It was a STEAM special not that long ago (might have been 30% off?). I nearly bought it, but I knew I would be up for many $100’s more in add-ons. I have started down that route with X-Plane so I couldn’t justify the cost, even at the discounted price.
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I went for the standard edition and haven’t regretted it at all. There aren’t that many add-ons, though a lot more now, I suppose, that are quite expensive (£50ish) as far as aircraft are concerned. I don’t buy scenery add-ons as I think it’s good enough not to need them unless you want something special - plus after buying a few of those awful UK farmstrips packs I felt “once bitten, twice shy”. I did buy Fenland, only cos it’s my local (discounting Boardsides/Boston Aerodrome which is more microlite/helipad).
Even then I bought too many add-on aircraft, but it still didn’t add up to that much and I do fly all but about 3 of them fairly regularly, so no regrets there.
For me it’s not the same sort of thing as previous sims - it’s such an awesome experience just flying anywhere due to that gorgeous scenery, that the flying is finally The experience, rather than the aircraft.
PS - the good thing is that there are some fantastic add-on aircraft at low prices - sub £20 are nothing unusual and often great fun (C-22 a great example, plus Caribou etc). £20-£30 is full of good stuff, too, such as the Blackbox planes and Carenado - which are a mixed bag in this sim.
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It’s a rabbit hole, no doubt about it. MSFS has been around long enough now that the 3rd party devs seem to pump out interesting aircraft and scenery almost every week. I just need to learn a little restraint I guess. 
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I just checked and I have a grand total of 33 payware aircraft. That isn’t too bad for me - and I have decided that in future only ones I really want will be purchased, after the initial spree of buying because there wasn’t that much airborne content like in the first year or two!
Also 8 freeware aircraft. I did have a load of self-converted ones in 2021, but don’t bother with those any more.
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moved to the add-ons discussion 
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EEEEEEE!
Yabadabadoo
If it’s anywhere near as good as the Aerosoft one for P3D I’ll be buying it.
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That 3 most flown aircraft is not a surprise for me, it reflects also the addons more popular and the market in civil flight sims…
1 - The guy that have nostalgia of the aircraft he piloted years ago and the guy that only want to fly watching through windows
2 - The “magenta line” guys
3 - The “need for speed” guys
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Funny that not a single one of those airports is in the countries in which I like to fly most.
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Cool stats, but something must be wrong…
ENTC isn’t even on the list!
Seriously, that’s a pretty good run.
Considering it’s the first 3 years of a relatively new team, resurrecting a dormant sim franchise, it’s quite amazing.
2024, here we come!
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I think it’s opening up flight simming to a crowd that might not have known about it or considered it before. It’s nice as it is probably a lot of new simmers and maybe even some future real world pilots in there too. Not saying the old timers are particularly enjoying these ‘twitch tv’ times, but they’ll be dead soon anyway.
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I kind of doubted such a crowd existed anymore…
Glad to see that they do.
I wonder if other flightsim devs are experiencing an increase because of MSFS…? Surely some new simmers must have been lured in by MSFS and felt the need to shoot at something.
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Its almost a traditional argument in some segments of the community that the crowd (Read: Unwashed masses) don’t/did’nt have any interest in aviation simulation, so any efforts towards depicting that genre of flight was wasted unless it squareley and exclusively targeted the true believing “hardcore” simmers/audience.
Any endevour that did not start with acknowledging that fact was of course doomed to fail. (with Microsoft Flight being exhibit A)
The sucess of MSFS has been in some ways a direct threat to that argument by apparently succesfully drawing in tons of the supposedly nonexistant casual simmers, via the Xbox.
Not to mention taking a moribund hobby and somehow managing to make it mainstream again, to the point that venues that for years entirely ignored the genre now speak about it on a regular basis.
And now there is the even more ghastly threat of directly attempting to draw “fun” into the sim-equation with these mission and adventure thingies in MSFS 2024.
Heavens!
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Unless I have a specific issue I’m trying to solve, I rarely venture outside Mudspike, these days. So I guess it’s safe to say that I’m fairly oblivious to what most parts of the flightsim community thinks.
But what you’re describing sounds an awful lot like the community I try to avoid 
I just kind of imagined that kids of today, and the population in general, had different dreams these days… But the success of MSFS seems to indicate that the dream of flying is still very much alive.
As far as hardcore/casual goes, it’s what I always say… As long as you’re having fun, you’re doing it right.
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Approaching with spoilers is no bueno.
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It looks like it might be for noise abatement;
To prevent the big noise when it floats off the end! 
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Those two are not mutually exclusive
A pilot’s gotta do, what a pilot’s gotta do… 
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