Flight planning

[Panther91]

How do you get precise when flying in FS2004? I mean on time. The NAVIGATION LOG in the flight planner always tells you how long will your flight be but he calculates it only with cruise speed. In aircraft like a Cessna 172 I lose much time on climbing. I cannot know how much time I will spend on climbing. Also sometimes I wan't to fly slower than the navigation logs tells me to.

So how do you:
1. Determine the taxi start? On big airports you can lose minutes on taxiing.
2. I probably need ground speed for calculations but for ground speed I first need TAS, right? So how can I calculate true airspeed on a given altitude? There are some heavy formulas on wikipedia but is there an easier way?
3. How can I adjust the airspeed indicator to show me TAS? I don't mean on changing the Realism settings, I mean on the little knob which is for adjusting the TAS indicator but what should I do with it?
4. Calculate needed fuel? There's no need to go on a trip with full fuel tanks if need only half of it. I found information on wikipedia about different engines and fuel consumption but that depends on altitude and power settings.
5. What's the best cruise altitude for piston engine aircraft?
6. How can I plan my descent? I only know to plan my descent if I know how much minutes I wan't to descent. If I wan't to descent 3000 feet in 2 minutes I will start descending with a rate of 1500 fpm. But what if I don't know the time but I know the range I wan't to descend? For example if I wan't to descend 3000 feet in 5 nm how can I calculate this?
7. For ground speed calculations I need wind information and some airports don't have ATIS, and the ATC doesn't tell me so how can I get the wind information?

[Brett_Henderson]

You're getting into the meat-n-potaoes of realistic, sim piloting. It will add infinitely to your experience and WILL help you with the real-world piloting frame of mind..

These discussions will cover 90% of your questions.. and please feel free to ask questions, and add to the discussion..

http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 1208113107

[Panther91]

I was reading the Part 1 - Flight planning now and I got a few questions, already.

1. About fuel consumption, it depends on altitude. How can I know the fuel consumption of a Mooney M20 on a 15000 feet and 130 knots, for example?

2. About headings. Should I navigate with true hadings or magnetic headings? If I have a declination of 6

[Nav]

Panther91, the best answer to most of your questions is 'experience.

About taxiing time, for example, it doesn't matter. You can call up the flightplan any time in flight (Alt-F-N) and you'll find that it doesn't start computing actual data (compared to Flight Plan Data) until you take off.

About speeds, look up the Learning Centre Index for the aeroplane you're flying - it will provide information on cruising speeds etc.

About heights, the simple rule is that no un-pressurised aeroplane should go above 12,000 feet (oxygen height) - and the default Cessna won't climb much above that anyway. 8-10,000 feet should be about right for long trips in piston-engined aeroplanes.

In any case fuel consumption, for example, tends to depend a lot more on getting the mixture and the revs right than what the Flight Planner says.

About range, the aircraft data when you select it will give you a rough guide - and the Learning Centre. But the aeroplanes are not modelled exactly right; the fuel consumption, and therefore the range, is only modelled very roughly in the default types. There IS a way of modifying the config. files to get it more accurate, but 'trial and error' is probably your better bet; make a few flights and compare 'actual' speeds and consumption with the figures in the Flight Planner log.

I put everything I know about range/fuel etc. into a tute - 'FS2004 Round The World In a Prop' - which you can download if you like (about halfway down the page). You'll see that the Flight Planner is only a 'beginning.' Just a text document, doesn't take a minute to download.

http://www.simviation.com/simviation/static.php?ID=151&page=10

As to 'height and direction,' pressing 'B' corrects for barometric pressure and 'D' corrects compass deviation. For speed AND direction, the GPS is your best friend - it wil give you both your true groundspeed (allowing for wind) and also your true direction.

About descents, there's one thing that's true for both piston-engined types and jets - the 'Rule of Three.' Basically, a 'comfortable' rate of descent for any aeroplane is 1,000 feet 'down' for every (nautical) mile 'along.' So if you're at 9,000 feet in a Cessna, start your descent not less than 9 miles out. In an airliner at 30,000 feet, start 90 miles out.

Best advice I can give is read all you can, but ALSO 'fly' a lot! It all gets a lot simpler once you get to know a given aeroplane, and get some experience in it.

[beaky]

The tutes mentioned above are worth reading, but here's a couple of quick tips.

1. About fuel consumption, it depends on altitude. How can I know the fuel consumption of a Mooney M20 on a 15000 feet and 130 knots, for example?

If you can't find a performance chart for the plane, like so many other aspects of flight planning, you have to see as you go. Note the consumption over a given period of time at a given altitude and airspeed, and apply that to the remaining flight segments. Likewise, time and fuel used to runup, taxi, take off and climb can be noted the same way.
You shouldn't be planning to the last minute or last drop of fuel, anyway, so this method works fine. In real life, one also guesses based on predetermined data, then compares it to the results as one flies along.

BTW: non-pressurized planes fly above 12,000 or even 14,000 on a regular basis- if the pilot has supplemental oxygen. (Nav... )
In the sim, it's easy enough to pretend you have a cannula and bottle- this can be used in any airplane; doesn't have to have a fancy built-in system.
But as Nav pointed out, unless your plane has turbocharging, the engine will give up long before you get near the "oxygen levels". A stock C-172 can be coaxed to about 13,000 feet under standard conditions, at which point it will fly, but not climb. and it will not give you very good gas mileage. A Skyhawk likes to cruise between 6,000-8,000 feet; that's where it will give you the most favorable speed-to-consumption ratio.

[quote]2. About headings. Should I navigate with true hadings or magnetic headings? If I have a declination of 6

[Brett_Henderson]

The hows and whys of heading selection and course tracking are covered pretty well in those Flight Training threads.. Allowing for wind and errors and everything.