A Beginner

I am about to start as a newcomer with a flight simulator. I know nothing about flight sims and look forward to getting into the experience.

I have spent the last couple of weeks trying to understand the hardware requirements, identifying suppliers and asking for quotations. I have bought a complete custom built package, computer and peripherals from a FS specialist company where they have advised and selected the hardware components, and am now waiting for it to arrive. It will be preloaded by the supplier with Windows 10 and FSX, tested, optimized and ready to go.

What I would like is to have at my elbow, a reference manual for consultation, to take me through the learning curve.

Is there a 'FSX for Dummies' style of guide for FSX? I have found that there is an Official Guide available on Amazon, but when I looked at the reviews, nobody had a good word to say for it, and they made the point that this was not a reference manual.

Is there anything available?

I would highly recommend using the Sim's tutorial Missions as a starting point. There is good guidance throughout all of them. It starts with the basics of taxiing, takeoff and landing. It then moves on to making turns and following a flight path. Then you can move on to the actual Lessons from qualified instructors. Sounds like you bought your system from Jetline.

Welcome aboard! :pilot:

FSX is not complicated. It is big though.

There's a lot to discover. Many different planes are included. Jets, an F18, smaller propeller planes, planes with 2 propeller engines, and a nice ultralight with engine, and a glider.

And of course, nearly every airport in the world.

A guide for dummies. No. It would get to big to fit in your suitcase.

But flying is not that difficult, as long as you start small. Master a simple plane. (That takes time, but that's not bad, as it's very enjoyable to see yourself getting better at it.)

Then, when you mastered the simple one, move up to one that is more difficult to get your head around. More controls, more cockpit gauges to keep an eye on, more buttons and switches.

Master that one too. And move up a step again.

I would recommend to use the planes that come with FSX at first. And to start off in the Ultralight.

The Ultralight is relatively easy to control. It does not go fast, but can fly high, so if things go 'wrong' you have plenty of time to react.

The Ultralight also has only a few basic gauges. Altitude, speed, heading, and engine power you are applying. Plus a GPS gauge and a radio. So it is relatively easy to keep an eye on everything.

Learn to fly it first. The default flight starts in the air if you only adjust time of day and then simply click 'fly now' button. Try keeping it in the air. Once you get that, see if you can make it go where you want.

Then figure out how to touch down in the right place.

It all helps in estimating distances in FSX. That takes some getting used to.

Finally, try taking off in it again. Land. Stop. Taxi to runway. Take off.

Try not to over-correct. Small adjustments when steering it helps.

Mastering the Ultralight helps get a feel for the aircraft, and that helps later with all other aircraft as well.

And while playing you will figure out all the menus with different options in FSX. Screen settings, etc, etc, etc.

I would recommend to just go adventuring (in the ultralight first) in "Free Flight". I think the most important thing for a beginner is to have fun so they "Catch The Bug" and keep coming back.

With lessons there's a chance someone would feel stupid about crashing during a lesson.

In free flight you would instead feel happy about lasting longer in the air then last time.:)

Oh, addon planes can be great. They often look great on the outside. But there are also very often unexpected quirks, missing gauges and such. Fixable. But I wouldn't recommend it for a beginner.

Not that they couldn't fix it just like anyone else! Sure they can.

It's just that that's not really what they should be focusing on. They should be out flying.;)

Enjoy!

Use the manual and lessons included in the sim. Learn to fly and master the Cessna 172 before trying to get to grips with anything else.

Buy some scenery for your local area and airports or for anywhere else that you would prefer to fly in.

Start flying from a small airport or airfield rather than trying to get into some of the big hubs airports.

Good flying.

IAN

It's important to appreciate that FSX is a simulation and not a game!

You'll need to put in a lot of effort to operate it properly and even experienced simmers are still learning.

But stick at it, as the end result is well worth it.

Happy landings! :)

Hi and welcome

I would highly recommend Aviator90 by Angle of attack a really good tutorial for a novice and the added bonus of it being free

Hope it helps you on your new voyage

Goggles:

FYI: There are a number of newer (or more more recent flight sim platforms than

Microsoft) to choose from. So it would be interesting to know the specs of your

PC rig-in-waiting, if you have them. The various platforms are very dependent

on the mix of a particular PC's components...

The rig I've ordered is,

CPU Intel Core i5 7600K Quad Core Socket 1151 (3.8GHz, 6MB Cache, Overclocked

GPU nVidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB GDDR5

Memory 8GB Standard DDR4 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (2 x 4GB)

Motherboard Asus Prime Z270-P Motherboard

System drive Samsung 250GB 850 Evo Series SATA III 6Gb/s Solid-State Drive

Storage drive Seagate 2TB Barracuda 7200 64MB Cache SATA III Hard Disk Drive

Power supply FSP Non-modular 500W Power Supply (Bronze 80 Plus Certified)

Network adapter Asus PCE-N15 300Mbps 802.11N Wireless PCI-E Network Adapter

OS Windows 10 64bit

FSX Steam edition

My plan is to start at the beginning and work through the tutorials. From reading the threads here, I can see I have a long learning curve ahead of me.

Hi and welcome

I would highly recommend Aviator90 by Angle of attack a really good tutorial for a novice and the added bonus of it being free

Hope it helps you on your new voyage

Welcome to the forum(s) and the flight sim world. I agree with this advice. You can get the tutorial(s) here: http://www.flyaoamedia.com/aviator-90/. You're going about it the right way..........Doug

It's important to appreciate that FSX is a simulation and not a game!

 

 

You'll need to put in a lot of effort to operate it properly and even experienced simmers are still learning.

 

But stick at it, as the end result is well worth it.

 

Happy landings! :)

"It's important to appreciate that FSX is a simulation and not a game!' AMEN!