u/Fighterpilot108

If you are wanting to fly more soviet style aircraft, there are some excellent freeware options for X-Plane. Including:

Tu-154

Tu-134

An-12

Il-76

I would say out of all of them the Tu-154 is the most complete, and is payware quality. It even has an English cockpit translation. The Tu-134 and An-12 follow closely behind. I would say the Il-76 is a little dated, but is still fun to fly. These are all on the Felis Discord. Highly recommend checking them out!

I don't own it yet, so I used the screenshot on the org store page.

Stay safe cool and hydrated.

Worried about all the fireworks considering how dry it’s been. Humidity is supposed to be 35% ish throughout the heatwave

Stay cool and hydrated. The NWS hasn’t been saying anything, but I hope the fireworks don’t start any wildfires considering how dry it’s been.

The saving grace is that humidity is supposed to be 35% ish throughout the heatwave.

Most of the time I see this, just two stratus layers that are stacked on top of each other.

Honestly don't know if I'm going crazy or not. I look where convective sigmets are and real world radar and just can't find any in the sim. Maybe every one in a while I'll see a sad dying CB, but nothing major.

Of course I'm not expecting it to be one for one, but I'm at least expecting to see something

Did NOT know this was a feature. You can see me get startled with my headtracking. What an awesome airplane.

Here are some comparison images I made between Xplane 12 and MSFS 2024. MSFS 24 is stock, Xplane 12 is using ortho with bing maps, and simheaven for autogen. I did my best to make sure the lighting/weather conditions were the same.

**High Level**

Pretty similar, I would say that MSFS is more crisp, while Xplane is more blended. I can't really say I prefer one over the other. If I had to choose I would say Xplane as the real world weather added a nice haze effect.

**Landing**

There are a couple different aspects to this. Ground textures and trees are better in MSFS. However Xplane's default airport looks a lot better than MSFS. This is thanks to the community gateway which allows it to be handcrafted.

I would prefer Xplane in this situation for the airport scenery.

**Low Level Islands**

Honestly very similar. If I had to choose in this situation I would say MSFS, as it has more accurate/greater variety of foliage.

**Nassau**

MSFS has an edge for the ships (although IIRC they are handcrafted). The autogen in general is a lot higher quality and crisper in MSFS. Additionally, MSFS handled the placement of trees and types of trees a lot better (evergreens in Nassau?). Xplane is definitely passable though, but MSFS solidly has an edge here.

**Thunderstorms**

This to me is the biggest letdown in MSFS. I love thunderstorms, MSFS does not do them well. No anvil structure, tops out at maybe 15,000 ft, and a blobby mess. I would say Xplane has gotten it pretty spot on. If I could change anything I would make the anvil more... wispy? To me it looks a little thick.

**Closing Thoughts**

What's missing in this is photogrammetry, I left it out because Xplane 12 does not have it, and so I cannot compare them. This feature is amazing.

In my opinion, the two sims look pretty indistinguishable in most situations. Xplane is passable at worst, pretty much the same as MSFS most of the time (think high level flying). And Xplane's weather model in my opinion is it's greatest strength.

I can sit here comparing both sims all day, but the biggest winner here is flightsimmers. We have two great sims. If one starts enshittifying their product it's easy to hop over to another one.

This even carries over to aircraft. Let's say a certain developer promises a low upgrade fee for their aircraft (about the price of a cup of coffee), and it turns out to be a 30$ cup of coffee. Well, that other sim has a study level version of the same aircraft for free!

This is just an overall win for consumers.

Really enjoying the challenge the Tu-154 provides. VOR to VOR across Cuba and the Bahamas is super fun!

It never ceases to amaze me that most likely, whatever airport I load into has been custom made by a gateway artist. Pictured is MUCC, I just loaded in to test some ortho and to my surprise it's completely custom made.

This truly is one of the best features in a flightsim. And I'm so thankful to all the artists who make this possible.

Pictured is MUCC in Cuba. Loaded in to test some ortho scenery and was surprised that it's fully custom. Although considering how awesome the people on the scenery gateway are I shouldn't be surprised. Can't wait for a gateway feature to release in MSFS

X-Crafts did an amazing job with this jet and I have been enjoying it a lot lately. Beyond just being wonderfully simulated, I really like all the QOL features it has. Things like:

-Simbrief Integration

-Pop out panels with custom interactivity and clickspots

-EFB with checklists and performance calculations, charts

Probably my favorite thing however is the new Aircomms system. Such an innovative an new feature. The interactive tutorial really helped me learn the jet. The reminders are useful as well.

Overall I highly recommend it!