons for handling seaplanes and bush flying. Then it was on to that Scoop Endorsement. Scoop Endorsement -- fire fighting flyers  Night flyin I also took a quick flight over Washington DC, looking at many plac...

 Here we are nearly two weeks into getting hold of the sim and I'm only now charting my own course in Free Flight mode. I first thought about retracing the flight I did in FS2020 that ran from the Northern Coast of Iran, past Mount Damavand, then down some provincial locations that were mostly goats and sandy hills. I decided to save that one and do some proper planning for it. So, I recreated another previous flight along the length of the Florida Keys.  Key West Int to Ocean Reef Club Minutes after take-off, I accidentally found Space X ...actually, nope. Different Boca Chica Makes a note to fly over Boca Chica in Texas. See if Microsoft have put a rocket factory there. These people should be a lot more bothered about climate change. Ocean Reef Club at Key Largo.  Lovely low flight zipping past the traffic following the highway as it seemingly travels across the shallows of the Florida coast.  Aircraft : Cessna 350 Corvalis, a composite construction, single-engine,...

 It's been a rush! Armed with the Turboprop rating, new mission types became available. Search. And. Rescue!!! Amazing fun, although I got very frustrated on the first attempt. Flight Simulator 2024 actively encouraged me to land in the middle of nowhere—on sloped terrain—which I messed up.  I landed successfully, but the plane appeared to be stuck in the sand.  That's a whoops! Made it down... Made it back, made it big! Well, that turned out to be absolutely thrilling. I've done two more of the missions, since. Pays great, tons of XP awarded.  I got my multi-engine rating. Not too hard! I failed the first time because I prematurely slowed and reduced altitude, unaware that the test was for a single-engine landing.  Then... well, this is interesting. It initially said "INFINITE XP" was awarded. It then settled on this. Then—for the first time ever—it crashed to the desktop, losing this result and locking me out of replaying the mission. It was super fun, too—tor...

 I was just finishing a session last night when a new patch auto-installed. It's strictly a patch for stability and some priority bugs, as apparently, a more significant patch will be released next week that promises to squish some of the broader issues plaguing our play. Certification: Turbo Prop Engine Rating I relished the opportunity to gain my Turboprop rating. The Cessna 208 Grand Caravan was my favourite aircraft in Flight Simulator 2020. Its greater speed and durability compared to the trusty Skyhawk benefited my touring and sightseeing.  What's interesting is how the certification forces you to learn some additional details -- like the 208's reverse thrust capability. Using this feature is what this certification tests you on. I managed countless flights in 2020 without ever knowing about this. This is where 2024 feels like it's planting deeper roots than the previous version, even with all its many problems. The career mode has given me a purpose I never had i...