doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (04/26/85)
Now that I've used the Flight Simulator II package some more, here
is an update to my prior "sneak preview" review.
First, the problem of stalling when attempting to climb at best rate
of climb speed seems to have disappeared. Perhaps I just screwed up
before, but it works okay now.
I've given up on using the joysticks, and have found that controlling
it with the keyboard is better. The joysticks provide very coarse
control, suitable for initially fooling around, but not for serious
operation.
I've localized one problem I was having with the pitch control. The
documentation notes that in order to facilitate rapid pitch changes,
the program will double the effect of any nose-up or nose-down command
made within a half second of the previous one. What I've realized is
that since the visual image is updated at least twice a second, if you
try to make a small adjustment every time the picture changes, you'll
actually be making *big* adjustments. Gotta relax a bit and let things
slide a bit more than I do in a real plane.
There is an old saying that "Flying is hours of boredom interrupted by
moments of stark terror." Well, FS-II can certainly simulate the hours
of boredom if you let it. Having flown real planes for seven years, I
automatically tend to plod along, waiting for the simulator to climb to
altitude so I can do some aerobatics or something. Gotta remember it's
easier to hit "E" and key in an appropriate altitude. Same for going
places. I spent 40 minutes shooting the ILS approach into Van Nuys,
simply because it didn't occur to me to key in a position and heading
that would put me inbound at the Initial Approach Fix.
Which brings up another minor gripe. SubLOGIC should have included more
charts and approach plates ("maps" to you non-pilots). I've got a good
set of real charts, both VFR and IFR, for the West, including the L.A.
and Seattle areas, but not for the Chicago and N.Y. areas. Non-pilots
aren't likely to have any at all. One problem with real charts is that
they are not for a flat Earth, and the coordinates don't jibe exactly
with SubLOGIC's.
Something else I've learned: after I've finally reached the point at
which I'm going to start doing whatever it is I'm going to do, I hit
the "S" key to save the current position as the reset point. Then I
don't have to work my way back after a crash.
And yet another gripe. Saving the "user modes" (initial conditions)
on disk... FS-II always reformats the entire diskette every time you
save to disk! Darned head-banging, time consuming procedure. Also,
it isn't clear in the documentation that you must use an *empty*
diskette for saving user modes. Fortunately, I'm an untrusting person
and I used a newly-formatted blank diskette.
Still, it's an impressive technical achievement. I can't believe that
they can do all that with a 1 MHz 6502 (okay, 6510, same thing).
Further reviews to follow as I get more experience.
--
Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug