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

[AgingFledgling]

Brett -

Thank you very much for the thorough explanations.

I just started working with FSX. I decided to go whole hog and invest in a yoke and pedals. They've been wonderful, but like Rude, I've been trying to figure out how to trim the 172 and wondering if it is me, the sim, the hardware, or the 172 itself! I will certainly persist in my practice now that I know that getting trim right is non-trivial.

Again, thanks!

[Brett_Henderson]

My pleasure  :)  Wander down to the 'Flight School' forum, when you're ready  8-)

[Brett_Henderson]

I didn't want you to think I didn't see these questions...

[quote]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.

[sbq]

... 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.

Even though we're just learning trimming and some basic flying stuff.. having a place to go, and knowing how to get there is good too. You can't just buzz around perfecting your trim techniques and then shut the sim down. You gotta land SOMEwhere, and it might as well be a destination you intended, when you first took off.

Flight planning and navigation is a whole new learning world. I'll suggest that you forget about visual cues, waypoints and anything else (especially the GPS) while learning to navigate. Keep it simple at first. Don't use the flight planner at all. Just pick your "home" airport from the free flight screen.

What I've been doing is taking a student lesson, then practice it using free flight out of Moffett Field in Mountain View California (I was stationed there for 3 years and live in the bayarea so the entire area is very familiar to me).  The best thing about taking off and landing from Moffett is that it has several *very* large blimp hangars on either side of the runway, situated to run parallel with the runway.  This makes it very easy to line up with the runway for a landing, even before you can see the runway.  I haven't gotten to the approach or navigation lessons yet so this helps a lot since I still have trouble with visual approaches to most airports.

[MWISimmer]

This thread is a perfect example of what makes SimV such a wonderful place to be.