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Reviews (by Alexandru)

FS ACADEMY - VFR MSFS

FS ACADEMY - VFR MSFS

Overall this is a good product but it has some shortcomings. The manual itself is quite decent and does a good job at explaining basics in a concise manner. I wish I could say the same about the lessons in the sim. Whilst generally still good and certainly a BIG step up over the vanilla "Flight Training" offered by MSFS, I struggled quite a bit with the triggers in this package. For starters, error correction (should the student pilot miss a sentence or perhaps an entire instruction) is minimal and outside of reminding you to maintain your altitude or airspeed if you stray too far off, there seems to be no way of reminding the student pilot what he/she should be doing if they mess up, e.g.: you could very well end up flying straight away from your intended landing airport because you may have missed an instruction to turn. Mission 4 in particular was especially frustrating, as the airport you're expected to land at has a grass strip which was near impossible to identify to begin with and once you finally get over it and enter the pattern, there was seemingly no further instruction to turn final and land, landing on you own accord also doesn't trigger any further audio. Seems I could've flown on forever into the distance without any correction from the instructor. All in all, personally I've found the PDF manual FAR more useful than the in-sim lessons/missions. In fairness to the developer, I do not know if trigger placement for missions is a limitation of MSFS's SDK at this time, seeing as it's all new and basic from what I've heard, OR if this aspect of the pack was just generally overlooked. I would've expected a VFR pack (arguably made for absolute newbies to flight) to hold my hand a little bit more, allow more time to execute instructions before giving a new one, have better selection of airports in order to adequately introduce key concepts (e.g. grass strips when you're trying to learn precise traffic pattern entry techniques are an unnecessary added difficulty to the learning process) and generally be able to handle failures to execute instrucitons by the student pilot, much better than this. That said, the quality of the audio and the information itself both in the manual and the in-sim lessons IS GOOD, in fact I really liked that there is custom ATC audio with much more in depth information/advanced "ATC-speak", it's just seriously hindered and made more difficult by the implementation. I can only hope the dev can take this (hopefully) constructive criticism and perhaps tweak these aspects and update the pack in the future, since at the time of writing, I'm having a better experience just reading the manual and practicing what I learn in my own free flights. 3/5 for implentation, 5/5 for effort, call it 4/5 overall.

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NORTHERN SKY STUDIO - KETCHIKAN INT - MSFS

NORTHERN SKY STUDIO - KETCHIKAN INT - MSFS

A great little airport if you're into Alaska, remote locations and just generally very athmospheric locations. Northern Sky Studio has done a great job bringing this airport to life and I couldn't recommend it more. In my opinion, it's especially great if you're into GA or smaller regional jet flights and/or bush flying in the area. Throw a little snow on the ground in the midst of winter as well and you're really going to be in for a treat! Can't really provide much in light of downsides, the airport itself and everything surrounding it is great quality and has had great detail put in, and as far as I can tell a good attempt was made to beautify the other side of the river as well. If anything could be improved, it would be the marina on the other side of the airport, the default Microsoft semi visible docks just don't do the area service. But in all fairness, this is generally well beyond the scope of the airport, it would just be a nice cherry on top. :) All in all, a great product, will give some serious purpose to those Alaska airline liveries :) Highly recommended!

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DRZEWIECKI DESIGN - SEATTLE LANDMARKS MSFS

DRZEWIECKI DESIGN - SEATTLE LANDMARKS MSFS

As the most recent addition to DD's Landmarks protfolio for MSFS, the Seattle pack by far takes the cake over the Washington and Moscow packs, not that those packs aren't also amazing, but unlike those packs, Seattle Landmarks has nailed its execution and I'd doubt there's really any space for improvement. It's pretty much perfect! I absolutely loved that the ferris wheel spins, great addition! Not much else to say at this time. I'm sure if I do find any downsides DD would take care of it in following updates, but this is a GREAT pack! Highly recommended!

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DRZEWIECKI DESIGN - WASHINGTON LANDMARKS MSFS

DRZEWIECKI DESIGN - WASHINGTON LANDMARKS MSFS

Overall a great addition to MSFS! The pack improves many areas of Washington D.C. and really makes what would otherwise be highly illegal VFR touring over well White House, a pleasureable experience. That said, with the release of Microsofts/Asobos USA Update, some of the landmarks in this pack leave some space for improvement. Whilst overall Drzewiecki Design offers more intricate textures than the vanilla sim, the texture resolution on the Linconln Memorial and Washington Monument in particular is actually lower than that of the vanilla alternatives. There are great pluses as well though, namely the White House and the Capitol building are much better modelled and are actually placed correctly onto the map, unlike the vanilla game which sinks them too much into the ground. Also the many museums and other administrative buildings in the area get a huge upgrade with this pack. The pentagon seems more or less the same in quality when compared to vanilla. All things considered, this is still a great pack, great addition and great value. I would hope that Drzewiecki Design push out an update in the future to bump up the resolution on some of these landmarks however. Recommended!

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DRZEWIECKI DESIGN - MOSCOW LANDMARKS MSFS

DRZEWIECKI DESIGN - MOSCOW LANDMARKS MSFS

Great quality, as expected from Drzewiecki Design. This pack is a huge upgrade over the vanilla experience in MSFS and huge value considering it also upgrades the nearby airports! The financial centre alone is a completely different place, going from generic square and bland buildings in the vanilla exprience to true to life representations in the Moscow Landmarks pack! That said, whilst overall a great upgrade and amazing value, there are a few caviats. Namely, the texture quality of the buildings does leave some space for improvement, at closer ranges. Specifically the top of the Mercury City tower caught my eye as it was seemingly textured with default satellite imagery and broke up the imersion. All that said, I'm giving this pack a 5 star as I know it's still very early and I'm hoping that Drzewiecki Design might update with improvements over time. And of course, the amount and general quality of scenery for the money is still unrivalled, so great job! Highly recommended!

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