I am not sure I even believe what Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is, so I don’t know how to begin this review. It was practically unplayable for the first 24 hours following a completely disastrous launch, and throughout the following few days, issues and glitches appeared due to an unforeseen high server load… Despite everything, after spending 58 hours traveling the world, working on my business, shooting pictures of well-known sites, and playing around in free flight, I sat back in my chair this week and said, “I can not believe it… they did it again.” Even though no one was there to hear me, it was still worthwhile to say out because of all the amazing new features and advancements that Microsoft has put on top of the already excellent foundation laid by its predecessor.
Flight Simulator 2024 is a significant improvement in terms of graphics. The seasonal shift is arguably the most obvious. I tend to explore Maine in-sim more than most other places since I live there, just because it is interesting to observe how closely the digital twin resembles the Earth we currently inhabit. This makes me an authority on the appearance of Maine, which is not usually a good thing, but for this review, I could be the most qualified person. Now that it is late autumn, the simulation and real-life trees have lost their leaves, and wooden skeletons sit atop the little mountains and undulating hills of this state in the Northeast. Populations of dark green evergreen trees, such as pines and spruce, break the greyish-brown pattern. Additionally, Flight Simulator 2024 accurately depicts such a brief hibernation phase.
The weather and all the seasons are. Do you want to take in Vermont’s renowned fall foliage? To view the vivid fall colors there, change the calendar and weather settings to October. The trees will settle into a lovely leafy green if you push them back a bit more. You can even change the snow depth if you prefer to return to the winter. If you taxi your plane through the snow, it makes tracks, exactly like in mud and tall grass.
Do you recall last April’s total solar eclipse across the United States? If you missed it, simply set the date to April 8, 2024, and change the time to wherever the totality was at your location, and you can immediately sail through that cosmic event yourself. I was lucky enough to live a few hours away from the path of totality and observe it personally. When I saw this tip floating around the internet, I thought it would merely go black and then brilliant again, but instead, the sun shrank until it was completely obscured by the moon. Even the lighting was eerily close to the real thing. It is simply amazing, and I believe I will go back to see it from a 35,000-foot airliner.
The cockpit’s lighting simply strikes a different note than it did previously.
When you are on or close to the ground, these seasonal variations are most apparent. On the other hand, the GPU works hardest there as well. My Radeon RX 7900XT GPU is operating at 99% on the ground, and lowering the graphical settings only reduces the load to 95%.
Although it is still quite high, the strain on my GPU decreased to 80% when you are flying and the requirements to render all those trees are reduced. This is a huge improvement. Since landing your aircraft anywhere, getting out, and walking about is one of Flight Simulator 2024’s main new features, I am expecting that developer Asobo Studio will try to optimize this as the sim develops. It is unfortunate that this fantastic new feature strains your hardware so much.
Career Path
There are a few new modes in Flight Simulator 2024, such as time trial races with leaderboards and on-foot picture competitions, but I thought the Career mode was the most interesting. In 2020’s Flight Simulator, I mostly utilized my imagination to add duties to my free flights, but in Career mode, if you meet the necessary prerequisites, you have real missions to finish.
Choosing an airfield to serve as your home base and completing the necessary training to obtain your Private Pilot License, or PPL is how your career begins. Unfortunately, despite the new engine and enhanced instruction audio, the PPL training is the same as the 2020 version. Having to go through the same training I did previously is a little disheartening, but as a refresher, I did not mind. Additionally, you can skip the training and go straight to the test if you are comfortable piloting.
By taking on work, you accrue credits, and the kinds of jobs that are available depend on your reputation, experience level, and credentials. For instance, you can only carry a passenger or two on “initial flights,” which are brief trips around a predetermined flight path, after you have your PPL. To earn the required “hours” of experience to advance to your Commercial Pilot License or CPL, you must have completed a handful of them.
After obtaining that, your expertise and earning potential significantly increase, and they only get more profitable as you enable specialties for your CPL, such as turboprop engine rating, Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) certification, and tail-wheel endorsement, to mention a few. You can begin delivering planes from one airport to another right away, and certain positions, like search and rescue, will not become available until you have accumulated a significant amount of flight time and several certifications and endorsements.
Everything unfolds similarly to a standard, antiquated skill tree in a video game. For instance, without your high-performance endorsement—which is dependent on your CPL—you are unable to obtain your turboprop engine rating. You can fill them out whichever you believe is most appropriate, or you can concentrate your attention on one path in the tree if you like to specialize. Additionally, a distinct tree exists for helicopters, which functions essentially in the same manner, but with different criteria and, you know, helicopters rather than fixed-wing aircraft.
Flight Planner
The Flight Planner is perhaps the most amazing, fascinating, and ultimately geeky addition to Flight Simulator 2024. It is a web-based application that performs a great job of simulating the resources and flight planning software that real pilots use to plan their flights. The idea itself is not new; Flight Simulator applications have been doing this for a while. However, this one is free and fully compatible with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, which was created by Working Title, one of Asobo’s partners.
You can experiment with it on any device that has a web browser because it is web-based rather than an iOS or Android app. And I have done that, friends. There are not any extraneous welcome screens or fluff when logging in to the website. Though it has even more functions and can be used anywhere, at any time, it is the same Electronic Flight Bag or EFB, that is already in-game. It has a couple of drawbacks, though: no matter what plane I am planning to fly, the altitude always defaults to 35,000 feet, and fuel does not seem to load correctly.
I must admit, though, that I am not sure if this is my fault or merely an issue that has not been fixed yet. I am not even sure what each choice on this flight planner does because it is so large, intricate, and feature-rich. Although creating and uploading a flight plan is simple, what excites me are all the other capabilities that I have not yet figured out. I wanted to understand everything, so I found myself contentedly searching for flight charts and a hundred other things on Google. All of a sudden, I have a reason to study all of the intricate technical aspects of flying that actual pilots must master before they can fly.
There is nothing gimmick about the Flight Planner. It seems necessary.
The procedure of loading the flight plan into my EFB in the simulator was a little hard for me at first, but I quickly figured it out and made a tutorial so you do not have to go through what I did. Holy cow, after I finally figured everything out, I submitted the route to air traffic control, then to the avionics of my virtual plane, and voila! I created the plan on my iPad and loaded it into Flight Simulator 2024.
I could utilize my plane’s autopilot system or manually navigate my route; it was everything there. In addition to giving me greater freedom to experiment and learn the nuances of flight planning and chart reading whenever I want on any platform, it also makes what is already the most realistic simulation available feel even more real when I get back in. This type of activity does not feel like a gimmick, and I am sucked into it. It seems to be a necessary part of the experience. I find it exciting, and it gives my dad’s energy a whole new level.
Additionally, you may now use airport charts that are identical to those in real life! The time in 2020 when I would land at an airport and be guided to the gate by the AI copilot is long gone. I can now open the kneeboard in Flight Planner and see the facility maps and charts just like I would if I were there. My body is craving this kind of fine-grained simulation material. And if you are like me, you are already searching Google for the distinction between VOR DME and VOR DTAC (the military counterpart of VOR DME, of course), even if it regrettably lacks a lesson plan to follow or any kind of tutorial.
Verdict
Our cruise altitude has been reached. You are free to wander around the cabin and safely unbuckle your seatbelts. After Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 took the time to fix its launch issues and I had a chance to get a feel for its new features, I was once again amazed by Asobo’s ability to replicate the success of 2020’s Microsoft Flight Simulator. It does more than just replicate the experience of flying; with the help of the EFB and Flight Planner, you can master the technical aspects of how pilots operate aircraft, even the parts that do not use elevators, ailerons, or trim. The only thing that happens when I come across a new phrase that I do not understand is that it makes me want to study more so that I can fly virtual airplanes on a digital duplicate of Earth as realistically as possible. It is not perfect; there are still some issues with those new systems and tutorials that are either nonexistent or, worse, have persistent issues, which makes Google a regular friend. However, I continue to be amazed by what I see here and am eager to explore it for hundreds of hours.
