Originally Posted by
Digo Pilot
Hi everyone,
I don't know if is the correct forum to ask this kind of question, but I'll ask anyway
I'm studying to get my pilot license and also using Flight Simulator to help me get familiar with the aircraft, terms, instruments etc.
Today I planned a Flight in a single prop airplane and I got some doubts during the flight. If someone could help I'll appreciate so much.
1) I made a direct flight of 300nm long between two airports only using mag. hdg calculated before the flight. A flight made using only compass and ETA can be considered an IFR flight? Is it common flights like that or is adviced create instead a VFR plan flight using visual points to guide me throughout the flight?
If conditions are VMC, it is VFR. You will not in the real world succeed in flying a long leg on compass alone - changes in wind and inaccuracies in your flying will necessitate regular checks against either radio navaids or ground features.
Personally, in a normal light aeroplane, I would aim for reference points every 50 miles or less.
2) Is there a way to compensate the wind during the flight? I didn't find any insturment that could give the force / direction wind information in the fs9 cessna 182.
There isn't in the Cessna, there are various ways to do wind vector calculations. For your PPL you'll almost certainly use something like an E6B flight computer, which you can buy online for a few tens of dollars.
Wind data is normally obtained from forecasts.
So I assumed that the wind compensation should be calculated before the flight at the planning flight phase based on informations provided by some meteorological issue like the wind forecast map.
Correct - find the books that are being used by PPL students where you live and they'll guide you through this process.
I would recommend getting some way into your real pilot training before spending too much time with a PC flight simulator, which will lead you into bad habits that will take a lot of expensive flying time to break.
And your English is much better than my Portugese.
G