Well, I have learned what happens when I don’t take your advice! 
I’d love to learn that I’m wrong on this, but when I use pause in MSFS, the Options menu comes up blocking the screen. If I could just pause and take screen shots I’d unbind the Active Pause key in a New York minute!
there is another option in the controls under MISCELLANEOUS - SET PAUSE ON / OFF. I have it mapped this way
definitely for the fast jets it could be convenient to play with the things in cockpit while the plane stays at one place. I dont fly fast jest that often so thats the reason I dont use the active pause I think.
btw I dont have PAUSE button on my keyboard anyway 
You know, I have tried that, but for me it seems to work the same.
I hit P for Pause and clocks keep running, rain keeps falling.
I hit PAUSE for Active Pause and all the same stuff happens.
Only when I hit ESC does the sim, and everything in it, freeze. But then I have the options menu.
I can’t find a Pause that actually Pauses!
strange, then maybe it means SET (active) PAUSE ON / OFF
EDIT : I guess SET PAUSE ON / OFF is little different from TOGGLE ACTIVE PAUSE, but I could be wrong; at least it reacts little differently when I press the different buttons in sim… but the general outcome of that two could be the same 
but found something here
Note : There are two work-arounds if you wish to freeze time as well as other aspects of the sim:
a) Use the Pause Simulation option in the Dev drop-down menu. It freezes time, including in the sim.
(Thanks to @AZRedneck33 in this post )…
Oh that’s VERY helpful!
I also installed Flight Recorder.
One way or another, I’m going to save this patient if it kills him! 
I’m just gonna toss out that your in a flying boat, I mean you could just… land on the water?
Ha! I had thought of that.
But, I was less confident of how (and how well) exactly one reinitializes MSFS on the water.
And with the luck I had been having, trying it for funsies felt a little like pouring gasoline on a Barbecue!
OBTW, I did actually manage to pause, not active pause, the sim.
What had confused me was that, even when you pause the sim, the clocks still run.
Because, when you’re frozen, why wouldn’t they? 
Okay, this one?
This one sent me to the Scotch.
Leg 15: Belize City TO ABSOLUTELY 
NOWHERE!
My MSFS education continues.
I’d like to think that I’ve learned a few things about MSFS over the course of the last 14 legs. I’ve figured out the whole pause thing finally. I’ve learned that there are airports in MSFS that are no longer there in real life. And so on. And yet MSFS proves to be a a limitless wellspring of potential jack%#$ery for me to discover.
Looking at the map I concluded once again that I need to put some miles behind me, lest I fall too far behind.
Plus the weather looked to be dog squeeze. So it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get high and go fast(ish).
The plan then was to go from Belize City to Panama City, about 816NM, my longest leg yet.
I dusted off my DC-6, now in the colorful scheme of Panagra (interesting story) by T Olivera.
I taxied out to the runway in the light rain.
Maybe the holy light shining through the clouds was a good omen for the upcoming flight?
Spoiler: It was NOT.
I couldn’t remember the power settings for the DC-6 off hand and I knew that there was some secret knob twistery involving cowl flaps and such during takeoff. So I decided to push the “EASY button” [SIC] and let the Copilot do his job.
In one of those entrancing, “what happens next would be literally impossible in real life” moments, I clicked the slider for a dry takeoff and concentrated on getting her up off the runway.
“Man, this thing is a dog! Is it the temp? A tailwind? Maybe just the high gross weight?”
As the Captain, I had fallen for the oldest trick in the book…I had trusted the Copilot!
As the runway ahead of me fast became the runway behind me, I looked down at the engine instruments. The RPM was WAY low. But with the Copilot in charge, I had control of literally NONE of the engine controls. Throttle? RPM? Mixture? All controlled by the CP.
So, before my flight became a cruise, I fired the Copilot and took control of the engines. It was then I realized that my RPM slider was not all the way forward. Oddly, while the position of the throttles matter not at all to the CP when you give him control…he does what he wants with them…the position of your RPM levers matter A GREAT DEAL to him and he will happily let you try to take off at 1500RPM.
Moreover, moving the RPM lever AFTER you give him control, is useless. He not only won’t move it, he won’t even let YOU move it.
Thus after firing him, I firewalled every lever in the cockpit, hauled back on the yoke, and hung out in ground effect for an uncomfortably long period of time before the aircraft eventually limped into the air.
Huh. That was different!
“Well, looks like we’ve had our glitch for this flight!”
The climbout was spectacular; easily the most amazing views that I have yet seen in MSFS.
The clouds bubbled and seethed. And when I went into the soup, I didn’t come out for at least 20-30 minutes.
Suddenly (and thankfully), I shot out of the storm front approaching La Mesa; and into the brilliant sunlight.
I even began to pick up some ground contact after awhile.
The sprawling city of Tegucigalpa.
And shortly thereafter, my first view of the Pacific Ocean. I spied some Volcanoes off in the distance and wished that I had planned the route further west.
Apoyeque and the Laguna de Xiloá just north of Managua
After passing over the truly enormous Lake Nicaragua, I crossed back over to the eastern shore. The town of Limon, comes into view on the coast.
The weather began to get a little dicey as I approached Panama. The overcast thickened above me with building thunderstorms.
At this point I discovered that Skyvector does not have approach plates for non-US airports. And I don’t believe MSFS has the old map function (in game at least) that will give you ILS freqs and such…
Maybe not the best time to be flying into an undercast, in the mountains, to a field that I’ve never been to before…
Luckily I had my work EFB with plates for MPTO, my destination.
I set up the approach to an OG teardrop ILS. With no FMS it takes me about ten seconds.
I begin my descent over the VOR and track outbound on the VOR radial…
Maybe the rainbow will bring me good luck?
Spoiler: It does NOT.
Flaps 20. I turn inbound and switch to the ILS freq…
The ILS needles fail to come up.
Here’s another of those:
Is it me?
Is it the plane?
Is it the sim?
So, lacking my ILS, I put the VOR needle on the nose and start tracking inbound. I have no idea what the ceiling is supposed to be. Skyvector says SCT017CB, which it is clearly not.
I hit the landing slider and bring the Copilot back into the game giving him the look.
I sail into the overcast over the coastline. I can barely make out the ground. It looks to be practically WOXOF.
I’m low looking for the airfield. I decide to go around setting the power to climb.
Nothing happens.
I stall and crash into the jungle…
…
…
…
So, being dead and all, I seem to have a lot of free time on my hands. I go looking on the MSFS world selection screen.
I get this,
Thus, now I know TWO things about MSFS.
Just because there’s an airfield in MSFS, that does NOT mean that there is one there in real life. And…
Just because there’s an airfield in REAL LIFE, that does not mean that there is one there in MSFS.
Now where’s the Scotch!
LMAO!
I know! It’s the first thing that came up when I Googled it!
Did you use the flight recorder. You might be able to insert the ads on airport and pick up the flight from shortly before you started the approach.
Nice report though, and remember that in sim-world, any damage will always buff out. 
Oh, I’m calling that one, “in the books”.
It was a little frustrating as I had managed to pull the takeoff out of my behind and had just flown over three hours when I balled it up.
It’s all good of course. All this is just to make it a good story. But it’s funny how being a real pilot totally sets you up for hilarity. I just keep expecting things to work as if they were real.
Plus…
Now we’re talking…
Leg 13
Coronel Enrique Soto Cano to Managua Intl
158.9 nm
Once again our fine German built steed will be handling flight duties. Weathers look absolutely wonderful today if I do say so…
I spent about 10 minutes ever so slowly climbing up through the muck, to finally break out in clear air.
The astute observer will notice the g-meter is at about 7g’s… if you’re going to dive down through a hole in the clouds, why not use a Split-S?
One will note the dramatic decrease in illumination between this shot and the next. Gotta love MSFS’s advancing time even the game is paused feature.
Fortunately I was prepared for an ILS landing for the practice. Plus having the ADF tuned into the beacon, made it a non-event. I would have appreciated being able to check out more of the scenery though.
Real world
And a few bonus pics of my first thought for todays leg:
You may note the extended dive flaps, the testing may or may not have had anything to do with why I ended up taking the P.149 out again today…
Great report! Looks like we covered the same ground…with varying levels of success.
I’m very interested to hear your thoughts on the P-38. It looks fantastic!
I’ll do a writeup on the P-38, short version is it’s gorgeous but not very deep. Systems modeling is a hair above stock, which is a gigantic shame as it’s a really neat AC.
That sounds like me! I like it already.
I hope they increase the depth a bit.
Doesn’t have to be DCS level but I like a bit of depth.
I am very interested in the plane though and might buy it regardless. I just love the P-38
Leg 14
Managua Intl to Omtepe
46.1 nm
The chariot for the next leg, the de Havilland DH.89 Dragon Rapide. Another plywood success from the shops of de Havilland, in use from roughly 1934 to the 1960’s by the RAF. Many continued into commercial use into the 1980’s, and several are still flying today. Powered by a pair of Gypsy 6 engines (the same that powered the McRobertson Air Race winning dH-88 Comet), putting out about 200 hp per side. Carrying 8 passengers or about 1,000 lbs of cargo, around 110 knots over 500 nm, pretty much any country that had air traffic in the 1950’s probably had at least a couple of these flying around.
The office for the next hour or so. This is a conversion from MSFS, that has been worked over. The textures are a bit lacking, and some of the functionality is missing. Also I’m not sure exactly how accurate the systems modeling is, but I’d put it on the “light” side. With that said, it works perfectly fine for the kind of flying we’re doing today.
As an aside if you look on the left hand side, you have the two throttles, and underneath are what apparently are the mixture levers (at least that’s what they respond to using the keyboard shortcuts). As you retard the throttles it automatically moves those levers back, which I am not sure why you would do that? Anyone have any ideas on that?
Throttles forward, max takeoff power is full throttle for for 5 mins. Very easily able to get off the ground with about a 75% cargo load, no flaps needed. Throttle back to 2100 rpm for max continuous. That puts us moving along at around 130 mph.
The twin craters of the Volcán Apoyeque, located to the N of Managua. I wanted to check that out in the daylight.
Over the Laguna de Apoyo, headed SE towards the much larger Lago Cocibolca.
Isn’t she pretty?
Isla Zapatera, NOT our destination. Though I spent a few minutes on that very subject…
Overall she’s a great little plane for the hanger. I love vintage aviation, and for this type of CAVU air touring she’s a great bird. Visibility is excellent, she handles very nicely, has a decent bit of speed for her time, and is very pleasant to fly. My only real complaint is that the default cockpit view is basically about 5 feet above the canopy, meaning you have to adjust the default view and save it every time you load it up.
Realworld
Leg 15
Omtepe to Jaco (MRJA)
126.7 nm
Well that was the plan. Things didn’t quiet go as plan, as apparently @Deacon211’s luck decide to spend some time with me in this neck of the woods.
So let us begin our adventure.
The Islander again comes out of the hanger, it’s a reasonably long legs, and having an autopilot to take over on some of the flying is a welcome feature. With a full load of cargo off we go.
Passing by the cone of the Volcan Concepcion.
I do love the detail on the exterior of the islander.
Hmm clouds are rolling in. Well no worries, we’re above them, and we have GPS to help us along. I’m sure it’ll all be fine…
Hmm cloud rocks…
About to head down, I’m sure the cloud deck won’t be too low.
Well that was a bad guess, and wait a minute, why are there trees in the clouds?
What is not shown from the last picture is the procedure turn to the right along with a climb to try and clear the terrain. That sounds nice and calm and professional doesn’t it? The panicked climb to clear this hill on the other hand had really no professionalism to it.
The plan after surviving the last hill, was to head due west to get out over the ocean. The ocean doesn’t have hills, that means I should be safe. Once I could get over water, that plan is to regroup and figure out WTF my plan is next.
The coast looked fairly clear, so the plan is to follow it along to another airport near the town of Jaco (MRJO), which should be on the coast and hopefully not completely socked in.
Blessed clear air.
Yep that’s traffic passing by at the same level that I’m flying.
I seriously considered just putting down on the road, as the hardball ought to be a safe place to land. However I figured I’d give the weather a chance to see if I could make it to an actual airfield.
Umm why didn’t I just try the road? That relatively clear space adjacent to the empennage is my landing field. The weather is still cruddy, but I can at least see enough to hopefully get down.
On final
And down finally!
Real world
Definitely one of the more pulse raising flights I’ve ever had in a non-combat sim. The moment I got down to 2000 and realized I was seeing hills through the clouds, I knew I was in trouble. I was low, slow, and had no clue where to go to get out of it. Getting over that one hill was pure utter luck in timing. Then from there having to create a plan to get out to some kind of safety and figure out where to go from there go the brain moving in a manner I’m not accustomed to doing in civilian flight siming. This whole episode gave me a lot of understanding just exactly how a lot of pilots have killed themselves flying into IMC. So VERY glad this was just all simulated.
