fsx-ms A Stupid Bearings Question For An Old Wrinkly

[COBS 25]

Incidentally, what makes the Real Air version of the SF260 better than any of the freeware versions available from here to download. 

 

 

Hi Chris

 

That is just my opinion , it is based on both personal preferences and objective testing , following are the main points ;

1. The Flight Model is superb , I doubt that you will get better ,  Rob Young excelled himself in that regard , that alone

     translates into an easy to fly aircraft that performs flawlessly , flight models are complex and notoriously difficult to

     get exactly right , he got it right for the SF 260.

2.  If you owned a real world SF 260 , you could use the REALAIR SF 260 as a full blown simulator to practise or

     reherse a flying routine with absolute confidence , that is rarely the case with other aircraft.

3.  In my opinion anyone who uses the flight simulator should at the very least have that aircraft loaded regardless

     of their area of interest , it is that good.

4.  The instrumentation is comprehensive , and the panel visuals are exceptional.

5.  It is slow  enough for a novice to keep up with , and that is extremely important in the initial stages of learning to fly.

6.  It is simple to operate , some high end payware have features where the engine will blow up if mismanaged , or

     will not function if the procedures are not followed to the letter , I can do without those obstacles.

 

  There are very good freeware and payware available , I treasure the work and effort put into many of them by 

their developers , I am not trying to deride them.

It's just my opinion that the REALAIR SF 260 is a truely worthwhile aircraft for all to have , it is the best and most

sincere advice that I can give.

 

Always do your own research , check the videos , check the reviews , get advice from authorative sources ,

ignore subjective or shallow one liner comments or advice.

Get advice from real world pilots or those that that back up opinions with thorough quantative testing .

 

It's always wise to realise that eye candy alone does not guarantee a good flying aircraft. 

 

Cheers

Karol

[COBS 25]

Hi Chris

 

I have previously mentioned having a map , any kind of map of England next to you as an aid to

basic navigation.

Most of us do not have aviation maps or charts , and if we do it might be just for one area or country.

 

That leaves us with having to use , the GPS , FS Map , FS Flight Planner map , G Plan or some

other Flight planner to give us a map style of presentation to find our way in the sim.

The FS map is tiny and difficult to use for long distance flights.

 

This coverage of navigation is not meant to be a proper full blown navigation course , that takes

Navigation Textbooks to cover we are only interested in some basics.

 

Get to know your map of England , also start to think in terms of , North , South , East and West

relative to that map , imagine a compass rose starting at North and going clockwise through 

360 degrees ;

North = 360 or 000

East = 090

South = 180

West = 270

  The center of that compass rose can be placed at any location on your map , and be used

to measure (determine) a heading from that point to any destination point.

Always align the Compass Rose North with your map north.

Having a cheap transparent school protractor to lay on your map is a handy asset.

The map North is regarded as True North.

Aircraft Fly Magnetic directions , however True directions are close enough for rough navigation ,

the Magnetic Variation at London City airport (EGLC) is only West 1.7 degrees , so it can be ignored, 

and still give reasonably accurate headings.

 

I loaded my F-111 panel and got the following headings from the EGLD -> EGSU leg of the flight plan

at a point 28 nm to go to EGSU.

1. EGQS - Lossiemouth , Dist 373 nm , Brg 347 degrees

2. EGCC - Manchester    Dist 120 nm , Brg 327 degrees

3. EGFF - Cardiff ,          Dist 113.4 nm , Brg 263 degrees

4. EGHH - Bournemouth , Dist 80 nm , Brg 227 degrees

5. EGLS - Old Sarum , Dist 65.7 nm , Brg 237 degrees

6. EGKK - Gatwick ,     Dist 35.5 nm , Brg 172 degrees

 

As I said previously I created instruments in my panel to address similar issues that are the subject of this thread.

Below are a couple of composite screenshots of how I resolve some navigation aspects.

 

(1)

- The Clipboard is a 5 page abbreviated listing of airports relating ICAO to name for ICAO entry in

   Search and Flight Plans.

- the Left Hand MFD has 16 nearest airports , clicking any airport line selects that airport and provides

  additional data.

- one of the radar pages gives a Flight Plan listing.

 

(2)

- the left hand MFD  Nearest function consists of 3 pages

  Page 1 = 16 nearest airports , any of which can be selected,

                   or

                 a search function (gold boxed ICAO button allows any of the 24,000+ airports in the sim

                 to be typed on the keyboard , and thus be selected.

                 any selected airport appears at bottom of display in more detail

  Page 2 = a runway detail list of all runway available for the airport previously selected

                 a click on a runway line selects that runway , text changes to orange

  Page 3 = details airport and runway previously selected

                 the RWY button toggles either runway end

                 the instrument calculates a SYNTHETIC ILS touchdown point 6% of runway length in from selected end

                 ILS deviation bars give full precision approach guidance

                 the display provides a considerable amount of runway data , also enables calculation of approach intercept position

- The right hand MFD includes a Flight Plan editor that enables flight plans to be created or modified

- one of the radar pages (Mode 6 - Stand Off) enables the pilot to project the display to any location on earth

- it will be noted that any airport or runway selected provides as a part of it's display both Distance and Bearing  data , 

   thus you can have the Distance and Bearing to any airport in the world that you might wish to nominate

 

 Basically the above enables fully informed navigation even without having maps.

 

Cheers

Karol

 

 

[ivatt 0]

Hi Karol

 

Just seen your latest post will read in depth later.

 

 

Thanks

 

Chris

[ivatt 0]

Hi Karol

 

Back again, what an impressive display of instruments, are they all your own creation? So much detail I don't think even I could get lost, have you placed them in other aircraft or just the F111(?) you say you prefer to fly.

 

I know there are plenty of replacement gauges available on various sites but which are useful and which are not I'm not in a position to say at this stage. Being able to customise the gauges to your own requirement is an obvious bonus. This is especially useful if the eyes aren't quite as sharp as they once were, like mine.

 

Have done a few more flights this week and they have gone OK and I am reasonably confident that I can now set up an ILS flight/approach, also the fatal errors from FSX seem under control, they only seem to happen in unusual circumstances not during normal "flying" mode, but will be monitoring this although I don't think there is much I can do about it.

 

If I can be sure the system crashes are manageable I will consider the Real Air model.On the subject of crashes have been aware of the Steam version of FSX from various posts but never understood what it was, Have now done some reading and it seems Steam gets over the Windows 7 crash issues. It will cost be £19.99(GBP) but could be worthwhile.......any thoughts?? I don't think you need internet access to play on Steam which is good as my connection speed is quite slow.

 

Being able to create and fly an ILS flight is a big step forward for me and I think you have covered about a number of chapters in my book in a very short time and in a very constructive and informative way. I will of course keep reading the book and perhaps even use the lessons that came from the publishers Wiley as they could be useful.

 

Flying on autopilot is fine but obviously I need to be able to fly to non ILS destinations as well to make things interesting. To that end I went back to the airport in the book Post Mills (2B9) and created a small flight plan from Hartest State (KVSF) of 65.5 miles with to waypoints KRUT (airport) and (90VOR).

 

The flight plan is as follows:

 

KVSF (Hartest) take off

KRUT (Rutland airport)  Alt 2500  HDG 317 Distance 21.9 miles GS (kts) 115  Time 0.11 mins

90VOR              Alt 2500  HDG 097 Distance 25 miles    GS (kts) 115  Time 0.13 mins

2B9 (airport)     Alt 2500   HDG 032  Distance 18.6 miles GS(kts) 115  Time 0.09 mins

 

According to what I have read the runways at Post Mills are runway 5 049 magnetic, 033 true and runway 23 229 magnetic and 213 true. 

 

As there is no ILS the final glide path will have to be manual and as the final heading to Post Mills on the flight plan is 032 I assumed the best option would be runway 5 (less course correction) although runway 23 would be more interesting perhaps. 

 

Did a couple of passes with autopilot and arrived OK at Post Mills but not aligned to the runway. Next pass I used your crib sheet and at about 15 miles turned autopilot off and attempted to do a manual swing to the correct runway heading with mixed results. Did manage to land on 2nd attempt but still came in slightly across the runway.

 

Is there anything I need to set on the instruments to assist and what's the best procedure once autopilot is off to make the necessary course adjustments to align with the runway, wherever it is, when doing a manual approach?

 

I think if I can crack that, although I will still be a novice with a lot to learn, I can look forward to getting some real enjoyment out of FSX.

 

I have an atlas arriving and with that (and my protractor), my book and all your posts, I will have plenty of information to absorb and lessons to work through, both on paper and actually "flying".

 

It should be an absorbing few months!!!!

 

 

 

Chris

 

PS Hopefully all these posts will benefit other beginners as well.

[COBS 25]

Hi Chris Most of the instrument there are my own creation.

 

As I said previously , I created some of those instruments to overcome the sort of issues that we have dealt with in

this thread.

Primarily navigating and finding your way around in a fully informed manner.

One big problem in the Flight Simulator is place names , we often have airport ICAO's  ( ie ; EGCC = Manchester airport ) ,

so in the GPS display you have the airport ICAO , but what is it ? , there are about 24,491 airports in the flight simulator ,

what we really need is their full names.

In the shots above you will see that several instruments give the airport's full name , that solves one problem.

 

The next problem is how do we find an airport that is distant from where your aircraft is currently located ?

I dealt with this in two ways ,

(1) the green clipboard gives an abbreviated list relating ICAO to full airport names.

      this allowed me to ,

(2) type the airport ICAO into the Left Hand  MFD , Nearest airports page , I then get further information on that  airport

      which includes it's Distance and Bearing from my current position , and that is a massive bonus.

      Basically I can be anywhere , Eg ; EGLC - London City airport , then type in any of the ICAO for any of the 24,000+ airports ,

      and I will get a Distance and Bearing to it.

With that panel I am never lost , I can find my way to any place on earth.

 

  The Nearest function in the Left MFD goes on to generate a Synthetic ILS for any airport runway at either end anywhere on earth ,

this guides on the correct approach perspective all the way down to a landing.

This is purely a Synthetic ILS   , no radios need to be tuned in , it works for all airports , even those that do not have an NAVAID ILS.

  It's rather interesting , by default the Synthetic ILS is the usual 3.00 degree Glideslope , however the Glideslope can be altered to any

angle that you wish , now one of the airports that you originally chose was EGLC - London City , it happens that this airport is an oddity ,

in real life the London City airport ILS Glideslope is 5.5 degrees , almost twice as steep as the normal , to operate into London City

an aircraft has to be validated as being capable of handling a 5.5 degree Glideslope , if it can't then it cannot use London City.

London City is smack in the center if the CBD with high rise buildings all about it , so the steeper approach makes sense.

  If I'm flying into Interlaken (Switzerland) at one of the ends I have to set the Glideslope at 14 degrees to clear terrain , now that 

is steep enough to call it a Dive approach angle!

 

These instruments are just in the F-111 , some are very new , and I have not yet uploaded them , I will in future upload to

freeware sites , I don't put them into other aircraft , but people are free to install them in their aircraft if they desire.

 

Back on topic.

When you fly the Flight plan that we previously created do the following :

- Fly most of it on autopilot.

- When the aircraft starts to descend to follow the ILS  , switch off the autopilot and do the approach manually .

- The autopilot will have started the descent , and therefore will be giving you the correct approach angle or perspective view ,

    just maintain that manually all the way to landing , with practice you will get the hang of the approach.

 

Cheers

Karol

PS ; What might be a nice idea is to go to any long sealed airport  , then take off  , then turn around and do an approach ,

don't land , do what is called a missed approach , apply power just before touchdown , then come back and do another approach.

During these aborted approaches do the following ,

1. vary your approach angle or steepness a few times.

2. laterally snake about left and right of centerline.

Do this as a fun exercise , don't put yourself under any pressure at all , just repeat these aborted approaches

several times , slowly the approach picture will evolve and control will keep getting easier.

[ivatt 0]

Hi Karol, will PM you shortly.

 

Chris

[jlong 1]

Hi Chris,

 

Glad to see you're progressing well. 

 

Something else you might also want to try. It seems from what you're saying is that you are having the autopilot fly you to the airport and then you are trying to set up for a landing. This is where preflight planning comes in to play. Figure out what runway you intend to land on (into the wind) at your destination and then instead of flying directly to the airport set a waypoint some distance, maybe 5 to 10 miles away depending on altitude, that will put you in a position to then turn to the runway heading and then start what should be a straight in approach. Remember runways are always magnetic to the nearest 10 degrees because if all those fancy instruments fail the compass will always work.

 

This is also why it's an excellent idea to become proficient in learning to manually land an airplane. I know this is a simulation, and the failure rate is nil, but there is almost nothing like the feeling of getting the plane on the ground in one piece fairly smoothly and if you have set up any failures you'll know you can do it. You can try what Karol has said above about missed approaches which work well and once you have the site picture worked out you can try what is called a touch and go where you actually land the plane and then immediately retract the flaps and add full power and take off, fly around the traffic pattern and then set up to land again for another touch and go. This can be done in larger planes but works best in smaller ones.  Remember flying is the second greatest thrill known to man, landing is the first.

 

Johannes