Something that's been frustrating me...

[spitfire boy]

[quote]HEY

[TSC.]

Glad to hear you went for the Misty Fjords package, make sure to check out the charts that come bundeled with the package - you can get to them by going into 'Start' -> 'All Programs' then looking for the FSAddon stuff. I quite enjoy finding a log cabin on the chart (ones that are modelled are indicated by a drawing pin in the chart) & then flying off to find just a little cabin on a lake somewhere.

Another great addon for Misty Fjords is the Stikine Icefields Research Program. All the camps have an NDB so they are quite easy to find & a nice little challenge aswell.

Looking forward to some pictures.

Cheers,

TSC.

[Slotback]

I am in the process of doing the tutorials; still a way to go though.

Thanks for the help guys... guess I need a bit more patience.

Well can you blame me, I'm 14 for crying out loud, no-one ever heard of a 14-year-old with even a modicombe of patience - or common sense for that matter....

I learned PMDG 737 when I was 13.

But seriously, I would stick with learning all about General aviation and basic navigation. When you get bored of that you can try a payware domestic / regional airliner flying on VATSIM. Trust me, flying with over 10 other people with voice ATC, flying real procedures, real world weather in a payware aircraft is nothing short of amazing.

Trust me, you probably will not find airliners boring if you do it right.

[Boss_BlueAngels]

Here's the thing; despite my love for Flight Simulation, I'm not actually very good at flying in-sim. Most of my flying comprises taking a random aircraft, placing it at a random airport, taking off and then simply going absolutely bananas with the joystick.

I would like to start flying proper - long-ish haul flights in airliners seems a sensible way to go. But therein lies a problem. I've never been able to get to grips with the flight director switch. Could someone please explain how I'd get a typical airliner in FS to follow a course automatically, rather than lining the plane up manually on the little pink line on the gps and then selecting the 'wing level' switch?

Any help would be hugely appreciated.

Even simpler solution that Brett's....  get out of that boring slow jetliner and get into something that actually responds within the decade like the Extra! lol   j/k

Oh, and I learned to fly when I was 13.  Real airplanes kept my attention much better than flight sim ones... especially back "in those days." haha!!

[Brett_Henderson]

Ummm... there are a couple threads in here worth reading through (and contributing to)    :)  ;)

[spitfire boy]

Sorry for not being around much... I've had a bit of a 'sim lapse' as you do... been playing Empire Earth 2 instead.

[Brett_Henderson]

If you just want the plane to follow the direct GPS line, change from NAV to GPS on the a/p. Then hit A/P On or whatever it is for the aircraft.

But but but...  He wants to start flying "proper". That would include the challenge of learning navigation.

Just sitting there and watching the A/P fly the plane for you...following a moving map, GPS line ?  I mean, what's the point ?  

Getting yourself there, by your own skill, 1/2 the fun  :)

[Yvan Ung]

If you just want the plane to follow the direct GPS line, change from NAV to GPS on the a/p. Then hit A/P On or whatever it is for the aircraft.

NAV HOLD on almost every freeware with a complete A/P...

[ThomasKaira]

If you just want the plane to follow the direct GPS line, change from NAV to GPS on the a/p. Then hit A/P On or whatever it is for the aircraft.

But but but...

[Brett_Henderson]

No arguing that GPS is the navigating standard now. Even all of our club rental planes have IFR certified GPS... And I rarely fly by VOR in real life...

That's what's wonderfully refreshing about simming. You can learn, and stay sharp, on good, old radio navigation

[ThomasKaira]

[quote]No arguing that GPS is the navigating standard now. Even all of our club rental planes have IFR certified GPS... And I rarely fly by VOR in real life...

That's what's wonderfully refreshing about simming. You can learn, and stay sharp, on good, old radio navigation

[Mobius]

It's like with automatic transmissions today, nobody knows how to drive a manual anymore.  My dad made me learn and drive a manual for the first couple years I drove, and now I can drive just about anything.  Only learning to use the GPS is going to stop you from flying all those "archaic" aircraft with steam gauges.  Not to mention, what happens when the GPS fails, and you haven't flown VOR approach in years?  I've had at least one RAIM outage in my short amount of instrument time, but when it happened, it caught both my instructor and I off guard, and we had to have the back-up of the VORs to navigate by.

[Brett_Henderson]

Oddly.. radio navigation is what got me into flying to begin with. I was an Electrical Engineering student at the time. When we covered phased and directional antenna arrays, VORs were talked about. The idea that you could know exactly where you were, and navigate, by these cryptic radios/gauges absolutley fascinated me.

[beaky]

I often wonder what redundancy flight crews will have when all of the navigational eggs wind up in the GPS basket...that's the nice thing about having some VORs and NDBs left: there's a backup in case the GPS receiver or the satellite links fail.

It does happen, and it will happen... just read a story on another forum by a PP who was on a GPS approach (to an ILS, in IMC) when he lost the uplink about 2 miles from the FAF (the dreaded "positional data lost").
He hadn't bothered tracking his position by VOR, even though there is one nearby... luckily, ATC had him on radar and OK'd him to descend a bit, to see if he could get in the clear and find the runway. He was lucky the ceiling was high enough, and luckier still to have radar coverage that low (not from the tower).  His other option would have been to go missed with no good idea of his position, then struggle back to the VOR approach fix.
And of course, without a VOR or radar coverage, he'd have been hosed.

Until they take pilots out of airplanes completely, no matter what bells and whistles you have aboard, if you can't fly by compass, chart and clock you have no business flying. I know that kind of flying is a lot harder in or above clouds, but every pilot should have at least a rough idea of their position based on dead reckoning, just in case.

ALSO: even if all you want to do in MSFS is babysit the AP on airliners, remember that in many parts of the world, enroute and terminal radar coverage is limited, and  VOR and even NDB approaches are quite common.