lnuss

In its day, the Beech D-18 was more commonly called the Twin Beech. It's a beautiful bird, and I love the sound of those twin radials. The military had several versions, too, with many variations on the C-45 and AT-7 and AT-11 as advanced trainers, in addition to the F-2 for photo-recon. Of course the Navy had their own designations, as did the RCAF and others. Note that Matt Younkin puts on a magnificent airshow with a D-18, also.

In many real C-172s there is such a nut, but I've never come across a control for it in the sim. Chances are you either have something in that gamepad's drivers or in the device itself. Perhaps there's a spring to center it?

Glad you've got it fixed.

Have you turned the autopilot off? I've not yet seen you respond to that suggestion.

To add to Zippy's comments, in real life, tower is just the first and the final link in the ATC chain (disregarding Ground Control) when going from one large airport to another, if you're IFR (Instrument Flight Rules - that's RULES, not conditions). Typically after takeoff an aircraft will be handed off to departure control and then, if the flight is very far, to Center (major enroute facilities), then at the far end there's a handoff to approach control. Only in the last 5-10 miles (or when established on an instrument approach) does approach control hand you off to tower. So your experience is probably fairly accurate if you're just traveling VFR (Visual Flight Rules) leaving one tower controlled airport and going to another. And if you didn't specifically file an IFR flight plan then, as far as the sim is concerned, you are VFR. If the 747 wanted to stay below 18,000 feet and avoid certain other types of airspace, there is no reason* why a (generic) 747 can't fly VFR and "sneak up???" on an airport, but the approved operating rules for a specific airline (or other operator) MAY preclude straight VFR, especially with a load of passengers. * Of course fuel burn will be very high and there may be more problems with weather sometimes, but there's no actual regulation requiring a Part 91 flight (not operating as an air carrier) to file IFR or, except in class A, B, C or D airspace to even talk to anyone, same as if it were a Cub.

My favorite is Coronado (4AC) Airport on the north side of Albuquerque. Unfortunately they closed it down a few years back, and no buildings and not much runway remain. But it's still in FSX, and a friend and I built a version that reflects what it looked like (including custom buildings) so we could spend time there. Perhaps I like it so well because I spent a number of years with it as my home base, including glider flying, banner towing, flight instructing and more.

He most certainly does, and it seems that his English is very fluent, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem I stated in understanding his accent. I'm not trying to do anything in French, but he's addressing an English speaking audience, so at the least he could slow his speech a bit to give some of us a chance to actually figure out one word or phrase before the next several had grabbed our attention.

I wish they'd either speak more slowly or use an announcer with less of an accent because, just as in the previous releases, I can only understand about half of what he says, and I have to concentrate hard to do that. I do see a lot of neat stuff in there, but it would be nice to know why much of the distant scenery is a tad blurry. Thanks for posting this.

Fine, Jim, I missed him having Standard. I also didn't know P3D V1 was about the same as FSX. I'll butt out.

On my system I have both P3D v2 and FSX, along with ADE. When I fire up ADE it asks which sim to work with, presumably choosing certain things to work with the chosen sim, so I'd be inclined to use an FSX SDK with FSX and a P3D SDK with P3D.

I'm posting just to let you know someone sees your posts here, both this one and the similar one you made on the 12th. I have no idea what SimTouch is, nor M/c for that matter. So maybe someone can answer you, but it's "greek" to me.

I agree with Mark. Either/or doesn't make any sense, since you have to use them together, and not in a linear fashion either -- sometimes you even have to use them in opposite directions (crosswind landing, for example). Autorudder is about as good as you can do without separate pedal control for normal inflight use. On the ground, of course, aileron works the rudder/nosewheel steering just fine with autorudder on.

Curious -- I've seen skies exactly like that in Colorado, as well as in Ohio, Illinois and other places over the years. At first glance I thought it was a photograph of a real city. That "blurring/soft/unsharp" is exactly what fog and mist can do to a sky.

I'm glad you added that last one, Bill. de N8GGG

Applying full rudder will likely throw the aircraft into a tizzy, but you can try adjusting the slider associated with that button for the amount of repeat you want, then you can do as with the keyboard and add a little at a time. Then you can either do as Zippy said and use the '5' or you could assign another button to center it. However, if you have one available, assigning to an axis would work much better.

That may be true if the instruments are straight ahead (not all are (engine instruments? radios?)), but keep in mind that more goes on in the cockpit than staring at instruments. In a VERY LIMITED scenario that can be true for a brief period. I've watched your clip, and other than at 33:35, where was the pilot looking and where was his head aimed? How about at 27:00? Where were the pilotS (yes plural) looking? The CO-pilot spent a lot of time during the takeoff with his head moving very little (he was the pilot flying, that is physically on the controls), but were you aware that the Captain (the pilot not flying, that is NOT physically on the controls) was looking all around the cockpit during that time, operating switches, setting things up, checking engine instruments and other things that A LONE PILOT would have to do for himself? Did you notice that when out of the clouds the captain was looking around a lot, outside as well as in, and even the copilot (first officer, if you prefer) looked around some? Flying is a LOT MORE than just looking at an instrument panel. When I fly, UNLESS I'M IN IMC, I don't use instruments very much. And if you get away from instruments that are straight ahead, then your argument breaks down. How much time have you spent in a real cockpit flying in VMC? In IMC? Even when teaching a student about flying by instruments with a view-limiting device on his head (a hood, as we call it), his head isn't still. I don't think you even read my post #20, or at least you are ignoring what I said when I talked about having to look elsewhere than the panel, about looking for traffic, with maybe a glance at an instrument or a switch or a knob, then back outside looking for traffic, for aircraft attitude (much better than the attitude indicator) and to help in navigation (yes, compare outside with maps). There are plenty of instances of all that and more in the video. You're looking for the wrong things. When teaching some students (and even some pilots on a flight review), it sometimes takes a bit of work to get them to look somewhere other than at the gauges, which they don't need, for the most part in VMC. It happened often enough so that I got to putting my coat over the instrument panel, hiding everything, and the student would have to learn to do it that way* before I would solo him. We started with this in the practice area, then my students would have to actually fly the traffic pattern several times with that coat in the way, doing touch and goes and/or full stop/taxi back landings, then takeoffs. You DON'T do that without moving your head a LOT. Enough. Use "2D" panels? OK, have fun. Not like the VC? OK, that's fine. But don't tell me that 2D is more realistic. * Even in slow flight, with that coat over the panel, a student soon got to where he could get very close to the speed I specified ("Give me 50 kts. Give me 20º flaps... OK, give me 56 kts."), usually within a couple of knots, just going by the attitude (as determined by looking out the window) and the sound (wind noise, engine noise, prop noise) and the feel of the controls (they get sloppier as you slow down, firmer as you speed up). Try this in the sim sometime with the 2D, then in the VC at, say, 0.8 zoom. Bye.

There is additional information if you look below at the Real Aviation Tutorials & FAQs section of the forum. There's information on traffic patterns, in flight exercises to improve your control, maneuvering, navigation, takeoff and landings, basic aircraft control, and more. That is not INSTEAD of the lessons and such suggested above, but IN ADDITION TO those. There's a wealth of information around, including asking questions here on the forums.

Huh? In real life I rarely hold my head still. If I did I couldn't see a LOT of things that I NEED to see, in aircraft or out. IRL my head AND eyes are moving most of the time, often while leaning forward, or ducking my head a bit, depending on what I need to see at the moment. I need to see a LOT more than the panel. I have to lean forward in a turn to see past the wing, or maybe duck my head a little, or both. Also, I'm glancing left, right, ahead, etc. frequently (out the window, that is), both to see the aircraft's attitude and to check for traffic. In a Cub, for one example, the trim crank is down by my left hip. I have to glance there just for a split second, though in the sim I use a control on the stick. In an Aztec or Apache (and other early Pipers) the trim crank is almost directly above my head, so I have to glance up a bit, though only for a split second. Or I glance down and right to see the trim wheel in a Cessna or Bonanza. This also is true for light switches, altitude setting knob and more. Even when flying in IMC, I still need head movement, though not quite as much as in VMC. With TrackIR, I can move my head side to side, up and down, fore and aft, as well as left and right and tilting it up and down, right and left. So as I'm on downwind, I can swing my (virtual and real) head to the left, then lean left and down and forward a bit to look back to easily see the runway behind me at the "45º point" (or further), then immediately look back forward while sitting up straighter. In my, for example, turn to base, with that Cessna wing in my desired viewing path, I can lean forward and down, then look up and left to see the base leg path, perhaps even the runway behind me. During ALL of this my hands stay on the stick and throttle. And how about those quick glances I mentioned above; I can do those with TrackIR, but not with a hat switch and keyboard controls to change the view. And it's all smooth movement, unless you have the display parameters set too high, which also makes the frame rate low and the display a bit jerky, even for the "2D" view. Try that in your so-called 2D "cockpit." I'm not quite sure what that is, but if it's anything like TrackIR it takes a little getting used to initially, but most folks can adapt and then it will become as natural as looking in real life, but that doesn't become "natural" in just a couple of hours -- useful, but not natural. I had a friend who bought TrackIR at the same time I did, and he never did get used to it -- he just didn't have the patience to spend enough time with it for it to work for him (he had lots of patience for some things that I didn't, though, too). So he tended to do away with panels, for the most part, and have just the small stuff the 'W' gets you at the bottom of the screen, along with making heavy use of the external views, especially spot and flyby. It wasn't that he thought it was more realistic, just that he couldn't get used to the way you have to use it. And he, too, was a real world pilot and CFII with well over 10,000 hours. So different people have different needs and different tolerance for various "features."

mallcott is right, even in FSX, ORBX uses very few extra resources over what FSX does on its own, AT THE SAME DISPLAY SETTINGS. But if you push some of those sliders more to the right then yes, ORBX eats up more resources. Of course FSX without ORBX would do so, too. UT, in my experience (yes, I've got both, even run both at the same time, to a limited degree), uses about the same amount of resources as ORBX (not much), but doesn't do nearly as much for you. And that's on a machine that was put together in 2010, though I did update the graphics card a few years back, when I got P3D. That card helped a LOT with P3D, not very much with FSX, which is pretty much as expected. So if you have resource problems, you're doing something wrong, or not doing something right.

MS Flight? Are they resurrecting that? Actually, the new sim under development is just that, won't be available for some time, and won't stop development for X-plane or P3D, and probably not for FSX either -- people are still bringing out new stuff for FS2004 -- so the answer is: At least some developers will bring out new stuff, although by autumn, perhaps near the time of release for MS Flight Simulator (the new version), the amount of new stuff for FSX may get less. They didn't stop development for FS2004 when FSX came out, though there was less of it. They didn't stop development for FSX when P3D came out, though there was less of it. Think about it...

I hope so. Like Oscar, I use TrackIR. It boosts realism a LOT. Even without TrackIR, I never cared much for the so-called 2D "cockpits" -- really just a picture of a panel.

I fully understand his attitude, and I share it, to a large degree. I've been in computers, one way or another, for 40+ years, including a stint working with some folks at Bell Labs where I discovered how certain folks can easily bypass most "safeguards." I also learned how inadvertent bugs can be a bear to find, along with a few other things. The main point being that perhaps I know too much, causing me to be extremely skeptical about the safety of computers. Add to that the (relatively recent) growing spate of "hacked" systems, the proliferation of malware AND the way more and more otherwise reputable businesses are gathering information they're not entitled to, then SELLING it, often to bad actors, or otherwise misusing it, and you eventually develop a very pessimistic outlook on such things. Certainly he doesn't HAVE to join, but as I often do, he's researching what he'd get into if he DID join.

:cool::rolleyes::pilot:

Does this happen all the time, or only when you ignore it for a while? After you haven't responded to ATC for some time, it will drop. If it's not that, then I have no idea.

As Zippy says, some piston aircraft can do so. He lists a couple. Many (most) piston airliners (in real life) have reverse thrust. However, that doesn't automatically make it available in the sim. Best I can tell, it takes a special work-around by aircraft designers to get the reverse thrust on piston engine aircraft, while the sim itself makes it simple for a turboprop. However, IRL the mechanism allowing reverse thrust is expensive and adds complexity (as well as weight) so its use has been limited in smaller aircraft. But there has recently been an STC* to add reverse thrust to certain Cessna singles equipped with certain props, see this AOPA article, probably for sea plane use. * STC -- Supplemental Type Certificate A Type Certificate is the paperwork/authorization from the FAA that an aircraft has been FAA approved for normal production in standard (non-experimental) categories. An STC is issued when an aircraft modification has gone through a lot of expensive, elaborate testing and is shown to have no adverse effects on an aircraft. An STC'ed product is generally sold by the developer, but in any case must be applied to individual aircraft on a one-at-a-time basis, that is, there is no blanket approval. Each installation must follow rigid installation procedures and the associated paperwork must be properly done.