Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Beginner’s Tips

These beginner tips should help you get started in the early hours of the new Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and ensure you have a fun time

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is finally out, marking a huge return for the franchise with massive critical acclaim. If you are just starting out, these Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Beginner’s Tips are sure to help you achieve your flight mastery.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Beginner’s Tips

The ease of access to the MS Flight Simulator is a huge aspect of its overall success. So, when you get a copy of the flight simulator from Microsoft Store or Steam, you would like to know the following stuff:

Complete the Flight Training First
As Microsoft Flight Simulator is a highly realistic flight experience, you need to make sure, and this goes without saying, that you are completely familiar with the controls of the game.

Flight Training covers nearly every concept worth knowing, and it’s designed to get you up in the sky as fast as possible.

At the same time, it explains a handful of controls that might not be intuitive, especially if you’re planning on playing this game with a controller.

This training will help you learn to take-off, stay in air and land safely and explains all the parts of the game in details. What is a good simulator without having to actually take a class, right?

Customize your Avatar
The new simmer may not be aware of this, as there is a lack of a tutorial on this subject, but you can change the appearance of your pilot and even co-pilot in the simulator.

To do so, go to the Options > General > Misc. tab and you will find the option named as ‘Pilot Avatar Settings’. There will be a total of 24 models you can choose from.

Choosing Your Plane
Now this is where your choice will make huge difference. Different planes are good for different scenarios, and choosing the right plane is what matters.

Following are the plane types in-game:

  • Propeller Planes: Propeller planes are great for flying low and relatively slow, in case you plan on sightseeing around dense areas like cities.
  • Turboprops: These are good planes to move up to after you’ve gotten comfortable with propeller planes. They’re also a good fit when you want something faster, like when going over larger stretches of land like mountains, large forests, or big lakes.
  • Airlines and Jets: To cover longer distances, consider stepping into an airliner or jet. Both options have comparable speed but handle differently due to their size. Some airliners have much larger fuel reserves, in case you feel like simulating an intercontinental flight from the comfort of your home computer.

MS Flight Simulator Assistance
As a newbie, do not worry about the assistance that the simulator provides you at the start and through the whole flight.

The level of assistance will remain the same, no matter how you customize your simulator experience.

Flying small propeller aircrafts is easy but when you are in some mammoth airbus you will definitely need some assistance.

The setting we recommend is ‘set Piloting to medium, disable everything else except take-off auto rudder and delegate ATC to AI’.

Use AI Mode
Just as real planes have autopilots, the game offers you AI mode. This allows you to maintain your plane and journey easily.

On larger planes, you get an Auto-Pilot button by default, however, you can still use the AI control on all planes to help manage the jet when situations get out of hand. Just like a “Save Me” Card.

AI Control also gives you the opportunity to have your copilot handle the pre-flight checklists and all interactions with the control tower.

We highly recommend you do so if you aren’t interested in those aspects of the game. It’ll significantly speed up the amount of time it takes for you to get off the ground.

Camera and Photo Scenes
There is a tutorial about taking realistic pictures in the simulator and also about saving any custom scene.

But it was never mentioned but once so anyone can easily forget about this utility. What this does is, if you want to save a custom camera view that you like, just press CTRL + ALT + 1.

The other thing is getting some crazy good screenshots, which you can easily do by just pressing pause.

It will simply lock your plane in place and now you can take a screenshot of the view you like.

Full Flight Setup
We recommend you to use some basic Yolk/Rudder setup at least when you are getting started with the simulator if you do not want to pay hundreds of dollars.

But having a joystick and basic flight setup will make your life very easy and you will be able to handle your planes quite easily and will also have an easier time understanding all the flight stuff.

The second option is having a combination of a gamepad and keyboard that will give you enough shortcut keys as well as controls.

If you only have a keyboard, that will also be sufficient to start with so do not worry and learn from the basic tutorials, they will make your life easy.

Landing
Landing in the MS Flight Simulator is simple; When landing, point to the center if the runway and keep the nose of the aircraft down and as you get close to the runway, pull it slightly upward and you will have a smooth landing.

We recommend you to go through the fourth tutorial level very thoroughly to learn more about easy landing.

Travel Speed
If real-time flight isn’t your thing, we don’t blame you. For that you can increase the simulation rate of the game. This essentially speeds up everything that happens in the game, making your flights go by much faster.

The default button on keyboard to do this is “R” which you combine with the “+” or “-” buttons to either increase or decrease the sim rate.

Also, at the top of your screen you can open the Travel To tab which shows your planned flight path.

If you really don’t enjoy the cruising stages of a flight, you can very well skip those and travel forward in time.

You can even choose whether or not the game jumps forward into simulated time or keeps the current live conditions.

Enjoy
You are not bounded. In the game, you are free to set up your own routes by selecting the departure and destination airports to make flights across. This allows you to explore the world at your own pace.

Also, you don’t even have to really get a fixed arrival destination. Say you just want to fly around Seoul, South Korea.

Simply put in Incheon Airport as your departure and hit the fly button on the bottom right. Once you take off, you’re free to go wherever you’d like

One Step at a Time
So, in the end, what we will recommend is to take it one step at a time. Use all the features available in the simulator to learn and help you out.

There is a checklist system that will get you started step by step. Co-Pilot will be a big help as well.

You can go with any aircraft at any time in the simulator. Don’t forget ‘Practice Makes Perfect’.