Your favourite part of a flight?

[Bruce]

Anxyous I am not a math wiz i am realy intrested in the formula you gave about the desend rate could you explain with actual numbers how you arive at 485. Thanks much.

[Anxyous]

485 was actually incorrect, just realized that.

Here's a simpler formula:

Feet to descend/(60*(feet to descend*3/1000/ground speed)

In case of 3000 feet AGL and 90 knots, this will end in a descend of 5000 feet per minute.

Ok. First, we wanna find out when to begin our descend. If we're at 3000 feet, we'll go 3000*3/1000. That equals 9, which is the number of miles from the airport, that we wanna start our descend from.

Let's say, we're flying at 90 knots. We take 60, because it's the number of minutes in an hour. We multiply that by 9/90, the number of miles/our speed. In short, 60*(9/90). That equals 6, which is the number of minutes, it'll take us to fly the 90 miles. Finally, 3000/6, which equals 500, our desired descent rate.

Phew, that was a lot of writing on my iPhone, was it understandable?

[tcco94]

Im sorry but I dont see how anyone can possibly think crusing on Flight Simulator is fun

[jieitai]

Other than landing, I've got two other favorite things to do:

Taking helicopters (usually the OH6 and UH60) and flying low and fast.

Taking the Mitsubishi F2A and pulling hard turns.

[Boikat]

Im sorry but I dont see how anyone can possibly think crusing on Flight Simulator is fun

Depends on how you cruse.  I once set the auto-pilot on the XB-52 and let it cruse, just to see how long I could keep my hands off of it.  That lasted a whole hour and a half.  But it did give me an idea for a "screan saver".  Time to mow the lawn?  Start up the sim, pick a plane, climb to altitude, set the auto-pilot, mow the lawn.  Multi-tasking at it's best!  

[HarvesteR]

my favorite part is the landing... it's the climatic finale to a nice flight
so much so that i can tell that the quality of my flight will influence the harshness of my landing

[jieitai]

Wait, watch the passengers disembark? What setting allows that?

[Boikat]

I think that's the "pilot and co-pilot exits plane with parachute" button combo of "O+H+_+C+R+A+..", well, you know...  

[ShaneG_old]

[quote]I think that's the "pilot and co-pilot exits plane with parachute" button combo of "O+H+_+C+R+A+..", well, you know...

[Wii]

I like descent and approach. Touchdown on landing sucks. Not usually bet hey!

[Ang2dogs]

That's a hard question. I love planning a flight, cruising/navigating, landing, and then having the satisfaction of completing yet another cross country flight without a GPS...

I'm with Esselbach! As real as it gets is suppose to mean experianceing the thrill of flight, and most of it is being able to get from point A to point B from take off to landing. Taxing in a tail dragger is a challange. Putting a 747 down on the ground with out a hard thud is a challange. So anyway I just finished a flight ( around the Blackhills of South Dakota, saw Mt. Rusmore ) in my Curtiss Jenny, so I'm voting to get me a beer, CHEERS [smiley=guin.gif]

[glennlcasey]

I'm voting for landing, because i did one of the instrument approaches in the FSX missions, and there was something really satisfying about following the instructions, and sweating through the descent, hoping you dont hit a mountain, then spotting the airport and greasing it in. It really gives you a sense of accomplishment.

Anyone can take off, but it takes real skill to do a proper landing

[lunitic_8]

Wait, watch the passengers disembark? What setting allows that?

however, if i'm descending from a long, well-planned hop, i take my time to get as perfect a landing as i can accomplish, and then taxi out to the gate, and turn the plane off, open the doors and watch my imaginary passengers disembark...

the [size=24]imaginary passengers disembark[/size]

[FlyingPerson]

Taxiing out on the runway in my not-so-AIed Flight Sim (Sorry.. even having the "Traffic" on Very Low would kill my FPS :/), aligning with the centerline, stopping, putting flaps to 5 and listen as the engines roar as I set them to takeoff power is just an awesome feeling.

But I like cruising and descending too. Cruising is, because you don't have to do anything but listen to the stupid ATC throw you between two ATC places.

Descending into a sunrise or sunset is also awesome. That's why I set most of my "medium haul flights" to a afternoon-ish time of day, and watch the sun go down just as I approach my destination.

And.. I don't wanna talk about my landings. Let's say.. I started playing Flight Sim 2004 2 years ago. I got FSX 6 months ago. I started practicing landing 3 months ago.  :-X

[Slotback]

Decending - usually the most demanding phase of flight, in my opinion, especially with real charts, VATSIM, in my shiny new MD-11.  :)