Hello Mates,

I am writing to you while flying an Air Canada 777-300ER from CYYZ to VHHH, to see what Greenland looks like!

My first polar route in MSFS2024 😃

I'm a medium-core flightsimmer and I am consolidating my knowledge in order to identify leearning paths.

I've identified the main following skills and know-how. Please let me know if I've forgotten something.

For the time being, I'm interested in normal operations, and not in failures or non normal situations.

Fly/Manage:

• Rejected Take-Off

• Fix

• Offset (to avoid bad weather)

• Alternate Route (diversion)

• Hold pattern (due to trafic)

• ILS Approach

• RNAV Approach

• Visual Approach

• Manual vs Autoland

• Missed Approach

Thanks.

On 6/19/2026 at 11:54 PM, Simicro said:

Hello Mates,

I am writing to you while flying an Air Canada 777-300ER from CYYZ to VHHH, to see what Greenland looks like!

My first polar route in MSFS2024 😃

I'm a medium-core flightsimmer and I am consolidating my knowledge in order to identify leearning paths.

I've identified the main following skills and know-how. Please let me know if I've forgotten something.

For the time being, I'm interested in normal operations, and not in failures or non normal situations.

Fly/Manage:

• Rejected Take-Off

• Fix

• Offset (to avoid bad weather)

• Alternate Route (diversion)

• Hold pattern (due to trafic)

• ILS Approach

• RNAV Approach

• Visual Approach

• Manual vs Autoland

• Missed Approach

Thanks.

For me it’s always atypical situations where the comfort margin is thin.

That means always flying real weather, as well as seeking out adverse weather, and of course, ensuring you’re getting plenty of night flying (with all the urban lighting these days, it’s amazing how easy it is to become disoriented at night, esp with intermittent visibility.

High & Hot operations, where normal ops can be extremely difficult or even impossible (such as the high deserts of S America or China).

You’ve got Diverts already, but it’s fun to throw in a barely suitable runway (pretend as though you’ve got failed engines and have to get down NOW).

And/or just going for runways that are just this side of “too short” for the aircraft & load, even if there’s nothing wrong with your aircraft itself.

Challenging Approaches are definitely a thing, especially when there’s a hand-flown component.

And naturally, you want to start spending time on VatSim when it’s busy. Nothing to spice things up like a bunch of other naughty pilots! 😁

Edited Sunday at 11:18 PM2 days by UrgentSiesta

Energy Management/descent planning. Heavy or lightly loaded?Early or late descend clearances all have their issues to tackle. Add descent out of a jetstream and you can be in for some nasty surprises. Airmiles for ground miles conundrum.

Also throw in FMS /VNAV behavior to above, off path descent checks. (Blue/white range rings)

@Simicro beware MSFS doesn't do the Poles very well, becoming rather confused, even if you switch to grid...

Regarding your question, there are these days many sources of information available. Somo youtube channels are great for learning airline SOPs, and overall technicalities about line operations...:

Examples:

Waypoints Aviation - YouTube

Commercial Aviation Training - YouTube

or, for more basic trainig: Your IFR Oral will be a Breeze with this Study Guide | IFR Checkride at a Glance PDF

Edited Monday at 09:39 AM2 days by jcomm

On 6/20/2026 at 3:54 AM, Simicro said:

For the time being, I'm interested in normal operations, and not in failures or non normal situations.

Assuming you have a lot of basics already mastered have you had a look at Self Loading Cargo? This is a very well-designed program from a very talented developer that supplies captain-crew-ground comms, crew announcements during flight, some very good sound packs from various airlines, recordings of actual interactions but for me most of all is its decent flight scoring routine. Here's an example of a scored flight I did the other day and you can see it covers various areas including passenger comfort, adherence to basic operating procedures, crew management etc.

Flight Report - Delta Air Lines DAL555, from Venice Marco Polo Airport (LIPZ) to London Heathrow Airport(EGLL) | Self-Loading Cargo Passenger Flight

It's not nearly as detailed as you might want to delve technically into but for me it's enough to keep my head in the game and supplies an artificial consequence and consequences are kind of missing in a sim, unlike the RW. Plus, the developer continues development at a nice pace. I use it for all flights in my five aircraft flown regularly.

Good list. For normal airline ops I would add briefing and verification habits more than extra manoeuvres: check the route, constraints, fuel, alternates, weather, and then keep checking that the aircraft is still doing what you think it is doing.

The big practical skill for me is energy management. Descent planning, speed control, when to intervene in VNAV, and when to stop trying to rescue a bad approach and just go around. That probably teaches more than another perfect autoland.

I would also put radio and ATC workflow on the list, even offline. Clearance changes, vectors, late runway changes and holds are where a flight starts feeling less scripted.

Thanks to all for your kind advices and suggestions. My question has been answered.