A Small Beginners Guide to Flight Simulation

By Paul Mort

With a new version of Microsoft Flight Simulator just around the corner, I thought now would be a good time to write a short 'Paul Mort' guide to flight simulation.

Many of us here are long term flight simmers, and so we are used to the jargon which surrounds the hobby. However, for those just venturing into the magical world of flight simulation, it can be quite daunting, so hopefully this little guide will go a small way in alleviating some of that fear.

Aces Game Studio

Aces Game Studio (stylized ACES) was an American video game developer based in Redmond, Washington, acting as the developer of the Microsoft Flight Simulator and Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator series for Microsoft. As part of a move that cut 5,000 jobs at Microsoft, Aces Game Studio was closed on January 22, 2009.

Altimeter

The altimeter shows the aircraft's altitude above sea-level by measuring the difference between the pressure in a stack of aneroid capsules inside the altimeter and the atmospheric pressure obtained through the static system. It is adjustable for local barometric pressure which must be set correctly to obtain accurate altitude readings. As the aircraft ascends, the capsules expand and the static pressure drops, causing the altimeter to indicate a higher altitude. The opposite effect occurs when descending.

Airfoil

An airfoil or aerofoil is the cross-sectional shape of a wing, blade, or sail. An airfoil-shaped body moving through a fluid produces an aerodynamic force. The component of this force perpendicular to the direction of motion is called lift. The component parallel to the direction of motion is called drag.

Airspeed Indicator

The airspeed indicator shows the aircraft's speed (usually in knots) relative to the surrounding air. It works by measuring the ram-air pressure in the aircraft's pitot tube relative to the ambient static pressure. The indicated airspeed (IAS) must be corrected for nonstandard pressure and temperature in order to obtain the true airspeed (TAS). The instrument is color coded to indicate important airspeeds such as the stall speed, never-exceed airspeed, or safe flap operation speeds.

Attitude Indicator

The attitude indicator (also known as an artificial horizon) shows the aircraft's relation to the horizon. From this the pilot can tell whether the wings are level (roll) and if the aircraft nose is pointing above or below the horizon (pitch). This is a primary instrument for instrument flight and is also useful in conditions of poor visibility. Pilots are trained to use other instruments in combination should this instrument or its power fail.

Automatic Direction Finder (ADF)

The Automatic direction finder (ADF) indicator instrument can be a fixed-card, movable card, or a Radio Magnetic Indicator (RMI). An RMI is remotely coupled to a gyrocompass so that it automatically rotates the azimuth card to represent aircraft heading. While simple ADF displays may have only one needle, a typical RMI has two, coupled to different ADF receivers, allowing for position fixing using one instrument.

Blade Element Theory

Blade element theory (BET) is a mathematical process originally designed by William Froude (1878), David W. Taylor (1893) and Stefan Drzewiecki to determine the behavior of propellers. It involves breaking a blade down into several small parts then determining the forces on each of these small blade elements.

Bruce Artwick

Bruce Artwick (born January 1, 1953) is an American software engineer. He is the creator of the first consumer flight simulator software. He founded subLOGIC after graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1977, and released the first version of Flight Simulator for the Apple II the following year. His original Apple II software was purchased by Microsoft in 1982 and became Microsoft Flight Simulator.

After subLOGIC, Bruce founded the Bruce Artwick Organization which continued development of flight simulator products which were eventually bought out by Microsoft.

CTAF

Common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF) is the name given to the VHF radio frequency used for air-to-air communication at United States, Canadian and Australian non-towered airports.

Community

Flight Simulation is a great hobby, but it's even better when people get involved. There are many ways to this, with some of the most popular being: posting in the forums, writing tutorials and reviews (something I enjoy doing), and if you are really keen, and have the time, creating scenery and objects.

Delta Wing

The delta wing is a wing shaped in the form of a triangle. It is named for its similarity in shape to the Greek uppercase letter delta. Although long studied, it did not find significant applications until the jet age, when it proved suitable for high-speed subsonic and supersonic flight.

DirectX

Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectSound, and so forth. Both Microsoft Flight Simulator and Prepar3D use DirectX.

Elevator

The elevator is a moveable part of the horizontal stabilizer, hinged to the back of the fixed part of the horizontal tail. The elevators move up and down together. When the pilot pulls the stick backward, the elevators go up.

FlyWithLua

FlyWithLua is an X-Plane plugin which allows users to add additional features to the simulator. These include: removing haze, improved clouds, airport traffic, maps and charts, plus many other features.

FlightGear

FlightGear Flight Simulator (often shortened to FlightGear or FGFS) is a free, open source multi-platform flight simulator developed by the FlightGear Project since 1997.

FMOD

FMOD is a high quality commercial sound engine and sound authoring environment for games.

FSUIPC

FSUIPC is a small utility which allows third-party programs to interact with the 'inner workings' of FS2004/FSX/P3D.

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)

A graphics processing unit (GPU) is used to display the virtual world you fly in. A fast GPU can render scenes very quickly (frame rate), whilst GPUs with greater memory, can display higher detail (textures). As GPUs have increased in power, so too has the visual detail in flight simulators.

Heading Indicator

The heading indicator (also known as the directional gyro, or DG) displays the aircraft's heading with respect to magnetic north when set with a compass.

HDR Lighting

High-dynamic-range rendering (HDRR or HDR rendering), also known as high-dynamic-range lighting, is the rendering of computer graphics scenes by using lighting calculations done in high dynamic range (HDR).

Horizontal Situation Indicator

The horizontal situation indicator (commonly called the HSI) is an aircraft flight instrument normally mounted below the artificial horizon in place of a conventional heading indicator. It combines a heading indicator with a VHF omnidirectional range-instrument landing system (VOR-ILS) display.

Instrument Landing System (ILS)

An instrument landing system enables a pilot to land an airplane by instrument approach when the pilot cannot see the runway.

JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler (JSGME)

The JoneSoft Generic Mod Enabler allows simmers to easily enable and disable mods - for example winter scenery textures in X-Plane.

Lockheed Martin Prepar3D

In 2009 Lockheed Martin announced that they had negotiated with Microsoft to purchase the intellectual property (including source code) for the Microsoft ESP (Enterprise Simulation Platform) product. Microsoft ESP is the commercial-use version of Flight Simulator X SP2. On May 17, 2010, Lockheed announced that the new product based upon the ESP source code would be called Lockheed Martin Prepar3D (P3D). Lockheed hired members of the original Aces Game Studio team to continue development of the product.

Magnetic Compass

The compass shows the aircraft's heading relative to magnetic north. Errors include variation, or the difference between magnetic and true direction, and deviation, caused by the electrical wiring in the aircraft, which requires a Compass Correction Card.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator began as a set of articles on computer graphics, written by Bruce Artwick throughout 1976, about flight simulation using 3-D graphics. When the editor of the magazine told Artwick that subscribers were interested in purchasing such a program, Artwick founded subLOGIC Corporation to commercialize his ideas. At first the new company sold flight simulators through mail order, but that changed in January 1979 with the release of Flight Simulator (FS) for the Apple II. They soon followed this up with versions for other systems and from there it evolved into a long-running series of computer flight simulators.

Mesh

Terrain mesh is the underlying wireframe detail of the scenery. The higher the resolution (elevation points), the greater the detail.

Normal Mapping

In 3D computer graphics, normal mapping, or Dot3 bump mapping, is a technique used for faking the lighting of bumps and dents - an implementation of bump mapping. It is used to add details without using more polygons.

Non-Directional Beacon (NDB)

A non-directional (radio) beacon (NDB) is a radio transmitter at a known location, used as an aviation or marine navigational aid.

Object Libraries

Many flight simulators require the use object libraries to display sceneries correctly. This includes those from both payware and freeware developers.

OpenGL

Open Graphics Library is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit, to achieve hardware-accelerated rendering. The flight simulator X-Plane uses OpenGL.

PAPI

A precision approach path indicator (PAPI) is a visual aid that provides guidance information to help a pilot acquire and maintain the correct approach (in the vertical plane) to an airport or an aerodrome. It is generally located on the left-hand side of the runway approximately 300 meters beyond the landing threshold of the runway.

Physically Based Rendering

Physically based rendering (PBR) is an approach in computer graphics that seeks to render graphics in a way that more accurately models the flow of light in the real world. Both X-Plane 11 and later version of Prepar3D use PBR.

Plane Maker

Plane Maker is a program bundled with X-Plane that lets users design their own aircraft. Using this software, nearly any aircraft imaginable can be built. Once all the physical specifications of the airplane have been entered (e.g., weight, wing span, control deflections, engine power, airfoil sections, etc.), the X-Plane simulator will predict how that plane will fly in the real world; it will model the aircraft's performance just like it does for X-Plane's built-in aircraft.

Pitot-Static System

A pitot-static system is a system of pressure-sensitive instruments that is most often used in aviation to determine an aircraft's airspeed, Mach number, altitude, and altitude trend. A pitot-static system generally consists of a pitot tube, a static port, and the pitot-static instruments.

Program Files (86)

When installing any of the Microsoft Flight Simulators (including P3D), it's always advised to install outside of the 'Program Files' directory.

Rudder

The rudder is typically mounted on the trailing edge of the vertical stabilizer, part of the empennage. When the pilot pushes the left pedal, the rudder deflects left. Pushing the right pedal causes the rudder to deflect right. Deflecting the rudder right pushes the tail left and causes the nose to yaw to the right. Centering the rudder pedals returns the rudder to neutral and stops the yaw.

SAM Jetways

SAM is a native X-Plane 11 plugin offering different possibilities to animate sceneries with jetways, hangars, marshaller and more.

Scenery Packs

X-Plane scenery packs are loaded in priority order; in order to ensure that you see your payware or custom scenery, it must be higher priority than the global airports.

SDK

A Software Development Kit (SDK) is a set of development tools that allow developers to create applications for a certain software package (for example, Microsoft Flight Simulator).

SIDs and STARs

A SID is sometimes called a Departure Procedure (DP). SIDs are unique to the associated airport. A STAR, or Standard Terminal Arrival Route, ('Standard Instrument Arrival' in the UK) defines a pathway into an airport from the airway structure.

SimObject Display Engine (SODE)

The SimObject Display Engine (SODE) enables FSX/P3D scenery developers to control the display of their objects depending on certain conditions and/or triggers.

Solid State Drives

Solid State Drives (SSD) are storage mediums like traditional hard drives, except they allow for faster transfer speeds. Whilst more expensive than hard drives, they are the preferred choice for simulators, especially those with large sceneries, as they reduce loading times.

Turn Indicator

These include the Turn-and-Slip Indicator and the Turn Coordinator, which indicate rotation about the longitudinal axis.

Transverse Axis (Pitch)

The pitch axis (also called transverse or lateral axis) has its origin at the center of gravity and is directed to the right, parallel to a line drawn from wingtip to wingtip. Motion about this axis is called pitch. A positive pitching motion raises the nose of the aircraft and lowers the tail. The elevators are the primary control of pitch.

Tutorials

Tutorials are an excellent way of learning how to do something, and luckily there are plenty for FS2004, FSX and X-Plane.

Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network

VATSIM, or Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network, is a non-profit organization operating a dedicated, worldwide, Internet-based flight-simulation network. Users can connect to the network to either fly online as a pilot using flight simulation software such as Microsoft Flight Simulator X, Prepar3D or X-Plane, or direct traffic as an air traffic controller (ATC) and participate in what has been described as a close approximation of real-life aviation procedures.

Vertical Axis (Yaw)

The yaw axis has its origin at the center of gravity and is directed towards the bottom of the aircraft, perpendicular to the wings and to the fuselage reference line. Motion about this axis is called yaw. A positive yawing motion moves the nose of the aircraft to the right. The rudder is the primary control of yaw.

Vertical Speed Indicator

The VSI (also sometimes called a variometer, or rate of climb indicator) senses changing air pressure, and displays that information to the pilot as a rate of climb or descent in feet per minute, meters per second or knots.

Very-High Frequency Omnidirectional Range (VOR)

The VOR indicator instrument includes a Course Deviation Indicator (CDI), Omnibearing Selector (OBS), TO/FROM indicator, and flags. The CDI shows an aircraft's lateral position in relation to a selected radial track. It is used for orientation, tracking to or from a station, and course interception.

VR Ready

VR ready means that the add-on can take full advantage of virtual reality headsets/hardware.

WorldEditor (WED)

WorldEditor (often abbreviated to WED) is an open source 2-D scenery and airport editor for X-Plane. There are several versions of WED from which you can download.

X-Plane (Simulator)

X-Plane is a flight simulator produced by Laminar Research. X-Plane can be used professionally with the correct license, or used personally. A personal use desktop version is available for macOS, Windows, and Linux, while a mobile version is available for Android, iOS, and webOS. X-Plane is packaged with several commercial, military, and other aircraft, as well as basic global scenery which covers most of the Earth.

Yoke

A yoke, alternatively known as a control wheel is a device used for piloting some fixed-wing aircraft.

The pilot uses the yoke to control the attitude of the plane, usually in both pitch and roll. Rotating the control wheel controls the ailerons and the roll axis. Fore and aft movement of the control column controls the elevator and the pitch axis. When the yoke is pulled back the nose of the aircraft rises. When the yoke is pushed forward the nose is lowered. When the yoke is turned left the plane rolls to the left and when it is turned to the right the plane rolls to the right.

Conclusion...

This is not a complete list by any stretch of the imagination (far from it). It is meant purely to help newcomers get to grips with some of the language and idiosyncrasies found in flight simulation. To that end, it would be wonderful if other members could add to it in the comments section below.

Regards.

Paul Mort