After reading about Flight, I was looking forward to trying it out. After playing around with the Icon and Stearman for a few hours on my laptop, I was getting hooked. I ended up buying a new tower computer with the power to run everything at high quality along with Saitek Yoke, throttle and rudder pedals so I could do a complete simulated flight training program.I then bought the Hawaii scenery to get the RV6 to fly as my general trainer. The scenery flying around is awesome and everything seems so smooth.I was ready for more formal direction and instruction, so watched several of the Angle Of Attack videos to learn the basics of Flight Simulator takeoff, flying and landing. I then tried repeating everything I watched.That's where everything is falling apart. The videos stress the importance of stable approaches with minimal control input while on approach to landing. But my RV6 on approach is all over the sky. I did manage to land a few times, but my approaches are more roller coaster than stable. I'm sure it's a combination of my lack of skill and the nature of an aerobatic aircraft, but it could be partially the settings on my Saitek controllers. But there doesn't seem to be anywhere in Flight to adjust the sensitivity and range of the controllers.Also, for initial flight training, I should probably be starting with a stable, forgiving airplane like the Cessna 172 they use in the videos. Unfortunately Flight doesn't seem to have one. I considered the Maule, but a bush-plane tail-dragger designed for short, dirt strips doesn't seem like what I was looking for either to learn basic flight skills at airports with paved runways. At least it didn't look good enough to me to risk another $20 to try it out.I'm getting frustrated and starting to look around for Plan B.

How about the Icon?

First, WELCOME TO FLIGHT SIMMNIG! Your pocket book and spouse will never forgive you. You have been warned...The RV6 is not a good training aircraft. Its got very low wing loading, a lot of power, and is very aerodynamic and fast. I would try the Maule as its more like a Cessna 172 then anything. Its very stable, and be flown VERY slowly, and is more forgiving to pilots improper inputs.I hope the Flight team does release more trainer friendly aircraft in the future. I really question the logic of releasing a game for new pilots, but not a good aircraft to train them on.

The Icon has been fun to fly around, but I don't get the feeling of "real" flight with it. I guess I'm looking for a plane with the full "six pack" of instruments, something that i can continue to use through cross country navigation without the big yellow diamonds in the sky pointing the way, then eventually IFR.I guess I could use the Icon for a few weeks then progress to the RV6. But it would be so much nicer if I could watch a training video today, then duplicate it closer than the Icon allows.

Hi Oaknest without name !Go to Amazon site and buy FSX ... after all you have now a machine able to run FSX with decent FPS :Kiss:Hope this helps !Pierre LFBE

Suggest flying with clear skies weather or similar. I find the rv6a gets blown around a lot if there's a bit of wind, making approach and landing require lots of control input.I too am waiting for a standard type of aircraft to be released. Maule is a taildragger and many people would like a tricycle gear plane to practice with. Rv6a is closest, but agree it's not very stable.

I would suggest trying the Stearman to learn to fly. It may not fly exactly like a real Stearman (it's a lot less noisy, heavy, and colder than a real biplane LOL) but you will find it's close enough to the real thing for your purposes: It is docile, has the requisite engine controls necessary to practice and learn, and it has a tough undercarriage, which are all the things you need in a trainer aircraft.Old as the Stearman is, and in spite of those military markings, we should not forget that it was designed to be a basic ab-initio trainer - pretty much anyone who learned to fly in WW2 did so on either the Boeing Stearman or the DH Tiger Moth - and if it was good enough for those who ended up flying P-51s, Spitfires, B-17s, Lancasters and DC-3s etc, then even in simulated form it will be good enough to teach you too, since what you need to learn is 'stick and rudder' skills, which means repeatedly flying circuits and landings, using the engine to control altitude, the pitch and trim to control speed, and the stick and rudder in unison to keep the turns nicely coordinated by watching the turn and slip gauge and keeping it balanced.You might be interested to know that almost everyone who flies for real (including me) will tell you that it is a lot easier to fly a real aircraft smoothly than it is to do so on a PC sim. And if you want to know why that is, it is mainly because the leverage and range of movement a PC joystick travels through is much smaller than is the case on the real stick of an aircraft; as a result, twitchy moves tend to get magnified in a PC sim with a small joystick, so you have to be a bit better (smoother) when flying a PC sim in comparison to the real thing.Stick at it, everyone struggles a bit at first when learning to fly; anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. I got sent on my first real-life solo flight after a mere seven hours of dual instruction over the space of three days LOL, so I've got as good a claim to being 'a natural' as anyone, and I'm telling you there ain't no such thing as 'a natural' - you can do a lot of take offs and landings in seven hours, so there was nothing natural about it, it was just repeated practice LOL. You will manage it, just like everyone before you that has ever learned to fly.Al

Hello Chock, good to see you posting your wise and well thought out advice.Ray

Welcome to Flight and AVSIM. If you don't mind a bit of hand-editing of the standard.xml file, it is possible to tweak the sensitivity and widen the "null zone" for your Saitek yoke to make it a bit more stable.In fact, I published a mini-tutorial on just this subject yesterday:http://forum.avsim.net/tutorials/article/21-adjust-joystick-sensitivity/

I'm getting frustrated and starting to look around for Plan B.

Try FSX. No need tweaking complicated joystick files. It has a graphic interface for simplicity. You can get a much more realistic flight environment and realistic training aircraft! Perhaps Flight is working to draw new people into the Flight Sim experience! Thats good.

Try FSX. No need tweaking complicated joystick files. It has a graphic interface for simplicity. You can get a much more realistic flight environment and realistic training aircraft! Perhaps Flight is working to draw new people into the Flight Sim experience! Thats good.

Thanks for the suggestion. I spent hours reading the FSX forums and was struck by two things:1. FSX had a very vibrant community of people and companies developing a wide array of addons2. FSX is over 5 years old with crashes and bugs that will never be fixed (I was amazed at how many people are still using FS2004 for that reason)Reading the forums took me into the FSX Vs X-plane 10 debates. The two things I came away with that debate is:1. X-plane 10 also has a very vibrant community with open support for any person or company to create addons.2. X-plane 10 is new, which means several bugs and performance issues are still being worked on. (at least there are new builds every week with significant improvements)Since I want to put my efforts and money into a flight simulator for the next 5 years (not the last 5), I like the thought of an open community that can create addons (whether John Smith down the street or Carenado), and I liked the X-plane 10 demo once I got everything configured properly (configuration took much longer than Flight, but at least I COULD configure everything the way I wanted without editing XML system files), I just placed an order for the X-Plane 10 full package.I understand lots of people have other opinions, but this is the direction that seems best for me.

I understand lots of people have other opinions, but this is the direction that seems best for me.

And that's why it's awesome to have all those flying games/sims today!!! In the past we mainly had MS FS... Now we have FSX, XPlane 10, Prepar3d, MS Flight, Aerofly... There is something for everyone!

I would support starting with clear weather! In real flight training the weather is a major factor!Once you can comfortably fly the Stearman, the RV6 will feel like a welcome challenge..Like any skill - practice is key!I would stick with Flight a bit longer if I were you - the RV6 is actually a lot of fun to flyonce you've got some practice...and just adding to this: Choose an airport you want to fly out of, Lihue on Kauai would bea good choice. Easy to find your way around and enough landmarks to get to know.Two long runways and one with ILS, so you can train that as well.. after a while, you will be acingyour landings. Remember it takes about 20 hours of instruction before they let you fly soloin the real world.

Edited March 5, 201214 yr by Bert Pieke