PC I/R Trainers

[Autofly]

I've been looking for an I/R trainer for my PC and want to buy something that I can put the theory of the books into cheap experience. Can anyone recommend one or have any experience of using them. I've though about buying a copy of RANT 2000 or something similar which ain’t going to cost me 500 quid!

Cheers. .Autofly

[Jetavia]

Try Jeppesen FlitePro .. it will only cost you £90 .. add a CH flight sim yoke (USB)costs £160 to that, and you have in my oppinion a good and usefull pc procedure trainer .. and will save you ££ in the long run during training <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

[Stan Evil]

You can get a free demo of RANT from the <a href="http://www.oddsoft.co.uk" target="_blank">Oddsoft web site</a>. It must be pretty good if both Oxford and Cabair are using it.

[bluskis]

Proflight professional is a reasonable procedural IR package at low cost

[Autofly]

Cheers for the info. <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

Thanks for pointing out the RANT download Stan. Mind you i'm having real problems getting it to download the whole file. It decides to give up after about 60%. Does anyone have it who would e-mail it to me?

Thanks again.. .AF

[MJR]

I have Jeppersen flitepro and it quite good except there is no ADF DIP. I was hoping this might be installed in a later version of the software, however Jeppersen have informed me that no further development is planned.

[twistedenginestarter]

I obtained a copy of RANT some time ago. Its key pluses as far as I could see were. . <ul type="square"> it allows you to customize the instruments so they look like your real ones it would run on a 1920s pc [/list]After that it's all down hill. In the version I have you turn by pressing an arrow key or similar so I don't think you can vary your rate of turn. Also as I remember there is limited geographical coverage. Certainly I couldn't see any advantage in RANT as distinct from the vastly more capable MSFS.

[Jasondoig]

Is MS Flight sim 2002 no good for teaching instrument flying? as it is available for just over half the cost of either RANT 2000 or Flitepro. . .Do RANT or Flite have something more to offer?. .Excuse my ignorance.

[Autofly]

Cool_Hand

The RANT program is more of a IR trainer rather than a fligh sim - i.e. you don't actually 'fly' the aircraft. You don't have to worry about being able to fly the aeroplane like in FS2002. I've got a copy of FS98 and there's just no way 2002 will run on my machine <img src="frown.gif" border="0"> . The other thing the RANT software has is Jeppesen charts. You can flip between the charts and map as you fly. As far as the FlitePro program goes, I think this has more of the flying element. I don't know about the charts etc contained in the program. I'm just interested in what people have got to say about each.

How much detail is the newer FS programs - in 98 they don't even have places like East Mids on the basic program??

TES - is that the 2000 edition. I've seen some pictures of the earlier RANT 3 which does look pretty basic. I must admit, although I wanted a program I could use without a 737 type rating I did want something that I could do more than rate 1 turns! Anyone else have any experience of this??

Cheers. .AF

[ 04 February 2002: Message edited by: Autofly ]</p>

[Stan Evil]

RANT 2000 uses Aerads rather than Jeps. The latest version allows you to fly around with an Aerad chart as your map.

[18greens]

I delayed buying RANT when I did my IR and it was the biggest mistake I made (other than chosing to do it with SFT but thats another story.) RANT should be given out free with every £12,000 IR course. I would choose RANT over any other simulator.

RANT seems clunky and basic but it does one thing incredibly well, it simulates ADF DIP. No other simulator does this and you have to understand it to pass the IR.

FS2002 is pretty good as an add on to fly procedures particularly now you can set cloud base and wind direction. One thing I find a pain in 2002 is trimming. Is there an easy way to trim for level flight.

[EricTheRed]

Last time I looked, the Elite sim had dip.

FS2002 is pretty good, though I'm still getting used to it. You'll need a fast PC and graphics card.

For doing procedural IR, I liked FS2000 and the B737. If you want to do NDB/DME letdowns, unfortunately, none of the Microsoft sims are any good - due to no seperate DME boxes in the cockpits. It is possible to do it whilst tuned to an ILS/DME, but having the localiser active and displayed tends to defeat the object of practicing NDB tracking on the final part of the approach.

Cheers,

ETR

[schuler_tuned]

Ericthered just cut out a post it note big enough to hide the V.O.R.,and stick it to the monitor, if you can't see it you can't use it.. .For EFIS/HSI, can you fail the ILS in the system set up,I'm not sure if you can - you could try the MS website?

[ 05 February 2002: Message edited by: schuler_tuned ]</p>