Hello & Welcome.
For everyone to get the maximum enjoyment from the multiplayer sessions , here are some explanations.
Who............
- We are people that enjoy flight simming & flying online expands on that hobby.
When.........
What...........
Where...........
- You can choose one of the Hoplists for pre-determined routes or FreeFlight & choose your own.
Why..........
- If you need to ask ...........
For those with some MS Flight Sim experience, learning to fly online should take only a short time getting used to things.
New starters with very little or no experience have a little bit more to get used to.
First of all you will notice when you launch a multi player session with MSFS 2004(FS9),you will have a dialog window or chat window similar to messenger programs
& FSX users will need the FsHost Client (www.chocolatesoftware.com/fshost/fshostclient.html ) & that program has it's own chat window.
Even though it is a chat window , it's main function is getting instuctions from the host computer (usually called the server)
& of course sending comments .
You can message to one or some or all, in the chat window (send to all becomes public, viewed by anyone at the time on the same server).
It's good to communicate with courtesy & wait for a reply (somebody may be dealing with a landing or a difficult situation & may not reply straight away).
It's considered good practice to say hello when you enter the server & be polite.
New users of MS Flight Sim are certainly welcome but at times will ask questions from other users they should already know the answers to
(examples may be ."How do I get to xxxxxx?" or "What do I do now?" "How do I land?" " My engines are stopped.How do I start them?").
MSFS has excellent built in lessons & these are very good tutorials for providing detailed knowledge about this new hobby.
If you are able to create a flight plan & follow the flight plan you should be on the way to a rewarding hobby that will last a lifetime.
Learning navigation is not essential to start with but as time goes on it will come in very handy & give you much more scope in the routes you can follow.
For instance some of the hoplists here have no ICAO codes or GPS references in the directions so you will NEED to know how to navaigate for those routes.
It may seem boring to do all that reading but it is essential knowledge, after all this is supposed to be fun & the time will fly by(is that a pun?).
There's Free Flight or Hoplists available for virtual pilot's use.
Free Flight means you can choose where & when to fly anywhere on the FS map.
Free does not mean anything you like , for example, disruptive behaviour or overuse of the chatbox to the exclusion of others.
If you need to chat to certain pilots you can highlight their names & chat privately not interfering with the publicly seen window & that gives all users a chance to see relevant messages.
Hoplists are pre-determined flight lists , a string of departures &
destinations,usually having a theme & some are available all the time , whereas others are a monthly event.
Some virtual pilots use FS Passengers for FSX & FS9.
All pilots running FS Passengers are able to fly any routes of their choosing or join in on the monthly hoplists or for that matter anything that is available.
Those pilots are running a vitual business carrying out flights for virtual money with costs of aircraft purchasing for their fleet as well as ongoing maintainence & fuel costs.
Pilots in this situation may not be free to roam around the countyside in any old bushplane because they are trying to earn virtual cash for their enterprise so bear that in mind when making requests to fly along or setting a route to fly for fun.
Some quick notes.............
When you are visible to other planes , the fancy looking plane you are in may look like a default cessna to the others.
The only times that will change is if the other pilot has that exact plane in their hangar or in FsHostClient for FSX it is possible to change the plane visible to you from something else in your own hangar.
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