First post, hello!

I'm trying to learn airliner flights with realistic procedures. My initial idea was to save the flight at different phases, so I could come back to repeat different flows without having to start from the ground every time. What I didn't take into account is that MSFS saves tend to be quite a mess once the airplane leaves the ground, with issues such as resetting FMCs, nosedives and weird autopilot behavior. This is quite tedious and makes me not want to use saves for anything that takes place during flight. The plane that I fly currently the most is PMDG 737 which isn't the worst when it comes to these issues (at least it doesn't lose FMC data every time I load a save), but even that plane tends to do weird things when loading an existing flight.

So my question is, how do you practice these flights? I don't want start a new flight every time I want to practice approaches, for example. I know you can fly circuits for practicing takeoffs and landings or even use a third-party app for the latter, but they're not really a great solutions to my problem. You can also practice some flows on the ground and pretend that you're flying, but that's not ideal either. Any advice?

@Boulder,

https://www.fsipanel.com/

Edited August 16, 20241 yr by Ray Proudfoot
Long quoted post removed.

Aerowinx PSX(B744) or Airlinetools A32x (A320)... and that's about all you can have for realistic start and go direct situation with all of the state data reproduced exactly as it should, are your only options...

Some developers offer state save, but I've never been lucky using that, in either FSX, P3D or XP... MSFS is no better. 

2 hours ago, jcomm said:

Some developers offer state save, but I've never been lucky using that, in either FSX, P3D or XP... MSFS is no bette

PMDG save states work perfectly in fsx and sync with basic save flight option. I have default ENGINE START /TAXI/TAKE OFF /CLIMB /CRUISE /DESCENT /APPROACH /LANDING saves so I just save over each at appropriate times. Loads perfectly in flight just have to wait 20 seconds for plane to initialize so doing it everywhere but touchdown works great. 

I've also had it working in msfs with caveat weather and time of day is locked down after a reload. Works with Just Flight F28 too. 

20 hours ago, pete_auau said:

@Boulder,

https://www.fsipanel.com/

FSiPanel seems good for practicing approaches, and it also has some other nice features. It does also have its limitations though. It doesn't seem to let me start at just any phase that I want. For example if I want to practice descents instead of approaches, it seems I'm out of luck. I'm not sure if FSiPanel really suits these particular needs.

I'm curious how other people practice these flights, especially without paid products like FSiPanel. To me it feels essential to be able to save the flight at different phases, so I can practice different flows separately before doing a full flight. I think that's how we practice most things in life. Since this is not possible on all airplanes in the sim, there has to be other ways. I just can't think of anything that would be both convenient and time efficient. Do you guys just start a flight with introductions on another display and repeat these flights until you have memorized everything?

7 hours ago, Boulder said:

For example if I want to practice descents instead of approaches, it seems I'm out of luck.

You absolutely can practice descents with FSiPanel. It allows you to choose any location (whether navaid, radial/distance from a navaid or GPS coordinates), the altitude and heading of your starting point.

See what else you can do with the program: https://www.fsipanel.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/FSiPanel-2020-MSFS-User-Manual.pdf