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Newbie with a basic serious problem. unable to control altitude


gugasid

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Hi,

I am new to flight sims (or any video games), or user groups/forums. So if I make any mistakes I apologize in advance. As I am new to learn flying, links to any resources, workshops, workbooks, sample flights...all are welcomed.

 

At present I am having a very basic problem trying to stabilize altitude. When I ascend or descend more than say 100ft, the nose goes into oscillations going up and down for a longtime before reaching level.

 

An example: I am flying stock Cessna 172SP. During take off I pull the stick back around 60-65. The plane begins to be airborne around 75-80. Then without any changes on any controls, the air speed oscillates between 50-90. Nose goes up and down including some times into descend mode. VSI needle keeps going +/- 20. If i don't touch the controls, the aircraft will eventually (~4-5 minutes) reach a steady and level flight. If i try to set trim, then it goes into oscillations. If I try to ascend or descend, again goes into lengthy up and down yo-yo movement. In both climb and descend, the altimeter may go beyond desired level or drop back beyond starting point. After awhile, it will stop at near desired level.

This presents a critical problem when trying traffic patterns or close landings. All the videos I see on youtube for traffic patterns and fsx lessons, the plane seems to fly steady as a rock. I expect some turbulance effects, but this is far beyond...enough to cause air sickness.

 

Now for the setup:

 

I am using a Dell Latitude E6430 laptop. (I had the same problems on a multicore i7 desktop). with multi core i5 vPRO, 4 cpus at 2.6GHz. 8 GB RAM, 240 GB SSD, Intel HD4000 video with 1.6 Gb ram. 64-bit Windows 7 ultimate with servicepack 1, running directX 11. I tried with 2 different joysticks - Logitek 3dPRO and Attack3.

I ran Microsoft's can I run the app (for FSX) it comes back saying configuration is better then recommended.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanx

Jay.

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Just a few tips, because I think you just need mostly practice.

 

trim up means nose up.

That makes you climb at first, but the change also reduces your airspeed. And the climb will stop.

To climb you should not use trim, but add thrust.

Use trim to regulate speed.

 

Other tip, fly the ultralight for a while. That really gives you a feel for what the angle of the wings does, and what thrust does, and how to work those together.

 

In a plane the trim points the nose up. So does pulling the stick back, that has effect on the tail too.

The trim stays in place, while the elevator returns to centre. (with the joystick)

 

The same happens in the ultralight, only there instead of the elevator you move the whole wing.

A real ultralight has no trim, but in fsx you can use the trim commands in it too.

Fly it without trim for the first 10 flights at least, to get a feel for wing angle, thrust and speed and climbrate.

Then try using trim in it.

It will help you a lot later when flying larger faster planes.

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Thank you all for your tips and comments. I am not quite sure I explained the issue. May be I don't understand the problem. Or, may be it's my confusion and there is no problem at all.

But first, some questions were raised as to caliberation and different missions and/or tutorials i tried. The way I have been teaching myself FSX and simulated flying is described below if any one is interested to see i have a reasonable but not exhaustive level of practice.

Back to the issue.

I read that if you preset the trim value prior to take off, the plane practically takes off itself and maintains the set speed. I set the Cessna's trim to +12 degrees and fully advance the throttle. Totally handsfree, the plane becomes airborne at around 70 and slowly becomes stable at 65. During this time, the plane is behaving exactly as it did when I was manually controlling it --i.e: nose oscillating up and down. May be that's not the way to describe it. If you are looking straight in front at the horizon above the instrument panel--> the horizon, clouds are all stable. But the instrument panel moves up and down relative to the horizon masking and unmasking part of the horizon and blocking clouds. Slowly the degree of oscillations decrease to barely noticable. (I am not at all basing my comments on instrument panel readings).

May be there is no problem. it just the way i am looking at it. will definitely practice more with different parameter settings...I haven't tried autopilot yet. My be i will try to see how it behaves then, first i have to learn AP. .

As I described below, I am stuck at Traffic Patterns. can any one tell me when to start turning from base leg to final leg. I suppose in the real world you would just look to the left, but in the simulation you don't have clear fields of vision. So far I am using time spent in crosswind leg with resonable success.

 

I thank you all for your comments. In the future I hope to keep my posts "short".

-jay

---------------------------------------------------------

ANSWERS to QUESTIONS:

The controllers are caliberated. Also, I did a 'Repair' fsx install and then a complete erase and fresh install - just incase something went wrong.

I am learning FSX and flying following 2 methods in parallel - (1) West and Cummings Microsoft Flight Simulator X for pilots Real world training., and (2) Built in lessons in FSX, as well as readings from forums, google searches, youtube...

I have been at it for a few months - in ref 1 above, i skipped crosswinds for now, but progressed to inflight emergencies, and minimal ATC exposure and basic navigation. In (2) i am near the end of student pilot tutorial sections and stuck a Traffic Patterns.

Both have their plusses and minuses (bugs), and some not just clear. In both methods, using Frrflight, I setup mini test scenarios that augment, expand or clarify a point.

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That's just how an aircraft behaves.

 

You need a lot more practice. The lessons really aren't the best place for practice. Personally I find them terrible, because it's not a relaxed learning environment but feel more like a race.

 

Practice in free flight.

Practice with the Ultralight only for a good while, to get a basic understanding of aerodynamics. You won't get anywhere without that.

 

Practice at the same airport over and over. The default flight at friday harbor is fine for that.

Learn to keep it in the air,

then learn how to find the airport and safely land it,

then learn how to take off without crashing, fly a full pattern, and land at the same runway.

 

During that, have "crash detect" on. So you know when a landing isn't good enough.

That's why Friday Harbor would be a good place to practice. Hardly any traffic there. So no crashes due to that.

 

--

Only when you master the Ultralight, move it up to something more advanced, like the Cessna.

Do the same in that. Choose a slightly larger airport, but still with hardly any traffic. Or set traffic sliders low in the menu's. Then practice taking off. When that works ok, practice keeping it airborne. And once that is ok, focus on navigating and getting back to the airport.

 

Try a landing, but also save the flight in the air before landing. For example on the base-leg.

That way you can reload the flight, and practice landing over and over again.

 

 

All the time practice at one airport. Knowing your surroundings means you can focus more on the flying.

--

Only when all that is mastered, think about ATC, for example asking landing clearance.

Don't even concider flying IFR plans yet.

--

Don't expect that finished in a week. It will be more like several months.

After that, there's still twin engine planes to discover (Beech Baron first), there's jet's like the boeing 737 and airbus a321, there's autopilot's to discover, all slightly different. There's helicopters. And of course, there's many airports to discover, and many sides of ATC.

 

Take your time. This is not a game that you finish in a few months, and then move on to the next title. Practice practice practice.

Enjoy!

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il88pp is right, that's how an aircraft may react (not all aircraft, or at least not always, but...). The aircraft really needs the pilot's hands on it to stabilize earlier than your description, under most conditions. The C-172 (and all default aircraft, really) doesn't handle exactly like a real one, and all too many add-ons, even, have handling flaws, some of which defy physics, and others which would not be allowed in a certified real aircraft.

 

And bbrz nails it that "you always have to make changes on the controls."

 

There are four basic flight controls: Ailerons, elevators, rudders and power. They all interact in often non-intuitive ways. For example, in a single engine aircraft with a tractor propeller, there will be large variations in airflow over the inboard wing sections and over the tail surfaces with large changes in the power setting. Thus adding power increases the airflow over the horizontal tail surfaces by more than just the change in airspeed, thus elevator pressure must be used (then trimmed off) to adjust the pitch attitude to attain the same airspeed you had before the power change, otherwise the airspeed will decrease because the angle of attack (therefore the nose, too) will be higher than before with the resulting drag (and other factors).

 

When you make a turn you bank the aircraft (needing some rudder while the aileron is applied), but the nose wants to drop, therefore you must add back pressure to avoid losing altitude, but that adds drag and will lose a little airspeed thus requiring power to be added, thus requiring a change in elevator pressure, thus...

 

Sure it more or less stabilizes after a bit, but that interaction among the controls doesn't go away. Once you learn it, though, it's much easier to do than to explain.

 

And like bbrz, I don't much care for trying to do much practice in the default trike -- it's not well behaved for training.

 

There's a reason that instructors start students with airwork, and not with takeoffs and landings.

 

Go down to the Real Aviation Tutorials And FAQS section below and read the section under Basic Aircraft Control titled "What are the basic flight controls? How do I use them?" That set of instructions, if you practice as specified, should get you to the point of actually being able to control the aircraft in the air with some degree of precision.

 

Once you've done that, look through the other sections in there to find a lot more stuff you can learn about.

 

Larry N.

As Skylab would say:

Remember: Aviation is NOT an exact Science!

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As I described below, I am stuck at Traffic Patterns. can any one tell me when to start turning from base leg to final leg. I suppose in the real world you would just look to the left, but in the simulation you don't have clear fields of vision. So far I am using time spent in crosswind leg with resonable success.

First, are you using the 3D cockpit (VC), or the 2D cockpit to practice with? In the VC, you will have a view reasonably similar to what a pilot in a real aircraft would. It's also easy enough to look around, left, right, up, any combination of the above. So to look left, you just need to move the hat switch left. I am presuming you're using a joystick to fly with...

Personally, I start the turn from base to final when the runway is about 45° off the nose to the left. Standard rate turn, of course. Again, you can just move the hat switch until you can see the runway reasonably well. It's also easy to look back into the cockpit, to check your gauges (which you should be doing on a regular basis anyway!), check the horizon, whatever.

Also, by then, you should have your speed set at the correct approach speed, flaps set to at least 2nd of the 3 positions, altitude correct, and so on.

 

Using timing of the crosswind leg is A way to determine the time spent on base, but there are so many variables in flying, it's not an absolute method. Even slight changes in power, altitude, airspeed, etc etc etc can have very significant changes in the time required to fly a leg, so it's best to ensure you have visual cues available to determine when to turn from one leg to another. Establishing the visual picture you see when the runway is 45° ahead, behind, whatever is incredibly important. 45° is the magic number for proper position relative to the runway. 45° ahead, turn crosswind from upwind. 45° behind, turn downwind from crosswind. 45° ahead, turn base. And so on and so on.

 

I think the others who've responded have pretty much covered all the rest of your concerns, but I've been wrong before...

Pat☺

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Had a thought...then there was the smell of something burning, and sparks, and then a big fire, and then the lights went out! I guess I better not do that again!

Sgt, USMC, 10 years proud service, Inactive reserve now :D

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Does it do this if you use the autopilot? If not, watch how the autopilot spins the trim wheel. Also, I guess your repeat level could be too high on whatever your trim buttons are set to.

 

Yep, good place to start is to watch how `George` does it. As you aren't flying the aircraft the autopilot is this will give you time to observe and make comparisons.

 

Trim rate is key to getting the trim to do what you want it to but you may have missed the guidance if you haven't consulted the Learning Center. In FSX the default trim adjustment rate (the speed the trim wheels actually move) is time related, so you tap, tap, tap for minor adjustment, press and hold to accelerate the rate of change.

 

My guess is that will solve your issue as your elevator trim is used to HOLD a pitch attitude you acquire with the actual controls. Trim will alter with power, pitch (attitude), speed and weight/center of gravity, so it's a constant juggling act as all these things are dynamically changing all the time in an aircraft.

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Once again, Thanks to all for the excellent comments, advice and suggestions.

 

It's very pleasing to note the support and encouragement given by established members to newbies. I see some members are at it for years. I started just 4 months ago balancing between readings and practice.

 

Can anyone point to resources that list or give suggested practice runs, exercises to try, workbook of flights...essentially "homework" to practice. I repeated several times the runs listed in the FSX for pilots book and then FSX built in Lessons. What is next after completing (NOT MASTERING) through private pilots lessons in FSX learning center.

 

I lookl forward to your suggestions.

 

Jay

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Fly without autopilot for now.

It gives you very wrong instincts.

For example, when flying level with autopilot on. If you then reduce thrust, your speed will drop. And the nose will go up. Until you stall.

 

That's the complete opposite of how a plane reacts without autopilot.

 

Don't start by using the autopilot if you want to learn how to fly. Fly fully manually.

 

First get to understand the movements of a plane, and how to influence what it does. Once you know how to control it, you can carefully start using the autopilot, see how it reacts to control the plane, and keep an eye on it to see if it does what you want.

It's way too soon for that now. You started only a few weeks ago, you haven't even scratched the surface.

 

----------------------

some practice maneuvers:

 

Fly level, then, reduce thrust gently a little bit. See what the plane does.

It will descend at pretty much the same airspeed.

 

-----

second step.

Fly level again, reduce thrust a little bit again.

This time at a lower altitude, gently pull up the nose and add thrust again.

Do that so that you end up flying level at the lower altitude.

 

(Notice the speed is still pretty much the same.)

 

--

Exercise three: "Reducing speed while maintaining altitude":

Fly level.

Reduce thrust.

As the plane starts descending, gently add a little trim, to "keep the nose up" or "hold the altitude" whatever you want to call it.

 

(Notice that tis reduces your speed).

 

----

Exercise 4:

Climbing while maintaining speed.

Fly level again.

Add thrust and give just a tiny pull on the joystick. Then release joystick so elevator centers again.

Maintain the higher thrust and see the plane climbing.

 

(notice, the speed stays the same.

Speed is due to trim. Not because of thrust.)

 

(In case you did not know, elevator trim is a separate control panel on the elevator.

When you add trim, that trim panel is moved upward and stays there.

The elevator itself is very different. When you pull on the stick, the elevator moves up, but when you release it it moves back to centre.)

 

----

Exercise 5:

following from exercise 4.--Continuing climbing.

 

As you climb, you will see the climb rate get less and less.

Also, the speed will get less and less.

To keep the climb/level flight at altitude going, and at the same time increase the speed to where it was you need to:

"increase thrust and reduce trim".

But that is difficult to control. Just one click of trim down at high speeds can already have a lot of effect. And after it adding thrust does not get you to climb. In that case you would need to use the yoke to turn it back to climbing, and then a lot of pushing and pulling to get it under control.

Better approach would be to first add thrust, while pitching up using the elevator.

Once you are steadily climbing at higher climb-rate, you can reduce the one click of trim.

That's a more steady result for the passengers.

 

--------------

Do these exercises in and open area. Away from airports and distractions.

At the start of the exercise do the level flying at 12.000 or so ft.

 

After these exercises you should be able to control speed in level flight, and to climb and descend in a controlled way.

 

--------

exercise6:

Choose a departure airport so that if you continue along the runway heading for 60NM, you are in line with the runway at the next airport.

 

Take off, climb, fly level, and once the airport comes in to view, land.

 

-------

Exercise 7:

Choose a large departure airport,

take off, and fly a pattern.

Fly a box pattern, 90 degree turns only.

By looking at the GPS you should be able to find your way back to a runway.

 

-----

Do the exercises starting from the top. Starting from 1.

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Fly without autopilot for now.

It gives you very wrong instincts.

For example, when flying level with autopilot on. If you then reduce thrust, your speed will drop. And the nose will go up. Until you stall.

 

That's the complete opposite of how a plane reacts without autopilot.

 

...

It's the autopilot doing what the human pilot must do. It's OK to note what it does that you should do, then you should, indeed, do it manually.

 

----------------------

some practice maneuvers:

 

Fly level, then, reduce thrust gently a little bit. See what the plane does.

It will descend at pretty much the same airspeed.

 

...

 

Did you take a look at the first part of the FAQ/Tutorial I suggested he try? It's what I always have done with students (somewhat like your exercises above), and the rest of that FAQ/Tutorial goes well beyond that.

 

Larry N.

As Skylab would say:

Remember: Aviation is NOT an exact Science!

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Not to disagree with pre-eminent poster such as Iil88p but if you are flying exclusively manually you are only in a routine of `action, re-action`, when what you need in this situation is action, contemplation & considered reaction.`Even the pause button is only of limited use.

 

Stick with what Larry advises, particularly as the sim `trim effect` is purely a supplementary control surface and not like the real world. At all.

 

As your knowledge increases we can expand on this, why it is that way, and what it means, but for now turn the effect to your advantage and each flight into a new learning experience.

 

What you can also do is turn subsequent flights into expansion of that experience, for which you will need to enhance your navigation skills - the web site to explain all this is: http://www.navfltsm.addr.com/index.htm

 

Reason I suggest this early on is that if all you do is fly the same routine in the same pattern, what you learn will be mostly by rote, which is very useful when at the earliest stages of a new `flying` career but will quickly become boring from oft-repetition (`same place, same time, same result`) rather than acquiring the skills for each phase of flight.

 

Very early on in real flying training the objective should and usually does change to going places and landing there instead of on the same runway at the same airfield with the same sight picture. At that point you begin to apply the lessons learned in the pattern and you will understand the `why` rather than the `what` to do far quicker. And for that you will need the ability to find a.n.other place quite early on in your sim career.

 

Finally, a piece of advice that is exclusively sim: Create a number of saved flights at various stages in the pattern so you can quickly and efficiently get to the situation you are looking to practise. These may be simple stages such as:

Parked, ready to start (Cold'n'dark as referred to in the forum search engine)

Engine on, ready to taxi from the parking space

Engine on, at the entracne to the runway, ready to do the runup checklist

On runway, ready to go

Top of climb after take-off

Downwind leg

Base leg

Short finals

Long finals

 

There is really no limit to the number of saved flights and you can save them as part of the normal flight routine at appropriate moments or you can use the GUI to create them before you start the sim proper.

 

I recommend this because mastering take-off and climb out is nowhere near as time-consuming as joining routines from all quarters, descent into pattern, speed and altitude awareness in the Approach and of course, landing. If you create a start point that allows you to quickly and repeatedly get to the phase of flight you want to practice, you will find the whole learning experience to be more enjoyable.

 

The difference with sim flying is that you also need to become proficient at manipulating the software as well as the aircraft controls..! :pilot:

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I don't see why an autopilot would help understand how a fixed wing aircraft responds to inputs.

 

-AP won't set takeoff trim for you.

--AP will use trim only to climb. Not elevator itself.

Manually you would use elevator and thrust to climb (not trim).

AP in the Cessna would use only trim. (No autothrust in that).

AP in a 737 would use AP and AT, but still use only trim. Not the little bump with the elevator only.

 

Managing altitude with trim only is not the right way to fly or to learn to fly.

You should first learn how a plane responds to the basic inputs of thrust, elevator, and ailerons.

 

Remember, the Autopilot he's using is the one in the Cessna. This does not have autothrust.

He can't jsut sit back and learn from the autopilot, he needs to know in advance what it will do, or he will lose control of his speed. It would likely stall him.

 

Also, the autopilot never uses elevator, only trim. That's not the right way to fly manually. And using trim only is not the right thing to learn.

 

In an airplane with AT, sitting back is an option, but you still wouldn't learn much.

The AP/AT use all controls at once, so you still wouldn't learn much from it.

Only after someone knows what control inputs do will what the autopilot does make any sense to him/her.

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lnuss,

Some examples of why starting with the AP (autopilot) on teaches you the wrong thing.

Autopilot in Cessna, no autothrust.

you fly level, steady speed.

you set a descent on the AP, 600 f/m.

What the plane will do is descend, trim down, and speed up quite a lot.

Eventually he wil reduce thrust.

 

Whereas manually, to descend you just reduce thrust. You will not speed up.

 

---

Or he is "learning" to climb.

At the time he's doing 70kt.

He learns himself to set a 600ft/m climb on the autopilot.

He stalls in a few seconds.

Chaos. Freefall.

Not much learning resulting from it.

 

Much better to learn to add thrust and pull up on the stick manually.

From that he learns that to climb you need thrust.

 

And the thought-process: "I'm about to set a climb on the AP, I should be adding thrust as well" follows naturally from it. It becomes a very natural and ingrained way of thinking.

 

il88pp.:cool:

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lnuss,

Some examples of why starting with the AP (autopilot) on teaches you the wrong thing.

Autopilot in Cessna, no autothrust.

you fly level, steady speed.

you set a descent on the AP, 600 f/m.

What the plane will do is descend, trim down, and speed up quite a lot.

Eventually he wil reduce thrust.

 

Whereas manually, to descend you just reduce thrust. You will not speed up.

 

---

Or he is "learning" to climb.

At the time he's doing 70kt.

He learns himself to set a 600ft/m climb on the autopilot.

He stalls in a few seconds.

Chaos. Freefall.

Not much learning resulting from it.

 

Much better to learn to add thrust and pull up on the stick manually.

From that he learns that to climb you need thrust.

 

And the thought-process: "I'm about to set a climb on the AP, I should be adding thrust as well" follows naturally from it. It becomes a very natural and ingrained way of thinking.

 

il88pp.:cool:

 

You've answered your own question: In each case what is needed is a considered response.

 

By separating out the control surfaces from the power, attitude and speed, one can manage each in turn, rather than trying to understand the quagmire of interconnected response that is actual flying. Then when one has isolated and understood cause:effect for each, one has a better concept for a considered response when one puts them all together.

 

Funnily enough, it's something real world simulators increasingly use as part of the systemology of modern avionics where knowing what to do is one thing, being able to do that and fly the plane is something else. The little blue button, Electronic Stability Protection (ESP), Level Mode, Underspeed Protection (USP), Emergency Descent Mode, and Coupled Go Around are all designed to integrate a range of responses to return the aircraft to pilot control, under controlled flight.

 

I see no reason whatsoever to NOT use the software-driven approach to teaching a student to fly in the virtual world. As long as all aspects are covered. So in this sim it's understanding that trim and control surfaces are related in a different way to their relationship in real life, but still need to be understood. Using the AP simply allows one to segment the learning rather than the increasingly atypical `you have control` of the days when you and I learned to fly and got everything thrown at us at once.

 

But our OP can make his own decisions. He's had both sides of the discussion.

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[quote=gugasid;2021839

All the videos I see on youtube for traffic patterns and fsx lessons, the plane seems to fly steady as a rock. I expect some turbulance effects, but this is far beyond...enough to cause air sickness.

 

Jay - Welcome to the world of "Flight!" My father and grandfather were pilots when I was just a young kid growing up. When I took flying lessons back in the late 60's, I used to get so frustrated with things (especially X-wind landings) and I would come home and share my frustrations with my dad and all he did was to tell me to just "hang in there, you'll get it" and I did, like so many have!

 

You touched on something above when you mentioned turbulence. I was flying this past week, FSX that is, larger aircraft Boeing 737 and Airbus A321 on some created flight plans on the west coast, California, Oregon and Washington over mountainous terrain and I noticed the aircraft nose bouncing un-expectantly, indicated airspeeds erratic and I couldn't quite figure out what was going on. Both of the above aircraft were acting up. I looked at my settings, weather section, and the Disable Turbulance box was unchecked. I was in the setting sections earlier in the week and must have changed something that unticked that box! I checked it and now everything is back to smooth or as you say, "steady as a rock!"

Check that out, could be something that simple?

 

Good luck and "hang in there, you'll get it!"

 

Rick

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Hello again everyone. Took a few days off.

 

I am thrilled with the expert opinions offered, ensuing academic discussions, varied multifaceted suggestions started by my simple call for help. A good "family" support environment.

 

Back to my issues.....

To be clear, I am NOT using autopilot - don't even know how to. From the beginning I have been following most of the suggestions made i.e: using the same airport with same weather conditions, "freezing" the game to repetitively practice troubled sections.

Special thanks to TOP GUN il88pp for providing the 'homework' exercises. Should keep me busy for a while and get a better handle on aircraft handling.

 

Having said that, training at the same airport, same airplane, same runway can and does easily get to be boring and slowly decreasing learning efficiency. The human brain needs some stimulus to keep focused. What I would like to do is "fly" to a nearby airport and practice there 'repetitively. Is flight planner the way to chart the course; and how do you correct if you veer of course. I have been trying using simple VOR navigation. The main objective is ofcource to learn aircraft handling.

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Hello again everyone. Took a few days off.

 

I am thrilled with the expert opinions offered, ensuing academic discussions, varied multifaceted suggestions started by my simple call for help. A good "family" support environment.

 

Back to my issues.....

To be clear, I am NOT using autopilot - don't even know how to. From the beginning I have been following most of the suggestions made i.e: using the same airport with same weather conditions, "freezing" the game to repetitively practice troubled sections.

Special thanks to TOP GUN il88pp for providing the 'homework' exercises. Should keep me busy for a while and get a better handle on aircraft handling.

 

Having said that, training at the same airport, same airplane, same runway can and does easily get to be boring and slowly decreasing learning efficiency. The human brain needs some stimulus to keep focused. What I would like to do is "fly" to a nearby airport and practice there 'repetitively. Is flight planner the way to chart the course; and how do you correct if you veer of course. I have been trying using simple VOR navigation. The main objective is ofcource to learn aircraft handling.

 

But now you're adding additional elements to the `mix` - navigation is a whole subject by itself.

 

If things get boring, simply create a new flight at a new field and start there.

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Jay - If you are getting bored with your current airfield, try Savannah Hilton Head Intl KSAV (Savannah, GA) for doing touch and goes, ATC practice, even good for venturing out learning ILS approaches and landings!

 

You can further venture out by creating flight plans from Savannah, GA to Charleston AFB Intl KCHS (Charleston, SC) to Columbia Metro KCAE (Columbia, SC) and return to Charleston, all legs around 100 NM apart!

 

Enjoy your flying! It is a great, fun thing to do once you acquire some skills! Don't be afraid of moving into new areas, that's how we all learned and still learning!

 

Rick

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A new item of interest (may be it's common knowledge).

 

As part of my daily fsx rituals, along with exercises provided by il88pp, I repetitvely play some saved games - landing approach, base and/or final leg of traffic pattern. For the airport I use the Oxford, CT (KXOC) airport. It has a tower, controlled air space, very few flights in a day.

 

Last night, when I closed a flight with E, a message popped up on the screen.

________________________________________________

OXFORD GROUND (KXOC) xxx xxx 121.650 xx

xxxxxx -- text line 2

xxxxx --- text line 3.

________________________________________________

 

I don't yet understand ATC jargon, but this message seems to indicate an event for next day. 121.650 is the real freq. for ground at kxoc.

 

My question is, does fsx actively monitor comm at airport being used or is it an fsx generated message to simulate 'realism'. The comm and nav systems were in default startup mode. did not touch a single button. What else does fsx monitor.

 

A related question is... members recommend newbies to practice at a GA airport or at an airport with low air traffic. My question is why the concern about traffic load. Where is the traffic comming from. It's simulator; and one should be able to adjust the traffic strength.

Looking forward to the opinions....

Jay.

(P.S: can someone tell me how to start a new post. I seemed forgot how to navigate menu options to get me there).

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Atc talks to all arriving and departing aircraft. They clear then for takeoff and landing.

The ground controller will tell you what runway to taxi to if you want to take off. And will tell you to stop if there is other traffic in the way. At the runway you contact the tower control to ask for takeoff clearance. Etc.

 

Just contact then using the atc popup menu. There's a shortcut button for atc on the 2D panel as well.

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
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A new item of interest (may be it's common knowledge).

 

 

 

Last night, when I closed a flight with E, a message popped up on the screen.

________________________________________________

OXFORD GROUND (KXOC) xxx xxx 121.650 xx

xxxxxx -- text line 2

xxxxx --- text line 3.

________________________________________________

 

I don't yet understand ATC jargon, but this message seems to indicate an event for next day. 121.650 is the real freq. for ground at kxoc.

 

My question is, does fsx actively monitor comm at airport being used or is it an fsx generated message to simulate 'realism'. The comm and nav systems were in default startup mode. did not touch a single button. What else does fsx monitor.

 

A related question is... members recommend newbies to practice at a GA airport or at an airport with low air traffic. My question is why the concern about traffic load. Where is the traffic comming from. It's simulator; and one should be able to adjust the traffic strength.

Looking forward to the opinions....

Jay.

(P.S: can someone tell me how to start a new post. I seemed forgot how to navigate menu options to get me there).

 

All ATC comes from inside the FSX simulation, as well as traffic (AI traffic) default or 3rd party provided. You can set the AI traffic in your settings to 0 (zero) and then you won't have to worry about any other aircraft in your area.

 

New post or new thread?

 

To start a new thread (conversation) in the FSX Forum:

 

new thread.JPG

Still thinking about a new flightsim only computer!  ✈️

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