One thing that has come to my mind is that in FSX I usually can take of and land at another airport without much difficulty. For example I made some test flights from KORS taking of north then turning south and a little later landed at another airport. I didn't payed much attention to details just max throttle (and correct flap settings) turn and steer to where I wan't to go cut throttle when landing. In no way a perfect flight but is it not still to easy?

I did this with the following planes

Default C172 (very easy)

A2A Cub (easy)

SF260 (forgot the lower the gear at landing otherwise no problem)

Aerosoft Katana 4X (easy)

Milviz Baron 55 (a little more difficult mostly because of the higher speed)

What if I would try do that in real life? How bad would it go and when and why? Assume calm winds and only consider to manoeuvre the plane and nothing else. Lets say I would sit in the above planes and trying to fly using my knowledge gained from FSX and trying to do the above flight in reality. Would I be able to walk away after the landing?

You're about to get a lot of different answers....

SF260 (forgot the lower the gear at landing otherwise no problem)

 

Yeah... minor issue there :lol:

" otherwise no problem " woot woot LOL

When you learn to fly for real the actual handling of the aircraft is expected to be grasped pretty quickly. When you're in the aircraft rather than sitting still on your chair it's very different to ANY simulation. Take a trial lesson if you can. 10% of learning to fly should become second nature and should (?) improve with practice. The other 90% is practicing how to recognise and deal with emergency situations.

 

Some FSX models have very good flight models and replicate these emergencies very well. Others do not (IMHO). In any case you need to have your sliders "maxed" for realism. Even then a static Sim will never give the feel of a blustery crosswind landing. You feel it through your backside! If that's sitting, still on a chair ....NO degree of on screen jitters comes near that reality.

 

The next thing you need to make sure you've the best simulation of is the weather. It's the 1st, 2nd and 3rd thing that can kill a pilot. Make sure you've set your damage model to real as well.

 

If you're looking for a gaming challenge I doubt you'll ever like a decent simulation? If you're looking at learning a bit about flying, right up to some advanced simulation then FSX isn't that bad IMO.

 

Geoff

 

PS ...when you go for that trial lesson. FORGET FSX. The instructor will talk you through it and, unless you frighten the life out of him :lol:, he'll have you flying in no time. Come back and tell us how the Sim shapes up then .....if you don't get hooked and spend your every spare cent on real flying lessons? ^_^

FSX doesn't really rate your landing quality. You can look at the Flight Analysis to see how wobbly your approach was, or look at Instant Replay to get the outside view, but that's about it.

 

I don't have FSPassengers but I understand it helps give more feedback about whether you're giving the passengers a good ride. If they're screaming for their lives that's probably a bad sign. LOL

 

There's a good channel on YouTube (FSX404) with VFR departure and approach procedures which I try to follow:

They are USA procedures, so probably not quite right for non-US flying but still maybe worth looking at.

 

Also, as others mentioned, it gets a lot more interesting once you add crosswinds, high altitudes, terrain, etc

You're about to get a lot of different answers....

 

If the answer is from a real life pilot it's of course more interesting.

 

Yeah... minor issue there :lol:

 

Well I have just repeated it and this time I got it right and landed.

I'm not a real world pilot..

I've been flight simming since 1985 (LOL, like this makes me some authority..but anyway)

 

the real fun for me with flight simulation is treating it as close to real life as I can.. the good and bad thing about FSX is its an open sandbox.. you can do whatever you want with it..

 

let me digress a bit and give a model railroad anology. this will make sense so hang in there..

 

when coupling a locomotive to a consist (bunch of cars) on a model rr it is easy to just ram it and bash it in.. but try to couple it up without jarring the consist! aahhh now all of sudden it becomes a real challenge!

 

same goes in FS - the more restrictions you put on yourself (these restrictions based on the realworld flying, etc) the more visceral it gets!

 

you mentioned that you took off from KORS.. did you follow the noise abatement procedure?

look at these links:

http://www.portoforc...om/pilots3.html

http://www.portoforc...entBrochure.pdf

 

now I know your question was about flying the plane..not how to fly "correctly" .. but how you fly the plane can change how "easy" (or not) it becomes.

 

do you know the approach speed, over the threshold speed and stall speed of your aircraft? you should know that for every a/c that you fly..

 

 

I guess I say all of this because I hear a hint of "oh this is easy and boring (implied)"

 

oh and if all this is easy.. invest in the PMDG 737NGX or Jetstream 4100.. or for something a bit more toned down.. RealAir Legacy or turbo Duke.. or try one of A2A warbirds with Accusim.... just a word of warning - THESE ARE NOT EASY.. and will require lots of study.. so if you like to kick the tires and light the fires.. don't waste your money.

You're about to get a lot of different answers....

From alot of "experts". :)

When you learn to fly for real the actual handling of the aircraft is expected to be grasped pretty quickly. When you're in

 

If you're looking for a gaming challenge I doubt you'll ever like a decent simulation? If you're looking at learning a bit about flying, right up to some advanced simulation then FSX isn't that bad IMO.

 

Geoff

 

PS ...when you go for that trial lesson. FORGET FSX. The instructor will talk you through it and, unless you frighten the life out of him :lol:, he'll have you flying in no time. Come back and tell us how the Sim shapes up then .....if you don't get hooked and spend your every spare cent on real flying lessons? ^_^

 

I'm not looking for a gaming challenge but a flight simulator as realistic as possible. And of course the RL scenario is purely theoretical. A while ago I have been in a real Cessna 152 and was allowed to handle the yoke. It felt smoother and more precise than FSX but overall behaved as I expected from FSX.

If handling the plane isn't that difficult my RW scenario maybe not have ended in disaster?

 

I guess I say all of this because I hear a hint of "oh this is easy and boring (implied)"

 

oh and if all this is easy.. invest in the PMDG 737NGX or Jetstream 4100.. or for something a bit more toned down.. RealAir Legacy or turbo Duke.. or try one of A2A warbirds with Accusim.... just a word of warning - THESE ARE NOT EASY.. and will require lots of study.. so if you like to kick the tires and light the fires.. don't waste your money.

 

The hint you think you hear is a misunderstanding. Not boring but curious if it could be easy in real life and what would actually happen if I tried it for real. Would I even get up in the air? Would I crash immediately after TO or?

Regarding PMDG 737NGX already have it.

RealAir legacy have been considering it.

A2A warbirds. Find it hard to see the point of flying a war plane in FSX. Do you mean they are realistic and un forgiving to mistakes?

I believe the realization, that if you screw it up, you may not be able to do it over

and get it right the next time will totally change your comfort level with just trying it

in real life.

 

It is like walking on a beam 100 feet off the ground, you should be able to do it, but it would be

terrifying..

To answer your original question (yes I'm a pilot PPL ASEL - but not many hours), you're right, a lot of those planes in real life are meant for training (Katana, C172, Cub), and they are "forgiving" compared to flying a turboprop mod like the Duke Turbine or the B55 Baron. In real life your instructor would help you get going and you'd do a lot more study than most do while learning flight sim hehe. Eventually you'd master flying the plane and be competent and proficient.

 

I remember my first series of landings in the piper warrior... not great that's for sure, but they were safe and got me and/or my CFI on the ground. For a flight sim starter like yourself (apologies if this isn't the case, but your post makes it sound like that), a real plane would be very challenging, because you don't know anything about the forces in flight, why planes fly etc, you know - the basics/physics/math behind flight. Once you understand the basics, and get that feeling of flight (which no simulator can provide even a Level-D imho), you'd be much better off using some of principles learned from flight sim and applying them to real flying.

 

Over the years I've found flight sim to be pretty good learning tool for real world in:

Navigation

->reading charts

->E6B calculations

->Instrument flying

Memorization/Flows

->Checklist flows

->Studying navaids/waypoints/altitudes and charts, which I use often for my real world job

->Aircraft recognition (seriously flight sim has made me aware of many smaller, less popular GA planes, useful for my job)

 

Meanwhile FS is not so good for:

Feeling of flight

->coordinated flight

->G forces, effects on pilot in a turn

->Accidental entry into IMC (bad weather)

You can teach a monkey how to drive an automatic, that doesn't mean it is a good driver.

 

Operating complex machines from a light prop up to the A380 requires much more then just steering the aircraft and not hitting anything. flying modern aircraft in itself is not difficult (in good conditions) they are designed to be easy to fly.

 

The difficulty comes in knowing and understanding the machines limitations and your own limitations, whilst abiding to a multitude of strict rules for your safety and the safety of others.

 

That above is just scratching the surface of what is involved when flying for real. It goes without saying, you don't get to click 'reset flight' when you screw up in the real world.

 

 

 

The difficulty comes in knowing and understanding the machines limitations and your own limitations, whilst abiding to a multitude of strict rules for your safety and the safety of others.

 

That above is just scratching the surface of what is involved when flying for real. It goes without saying, you don't get to click 'reset flight' when you screw up in the real world.

 

Great words... even once you have your first rating etc, pilots are still learning and will continue to learn....