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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
About the Authors
Credits
Acknowledgments
Part I: Preflight
Intro: Why Use Flight Simulator for Real-World Training?
Why We Fly
How to Use This Book
Procedure Training vs. Scenario-Based Training
What’s on the Website
Chapter 1: Flight School Setup
Installing FSX
Looking at What’s New in FSX
Getting the Right Hardware
Adjusting Performance Settings
Organizing Your Cockpit
Using the FSX Built-in Flight Lessons
Selecting a Real-World Flight School
Working with Your Flight Instructor
Using the Practical Test Standards
Plugging In to Pilot Communities
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 2: First Flight in the Piper J-3 Cub
Flight Fundamentals for the Pilot
First Flight in the Cub
Takeoffs, Landings, and Go-Arounds
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Part II: Sport Pilot
Chapter 3: Ground Reference Maneuvers
The Effects of Wind
Ground Reference Maneuvers Flight
Ridiculous Winds
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 4: Airport Operations
Uncontrolled and Controlled Airport Operations
Post Mills to Lebanon Municipal
Take the Cub to Beantown
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 5: Old-Fashioned Navigation
Planning a Trip
A Multileg Flight Using Pilotage
Seriously Dead Reckoning
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 6: Emergencies
In-Flight Emergencies
Emergency Training
Oddball Emergencies
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 7: Performance Takeoffs and Landings
Aerodynamics of Performance
Short-Field and Soft-Field Procedures
Yet Another Runway Surface
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 8: Slow Flight, Stalls, and Spins
Taking It Slowly
Taking the Cub for a Spin
Catching the Bus
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 9: First Flight in the Cessna 172SP
Transition to the Cessna 172SP
Checkout Flight in the Cessna 172SP
Advanced Maneuvers
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Part III: Private Pilot
Chapter 10: Radio Navigation with Traditional Avionics
Follow the Invisible Road
Flying Cross-Country with Radio Navigation
Getting Unlost and Going Elsewhere
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 11: First Flight with the G1000
Welcome to the Age of Glass
G1000 Cross-Country
Try It with a Crosswind
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 12: Night Flight
When Darkness Falls
Night Flight in the Cessna 172SP
Night Flight in the G1000
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 13: Weather
Weather Theory and Data
The Joy of Scud Running
Scud Run in Cessna 172 with G1000
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 14: Maximizing Performance
Quick, Clean, and Cool
Fly Fast in a Mooney
Mooney under Glass
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Part IV: Instrument Rating
Chapter 15: Basic Attitude Instrument Flying
Fly in the Clouds
IMC Flight in Mooney Bravo
IFR Flight with Garmin G1000
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 16: IFR Flight
Flight Plan Creation
IFR Flight to a Visual Approach
Departures, Holds, and Arrivals
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 17: Instrument Approaches
The Final Miles Between Heaven and Earth
Down Through the Muck: Flying Approaches
Do It with Wind
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 18: GPS Approaches
No Ground Station Needed
Fly Some GPS with a Six-Pack
Instrument Approaches on the G1000
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 19: Additional Instrument Approaches
More Ways to Get Around and Down
Multiple Approaches—Calm Wind
Multiple Approaches—with Wind
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 20: IFR Emergencies
IFR Emergencies in Theory
IFR Emergencies in Practice
Unexpected Emergencies
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Part V: Commercial License
Chapter 21: Multiengine Flying in the Beechcraft Baron
Flying Multiengine Airplanes
Getting Up to Speed in the Baron
Doing Performance Takeoffs and Landings
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 22: Commercial Flight Maneuvers
Loading and Performance
Commercial Flight Maneuvers
Single Engine–Only Maneuvers
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 23: Flying with One Feathered
One Engine Down
Single-Engine Approaches and Landings
Additional Single-Engine Work
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Part VI: ATP and Beyond
Chapter 24: Multiplayer
Sharing the Virtual Skies
Playing Well with Others
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 25: Virtual Airlines and Online Flying
Virtual Airlines
Online Flying
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 26: Virtual Air Traffic Control
Pushing Tin
ATC Positions from the Ground Up
Key Points for Real Flying and FSX Built-ins
Chapter 27: Conclusion
Pelican’s Perspective
End User License Agreement
Microsoft® Flight Simulator X for Pilots: Real-World Training
Published by
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Copyright © 2007 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published simultaneously in Canada
ISBN: 970-0-764-58822-8
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Intro
Why Use Flight Simulator for Real-World Training?
“Flying is so many parts skill, so many parts planning, so many parts maintenance, and so many parts luck. The trick is to reduce the luck by increasing the others.”
–David L. Baker
Why We Fly
If you spend enough time around the airport, or just instructing students, you find that everyone comes to flying with a story. One of the secrets to good flight instruction is to find out what a student’s story is, because that’s how you find out what motivates them. That’s the reason they want to fly.
Some folks love the freedom of being in the air or traveling hundreds of miles in just a couple of hours. Some folks love the technical details and perfecting their technique. Some people even come to aviation to conquer their fear of heights or of flying itself. No matter what your story, however, some underlying drive–some passion–is motivating you and can be satisfied only by learning to fly.
So, what does that have to do with Flight Simulator? Well, flying is expensive, demanding, subject to the whims of weather and maintenance, and sometimes just doesn’t fit easily into the realities of our schedules. Flight Simulator lets you feed your passion when, for one reason or another, flying a real airplane is not an option or even desirable.
Even when flying is an option, developing your skills and knowledge using Flight Simulator can make your flying time more efficient and a lot more fun. Whisking your sweetheart away by air for a romantic island getaway sure beats banging out landing after landing trying to get it just right. Judicious use of Flight Simulator can make that island getaway a possibility just a bit faster.
How to Use This Book
This book mimics the path you might take after you decide to learn to fly, but it does not contain everything you need to know to fly an airplane. Instead, we focus on the items that Flight Simulator teaches well. We also give you the collateral information you would get during real flight training, such as checklists or examples of accidents that illuminate a point. The idea is to use Flight Simulator to give aspiring pilots the best head start possible and help virtual pilots create the most realistic experience.
These items are presented in a chronological order that starts with what a student pilot would learn and ends with a pilot preparing for an airline job. You don’t have to read these chapters in order, but at times we will reference something that we explained in an earlier chapter.
Student of the Craft
Some of Our Favorite Aviation Books
Too many great aviation texts are out there to list them all, but building a good aviation library is an important part of keeping up your skills as a pilot. Or, at least it’s a great excuse to collect a bunch of fun books. Here’s a short list to get you going if you need it. In addition, you might want to check out some of the flight manuals for the airplanes you fly in Flight Simulator. Many of them are available through historical aviation merchants and online.
Stick and Rudder, by Wolfgang Langewiesche. A classic since its publication in 1944, this is still arguably the best book on how an airplane flies described from the pilot’s point of view.
The Compleat Taildragger Pilot, by Harvey Plourde. This is our favorite book on flying tailwheel airplanes. It’s a great reference to help master the Cub.
Weather Flying, by Robert Buck. This is another classic on aviation weather written for the pilot in clear, easy-to-understand terms.
Seaplane Operations, by Dale De Remer and Cesare Baj. This is one of the best general texts on flying floatplanes and flying boats (FSX has both). It contains great graphics and some amazing photos.
Mountain Flying, by Doug Geeting and Steve Woerner. This book is hard to find, but we find it more approachable than Sparky Imeson’s classic of the same title. Sparky’s text is a great book too, though.
Basic Aerobatics, by Geza Szurovy and Mike Goulian. Read this book, and then strap on the Extra 300 to get a different attitude on flying.
Song of the Sky, by Guy Murchie. This book contains a series of essays from the golden era of aviation that give an interesting perspective on how far we’ve come in transport-category flying.
Wind, Sand, and Stars, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. This is arguably one of the most poetic books ever written on the early days of aviation and the people who made it possible.
Fate Is the Hunter, by Ernet Gahn. This is simply a classic and part of any pilot’s understanding about life (and death) in the air.
West with the Night, by Beryl Markham. This book contains true tales of early flying in Africa and the first east-to-west transatlantic crossing. It is beautifully written.
Federal Aviation Regulations and Aeronautical Information Manual, by the FAA. Calling this a favorite is a bit disingenuous. Who reads the rules just for fun? But the FAR-AIM is the bible of real-world flying in the United States. If you want your sim flying to be as real as it gets, fly according to these rules and procedures.
Procedure Training vs. Scenario-Based Training
Flight training has undergone a major shift in the past 10 years. A combination of change in certification standards for airplanes, liability laws, and the availability of cheap electronics has brought a number of complex and capable airplanes onto the general aviation (GA) market. The Garmin G1000 “glass cockpits” in several of the Flight Simulator X (FSX) aircraft are great examples of the kinds of computing power you might find in a GA cockpit.
All that computing power comes at a price. The amount of information a new pilot has to learn, and the amount of information any pilot has to integrate, has gone way, way up. Old-school flight training was based around teaching the procedures for flying an airplane–how the throttle works or how to fly around the traffic pattern in an airport, for example. That was fine when aircraft were fairly simple, but with so many complex systems on modern aircraft, a new system was needed to help pilots integrate thinking skills, technical skills, and physical motions that are needed to work together to use the airplane well.
That’s where scenario-based training comes in. Scenarios are kind of like those do-it-yourself stories you might remember from your childhood where you’d read a little bit and then have to make a choice between two actions, each with its own page number. After you chose, you went to that page to find out what happened, read a little more, make another choice, and so on. By the end of the book you could’ve found the pirate’s treasure or ended up stranded on a deserted island.
In scenario-based flight instruction, the instructor guides the student through a scenario where the student has to use all available resources to try to have a successful outcome. For example, while flying from airport A to airport B, the instructor might simulate a partial power loss to the engine. The student would have to fly the airplane in its impaired state, use the GPS to find an alternate airport, and troubleshoot the problem. There are no right or wrong answers, just choices and consequences.
FSX is a great tool for flying scenarios and practicing this integrated approach to flying. Even better than with a real airplane, FSX lets you set up any kind of wind or weather, stop and redo scenarios from any point, and even get the view from outside the airplane. Wherever possible, we’ll structure our training around scenarios that you can fly.
What’s on the Website
FSX comes with preinstalled flights that place you in a particular airplane at a particular airport, with some challenge to accomplish. For each of the lessons throughout this book, we have created our own flights and provided them on the website at http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0764588222,descCd-DOWNLOAD.html. All you have to do is load up the flight and turn to that section in this book to be ready to practice.
Flight instructors regularly demonstrate maneuvers or procedures to their students before asking the student to give it a try. Although we can’t sit down next to you at your home computer, we have used FSX’s flight recorder feature to record us demonstrating a maneuver so you can play it back and see it for yourself. Several of these flights are on the website.
To get the flights and movies onto your computer, you’ll need to move them to the correct FSX folder. Here’s what to do under Windows XP:
1. Go to www.wiley.com, and do a search for Flight Simulator X for Pilots.
2. Click the link for FSX Flights and Movies. You will be prompted whether you want to open or save the file. Save it somewhere you can find it later.
3. When the download is complete–and it might take a long time if you don’t have a broadband Internet connection–double-click the compressed folder you downloaded. It’s called FSX_Files.zip.
4. This should open the folder and show quite a few files. You can use the “Extract all files” link in the folder tasks on the left, or you can simply select all the files and choose Edit > Copy.
5. Open the My Documents folder on your computer.
6. Open the Flight Simulator X Files inside My Documents.
7. Choose Edit > Paste.
This should copy all the FSX flights and movies referenced in this book into your folder, so they will be available the next time you start FSX.
We’ve also included several other documents to help with your flight training, such as aviation charts. We’ll mention them as they come up in this book, and you can find on the website in a compressed file called Additional Files.zip.
Color versions of the black-and-white images in the book are also on the website under the “Book images” link and are organized by chapter.
and all the other pilots of tomorrow.
