Jump to content

Art Burke

Registered Users
  • Posts

    111
  • Joined

Personal Information

  • Location
    Leesburg, FL
  • Occupation
    Retired

Interest

  • Interests
    FlightSim and Amateur Radio

Art Burke's Achievements

Community Guru

Community Guru (4/7)

  • Week One Done
  • One Month Later
  • One Year In
  • First Post Rare
  • Collaborator Rare

Recent Badges

10

Reputation

  1. I'm not an expert on X-Plane 7 - I was a Microsoft simmer for eons. When I returned to simming, it was to X-Plane because it seemed there was a lesser level of complexity I see you got an answer already. Let me agree with him, but add the following: It seems that nowhere where you bought X-Plane, if you installed the sim with the DVDs, you should have the appropriate "key" with your physical data (DVD, DVD-holder, etc). I think I remember reading somewhere that the "..runways on water.." can also be a symptom of not having scenery installed for that region. Go back to your docs (is there a "read.me.txt" or similar?) and somewhere along the way you can find info about adding scenery if you didn't install it all the first go around. Art Burke - N4PJ Leesburg, FL
  2. Art Burke

    Navaids

    A "standard" VOR is tuned via the NAV radio. The standard C172 has a radio (and dial) for VOR1 and VOR2. You can tune these VORs with the published frequency. When you are close enough to the VOR for your receiver to know that, the "needle" will become active and you can tune the appropriate radial. When the VOR you tune into is "slaved" as an ILS, you will have two needles that will eventually be active - one of them (vertical) for the localizer and the other (horizontal) for the glideslope. You don't have to tune separate frequencies for both the glideslope and localizer. They both work on the same frequency. When you write "beacon" I assume you're referring to an NDB (Non-Directional Beacon). These are apparently being slowly phased out. The utilization of GPS technology probably has a lot to do with this. Imagine you walk into a dark room. There is no light, but voices can be heard. "Where are you?" you ask. Suddenly, off to your left, a voice says "I'm over here." Well, the magic question now is , "...where is over here?" Now let's alter the scenario slightly and replace the voice with a light. Even a candle will work. In a dark room a candle can appear to be quite bright. So now, the candle and the sound are coming from the same place. Slowly turn your body until you're directly facing the light from the candle. Where the light/sound is coming from has a "relative" bearing. With some minor arithmetic, you can determine the actual bearing required to get to the beacon (the candle). Here's one in its most simplistic form. Let's say you are flying due North (360/0 degrees). You have to turn left 40-degrees to face the signal/light. That means you will need to fly a heading of 320-degrees to fly directly to the beacon. Now let's say you were flying 350-degrees when you started turning toward the beacon, but it's still 40-degrees "relative bearing" to the beacon. Thus 350-40 = 310 and you need to steer a heading of 310 to get to the beacon. To add just a little to the complexity, keep in mind that many (most?) of the NDBs are also used as an "outer marker" to help you find your way around the sky. The "outer marker" is often your FAF (Final Air Fix) on an approach to an airport so you get the warm fuzzies about where you are and where the airport/runway is. Snoop around on YouTube and you can very likely find some far better examples for VORs, NDBs and the like. They have to be plentiful - the "ground school" stuff is just chock full of issues dealing with them. Good luck. Art Burke - N4PJ Leesburg, FL
  3. I've kind of lost track of how long I've been fight simming. Back about 1987 I was flying with the keyboard. Prior to that, I flew several "stick-figure" flight sims, including one on the Apple and one on the Timex Sinclair. The effort got somewhat more serious around 1989-90 when I added a joystick. Then came pedals, then came a second monitor, then some hardware to emulate an autopilot, then.... Through it all, I suffered crash after crash. One day, back in the keyboard era, I was showing a friend how it worked. I lost control and somehow, unbelievably, I regained control and landed. My friend chuckled and said that was the first time he'd ever seen anyone regain control. Well, that was new to me as well! Landing the plane was by far BY FAR the most difficult part of the entire endeavor. I can remember many, many times lamenting that it couldn't be that hard. There had to be a secret. And then, one day, it dawned on me that I was indeed learning the "secret" without realizing it. That was the practice, practice, practice part of it. Eventually, I got to the point where every landing was a "straight landing" even though it might not have been on the runway! Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that it was a multiple factor - not just one specific thing. (1) what was on the screen that could help me with feedback for my landing alignment? And (2) how could I make the whole process seem more or less automatic. I've been stumbling at golf for many years. I don't play any more. When I gave up - it's mostly a health issue and I won't go into details - I had my handicap down to 13 after having been around 18 for perhaps thirty (30) years. I used to hear people say "...practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes golf more perfect. Took me many years to realize they were right. If you practice the same mistakes over and over, you just keep replicating your mistakes! I went to the local club pro and signed up for some lessons. The six-stroke drop in handicap only took about six months. So, how did I apply this thought process to flight simulation? I came to the conclusion that I was practicing the wrong things and needed to know what *should* I be practicing and how to improve it. (1) Stay ahead of the plane. What the heck does that mean? That means that you're movements need to be minor. You can't be jerking the yoke all over the place while trying to align your plane. You need to be making small, hardly noticeable movements with your joystick/yoke. You will get (here comes that practice, practice, practice again) used to it and one day realize that you're almost anticipating what needs to happen next. You'll hear this adage (...staying ahead of the plane...") even more if you start flying jets, but it still applies to props - when you're still very much a beginner. (2) Find something in the cockpit or on the windscreen that will help you aim your plane. Most likely there's something on your side of the plane (as opposed to the side where your co-pilot sits) can't move around too much - kind of like looking down the barrel of a rifle, then aligning the sight at the end of the barrel. And now... (3) align your plane, your aiming mechanism and then visual what the runway should look like as you're approaching it. IT SHOULD LOOK AS STRAIGHT UP AND DOWN AS YOU CAN MAKE IT! If it appears to be sort of wandering from left to right or vice versa, you're not in the middle of the approach! And therefore, if you keep going perfectly straight, you won't be in the middle of the runway either! In practicing all this, I started by making my approach from even further out than I had ever done before. On about the fiftieth pass, it started to click. (Actually, I don't remember how long it took. I just remember it seemed like a long time and it was still quite frustrating at times!) Back in the good old days when I was still struggling to make decent landings I discovered that making a small arc turn not too far from the runway threshold was a real bear in trying to line up the plane. In a conversation with a real pilot, I made a comment about watching a pilot do this one day as we were approaching the airport. This pilot made an almost-180 degree, sweeping turn, gently massaging the throttle and the wheel in what had to be minute, minor adjustments. He straightened the plane out almost perfectly at the runway threshold and settled the plane down in a perfect landing. I can't tell you how envious I was watching this professional small-plane pilot perform this maneuver. My friend said "..and that's not the kind of thing that can be taught by plan. It ultimately becomes a process that just has to be learned. You do it over and over to you get the feel." That sweeping arc landing became one of the things I practiced over and over. (I practiced this over and over in a small prop plane - not in a 737!) I moved away from flight simming for several years and recently start up again. It took a few landings to start getting my groove back but that "...staying ahead of the aircraft..." message kept popping up. Now I've gotta learn how to apply reverse thrust and keep the plane on the runway! LOL Good luck. Art Burke - N4PJ Leesburg, FL
  4. Well, I haven't received any responses, but I've started talking to myself, so I guess we're making some kind of progress. LOL I tend to start my Pilatus with the engines running - when I need to program my GTN 750. Of course, I could wander through the switches, turn on some external power, etc., but I guess the truth is I'm just too lazy! A couple of days ago I was sitting there sort of doing nothing, killing time accidentally between phases of loading my flight plan. Up the right hand corner a message popped up and I finally paid more attention to it - as I've seen it before! My PC is nothing special and neither is the graphics card. Consequently, if I try to run very much detail, the frame rates suffer. And, after reading the message a little more carefully and looking at my graphic status, discovered that my performance is hindered a lot more than just poor frame rates. The X-Plane system, apparently instead of just killing the frame rates decides that there isn't enough graphic support for "rendering" the simulator. So it apparently just sort of slows down the entire process. That explains why (a) the clocks don't appear to be keeping pace and (b) the 9 knots I'm showing at touchdown seem like slow-motion - it is! Had a long chat with one of the gurus at my mom & pop computer shop. Can't yet get a grip on knowing I'll have to spend $2,100 - $2,500 for a really decent system. Art Burke - N4PJ Leesburg, FL
  5. Art Burke

    Navaids

    I'm not aware of any "real life" audio-warning-coupling of the PAPI lights and an airplane cockpit. I suspect you're using some kind of add-on and it's not functioning properly. It doesn't truly matter, but it probably is somewhat annoying to have it there to help you and all it does is complain! Art Burke - N4PJ Leesburg, FL
  6. Art Burke

    Navaids

    I think maybe you're trying to read a bit too much in this! You don't have to tune a separate frequency to get both the localizer and the glideslope. As you fly more and more, you'll discover many, many situations where there is no glideslope - just the localizer. The localizer lines you up for the runway, and the PAPI (or equivalent) help you figure out the slope - TWO WHITE YOU'RE TOO HIGH. TWO RED, YOU'RE DEAD. As a side point: when you tune a VOR, it's somewhat like tuning an ILS - it's pretty specialized. The ILS gets you both components (if they're both there) without you having to worry about the technicality of how they're tuned. On the "standard" VOR, it's kind of a rotating signal - each radial is "broadcast" on an offset so you, the pilot, can tell one radial from another. But you don't have to worry about all the specialized frequency and such - tuning the navaid for a specific radial happens more or less automatically as you're tuning the NAV frequency. For your ILS practice, set up a scenario - i.e., the plane at such-and-such an altitude, such-and-such a speed and a specific distance from the runway threshold - preferably a mile or two minimum, but not too far away. Keep practicing that same scenario, but fly the plane a little too far left, then maybe a little too far right, etc. Identifying where your plane goes and where the needles react will tell you a lot and the more you do it, the easier it is to realize what makes it tick. The key is for the system to guide you to the ground at the proper glideslope. But you, as the pilot, do have to help somewhat! I had a friend years ago who was a pilot for a large airline. He flew 747s. He stressed numerous times that if we could have a working autopilot, most of us flight simmers could probably land his 747 without scaring the beejesus out of the paying public. If the autopilot is on the blink we'd better be looking hard for some parachutes! It doesn't stagger my mind that you and I could maneuver such a beast, but it's got to make one feel pretty good to know you could possibly do it. Practice, practice, practice! Art - N4PJ Leesburg, FL
  7. Art Burke

    Navaids

    When you tune the appropriate ILS frequency, you will be tuned to both the localizer ( indicating you're on the correct path to get you to the runway) and the glideslope. This ensures your vertical navigation i.e., when you "capture" the glideslope, your plane will follow the signal down to the runway. Typically, you, the pilot, will take over at the last few seconds. For *both* the localizer and the glideslope, the "capture" point must not be too shar of an angle. If you're way off to the left or right when you try to acquire the localizer you have a better chance to miss it altogether. On the glideslope, you'll typically need to be somewhere around 1,500 feet AGL or you'll miss the capture. If I were you, I'd look for YouTube videos that show your airplane capturing both the localizer and the glideslope. Once you've seen it a few times, it becomes pretty much old hat. Good luck. Art Burke - N4PJ Leesburg, FL
  8. Tried to research a bit, but "time" is not too good on narrowing down what I'm looking for. At what actual clock rate is X-Plane running? Comparing the time on a clock in an X-Plane aircraft - well, it obviously isn't apples and oranges or even bananas? And if you use the "alt-T" function to speed things along, the time gets out of kilter almost immedately. Yesterday I made an "enhanced" flight (i.e., sped up the sim numerous times) and a roughly two hour flight took about 45 minutes. Comparisons of the time fall apart very quickly as well when using one of the timers in the GTN 750. Time creeps by more slowly than the clock does at an NCAA basketball game in the last couple of minute! Basically, I would like to have some kind of "factor" I can apply to get as close to the real time as possible. If possible! Art Burke - N4PJ Leesburg, FL
  9. Raven - thanks for your feedback. Between what you wrote and a couple of other items on YouTube got me in the right direction. Art - N4PJ Leesburg, FL
  10. Found a "complete" plane in the X-Plane aircraft library. The download file: dhc63_ln_2dv2_9-3dv2_4_v1051.zip Downloaded file and unzipped. Copied to the extra aircraft folder. When I start X-Plane and choose this plane (a DHC Otter), I get a solid, pure white plane that looks very much like a new, unpainted aircraft. In a sort of "read-me" file - which actually says for alternative versions for DH6 Twin Otter v1051+.txt - Notepad DHC-6 Twin Otter These files are meant for use with the DHC6 Twin Otter 2Dvd.8 and will let you build/assemble a number of alternative versions of the Twin Otter. The procedure is quite simple (I hope): 1-unzip/extract the version of your liking. 2-take the resulting folder -your new model - and move that to x-plane's Aircraft folder 3-go to the original base model of the DH6 Twin Otter 2Dv2.8-3Dv22.3 and copy all files and folders from that directory, except the act file, to your new model's folder and you are ready to fly in x-plane., What??? Please color me somewhat lost! Art Burke - N4PJ Leesburg, FL
  11. The default King Air autopilot poses quite a problem for most of us. In real life, the location of the autopilot makes perfectly good sense. However, in the X-Plane sim, it's virtually (no pun intended!) impossible to make adjustments to the autopilot while also looking at the main dash panel - and setting/changing the COURSE and HEADING. A partial solution works well - I must give credit to "Logic Autopilot" who's info I found accidentally on You Tube. He assigned shortcuts to the autopilot functions, including heading and course. I experimented with my Logitech joystick and am able to replicate his actions. His brief video (about two minutes) did a great job explaining what you should be looking for. In my case, I'm not going to have enough room for more joystick assignments. I will probably rectify that with a modest-sized Leo Bodnar USB board. Another possibility (and not dirt cheap either) is to use either an iPad or cheap computer monitor and Air Manager. Lots of advice all over You Tube. Art - N4PJ Leesburg, FL
  12. I've had an attack of the stupids. At my age, they're coming more often! No matter how, what mode, whatever, I can't get the default C172 to start a flight with the ignition set - key all the way to the left. It seems no matter I do, the flight ends up with the key set to BOTH. What on earth am I overlooking? Art - N4PJ Leesburg, FL Gone a long time - was hip deep into FSX. Now playing with X-Plane - and loving it!
  13. Uh, remember back about 18 years ago - the year John Gruden took over the Bucs from Tony Dungy? Oh yeah. That was the year the Bucs won the Super Bowl!
  14. The great "Nirvana" for FS seems to be flying the plane without ever touching either the keyboard or the mouse. Unfortunately, this requires either a huge investment in hardware and/or a lot of study about things like FSUIPC, LINDA,etc. One of the cheaper things I found recently - a used copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator for Pilots -= Real World Training by Jeff Van West and Kevin Lane-Cummings. Found the book used (in great shape) on Amazon. It's over 700 pages and just chock-full of tips and techniques of how to learn flying by using Flight Simulator. Although the book was written specifically for FSX, it is applicable to just about anything *close* to FSX. Amazingly, for a book published in 2007, the references to a web site with files available for download still work! There are "scenarios" and videos out the ying-yang available for free download. I've been simming seriously since back in the mid-90s (with a recent 10-year layoff!) and this is the best book I've ever seen. Personally, although I've flown dozens of different planes over the years, I have three or four I really like and fly most of the time - over 3,100 hours at moment. How else do I spice things up? (1) pretend I've won the lottery and can go anywhere I want to go in my LearJet. Fly to places I've either always wanted to go to or fly somewhere to visit people I know from my past. (2) Fly some of my favorite planes in IFR situations, often trying to fly the whole thing manually instead of either FSNav or FSCommander doing everything with the autopilot. (3) Fly a Stearman - no autopilot and not much of anything else - you really do have to know how to fly to get from point A to point B! (4) Built a home-brew switchbox and, using a lot of FSUIPC and a keyboard encoder, fly a lot with manual starts and almost 100% hands-off the keyboard. Unfortuantely, my favorite turbo-prop (Flight1 PC-12) still has gobs and gobs of mouse clicks - I haven't yet been able to program things to overcome the mouse use, but I'm working on it! Art - N4PJ Leesburg, FL (I was living in Rocky Mount, NC when things got serious back in the 90s)
  15. Haven't been here since I don't remember when! Glad to see you're still in operation. Art Burke Leesburg, FL (lived in Rocky Mount, NC back in '02 and wrote a few reviews for you back in the "good old days."
×
×
  • Create New...