Stearmandriver

I've never bought a single 3rd party airline airport. There's no need. When it comes to atmospheric GA or bush strips, yes, 3rd party scenery can significantly help. When it comes to large airline airports though, pretty much all of them in the sim are plenty usable as-is. I'd say start with some airline flights to default airports and see if you even like this kind of simming before you start spending money on scenery you may end up not using regularly.

To be fair, "realistic" turbulence in 2020 and 2024 definitely isn't. I run turb on low and even then I see occasionally unrealistic air movements, though 2024 seems a bit better about this. But "realistic" is way overdone in both sims. But also, PMDG is known for accepting flaws in their flight model and auto flight behavior as LRBS says. They have a tendency to then try and gaslight their users into believing that it's a "realistic quirk" - until maybe they finally fix it a few years later and then tout themselves as the best dev in existence for being able to solve this suddenly egregious problem that they've told you was fine for a long time 😉. TL;DR - it's probably a little of both. You can't fix the PMDG issues, but you can certainly try turning your turbulence down.

Haha in airplanes this old, just about ANYTHING is a realistic option. There are as many restoration styles as there are airframes still flying. I've flown J-3s with no electrical system at all, I've flown them with nothing but an electric starter, and I've flown them with all manner of radios crammed in all manner of places. The one thing I'd say about the CAS Cub is: if I were restoring a J-3 and putting an electrical system in it to run radios, I'd surely give it an electric starter too 😁. But I suppose from a simming standpoint, the hand propping is novel. And I'll bet, somewhere out there, is a Cub in this exact configuration. There's always one.

Well, kind of. Yes if ATC needs you down early for traffic, you're coming down early. But usually this isn't the case and your initial descent clearance will be at pilot's discretion. They do this specifically because they know we want to remain on our FMC calculated vertical path, based on the cleared arrival. It would be fair to say that a pilot's descent calculations for optimized performance are secondary to traffic deconfliction needs, but I wouldn't say they mean nothing to ATC. I'm not sure what BATC is doing these days but if it's regularly forcing you to start down early vs using a discretionary descent, that would be pretty unrealistic.

Yep I've got it now. I explained above: the Navigraph app on my phone would not allow me to scroll the menu down far enough to see the final chart in portrait orientation. I could only see it when I turned to landscape. Would not have expected charts could hide haha.

Ah hah, there it is, sure enough. I was looking at the navigraph app on my phone, and weirdly I could not scroll down far enough to see that last chart in the list until I turned my phone from portrait to landscape. So I could see the charts for the BIG transitions but not OCK. Weird but good to know now that can happen.

The CAS Cub is hands-down the BEST stick and rudder airplane in MSFS. The BEST. And as the real J-3 is the best stick and rudder airplane that has ever been built, this works out well. Additionally, it's probably the airplane I've tried in the sim that feels the most like its real-world counterpart. I love Cubs, and this thing does them justice.

Maybe I'm missing something; I never did see it specified which STAR we were talking about. But from what I looked at, I only see one STAR that drops you at OCK (the fix referenced by the OP). Where are you seeing a charted transition from OCK to 09L? From BIG, yes, but how is that helpful if your STAR ends OCK? Looks to me like vectors are absolutely required. Not getting them would 100% match my experiences with BATC. It simply doesn't really understand vectors, when they're required, which parameters must be honored etc.

Yes, I'll try it again at some point. But it hasn't been THAT long since I last tried it, and in my experiments it still has not vectored me correctly, not even once. This spans airline flying into hub airports and GA IFR flying into a variety of fields. It's never once done things "correctly", there's always a time when I have to just shut it off. It's descended me into mountains. Given me 90 degree intercepts. Dropped me on downwind while on vectors and then shipped me to tower. Never even once has it given me vectors that are even close to a real world standard of "acceptable". Based on the latest reports, it's still not fixed so every time I think about trying it, I opt for Vatsim instead even if not fully staffed. One day, though. At this point it's kind of a game to see what it'll do next.

It's a game so sure, you can do whatever you want. But if you're suggesting this is what would happen in reality, that's definitely not true. Can you get hung high because ATC forgets to clear you lower and you can't get a word in? Sure. Can you get hung high because of conflicting traffic? Sure. But you'll never just "decide" to descend on your own. ATC doesn't care what your flight plan says, they've got traffic to deconflict and can't just have you doing as you like. In reality, you'll deal with the high as necessary - add drag, get relief on speed restrictions, get vectored for the descent, even enter a hold if necessary. You can't just do what you want unless it's a safety of flight issue, and even then you have to advise ATC asap. I have also seen BATC just completely break, in which case I just self-vector to final, but if that's really what the program "expects" you to do, then it's simply broken, is all. I haven't used it in a while for this reason; if it can't vector correctly, I don't even see the point. That's basically its only job.

Haha, they're trying hard to keep up with the iFly. Not quite managing though, especially compared to what's coming out soon from iFly.

The reason to use LNAV to join would be if you're given a steeper than 30 degree intercept, or if (in real life) you're far enough out and low enough to be receiving a shaky localizer. In these scenarios LNAV will do a smoother intercept with no overshoot. As long as you're in approach mode by the FAF, it's a perfectly acceptable technique. I doubt anyone uses it as an actual SOP, but it is a valid technique that has benefits in certain situations.

Just wanted to point out in case you weren't aware: there's currently a very, very good J-3 available, the CAS Cub. I haven't used the A2A version since FSX days but from what I remember, the CAS Cub is right up there with the A2A version.

No offense, but I'm guessing I've had a little more interaction with him than you have, and this is a false characterization. It's Discord; it's a sloppy disaster if someone doesn't keep it on track, and so yes, I'm sure he doesn't hesitate to use admin authority when that seems the best way to solve a problem. It's not ego, and it's definitely not iFly or Flight1 trying to "silence naysayers". I can personally speak to how glad they are for constructive, knowledgeable criticism. The adjectives are important in that last sentence. If criticism falls outside those boundaries (in other words, if it's typical of what is seen on platforms like Discord or Reddit etc) then yes, of course it'll be moderated. The idea is to use the platform for adult conversation, not whining or foot stomping. Back when I was active on the public facing discord of theirs, I can't tell you how many complaints I had to explain away as simply incorrect. Users often reacted poorly to being told by someone with experience that they were mistaken about the operation of an airplane they'd never even sat in. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me and that's why I don't bother with that server anymore, but such is the modern Internet. I'm frankly glad someone is trying to preserve some order.

This isn't like that at all. Many people raised issues when this product was released; I know, I was one of them. What was impressive was how seriously they took the feedback. We had multiple updates within a few weeks of launch, correcting all the big ticket items. Work has continued since then on what is a VERY polished SP1, in testing now. The team (and many of us testers) have given multiple updates on the status of SP1 along the way and especially over the last month or so as we get close. I don't like devs who push unfinished abandonware either. Let's be very clear that iFly is not one of those devs.