Rookie Mistakes

Hello,

In a recent post I was reminded of some of the mistakes I used to make early in flight simming before I really had any clue about how to fly or knew really anything about aviation. I thought it would be fun to see what other people had experienced in their "rookie" days of FS.

For me, I had a lot. In those days I didn't have a yoke or joystick, so I flew with the keypad on the keyboard. I can remember using 8 to trim down, and 2 to trim up, while approaching JFK in an Embraer E120, at about 300 knots. And then, using the reverse thrust a mile or so from the runway to slow down.

I think many of us used to line our jets up on the runway, and then hit F4, full power all the way!

I didn't know about the map view, or that the runway number corresponds to the compass heading, so I used to go back and forth on the taxiways like a crazy person searching for the correct runway, it would usually take a while, and then I'd get frustrated and just take off. Then I'd get to hear that "you were not clear to takeoff" over and over again.

I knew nothing about navigation, I'd do flights from BOS to JFK, and head south looking for Block Island, then above the Bermuda of the north I'd turn right, and follow the south coast of Long Island until I could see those runways come into view.

I'm sure there are some others, but that's all I can think of right now, plus I'm late for work now :P Take a couple minutes and share your stories. We all started somewhere, and have learned a lot since. The learning makes FS more fun.

I did not know that while the white blobby line on the green thing sticking out into the purple thing was Meigs Field, the white blobby line on the green thing above the purple thing was a road. I landed on roads a lot.

I did not know that carb heat sometimes needs to be applied even when it's warm outside. This made me crash into a lot of purple, green, and white blobby things.

I did not know that "off" on the two gauges on the right did not mean that something was turned off. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the on switch was. It didn't help that there was no manual because I borrowed the sim from my local library on 5 1/4" disks and someone had lost the instructions.

On that, I did not know that there was a limit on how many times in a row you were allowed to check out the same 5 1/4" disks from the library until the librarian fussed at me. ;)

Ha! Remember the “cube” clouds?!

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It's even harder to spell. C-a-t-a-l-i-n-a?

Chuck B

Napamule

Ha! Remember the “cube” clouds?!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Yep! I also remember the "jaw dropping" wireframe exterior views in FS4:

But hey, at least the water was now blue, and look! It's got an FMS!

I also remember the transition from FS4 to FS5, which was really rough because FS5 was the first MS sim with "good" graphics, and my old 486 SX-20 absolutely choked on it. I ended up going back to FS4 until I got a Pentium 100.

I started out with FS2004 back in circa 2007. Prior to that I messed with the Sim that was out in '95. I don't know what it was called. FS2004 was my real formal introduction to real flying in the Sim where I actually sat down and learned it all on my own. I can't think of anything that I was really dumb at doing other than not knowing how to use the GPS/NAV switch and not knowing how to properly use an ILS.

When I went out flying from KFNL to Vegas in the Lear 45 which was my first long distance flight. I'd make some corrections all the time with the heading as I watched the CTS heading in the GPS. I'd set my GPS to that. Then I thought there's gotta be a better way as this doesn't make any sense. So I found a YouTube video on how to use the Nav/GPS switch.

Then I started flying the default 737 in FS2004 but never knew anything about ILS. Sometimes I'd see the ILS indicators on my ADI and wondered what they were for, but never bothered to read up on it. Then one day I saw that runways have frequencies and so I entered a runway frequency and figured out I had lateral guidance which was absolutely thrilling to me. But never did I think that the indicator on the right that goes up and down was for glideslope. Then I figured that out and was amazed! I thought to myself no more complicated landings at airports with runways that I could barely see. Then along came learning about filing a flight plan with the default ATC and I thought that was cool to have ATC vector you to the runway.

Now I manually use the ILS since just pushing the APP button is too easy. And I've flown so long in FS2004 and now FSX that I grow tired of the unrealistic ATC with no real aircraft separation, holding patterns, etc. I can fly in and out of any runway even in complete zero visibility. For runways without an ILS I use a WAAS gauge. One of the hardest runways would have to be at the Kathmandu airport on a Southern approach over terrain. That's where a good TAWS comes in at. I retrofitted the TAWS from RealityXP in my AlphaSim F22 back in FS2004. I loved that gauge. I could weave in and out of terrain with zero visibility and not worry about crashing.

Probably the most complicated endeavor I took on was the PMDG 737 in FS2004. I just took off and learned the thing on my own. LOL Figured out the FMC pretty damn quick too. LOL But I have yet to understand how to use the CMD buttons to this day. It's something I have to read up on. I can use the AP and LNAV/VNAV and all that though.

I grow tired of the unrealistic ATC with no real aircraft separation, holding patterns, etc.

You should see XPlane's ATC. I've been experimenting with that sim and its ATC makes FSX's look like something from the distant future.

The CMD button makes the autopilot fully managed. i.e. you type in "167" for the heading and the plane turns to 167 degrees. This is distinct from CWS mode, which holds whatever command (pitch/roll) input you tell it to - i.e. you're banked at 10 degrees and you engage CWS, you will stay banked at 10 degrees even if you just fly in circles for an hour. If the 737 you're flying is accurate, any bank under 5 degrees will level the wings in CWS.

CWS is basically like cruise control for the yoke, while CMD is commanded control.

You should see XPlane's ATC. I've been experimenting with that sim and its ATC makes FSX's look like something from the distant future.

WOW!! I'd love to her from other XPlane users about that! I can't imagine how ATC could be much worse than what I have now!

You should see XPlane's ATC. I've been experimenting with that sim and its ATC makes FSX's look like something from the distant future.

 

The CMD button makes the autopilot fully managed. i.e. you type in "167" for the heading and the plane turns to 167 degrees. This is distinct from CWS mode, which holds whatever command (pitch/roll) input you tell it to - i.e. you're banked at 10 degrees and you engage CWS, you will stay banked at 10 degrees even if you just fly in circles for an hour. If the 737 you're flying is accurate, any bank under 5 degrees will level the wings in CWS.

 

CWS is basically like cruise control for the yoke, while CMD is commanded control.

I was flying the PMDG 737 in FS2004 and don't remember pressing CMD or CWS at all. I just entered the heading and hit the heading button, etc,

WOW!! I'd love to her from other XPlane users about that! I can't imagine how ATC could be much worse than what I have now!

IFR only, for one. Absolutely on rails for another. Wanna talk to the tower? Nope, sorry, you haven't filed a flight plan (oh and by the way the navaid database doesn't have all the navaids, so copy/pasting the routing from Simbrief? Yeah, you're gonna have to delete a lot of those) and then once you get your route in ATC won't give you a descent, and if you calculate TOD yourself and start descending when you should ATC yells at you, and if you don't climb back up it terminates IFR service and then you can't ever talk to it again until you file a new flight plan.

But there's an addon ATC that's a lot better than stock (although still IFR only). It will give you descents, at least, but it doesn't care what your flight plan is. It will vector you to points *near* the points on your flight plan (sometimes - other times it will just vector you straight to your destination, ignoring everything in between) and then just make you keep changing headings instead of using own navigation. And its idea of a step climb is "climb to 9,000, and when you're 1,000 below that I'll tell you to climb to cruise altitude."

Both ATCs will vector you into AI traffic - the stock one is especially funny because it is controlling AI traffic as well, and so it should know that it is putting both of you in the same piece of sky. The stock ATC also really, really likes to fly you through mountains, and neither ATC cares about actual approaches to the airport - they seem to just have their standard approach that they use at every airport, hence ignoring terrain.

In a nutshell, it's just a really sucky environment if you're looking to simulate actually following the rules, which is a shame because it's an absolutely beautiful sim from a visual standpoint. If only they'd get the nuts and bolts of actual flying down it'd be a really great upgrade from the MSFS environment.

I remember the first time I tried to land on a carrier. I cannot remember the version of the sim, but the aircraft was a Sopwith Camel, and both the airplane and the carrier looked pretty good in the sim.

Now, the Camel is reasonably slow, so it should be pretty easy to land that on the carrier, I thought. So I managed to cut the throttle just before the round-down and stalled neatly down into the wake.....

Jorgen

I don't have any old screenshots, but I started with FlightSim 2.0, which I played on an Apple IIc, in or about 1989. The Apple and the Software are stored in a bag full of plastic peanuts in the garage. I also have "40 great Flight Simulator Adventures," by Charles Gulick, copyright 1985.

Surely someone on this forum will tell me they are now worth millions, and will make an offer.

Atc does not 'vector ai around'. Ai is just scenery. Moving scenery, but still, just scenery. It follows it's flight plan, that's it. Only if the runway is occupied does it go-around.

The atc just adds conversation. You have to avoid the ai yourself. It's just scenery, and won't move out of the way for you.

Same in fsx btw.

I don't recall the version number, but it was in 1984 and possibly the first version MS put out after they bought the rights. I flew from Meigs Field south looking for New Orleans. All was green until I reached south of 30n...90w, then it was blue. It was the Gulf of Mexico.

In one of those early versions wou had 4 or 5 colors, with black and white being two of them. Some may long for the good old days but not when it comes to flight sims.

No kidding. I don't miss those flight sims at all. The earliest one I played was Sublogic's Apple II one. I didn't even play it long because it was so bad - I thought I disliked flight simulators for awhile because of that.

It had black ground and sky, white runways (just rectangles with dashed lines in the middle), green and purple gauges (I think this may have been an artifact of the primitive graphics and the low-res early color screen) and there were these squares that you were supposed to fly through at something like 2 frames per second. Just horrible stuff.

I don't recall the version number, but it was in 1984 and possibly the first version MS put out after they bought the rights. I flew from Meigs Field south looking for New Orleans. All was green until I reached south of 30n...90w, then it was blue. It was the Gulf of Mexico.

 

In one of those early versions wou had 4 or 5 colors, with black and white being two of them. Some may long for the good old days but not when it comes to flight sims.

This is probably the version you are talking about. It is version 2. There is some pretty interesting reading on the back of the box. Back in the day I thought this was the most incredible thing. My how times have changed.

Someone gave me a floppy disc with MS FS 1 in 1985, which I played on a true IBM PC at my workplace. I then obtained Version 2 later on...

I was hooked on flight simulation from then on. Bought every version of MSFS up to FSX (except FS95). Even bought IFLY and Flight Unlmited.

But, still hairy to land in Catalina Island to this day!

But, still hairy to land in Catalina Island to this day!

I'm gonna have to do a video of this. What plane? It shouldn't be hard at all in a slow and small Cessna. I've landed a F22 there and I may have used a PMDG 737-600 as well.

The only hard part about that runway is its length. And that's common for any small length runway. There's one at the Peace Gardens on the border with Canada and North Dakota and I landed my F22 there. Albeit, I had to stay on the brakes all the way to the end.