Complete Newbie...and it shows (aka I'm a moron)

[Brett_Henderson]

Yeah... that big, notched wheel is for rough calibrating the hardware itself... nothing to do with in-flight trim  ;)

I don't fly the big jets at all, so I'll have to guess that maybe the autopilot is on ?

I'll go fly it now.. see what happens..

[Alejandro Rhodes]

I would like to add one thing, RudeandRude You are not Moron , We do not consider moron anybuddy ,well exept those whos been in this microsoft flight simulator for almost a decade ,with us and ask How do I install a plane You are in very good hands here ,feel welcome ,follow the rules, ,and we are going to help you in anything you need to know in MSFSX..

[Brett_Henderson]

Welllll    T H A T  was interesting  :-?

It must be the Airbus fly-by-wire deal. I'm not jet expert, so I don't know how realistic it is. But it seems you don't need to adjust pitch trim. If you're just flying along and gently change pitch, it's like a computer takes over and locks in on that pitch angle. The manual trim is useles.. but oddly enough.. if you turn the autopilot ON, you can adjust pitch with the trim wheel...  very strange. Also the rudder is functionless in flight UNTIL you're near the ground and near landing speed.. which is OK (I guess), so long as the fly-by-wire coordinates turns (and it seems to)... because you don't need independent rudder control until you need to cross-control a little, landing in a cross-wind.. (I don't think slipping jets down to a runway is a good idea.. even if you can)..

I'm a light piston pilot..  so I'll defer to the jet experts.. I have to admit though.. if you get use to this auto-trim stuff, it can be pretty handy landing a big, heavy tube  :D

[RudeandRude]

Ive been away for the past day and a half but I'l get back into it tonight.  I definitely just need practice.  

Is there anywhere in the game that shows you how many hours you;ve logged total?

[bpops]

Brett,

Ok, good, it's not just me then

I did notice that it seemed to keep its pitch better, but you have to push or pull quite a bit on the yoke to 'disengage' this fly-by-wire or whatever it is. Maybe it will help with those big jets, but I'm used to the smaller planes for now.

RudeandRude,

In the main FSX window, click 'Pilot Records' then the 'Logbook' tab.

[RudeandRude]

I know I need to have patience but holy crap this is frustrating.  I just did the training mission where I am first flying the Jetliner.  I'm in mid-flight and struggling with my climb/decent the entire 20 minutes.  One second I'm descending at 1200 feet per minute, I click one tiny click trim up and within 15 seconds I'm climbing at 1200 feet per second.

For some reason in this jet when I leave the stick at neutral position I just start climbing at a 30 degree climb pretty much right after takeoff, with all flaps at normal.  I have to push the stick almost all the way up (nose down) just to keep level flight.  Is that normal in a Bombardier CRJ700 ?

[RudeandRude]

does anyone know how I record a video?  The help section says to "go into the options menu" but I dont even know how to get to the options menu!

[congo]

[quote]I just did the training mission where I am first flying the Jetliner.

[RudeandRude]

Yeah I guess you're right, I need to do some free flights for now.  I didn't even see that was an option until you mentioned it.  I thought it was just missions.  Cool.

[Brett_Henderson]

Hey Congo...

[RudeandRude]

Ok so I started a free flight from North Las Vegas Airport to Henderson Executive in the Cessna 172.

I figured out the Air Traffic Controller stuff, which was pretty cool.  I take off.  Awesome, doing great.  I was able to trim the climb so that I could completely take my hands off the stick and it was climbing at around 75 kias.  Perfect.

But then I realized the problem....where the heck am I going????  In the missions it had that little compass in the upper left hand corner that gave me visual clues as to where my next waypoint is.  Now I have no visual help.  I dont even know if I'm going in the right direction.  I did set up waypoints and just assumed that they would show up.

I brought up the GPS but that didnt help.  I brought up the map but couldnt even find Henderson on it.  

Can anyone help me out?  I saw there was an option called Visual Flight Path, so I enabled that, set it to Nav 1 and then turned on Nav1 but I still saw nothing.

[bpops]

Rude,

Click 'Learning Center', then the "Lessons" tab at the top, and start doing all the courses. You mentioned before that you were doing these, but if you really did them, it does tell you how to navigate your way both visually and with instruments.  

Just spend some time with those built-in courses, (and read the ground school!). They really are as close as you can get to having a flight instructor without paying for one  ;)

[RudeandRude]

I've completed the first 6 lessons.  The free flight was HUGE in getting me to have some kind of handle on the trim.  I'll go back into lesson mode for the time being.

[congo]

[quote]Hey Congo...

[Brett_Henderson]

Yeah... learning to fly (even in a sim) from complete ground zero is a tough and confusing thing. The best hope to get it quickly is to focus on the basics.. and then develop bad habits on your own