Better flying technique

[Guest]

I have been flying with flight Sim now for as long as I remember, but I want to try to improve my flying technique.Can anybody recommend a good aircraft to use in order to learn to fly flight sim in a more professional manor?Also any recommendations as to what type of flights to practise ?I normally try to practice circuits a lot but I cant seem to get any more accurate and smooth.Any suggestions would be welcome!Thanks in advance.

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

Really, if you want to get better, the best way to do so and learn and have fun is to go to your local airport and take flying lessons.

[Guest]

That would be nice but I am flat broke!!!!!!

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

I understand. 767PIC is excellent, and the DF 737 is OK. Another way to make is more realistic and professional is to call out all the checklists and callouts as appropriate. Doing ILS/VOR/NDB approaches in say a C172 doing the full procedure (ie proc turn etc) and using the IFR panel that some of them have will make it a lot more challenging. Fly it right down to minimums and then see what you can see outside.

[Guest]

There are two keys (among several) to smooth flying technique.The first is to know the power and pitch settings for various phases of flight. Although any aircraft will do, use the default 172 to start with and set the realism settings to hard.At 3000' AGL find out what power and pitch settings are required to maintain altitude at various airspeeds, going from 110, 90, 70, 55.Next, starting at 3000 find out what power and pitch settings are required for various steady rates of climb: 100 fpm, 300, 500, 700.Finally, starting at 3000 find out what power and pitch settings are required for various stead rates of descent: 100 fpm, 300, 500, 750, 1000, 1200.After you have discovered these settings you will be able to change among the phases of flight (takeoff, climb, cruise, descent, approach) precisely by simply reconfiguring power, pitch and trim settings.The second key is how the flight controls are manipulated. Don't jerk the controls. In a real aircraft you apply just enough pressure to the yoke to produce the desired change in attitude, and then let the aircraft stabilize at that condition, then trim. Usually you fly paying attention to the pressure required to manipulate the controls. The greater the pressure, the greater the rate of change in the attitude of the aircraft. So if you want to fly smoothly apply gentle stable pressure to the controls until the desired attitude is met and then trim. Unfortunately force feedback joysticks and control yokes don't replicate this particular real world characteristic very well, and regular (non-force-feedback) joysticks not at all. Instead just displace the joystick in a smooth, gentle manner and you can approximate the technique.There are other techniques too, one of which has to do with understanding the amount of elevator and rudder displacement required to maintain level flight in a coordinated turn at various airspeeds and degrees of bank. But the two mentioned above I believe are probably most important for flying the your circuits precisely.

[Guest]

These are all good ideas ...another suggestion would be to get hold of a vfr sectional chart and learn to read it and navigate by it. I like to load up the 172 ...specifically the excellent one released today ... and log onto vatsim and fly vfr in the corridors around busy airports ...it's good practice, and it drives the controllers nuts without breaking any rules !

[Guest Rockcliffe]

Greg's suggestion to take a flying lesson is good. An introductory flight costs about $30 or $50 for a half hour and it's a lot of fun. Beware getting hooked, though!I also enjoy flying with a real VFR sectional chart to follow my progress and to navigate with. It's more challenging than using one of the computer GPS or moving map programs.A good flight training book (From the Ground UP is the basic text here in Canada) costs $20 or $30 and will give you a lot of information about airmanship and flight planning. Try your local library. They should have something you could borrow.Lago's FS Maintenance program track your flight and docks you "money" if you give your passengers too rough a ride or abuse your aircraft by misusing the throttle, etc. It's kind of fun to use.Finally, there are plenty of great Web sites you can visit. I like http://www.navfltsm.addr.com/ for its navigation tutorials. http://fsadventures.net/adventures.htm has some really interesting adventures you can download. The Eastern Regional 126 adventure even comes with a video 'pre-flight briefing' from your first officer in a Dash 8. I recommend it.Have funBlairCYOW

[Guest cw1011]

What controls are you using and what aircraft? In my experience, it is very difficult to fly anything without rudder pedals, a good joystick or yoke and a separate throttle. You have to make a lot of small rudder and throttle adjustments, especially descending and when making approaches, which are next to impossible to coordinate on a simple twisting joystick with a throttle slider around its base. I have over $800 invested in my controls - I have a PFC Cirrus Yoke, a Thrustmaster Cougar Throttle and Stick and a set of CH pedals. It may seem like a lot, but if you take the long view, they will all still be around when FS 2008 comes out, unlike my current cpu, video card etc. Actually the CH pedals probably won't be. I'm thinking about upgrading. They are really quite cheaply made - and are spiking a lot and not very accurate. The other thing is don't fly the default aircraft without one of Steve Small or Rob Young's replacement airfiles. You can get Rob Young's at RealAir simulations. The default Cessna is jumpy and twitchy in attitude, never really giving you the sense of intertia you get from a couple of thousand pounds moving at 130 knots. Rob's file makes the plane much more stable as is its real world counterpart. Learn the numbers for your airplane. Planes are designed to be flown at certain attitudes and engine/prop/mixture settings. The trouble with a lot of freeware planes is that this kind of info is not included in the package. This is one reason that payware is sometimes truly worth the money. A good plane for learning and a great value at $20.00 is the FSD Commander. It is stable, comes with good documentation, is forgiving and quite easy to configure for a stable descent and is quite easy to land. The Dreamfleet Cardinal would also be a good suggestion. Good luck. Colin

[Guest]

Thanks for the tips everbody i will take note of all