Well, the World Tour with X-Plane has been finally cancelled. The next leg was supposed to be from Paro to Along, flying over Lhasa. A very challenging leg, due to its length and altitude, but feasible. However, due to all the turmoil caused by the release of MSFS, I don't see how to continue.
For a very long time, I stopped flying in general. X-plane didn't feel as immersive any more, due to the autogen and weather. Landscapes are obviously better with Ortho4XP, but the effort of making them, plus the weather layers and the ugly urban areas, opposed to how nice they looked on MSFS, made me not wanting to continue with X-Plane.
On the other hand, MSFS was not ready at all. The weather, despite being beautiful, worked really bad at that time and didn't synchronize properly with real world. Mountais were round and the fields were full of FSX-like green patches. The Baron was one of the worst default planes in the game, even lacking the ALT knob to select altitude while on AP. At some point I even noticed that the fuel was not being consumed during a 2 hours flight. As a consquence, I left flying for a while.
Time passed by and Asobo somehow finished the product and made MSFS finally enjoyable for the type of experience I look for. After many Sim Updates and many World Updates, real weather is fixed and functional, IFR is possible, flight model is decent and the mesh has been improved a bit. Still, mountain landscapes look better with Ortho4XP, but the difference is not as brutal as it was before, so despite some bad regions in the world, overall landscapes are enjoyable in MSFS. Flat and urban areas are delightful, specially in those regions with good weather.
However, default planes were still a huge flaw. Plus they implemented the G1000 and glass cockpit everywhere, which has been buggy and a pain since the release. Now they work better, but still a pain, specially for those who like old way of flying. And the biggest flaw for me, the lack of failures during flight. I cannot enjoy flying and knowing that nothing will happen whatever I do to the aircraft. That gives me the idea that I'm just moving a camera around a scenery, and for that I go to Google Earth.
But decent 3rd party planes started to show up. First, Just Flight Piper Arrows, that I plan to get at some point. I got the M20R Ovation, from Carenado, that is not study-level but decent enough and better than the default airplanes. Then, Cessna 310 from Milviz showed up. This was a game-changing experience for me. Finally I could fly an analog old-school plane, study-level, with failures and wear and tear! This plane is great for immersion, and a very decent machine. Two engines, turbocharged, ceiling of 20,000 ft, cruise speeds of 180-200 kt. Just a bit "nervous" on take off, with highly sensitive pitch, but excellent in everything else. Definitely a great airplane to reconsider doing a new World Tour, since nobody was developing a Baron and the performance is very similar.
So I sold the Baron in FSEconomy, to buy the Cessna 310. The closest to Europe is at Madagascar... so I begin to fly the 310 from Madagascar towards Europe, with the idea of starting a new World Tour. And, while I'm doing that, Black Square announces the add-on I though would never be done: the Analog Baron. This add-on rebuilds the default Baron at MSFS to make it analog, fully funcional and study-level. It includes improved flight model, failures, wear and tear... I quickly checked in FSEconomy if my old Baron was still at Paro, or nearby, to try to buy it back and continue the World Tour from there, but no way.
So, after thinking for a while, and thanks to a loan by a friend in FSEconomy, I bought another Baron, located in Berlin, that I'm flying towards Spain.
A new World Tour is coming, this time in MSFS.
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