Hi everyone. I see lots of folks in the forums flying jumbo jets. I feel confident that you are not all real world commercial pilots.

So my question is: how did you learn to do that (just talking in flight sim, not real life)?

Is there a good course that starts at the beginning and takes you through what you need to learn to be able to fly jetliners IFR? I don't know where to even start to get the skills I would need to enjoy flying the big guys in the sim.

Thanks ..........

It's not that hard if you're motivated to learn. A few things to keep in mind as you start:

There are two basic things to learn. One, you have to learn the concepts of airliner flights with respect to the rules of the sky - things like what a flight plan is, airways, how to use simbrief things like that. You can learn that alongside learning the plane as most tutorials do teach that. How deep you want to go is up to you, but you don't need more than a few hours or at most days to get to the point where you can create a flight plan in Simbrief and put it into your plane to get from A-B. You don't need to go nuts with fuel planning, winds, weights, ETOPS and all that at first, it's just a sim. 

Second, you need to learn the plane. Pick a plane you like and really learn that. Once you have the concepts down, they translate to other planes and it's easy to move between all the planes. Do remember that you can choose your level of realism and detail - some people like to do the entire flow like real world pilots, others (like me), skip parts like loading weights, fuel, etc. I generally do an instant load in Fenix and get on with it.. don't really care to watch fuel being loaded or planning weights. There are no rules, you do what's fun for you and skip the other bits. 

Additionally,  there's a great book as well https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Flight-Simulator-Pilots-Training/dp/0764588222. This is dated in terms of the sim (was written for FSX), but the general rules of the air and similar concepts are all the same and really well explained. It helped me a lot!

Finally, just keep at it. It slowly makes sense over time and you'll get to know how deep you want to go. 

Here are some good tutorials for the Airbus 320 which will work with the Fenix or FSLabs, or the free FBW if you don't have a payware 320.

 

 

 

 

Here's a great course to learn the Fenix

You'll see he has 30+ videos in this playlist. 

 

Edited November 6, 2025Nov 6 by JonathanC

52 minutes ago, Rob G said:

Hi everyone. I see lots of folks in the forums flying jumbo jets. I feel confident that you are not all real world commercial pilots.

So my question is: how did you learn to do that (just talking in flight sim, not real life)?

Is there a good course that starts at the beginning and takes you through what you need to learn to be able to fly jetliners IFR? I don't know where to even start to get the skills I would need to enjoy flying the big guys in the sim.

Thanks ..........

Rob:

It’s great to see fresh new interest, such as yours, for flying  especially “big” airliners. Just as Jonathan says, you can decide and tailor the depth level of your experience.

It’s not like the olden times; there is so much information available on-line these days.

There is a bit of dichotomy around here between GA and airliner fans…🙂…but, just get started. Soon, you will think, why didn’t I think of it before…🙂…

Have fun.

Watching video tutorials 

Reading tutorials (for the old-school folks here) 

Downloading manuals (like those from (SmartCockpit) 

Before the internet boom, you bought CD add-ons that came with printed manuals

If you were lucky enough to have CBT

Before diving into tutorials or manuals, understanding the fundamentals was essential especially back in the day when resources were limited and learning was more hands-on.

1 hour ago, Rob G said:

Hi everyone. I see lots of folks in the forums flying jumbo jets. I feel confident that you are not all real world commercial pilots.

So my question is: how did you learn to do that (just talking in flight sim, not real life)?

Is there a good course that starts at the beginning and takes you through what you need to learn to be able to fly jetliners IFR? I don't know where to even start to get the skills I would need to enjoy flying the big guys in the sim.

Thanks ..........

If you're thinking of PMDG's 737, this might be a good start? Hopefully, it will get you up and flying in no time in 2 short pages.

PMDG 737 Absolute Beginner's Discovery Checklist for Microsoft Flight Simulator | MSFS

1 hour ago, Rob G said:

I don't know where to even start to get the skills I would need to enjoy flying the big guys in the sim.

Hi RobG.  What airliners do you have available to train on/with?  If you're in this hemisphere and use MSFS 2024 and have either Fenix A320, Aerosoft CRJ series, IFly 737 MAX 8 (not jumbos per se) I'm willing to give you a 1h live phone chat and can walk you thru the basics so you're doing the actions as we proceed...i.e., we'll load up the same plane and walk you thru pre-flight.  If it's useful, we can do more time as needed.  I'm not a RW pilot but have no troubles getting from A to B in IFR and all planes share similar basic features.  I also use BATC and Self Loading Cargo, but we would leave those out of the lesson plan.

What do you do now in sim? 

As it is a simulator you can also get away with a fair amount of trial and error 😉

27 minutes ago, St Mawgan said:

As it is a simulator you can also get away with a fair amount of trial and error 😉

Ya, the trial and error can be the most fun sometime 🙂

Also, I started with simming back in the FS9/FSX days, at that time FSX had a sequence of sort of realistic lessons, they were fun. Now of course we have "career mode" but its got so many issues and bugs I think it would be a deterrant rather than a help LOL.

I was one of those people that enjoyed the sim SO much that about 10 years back I actually went to a small local airport and tried an "introductory lesson", it was SUCH a rush that I proceeded to get my PPL and buy my own Piper Cherokee 🙂 

 

Lots of good, instructional videos out there on the interweb but all of that information can be overwhelming at times. It's a simulator so with a little contextual assistance from videos, take one up and try out the various functions to understand how they work. Understanding how the flight management systems influence various phases of a flight will be the first challenge you'll need to overcome when flying commercial simulations. You'll find with time in the simulator, there WILL come a moment when it all clicks and will finally make sense. When it finally does, you'll gain so much more enjoyment knowing you can complete an IFR tube liner flight start to finish, anywhere in the world, day or night, fair weather or not. I'd get comfortable flying on autopilot before dealing with flights that might involve AI ATC flight deviations you'll have to manage as you ramp up the challenge. Once you gain a better understanding of how everything works, you'll find yourself increasing the amount of hand flying you do! 

6 hours ago, Noel said:

Hi RobG.  What airliners do you have available to train on/with?  If you're in this hemisphere and use MSFS 2024 and have either Fenix A320, Aerosoft CRJ series, IFly 737 MAX 8 (not jumbos per se) I'm willing to give you a 1h live phone chat and can walk you thru the basics so you're doing the actions as we proceed...i.e., we'll load up the same plane and walk you thru pre-flight.  If it's useful, we can do more time as needed.  I'm not a RW pilot but have no troubles getting from A to B in IFR and all planes share similar basic features.  I also use BATC and Self Loading Cargo, but we would leave those out of the lesson plan.

What do you do now in sim? 

I have played around with the C172 G1000. I can basically load a flight plan and I can basically use the autopilot. Taking off is not too bad but still working on landing the proper way. I am also spending time learning the Hype H145 just because I think it's cool and I want to get to where I can run the missions that can be done with it.

I own the Fenix A320 and have played around with it in the air but not with any real processes for using it as it should be used.

There are some courses as well, if you prefer but mainly you will be okey with Youtube and tutorials.

Here is the link for FS Academy. I am not familiar with this but it gives courses on IFR flying, etc. You can check if you are interested. Happy flying.

https://www.fsacademy.co.uk/ifr

I'll always start with a few rounds in the traffic pattern when I get a new plane (full stop taxi backs). You can just set yourself up to start on the runway with the engines running. It's basically the same as a single engine trainer except the speed on final will be around 150 instead of 75. I don't really pay much attention to minute details, just see that I can reasonably fly the thing.

Then I'll pull up a Youtube video of a full flight in that plane on my phone, place it next to my computer and follow along step by step, pausing ever so often to help me set up the navigation system for an IFR cross country. Except instead of a fancy flightplan you'd maybe use something like Navigraph for, you can also just do something really basic. Like if you're flying from KBOS to KIAD for example you can just set any random departure runway, any random instrument approach for arrival, skip the sids and stars, and just set a couple of airports like KLGA and KPHL as intermediary waypoints, just to get a feel for the basic functionality. And then on subsequent flights you can get into more detail, but you'd already have like maybe 98% of the basic methods down.

For me it was having a printed step by step tutorial flight next to me, and doing it again and again until eventually I didn’t need it.

The more you fly airliners, the more you realize the concepts are the same, it’s just getting used to the different ways to do it in different aircraft.  

For example, in any airliner you will  (not necessarily in order) turn on the battery, connect GPU, start APU, turn on APU bleed, now you have power and air.  Program the FMC/MCDU.  Set up your autopilot for initial heading altitude etc.  Start the engines (some need the packs turned off manually for start, others do it for you).  Once engines are started they are your source of power and air.  

There are many more steps and nuances but these basic things will happen on every flight.

I’m pretty good at flying virtual airliners because I put a lot of time into it, understand the flows etc.  put me in the cockpit of a military aircraft (particularly DCS complex fighters) and I’m lost, I just don’t have the flows and understanding committed to memory as I don’t do it often.

There's a retired airline pilot by the name of Mike Ray who has written several books on flying various airliners. 

These books are well written and easily understandable for someone new to airliners. Many diagrams.

I recommend checking them out. You'll fine they are money well spent.

Edited November 7, 2025Nov 7 by dbw1
spelling

15 hours ago, Rob G said:

I own the Fenix A320 and have played around with it in the air but not with any real processes for using it as it should be used.

Rob, since you own the Fenix (I do too) I suggest you start with it.  The Fenix automation will accomplish many of the nuanced tasks that are required to prepare an airliner for flight.  I say, first pick two airports about 500 miles apart that way your flight should be less than two hours start to finish.  Second scan youtube on the topic of Fenix and Simbrief.  That should offer more than enough in the way of tutorials to get you started.  Third practice makes perfect!  Once you can confidently build a flight plan in Simbrief, import it into the Fenix 320 then depart and land without too much calamity you should be able to expand your repertoire to pretty much any simulated jetliner, including the defaults in 2020 and 2024.  Most importantly enjoy yourself at all times and you’ll do fine.  Remember no lives will be lost and yours will be enhanced by a feeling of personal accomplishment. Good luck, take care, Blue skies and as always there are thousands of capable minds here at Avsim to help you out when you get stuck.

-B