Crossed over to the dark side
last month I renewed my IR and used MSFS a lot for a week prior to the test to brush up on my scan as much as anything. Rant is an excellent bit of kit for learning the art of tracking, intercepts etc and has ADF dip along with built in tutorials. You cannot practice your scan on Rant though but can on flight sim.
Learning and practicing your instrument scan is as important as learning how to follow the needles. One thing to be aware of is that the ADF and RMI needles on flight sim are back to front.
Up until five and a half years ago I was flying commercially until a change in circumstance but revalidated my IR the last couple of years with the help of these programs, the only flying that I did were the tests themselves, it probably saved in excess of a grand each time.
Learning and practicing your instrument scan is as important as learning how to follow the needles. One thing to be aware of is that the ADF and RMI needles on flight sim are back to front.
Up until five and a half years ago I was flying commercially until a change in circumstance but revalidated my IR the last couple of years with the help of these programs, the only flying that I did were the tests themselves, it probably saved in excess of a grand each time.
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Flight Sim X- Well i have had a few weeks of faffing around with it and have come to the conclusion, its the biggest load of sh%te i have ever wasted my money on, I've given the lot to my kid to see if he wants to have a crack
OK, I dont think it emulates ADF dip error, and its a PITA not being able to see your in flight progress without the use of an external device (there's a cheap one for the iPad anyhow), but for less than the price of an average IMC lesson, including charges for any instrument approaches), it seems priceless for IMCr or IR training. I dont bother with the scenery as it's a waste of computer resource, but I have a PA28 I downloaded years ago for about $20, a cheap but decent joystick and a regular PC monitor. I dont see how you can go wrong. Sure, you couldnt train to be an ATPL on it, but its pretty good at PPL level.
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Piper Archer,
I have no formal IMC training and no desire to climb the ATP/commercial ladder, the reason i bought the FSX is my Maule has been in for its annual for longer than i expected due to the maintenance shop being a bit backed up and I wanted to "fly". Since retiring i spend pretty much everyday at my grass strip either flying if the weather allows, and if not i,m in the hangar tinkering around with the plane or in the hangar office reading about flying ( I know I,m a sad bastard) So you can see when the Maule's away, i get antsy for something flying related to do and thought FSX would do the trick. My frustration with it is not actually the flying part, its the usual MS bull**** of getting the new Throttle /Prop/Mixture console to work with the existing Sidewinder yoke. My intention was to create the exact match on FS with what i fly, there is a Maule in FX and i set up the TPM layout similar to my plane, but for some reason it keeps losing its settings and defaulting back to the sidewinder for TPM functions. I was probably a bit frustrated in my last post, since then my kid has suggested I forget the new TPM hardware and just use the joystick for everything, which i have now done. Last night I had a crack at flying out of Dundee, circling and landing at "night" and in "fog", not following any STARS or SIDS procedures but just getting up in the air keeping it level and using the GPS for positional awareness. The result: 5 attempts and 5 crashes, 3 into the river Tay, 1 into the Law hill next to the airport, 1 where the GPS window froze and I lost situational awareness and was just flying around lost till the girlfriend demanded that " i get off that f*&king "game" and come to bed, its 2 in the morning".
The lessons I have learned so far:
1. Stay the hell away from clouds and night flying.
2. Overlooking the "little" things like always been in trim, being pre-prepared, prior to flying, and equipment/instrument failure or unfamiliarity that you can get by with while VFR will kill you in IMC.
3. Get an instrument rating (even if i never use it)
I have no formal IMC training and no desire to climb the ATP/commercial ladder, the reason i bought the FSX is my Maule has been in for its annual for longer than i expected due to the maintenance shop being a bit backed up and I wanted to "fly". Since retiring i spend pretty much everyday at my grass strip either flying if the weather allows, and if not i,m in the hangar tinkering around with the plane or in the hangar office reading about flying ( I know I,m a sad bastard) So you can see when the Maule's away, i get antsy for something flying related to do and thought FSX would do the trick. My frustration with it is not actually the flying part, its the usual MS bull**** of getting the new Throttle /Prop/Mixture console to work with the existing Sidewinder yoke. My intention was to create the exact match on FS with what i fly, there is a Maule in FX and i set up the TPM layout similar to my plane, but for some reason it keeps losing its settings and defaulting back to the sidewinder for TPM functions. I was probably a bit frustrated in my last post, since then my kid has suggested I forget the new TPM hardware and just use the joystick for everything, which i have now done. Last night I had a crack at flying out of Dundee, circling and landing at "night" and in "fog", not following any STARS or SIDS procedures but just getting up in the air keeping it level and using the GPS for positional awareness. The result: 5 attempts and 5 crashes, 3 into the river Tay, 1 into the Law hill next to the airport, 1 where the GPS window froze and I lost situational awareness and was just flying around lost till the girlfriend demanded that " i get off that f*&king "game" and come to bed, its 2 in the morning".
The lessons I have learned so far:
1. Stay the hell away from clouds and night flying.
2. Overlooking the "little" things like always been in trim, being pre-prepared, prior to flying, and equipment/instrument failure or unfamiliarity that you can get by with while VFR will kill you in IMC.
3. Get an instrument rating (even if i never use it)
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LOL. Seem like fairly wise words. I sympathise with you then if you're trying to get MS FlightSim to emulate something a bit more realistic. I have a friend who pretty much has all the possible MS FlightSim attachments going, and he has it working OK, but he once offered to sell me all his gear because he got fed up with niggles and crashes and so on.
As a simple instrument training program with simple equipment, its pretty good and worth what you pay for it. I believe the 'Ice Pilots' were using it to practise DC-3 IFR flying, but I may be mistaken on that point.
As a simple instrument training program with simple equipment, its pretty good and worth what you pay for it. I believe the 'Ice Pilots' were using it to practise DC-3 IFR flying, but I may be mistaken on that point.
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Where is the dark side?
I thought that "PPRUNE" WAS the dark side, at least that is how it is referred to on the "FLYER" forum.
Can someone enlighten me as I am now in the dark.
Can someone enlighten me as I am now in the dark.
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Wait a god damn minute, I just flew the sim and basically loaded a flight plan in and the FS Maule had all kinds of fancy nav equipment like coupled autopilot/gps etc with altitude and heading hold, things my wee real world vfr Maule can only dream off.
But what i find really amazing is that Microsoft have the gall to imply by making it seem so easy that you could put any dip**** in the left seat with all that fancy equipment and as long as they could firewall the power, lift the nose then hit the autopilot on with the flight plan loaded all they would have to know was how to retract the flaps, set the power and gab with ATC while chatting up the stewardesses, and the plane would do everything else for them !! I mean really, what a slur on the professional pilot there must be so much more to it?
But what i find really amazing is that Microsoft have the gall to imply by making it seem so easy that you could put any dip**** in the left seat with all that fancy equipment and as long as they could firewall the power, lift the nose then hit the autopilot on with the flight plan loaded all they would have to know was how to retract the flaps, set the power and gab with ATC while chatting up the stewardesses, and the plane would do everything else for them !! I mean really, what a slur on the professional pilot there must be so much more to it?
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RANT was very useful when I did my IMC a while ago.
I've never been able to get on with FlightSims (of different types) - they seem too far away from 'real' flying.
Now a 'real' flight simulator - that's different!
any dip**** in the left seat with all that fancy equipment .... and the plane would do everything else for them !!
An 18 year old said quite seriously that he could land a Tiger Moth on the back of a moving truck and wouldn't believe me when I said the most expert pilot couldn't do it.
He probably thought pilots were wasting thousands of pounds getting a commercial licence!
I've never been able to get on with FlightSims (of different types) - they seem too far away from 'real' flying.
Now a 'real' flight simulator - that's different!
any dip**** in the left seat with all that fancy equipment .... and the plane would do everything else for them !!
He probably thought pilots were wasting thousands of pounds getting a commercial licence!
Last edited by Viola; 20th Apr 2013 at 08:27.
pb84,
I suggest you have a look at X Plane 10 X-Plane 10 Global | The World?s Most Advanced Flight Simulator | X-Plane.com
This is not IR practice, but if you want some really challenging flying, try Condor: The Competition Soaring Simulator
I recently bought a joystick, which has transformed my Condor experience.
Today I was ridge soaring in Snowdonia followed by a 200 km cross-country in the Czech Republic. A tricky one because one of the turning points was over 6000'!
I managed that one just, and then became cocky on the final glide and "fluttered" my wings off.
I suggest you have a look at X Plane 10 X-Plane 10 Global | The World?s Most Advanced Flight Simulator | X-Plane.com
This is not IR practice, but if you want some really challenging flying, try Condor: The Competition Soaring Simulator
I recently bought a joystick, which has transformed my Condor experience.
Today I was ridge soaring in Snowdonia followed by a 200 km cross-country in the Czech Republic. A tricky one because one of the turning points was over 6000'!
I managed that one just, and then became cocky on the final glide and "fluttered" my wings off.
RedKnight,
I'm a Mac user. There is a version of X Plane 10 for the Mac. Try the demo:
Download the free X-Plane 10 Demo | X-Plane.com
Condor is a Windows-only program so I run that natively in Bootcamp. It won't run in a Virtual Machine (Parallels).
I'm a Mac user. There is a version of X Plane 10 for the Mac. Try the demo:
Download the free X-Plane 10 Demo | X-Plane.com
Condor is a Windows-only program so I run that natively in Bootcamp. It won't run in a Virtual Machine (Parallels).
Last edited by India Four Two; 21st Apr 2013 at 05:18.
