Taipan

Yep I've started that process. Found a place with plenty of aircraft to choose from well maintained, although the instructors don't have 20-30 years experience like my current place they still look decent and have a good training system. Can't hurt to try some circuits with one of their guys

The engine won't quit from an alternator or battery failure thankfully, but soon after it can convert your panel into something with the same functionality of a WW1 aircraft. Some instruments require electrical power, and the battery only has 10 minutes left in some weather. The electric fuel pump I wouldn't want to lose either if need to switch tanks etc. Also I wouldn't want to lose radio with four aircraft in the left circuit and parrallel runway operations, in fact I don't want to lose anything if I can help it. On complex aircraft you could have landing gear and flaps that use electrical power, requiring you to go into checklists that aren't often used for manual extension etc. I've read about people forgetting to lock the gear after manual extension in their stress or even forgetting the gear altogether due to the worry from having a failure. The real time an alternator failure is life threatening is at night or in IMC, when those instruments and ATC are your only guidance. Although I have yet to experience either of those, I can imagine how scary it would be flying in a cloud at night over rough terrain to have the lights go out, although I'd rather be doing that sort of thing in a twin with two alternators.. Yeah the seat is the worst, and I'll be avoiding that in the future. I'm sure it's fine for short people as many seem to like the plane.. but not me. Other airports - not an option. Our main airport is international and doesn't have GA, and the other GA airports are 1.5 hours away mainly due to clogged traffic on the roads. My current airport is the only one in 30-40 minutes driving distance

Some strong weather going around, we had a giant tornado waterspout off the south coast of NSW yesterday. Never seen that before in this area.

Lol too true. Amazing rare photograph

Yep and the aircraft I switched to because of the alternator in my usual plane I do not feel right in, to the point that it affects how I fly. The seat doesn't stay upright, I'm holding myself upright almost with my stomach muscles and my headset touches the roof (I'm tall but the other warriors were fine). Plus this aircraft the shoulder strap doesn't work so it's belt only, and it has a cruise prop which is not ideal for touch n go's meaning I have to use more runway than I would like to get airborne, plus it has no trim indication. This is probably part of my uneasiness, I took that aircraft solo for an hour of circuits in 10knot crosswind and I was sweating after 15 minutes and holding my breath at times in concentration. Having to account for crosswind + lots of ground effect floatiness with the instructors weight gone is a little harder when I'm holding myself up from the backrest being too far back. It also makes me give slight oscillations on flare i.e. I don't have a stable base to pull the yoke from. I think if I just avoid that aircraft I'll feel alot more comfortable, with no distractions I'm very confident. I just have to get the owner to fix alternator first. To those who suggest to find another school - it's very difficult to do. Currently this school has the best instructors in the area, there are many bad things written about the other schools in the area on PPrune, but only very good things about my school. In fact several of the other schools have been involved in a few fatal accidents for various reasons. I very much do like the instructors actually and the feel of the place, although the aircraft are older than others. At least with these planes I know I have taken them up and down again, but a new school is another unknown and new procedures I don't want to throw into the mix. I think I'll stick with this school, increase my vigilance on the pre-flight checks, and prepare myself to say no sometimes to flying, and I'll request to avoid that particular aircraft that I do not like. Yep the stalls are very easy to recover from in this aircraft with this stall warning that requires the engine. It recovers on it's own almost, Piper Warriors are pretty easy to handle. Although I haven't tried anything fancy like dropping a wing or crossed controls. The CFI is actually the owner.. I don't see him much but I speak to my instructor. Well it probably doesn't work at all then :( I can't remember from my stall training if I heard a warning or not it was a few months ago. I do try to keep a good eye on the ASI, and I try to never let my approaches get too slow. Makes sense, the owner said it was always like that but it's not the case. Intermittent maybe, but a burning smell is not a good sign. I'll see what happens. Yep, this is the way it works. Thanks for confirming it's not uncommon, I just wanted to know. Yep, and to be fair the accident reports I read the pilots apparently did not check the fuel for water, so it was probably alot more than what I find coming out of the tank. Too true, I'm hoping to read more and get more experience to minimise this risk. I might even do some aerobatic training to get myself used to all kinds of recoveries. Probably less time simming, more time reading

Hi Guys I'm currently a student pilot, not more than 20 hours so far and I've only really trained at the one flight school. I've been doing more solo flights which tend to kick the mind into "responsibility mode" where I will really take charge and try to take care of everything, and think of how to avoid anything that can go wrong. This causes me some worry however, because now I'm on my own in the cockpit I have time to consider failures more. The ultimate failure I'm scared of is an engine failure after takeoff, because flying in a big city there is almost nowhere to force land. The roads are clogged with traffic, and everywhere else is warehouses, buildings, houses etc. There is a small river/creek if I time it right in one direction, and in the other direction there is a horse racing track, but besides that, not much choices. I haven't seen any engine problems at this school so far besides a carb catching fire in the past on the ground (not me). But I've seen plenty of other problems that cause some worry. I want you experienced guys to tell me if these are all normal or if this flight school is really cutting corners compared to the rest? Stall warning - the main aircraft I fly has a broken stall warning, I can't test it during pre-flight. Apparently it only works with the engine running. If I lose the engine, I would think it's pretty important to be warned of stalls while my brain is in "holy expletive" mode.. On my third solo circuit I actually lost the alternator (burning smell and intermittent operation), and the owner of the flight school didn't want to fix it until it completely died. Of course I'm not flying that plane anymore and opted for a different aircraft. The other aircraft has a seatbelt that doesn't retract, so you can only use the waist strap. Also com1 is broken, only com2 works. These are 1978 piper warriors. Also any problems the owner won't let us write it on the maintenance release, and wants us to just leave a note so he can judge it. This makes us responsible but preserves the value of the plane for the owner - and keeps the plane in rotation for the next student. Water in the fuel - this worries me because I've read a few accident reports where their engine failure was caused by water in the fuel, leading to some terrible crash landings. Everything I've read in my theory says any water in the fuel means the tank has to be drained and can't be flown that day. However the instructors there say this is not the case because they get alot of water and all you need to do is keep using the fuel tester on the bottom of the tank until it shows no more water, that this is actually taking the water out of the fuel. Is water in fuel that common? Is normal practice to fly after finding it, and just drain it with the fuel tester tube? Depending on your answers I may be looking for a new flight school.. or even another aerodrome where there is actually some flat area to force land on to boost my confidence. I'm doing this for FUN not for necessity or career, so I don't want to be risking my life. If the flying is up to me I can handle it but I don't want to go down due to something outside my control like a dodgy aircraft... What I'm worried about though, is that ALL flight schools are like this (that's what people tell me anyway), that they are trying to save money and not fixing everything etc. Thanks guys ps in particular anyone from any Australian schools I'd like to know if your flight school is also like this

Also consider the total cost.. If you want both the -400 and the -8i I'm not sure of the plan though for expansions but I tend to buy them so I'm not buying v1 I'm waiting for V2. There is still plenty of good stuff to fly in the meantime.

If you want to make a real confession, go through your PayPal account and add up all the money you've spent on simming in the last year.. It will shock :0

Stage 2 is complete which means it works in FSX now. It is the 3 Avro RJs so far. Stage 3 then adds the older 146 models.

It gets much worse than that my friend let me assure you lol $100 over 6 weeks shows great restraint. It's easy to spend that on airports in 1 weekend when aerosoft or FSDT has a sale.

I'd do some more tests but I'm traveling for a couple of weeks. Lots of good ideas to try though

The PDF Tutorials, the rest can be done after flying, read the detailed stuff during cruise

yep, thats I TRIED TO USE A PROFANITY HERE - AREN'T I STUPID!ing betty... maybe the fighter pilots werent married and were very keen for female company, then pilots that are married these days learnt at home to "tune out" the female voices make that "female dog-ing" betty lol

Thanks for posting Will On a side note - my spoilers deployed this time

They said "nothing I can think of that would cause that to happen" [ie armed spoilers not deploying and triggering "no spoiler" callout] Except they suspect MCE, however MCE shouldn't do anything unless I issue a voice command. On the spoiler logic - are you saying there is cases where the aircraft will prevent spoiler deployment automatically after the wheels touch the ground? On the Spoiler axis, I am able to fly from the IAF with the spoiler armed the whole way and the axis never trips it off. It's weird for it to prevent spoiler suddenly at landing. That's why I think the plane is doing something I don't understand yet. Something I can't find in the documentation, at least not the documentation for the PMDG aircraft.

Got a link? I can't find the 50% deal Thanks

Yep and this will have to be my long term workaround as I'm no closer to reproducing the trigger that causes the no spoiler callout. If I can't reproduce it, I can't avoid it so I'll just deploy manually. I raised a ticket with PMDG and they said there is no logic to trigger no spoiler in the systems, so it must be a bug or it doesn't like me having a hardware spoiler axis. Yes I love this PMDG MD-11 as well, and it's not too far behind the NGX. The systems are good, the external model is a little behind but that doesn't bother me. The VC isn't as flashy as the NGX but the MD-11 cockpit is a cleaner cockpit anyway so there's not so much we are missing because theres less there in the first place. Often we hardly even need to go to the overhead panel after startup and it's mostly an FMS based flight.

2500ft would be more like the last STAR point rather than the first. Could be the ILS intercept etc, and you should calculate it above ground level (AGL) Remember to check aerodrome elevation, there are many inland airports at 4000feet and higher, you can't navigate through the STAR at 2500 in that case. For your problem of not descending, what is the vert annunciation saying in the top right of the PFD? Is it PROF or something else? Also for doing your plans quickly, why not just copy existing routes? It's easy just download vRoute, then import the flight plans it generates from previous routes. FSBuild is better to process the routes from vRoute but you don't need it if you are happy to accept the exact route someone else flew.

On lineup before takeoff push auto flight once only. This will arm the auto throttle. Then bring the throttles the rest of the way up and you will hear it engage. If you were to push it again after takeoff it's auto flight / autopilot, so don't do that for circuits. To disconnect the auto throttle you need to map it to a button or a key in the PMDG keys menu or FSUIPC script. Same for auto flight disconnect.

Bloody bounces hey, glad there was no fire. Probably scared the crap out of the pilots I'm sure they've read the other accident reports. So they had no spoiler because they were going around but then stalled into another bounce? I suppose it will be a while before the reports out.

Thanks Sara, that matches the Just Flight model, except clicking the fuel cocks skips over right aux. I might have to open a ticket with JF unless someone else can confirm if right aux works. Cheers

Somebody must fly DC-3? Have JF just got the fuel tanks wrong and added the 4th tank by mistake? I can just empty tank 4 before flight if that's the case..

Thanks Michael, it might be worth trying both at once. Yep for NGX being passenger the load is not so high, and the routes are nice and short. Where the MD-11 costs the price of a small house to refuel. Do you need to disable ActiveSky winds in FSBuild settings or clear the AS output file before building your NGX flight plans? Otherwise I think it will use the previous output from last run of AS? I'm doing some DC-3 flights recreating Jean Battens England to NZ over time, I imagine Opus would be amazing at 10,000 ft across that journey.

Thanks Trent now that means I have to look at hardware issues again lol arghh I can't find a single cause. The only thing I can say for sure is it never ever happens on auto lands. But I never have bad rnough weather to require auto land so I'm not doing that normally. What throttle system do you have? I have double Saitek with the button reversers setup in the detents, FSUIPC only. Do you do mostly manual landings as well? Double tap AP disconnect but leave A/T on? I've also tried intentional bounces an they don't trigger it, I looked at one no spoiler landing in FSRecorder from the side and the wheels greased but stopped turning for half a second like it wasn't a firm enough landing or a slight skip but full bounces have spoiler deployed. The not idle explanation sounds like something to test but then we also have A/T complications it will depend on approach speed. I've tried so many things and I can't MAKE it happen, it only happens when I don't expect it. I need to try harder but no time now :( Ps yeah I noticed the Yoke movement needed too, nose lowering is manual as the spoilers I believe prevent the nose coming down. Have to be careful doing that if it was a bounce that was not noticed like in Riyadh

That might explain why.. On a normal approach after STAR I'm on a steady powered descent = late idle = no spoiler. Test approaches, I'm impatient, come in at Idle for quicker landing = spoiler. I'll try it next time. Also yes you guys are right I should just pull my spoiler lever back all the way manually and just finish the landing. I just don't like having a flow that has a 30% failure rate. Maybe I'll just change my flow to use manual spoilers every time.