The 737 MAX actually has a number of differences compared to the 737 NG series both in real life and also modeled in our aircraft. The major differences are:
New engines CFM LEAP-1B (CFM 56 before) with bowed rotor motoring (BRM) during startup, which can take up to 90 seconds per engine, custom engine sounds
Front panel completely redesigned with four wide screen displays, similar to the 787 Dreamliner but with commonality to the 737 screen rendering
New split winglets
Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), latest software version with two sensors is simulated based on real world documentation
Fly by wire spoiler features are simulated
Autopilot is fail-passive and has autoland rollout capability
It have improvements. Mainly now it have full world with satelite photo. With europe and many parts of usa in very high resolution. Many more aircraft, some very detailed. Now it also have pushback and some way to cold and dark starting. Air traffic and 1000s of pre made missions and flights.
It still sadly have some big lacks like no atc and no real weather. BUT it have some pros over some other more complete flight sims.
I still like it and fly with it, the same with xp11/12, p3d, msfs, …
What was you didn’t like about it?
I thought the original Aerofly was quite good, in relation to what it tried to be; a limited scenery visual flightsim. Graphics were really good and FPS great. Flightmodelling was good enough, as I remember, but groundhandling wasn’t.
Aerofly 2 has kept the good visuals and performance, with really good VR implementation and is a much more complex simulator than the first version.
Yeah, I do see your point. I think that I like the planeset of Aerofly more… (Why no decent flight sim has an A-6 goshdarnit?!) but I fel like the world is better in MSFS.
The main reason to go with MSFS is the worldwide scenery.
The main reason to go with Aerofly is the VR performance, if I understood correctly.
I haven’t flown any Aerofly version but have read from reviews here and elsewhere that their VR performance has been consistently better than any other flight sim. MSFS, meanwhile, is way worse than DCS in VR.
I loved the VR performance in AF2. At the time P3D was my main GA sim and AF2 felt like it was lightyears ahead in terms of VR.
What hurt the AF2 sim experience for me was the lack of features that other sims had. I found myself flying around in the limited areas looking at scenery, which got boring rather quickly leading me to uninstall it.
I’m trying to process the idea of VR in MSFS being worse than DCS. Please elaborate. I find the opposite to be true. I also like that I can pop into and out of VR in MSFS without having to exit and restart the sim. In DCS my external environment must be near perfect otherwise I lose tracking and experience lag. Not the case in MSFS. I understand that mileage and experiences tend to vary among users.
Now back to AF, I love the visuals and performance but not the experience. I’ve been eyeing AF4 but MSFS is keeping my interest.
This is true, and while many have been all too quick to say that this is because Aerofly is doing less, I tend to suspect some fairly strong bias there from users who simply cant conceive of why anyone might be interested in anything but the “bestest of the bestest ever”. (which they also complain about, so go figure)
For myself, I’ve found Aerofly to consistently give much more than its community reputation, with surprising system depth, steadily but slowly improving graphics, and the hands-down sharpest and fastest VR performance ever seen. (you can read the instruments as clearly as if you were really there with no problem, and God only knows why no other sim can accomplish that without threatening a slideshow)
I keep in mind that louder and flashier do-it-all-and-do-it-now! type sims like dovetail and FLIGHT are long gone, while Aerofly is still out there plugging away like the little engine that could, even as the hardcore of the community tries mightily to ignore it.
So…
As one who tends to root for the little guy, I like that they’re carving their own little niche away from the mainstream, and sticking with their own singular vision. The fact that they even still exist, and seem to be doing well enough to release regular free updates argues that they’ve found enough of a following to allow them to continue to march to their own tune.
Long story short, basically everything but the visuals, and I even had a little issue with those. the aircraft were modeled beautifully, flight dynamics in the 172 were pretty ok. The F-18 was fun to rage around in, but there was no functionality. I said in the article that unless you can aviate, navigate, and communicate, it’s not a simulator- its a game. And Aerofly was a limited game at that. In modern terms, I would say it was a mobile app that you play on PC, but that might be giving it too much credit because X-Plane has a mobile app that is far superior.
I’ll see if I can find an old cached version of my article.
It seems like we are constantly tweaking these sims to get the best performance and visuals but sadly I learned that one size does not fit all. What works for one may not work for another.
I think I have both sims dialed in for my machine but my DCS experience seems to be dependent on factors such as missions, theaters, what AC are active, etc. I did some testing and was surprised to find that the F-5 is a resource hog (on my system), compared to some of my other aircraft. This was quite surprising for me.
I also like that I can pop into and out of VR in MSFS without having to exit and restart the sim. In DCS my external environment must be near perfect otherwise I lose tracking and experience lag. Not the case in MSFS. I understand that mileage and experiences tend to vary among users.
