Chapter 1, "Knowing your aircraft abilities, limits and
restrictions", is of special interest to me as I test aircraft models
in FS98 for Tradewind Caribbean Airlines (TCA). I'm especially
interested in "numbers to fly by" for TCA aircraft. This started off
when aircraft were being converted from FS5.1 models to FS98.
Some "flew" well in FS5.1 and abysmally in FS98. But it went much
farther than that. How close were the "numbers" to the real world
aircraft (where I could get real world aircraft data for
comparison!)? But if they "fly" ok, how well does it match real world
"numbers"? And if the "numbers" are in the "ballpark", it's great to
have pointers like this chapter to help me consider all aspects. Bill
discusses many issues here and the finishing paragraph makes
statements about flight simulation aircraft. The last sentence
exhorts you to simulate the techniques as best you can if your
flightsim aircraft does not seem to behave realistically - I say (for
FS98, anyway!) dump the aircraft and acquire a better model. There
are some good programmers out there.
Four of the chapters cover management techniques on fuel, weight,
flights & problems. The other two, not mentioned so far, cover
instruments and weather. Everything is interrelated and
cross-referenced: altitude, drag, speed, attitude, weight, endurance,
range. Bill uses diagrams, tables, pictures and graphs aplenty as
well as text to clarify the issues. He goes into a lot of detail for
each issue and this would make for repetition of detail across the
various chapters. But it also means you get all the detail you need
for each individual issue discussed.
Emphasised a few times across various chapters is flight planning. It
comes out as a very important issue in any sort of flight, IFR or
VFR! As one becomes more experienced in flightsimming and increased
realism the importance of flight planning becomes clearer. Bill gives
you the "why".
Since I am using FS98 there are some issues here that are of less
relevance to me, e.g. "balance". I only have control over the weight
difference that fuel makes. This means that I look at how much is in
each tank and just balance between left/center/right fuel
tanks--forget about placement of passengers/cargo/luggage.
This book I can't put down! I keep rereading it. It has me
questioning various aspects of my favorite aircraft. It certainly
has a place in my flightsim library.
The Book
Now here's a book I've been awaiting in anticipation for quite a
while - Top Performance. It's big - 200 pages, seven
chapters! The book is the usual A5 size, ring bound, clear print and
easy to read. There is a huge amount of detail here, what to do and
what not, to do! It's possibly the performance aspect that
intrigues me most. What parameters should I be looking for in an
aircraft? It's all here in Bills' book. Check out TopSkills
site (link at the bottom of the page) for more information on the
book itself.
Philip M. Wafer
pwafer@indigo.ieOther Books By Bill Stack/TopSkills:
Top Performance
Flight Sim Maneuvers
Flight Sim Pilot's Information Manual
Instrument Flying For Flight Simulator Pilots
Concorde Simming
Jet Simming
