Getting better BUT.

[sonic]

Ok Ive got the general flying down. take off landing. etc. But now I want to be able to go somewere. LOL I want to be able to go from asheville reg. to greenville/spartunberg int. But am a little lost on how to do that.  Flight planning is a pain in my backside just a little lost.  any tips on being able to do more than takeoff fly around land. LOL.  Ive done the lessons but really havent gone into the learning center is there anything in there on flight planning.  OHHH one more thing why does everyone use the KAVL and so on instead of the actuall name.

[Nav]

Always difficult to get these things over without writing a Ph.D thesis - but here goes

[beaky]

Spend a little time with the lessons; they help.  Skip to the cross-country stuff if you've got the pattern work down, but try it out. That's the best tip I can give you. FS has all that basic stuff covered in the Learning Center.
 Or you can just open the map, take a rough guess as to what your heading should be, and go find the airport, setting up your pattern as you did at your "home" airport (Tip: you'll want to click on the airport on the map to get the airport elevation; add about 1000 feet to that for your pattern altitude).
Of course, if you're flying something big and fast, that  method won't work too well; in that case, you're going to need to learn more about  serious navigation to get from A to B without getting lost or crashing. GPS helps a lot, among other things; FS will tell you how to use all of  it. It's worth checking out.
Asheville, huh? I landed there once. I was trying to get to Rome, GA (on a trip from NJ to New Orleans), but the weather got bad along my route. Got some fuel there, and hopped over to Hendersonville to park the plane and camp for the night (didn't know for sure if they had fuel at Hendersonville). Nice little airport, and some really nice people...
About the names: those are called identifiers; just shorthand, really. I think they were first used for the Morse Code signals specific to radio navigation beacons at airports and along flight routes... four letters (they used to be just three; the "K" is pretty new) are easier than the full name of the airport. The older ones are like abbreviations, but they had to shift to less-recognizable ones as the list of airports grew.

[Reap]

I recommend getting FSNavigator at http://www.fsnavigator.com
Okay its payware but I think you get 20 free flights to try it out.
It is great for flight planning and a lot easier to use than anything FS has to offer.

[commoner]

Hi sonic....unlike nav I always use the 4 letter codes ( so he won't have time for ME )  and here is a simple way to get from where you are to where you want to be using GPS

...First determine the airport code of your destination..

Open the GPS and click on the Direct to button ..it's a D with an arrow through it.

Then at the bottom right of the display are two pairs of white arrows on the knob icon..click the RIGHT hand one of the SMALLER pair

This puts the cursor in the right place to type in the airport code...so type it in.

Click the ENTer button three times to activate this and you will see on the display a straight line from your aircraft...follow it to your destination The heading and distance etc will be shown at the top of the display

...if you want your aircraft to follow the course with autopilot ..do as nav describes from number 6 in his tute.

A little crude maybe but try it until you get more proficient. The Learning Centre has a full section on GPS ..good flying..commoner

[TSC.]

one more thing why does everyone use the KAVL and so on instead of the actuall name.

I never do it myself, except for famous ones like LAX and LHR - and people who do are wasting their time with me, because I don't know which airports they mean!

Hi,

I thought most people used the airport codes because they were just quicker to input in the flight planner - it's dead easy:

(1) Input code.
(2) M$ flight planner automatically highlights the airport.
(3) Press 'enter'
(4) Thats it!!

after flying online & using the Microsoft messenger to chat, I found that EVERYONE used airport codes because they are quicker & easier to type than (sometimes) longwinded airport names.

Also, some airports have the same name, but are in completely different countries - so if you just type the airport name into the GPS then you could end up flying thousands of miles in the wrong direction (yep, been there, done that.  :-[)

Hope thats of some help.

TSC.

[Nav]

Misunderstanding, I think, theysellcoke.

[TSC.]

Misunderstanding, I think, theysellcoke.

Well now, now that you've read that - wouldn't it have made a better story (and saved people firing up FS2004 to find out where on earth that flight took place) if I'd simply said that we were flying from Teesside to Luxembourg?

Your right Nav, it is a pain in the ar$e having to fire up FS2004 just to make sense of a story, i was a bit off the centreline on that one!!

Maybe it would be better for all of us if people posted the Airport name & ID.

Just a thought.

TSC.

[Jared]

you can always pull up..

www.airnav.com

www.landings.com

www.avweb.com

and find most of the above mentioned items, especially the airport ID to name conversion..;-)

[MattNW]

you can always pull up..

www.airnav.com

www.landings.com

www.avweb.com

and find most of the above mentioned items, especially the airport ID to name conversion..;-)

In addition most internet weather sites let you use airport codes. That way you see what airport it is and whether it's decent flying weather there or not.  ;D