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mqytn

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Blog Entries posted by mqytn

  1. mqytn
    While signing onto Steam the other day, I noticed that it said I have "played" FSX-SE 1100 hours to date. At that moment I decided to take a break. Between the 3 sims and 2 flight computers, I think I'll back off a bit at least for a few weeks.
    Well fast forward to the end of September and I'm an hour from 1400 hours on FSX:SE.
  3. mqytn

    My Flights and other ramblings

    By mqytn,


    My Flights
    My recent kick is to experiment with navigation techniques. Like all other pilots here I started with VOR's, NDB's and ILS's, or just plain ole looking out the window. I knew there was a GPS in the planes but truthfully I did'nt want to bother with it cause I preferred to fly the old fashing way.
    (note about this blog. I wanted to keep it fresh instead of having old ramblings here and I just deleted everything instead of saving and posting the old stuff on a html page. Opps.)
    After years of normal navigation, it was time to experiment.I decided to break out the GPS. Well now that I think about it, let me back up a little. I did go through a FMC phase. I'm not really sure which sim I was flying that had planes with the computer. Honestly I dont remember much about it except it flew the plane as planned. Despite me being a gadget person, I really never got into the FMC 100% like I did the GPS. Before the GPS one technique to fly to a far away point was to use the top-down view, point the plane at Hawaii from a long distance andusing the heading bug to keep the plane pointed in the almost right direction and then use normal navigation to land the plane. Now it's GPS time. Oh wow, the thing will keep me pointed towards Hawaii. I could not believe it. So actually the GPS opened up a whole world of added flight adventures for me. I've always had a good list of airport codes memorized for a long while, and suddenly I was like I gotta fly to KBOS then KSEA then KSAN then KBNA then KMIA then KEYW then PHNL then...... and that just kept going and going and going. The GPS was too easy and I got to see much more scenery from the sim than I normally would have.
    We now interrupt this navigation blog for a mini blog..
    Every pilot here on flightsim.com, real or sim, has a reason for being here. It's neat to read articles and forums to get an idea on what others idea's are as to what this flight sim is all about. Those ideas changes
    speed and direction as much as the wind does which makes it interesting. I like to think that I just sit in the corner watching everything. The reason I say that is because really the only thing I do is fly the airplanes. I just use only the sim. This kind of parallells ham radio. a "ham" can take the hobby as far as possible and have all kinds of experiences. Me, I just stay on one small part of the hobby and use pretty much the minumum amount of equipment but that's what I like. I term it being at the bottom of the ham barrel. Same thing with the sim. I use FS9 and FSX and maybe a controller to fly with but in realily I use just the keyboard 99.9% of the time. I've been flying like that since 1991. So what I'm getting at is any thing I contribute to the forums or just rambling here has only to so with the sim itself and what I do with it.
    And now back to our regularly scheduled navigation blog...
    So the GPS increased my interest in the sim. After 100's of hours flying direct I finally decided to start filing flight plans using the low and high alt routes. Today it's still not my preferred way to navigate but I have increased the usage of flight planning. Using flight plans is not the main function for my GPS. For those here that flew FS5, there was a function that where if you were flying the 172 and you pressed X then the plane would automatically fly to and land at the nearest airfield and you did not have to do a thing. That was autoland and it was fun to watch. Well the GPS went up a notch on my friend list when I discovered that it could fly the plane towards an ILS as long as you flew a pattern to where it can fly towards the ILS everything was fine. (I do not and will not use the ATC) Another step closer to that FS5 autoland! So after flying like that for a while, up another notch the GPS went on my friend list. Next I discovered RNAV and GPS approaches. Now I can take off, fly decend and just sit here while doing a minimum amount of navigating. Now (March 2013), I'm picking intersections to fly to, really like having a million NDB's. This allows me to pilot the plane and let it fly towards a runway or ILS easily. Even the local airports here in Tennessee have intersections to guide you to a runway which comes in handy if the apt doesnt have an approach of any kind. While I'm on the subject of intersections I recently discovered another new thing about the sim. I've always wondered why there was 2 diffrent colored int. Well the blue ones are named and are in the GPS database. The pink ones(or whatever color they are..I'm colorblind) are labeled unnamed...(yet they have names) and they are not in the GPS database. So the blue ones are the int's you can type in the GPS and use for navigation. So to recap, as in real life aviation, I've gone from using on ground navigation aids to the ones in the air. It's neat to hear aircraft leaving KBNA and being directed to big daddy. No longer do I hear them being directed to OPRY while heading towards the 200 heading runways. When I was going to MTSU..Go Raiders!..they said that there would be a day that VOR's would be taked out of service. Well the first one I've heard about is the KCHA vor. There may really be a day when there are no more morse codes in the air on our airplane scanners. Welcome to 2013.
    Wow. hmm, now its 2014. I think that I have figured out everything I want to know in FS. I fly how I want to fly, I have a grab bag of approaches to choose from, and I can fly any size aircraft to anywhere I want in FS. Sometimes this involves real world rules and sometimes not. My main goal in this sim is to press F4 and fly, that's it. Oh, and an update on what the future of aviation that is supposed to be in place by now. Looks like things have slowed up a bit. Aircraft actually got smaller(overall) and the expected load factors did not hit the numbers they came up with when I was going to MTSU for an Aerospace Administration degree. Yes pilots are using gps navigation more as expected and I'm flying without using ground navaids in FS as well. But the overall reliance on technology never really materialized due to lots of factors. You can actually read about it on FAA.gov. Meanwhile I'm enjoying the self learning and the challenges I give myself when flying in the sim. :pilot:
  4. mqytn

    Hopping

    By mqytn,

    I guess most operators of flightsim servers put a hop list for pilots to uhhhh...enjoy...lol. Here on flightsim.com there is a list of hops designed for small aircraft. I use the default 172 and 182. Hopping involves flying online from one apt to another. There is no ATC. It is up to the pilot to decide how to get to the next destination. The most basic way to fly this set of hops is to jump up and fly the heading it says to fly. Some airports have ILS runways but most have nothing at all. For an extra challenge some airports are buried in mountain valleys. So far I have had two airports on this list to kick my but as far as finding them and then figuring out how to get on final for landing. One apt (09ID) really gave me fits. It took me several attempts just to get a visual on the thing. I took the wrong runway for the landing and ran off the end and did a half dounut before stopping. I enjoyed every min of it! Hopping is a great way to quickly learn navigation on your own terms.
    Update November 21, 2012......WOW. Ok I've done this in the past so bear with me. I started the hops on this server earlier this year. Like anything with FS I tend to fly for a while then stop. However there is a thing about finishing all the hops by my birthday. So with November 18 coming up I started back with the flights. I've said it before in this blog that I you aren't too sure of your flying skills then by the time you fly these hops, you will be an expert navigator. There are airports hidden in those hills. They are really fun to fly into and to call them a challange is an understatement. My online call is NKKC18. I chose that because KKC are my initials and N18 is my birthday(November 18). So on the Flightsim.com server they list the pilot and what hop they are on and the date. At the top the pilots that fly all the hops are listed and I wanted my name listed on November 18. A few days before the 18 I think I was up to flight 30 out of 37. After 30 flights or so I finally figured out the trick to flying in the mountains. Since the next destination's heading is known, I figured out that the easiest way to find the airport is to follow the road that is headed in the same direction as the airport.
    March 2013...mean, mean list of hops...lol
  6. mqytn

    flights grounded

    By mqytn,

    Actually this is a blog test. I just wanted to see if when and where this would show up. I have 3 computers. One is dead or dying, one is going full force with fs9 and fsx and fs 2002 on it. I'm in the process of looking for my fs98 disk. I hope I find it. Right after of getting this idea that I would fly 100 hours in the WN virtual airline, I grounded all flights. I really need to do a list of things not computer related. Maybe by Jan I can resume flights and building pc's again. There a planes I hope to pull out of the wreckage of the dead or dying pc. FS Nav is on that machine. I hope to rescue it too. Yea I know, i'm rambling. I'd rather be flying but that will have to wait.
  7. mqytn

    Flight 2013

    By mqytn,

    New year, new flights. So far this year I downgraded back into the props. Another new additons to the list is to fly the low alt routes or high alt routes for the jets. Normally I'll fly GPS direct if for no other reason to figure how long I will be in the air. Now my flights follow the routes and It's still easy to figure the flying time.

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