Hello All!!
I'm new to the forum and to FS in general. I have been playing about with the free flights in FSX and found that ATC can direct me to where I am going using IFR. However, I have a few questions about the process.
1) What is the altimeter, and why is it always 2992?
2) Sometimes other planes get orders to climb to FL291 etc... what are flight levels and why don't they just say the height in feet?
3) When I get near the destination airport, the tower doesn't line me up with the runway. They just say cleared to land! How can I align myself better with the runway?
Thanks for all your help, I look forward to reading the answers!!
1) Well- First of all, most people were probably right about the altimeter. The altimeter is a device that judges differences in air pressures, and the barometric pressure.
Standard temperature and pressure is equal to 1 atm. (1 Atmoshpere-that's normal, because the earth only has 1 atmosphere.)
1 Atm is also equal to 29.92 milimeters of mercury, in a barometer. that is why standard temperature and pressure is called out to you so many times-Because you are in a normal part of the planet. I guess that sounds kind of wierd but I'm not sure how else to put it.
For exapmle: If you were to be flying over Colorado, A state which is much higher than sea-level in it's ground elevation, you most likely would not here 29.92 because the ground is closer to the atmosphere, thus you would not experience standard temperatures and pressures on the ground/air because the elevation has changed and so have T. & P. There are often many contributing factors.
2) A flight level is generally used above 19,000 feet because they are easier to say, and are not supposed to be random altitudes like 2,300 feet or 14,700 feet. Flight levels are separated only by 500 feet or by 1,000ft. You probably won't, for exapmle, get flight level 284. You'd mostly get 285, or 290.
3) This is because IFR rules in FSX automaticalyy assume that you are capable of ILS procedure-I won't tell you exactly how that works because no doubt someone already has, but it's basically the auropilot landing the aircraft. NOTE- NONE OF THE AIRCRAFT IN FSX ARE CAPABLE OF AUTOLAND PROCEDURE. You will have to deactivate the autopilot and land manually near desicion hieght.
Hope that helped. Took mea while to figure some of that out-but I found number one just by paying attention in my chemistry class!
