What's with MSFS's assisted landings?

[Aptosflier]

The assisted (bracketed) landing patterns in MSFS seem awfully tight. I find the crosswind and base legs cruelly short, and especially tough to manage in high-wing planes like the Cessna 152 and 172, in which banking conceals the runway. Trying to master these demanding patterns is good training, but point of fact, are actual landing patterns at real-life airports as tight as MS flight sim's?

[Cavulife]

I just tried the KMRY landings you mentioned in "Where did you fly today" thread, in a 172. The brackets seem about right to me for location in that plane. As for speed, they are very slow I think. It says "Too Fast" if you enter downwind over 65knots which doesn't seem right to me.

 

One thing I always find helpful for the traffic pattern is to put the heading bug on the runway heading. It gives me a good reference for the 90 degree heading changes in going through the pattern. It helps in the high wing planes when it's difficult to see if you're aligned 90 and 180 degrees to the runway for example.

[Aptosflier]

One thing I always find helpful for the traffic pattern is to put the heading bug on the runway heading. It gives me a good reference for the 90 degree heading changes in going through the pattern. It helps in the high wing planes when it's difficult to see if you're aligned 90 and 180 degrees to the runway for example.

Excellent tip! Where's the heading bug, what does it look like, and how do I set it? Do I drag it with the mouse?

[Cavulife]

Excellent tip! Where's the heading bug, what does it look like, and how do I set it? Do I drag it with the mouse?

 

The heading bug is a little orange square-ish thing on the directional gyro. It’s the same thing that sets heading for the autopilot if you’re using heading mode. I’ve set up 2 mouse keys to make it go right or left but you can hover over the knob for it on the DG with your mouse and wheel it up or down.

[lnuss]

I don't have this new sim, but light singles such as those you mention will typically be no more than half a mile (often a bit closer) to the runway on downwind, and will turn base probably ½ to ¾ mile out (roughly as you see the runway at about 45º back over your shoulder), leaving about that much for final approach. All too many simmers (and some real world pilots) make the traffic pattern almost a cross-country excursion, with 1½ or more miles on final and way too wide on downwind.

 

In real life we judge our turns by looking in the direction of the turn, looking at the runway or other appropriate clue, before banking to start the turn, then leaning forward to look around the wing root (as needed, but looking around elsewhere for traffic too) to aid in judging the rate of turn and where to roll out wings level. With a device such as TrackIR, you too can do this in the sim if using the virtual cockpit.

 

Also, in the C-152 and C-172, 65-75 knots are about as fast as you want to go once you've passed abeam the runway numbers while on downwind, which should give plenty of time to judge your approach and landing, once you're comfortable with landings. In the real world, the only time a student does a takeoff or landing for the first few hours is at the beginning and end of a flight, needing to spend time in the practice area learning the basics of aircraft control so that they can climb and descend at any specified airspeed, maintain altitude in turns, do climbing and descending turns, and learn various ground reference maneuvers, thus giving them reasonable precision in aircraft handling.

 

In point of fact, I've always had my students (after gaining reasonable precision) hold a specified airspeed, climb, descend and turn (maintaining altitude), even changing flap settings and changing to another specified airspeed, all with my coat draped over the instrument panel, prior to doing serious work on traffic patterns (part of which you learn with ground reference maneuvers) and takeoffs and landings. They're always amazed that they can be within a couple of knots of the desired speed and within 50-100 feet of the desired altitude, even at the end of this series, when I let them look at the panel for a moment. They also can do all this while flying the complete traffic pattern, including takeoff and landing, with my coat over the panel, before I let them solo. It is really amazing to many folks how little you need instruments for basic VFR flying.

 

There are actually some exercises you can do in the Real Aviation Tutorials & FAQs section of the forum, towards the bottom of the main forum page.