I cant even fly a Cessna

[Mike Lynch 1148122]

Im using MS2004 and though ive tried the lessons, other than the two main gauges showing Altitude and the guage that shows your turn degrees and your up and down attitude, which are dead easy, I cant get the hang of navigating at all. I thinkl its the VOR gauge Im meant to use to navigate.

 

I take off from my home town Toowoomba Airport and try to fly to nrar by Oakey airbase and I cant even do that short trip.

 

Ive even been thinking of going to the Toowoomba airport and buying ntheir student flying manual!

 

Other than that, does anyone have anyother suggestions ?

 

Regards Mike.

[Shannon Wells]

Hi Mike

 

Why not try one of our VFR Events in VATPAC - http://vatpac.org/forums/showthread.php?t=11068

 

Shannon

[Mike Lynch 1148122]

Thanks Shannon, Ill give it a try for sure.

 

I just left Amazon.com and there were a few books on how to fly MS2004. Reviews ranged from 5 star to 1 star saying dont even bother.

 

This is one book that I thinkl could be very good

 

Microsoft Flight Simulator as a Training Aid: A Guide for Pilots, Instructors, and Virtual Aviators

Microsoft Flight Simulator as a Training Aid: A Guide for Pilots, Instructors, and Virtual Aviators

by Bruce Williams (January 1, 2007)

3.3 out of 5 stars (15)

15 Reviews

5 star:

(4)

 

Price: $19.77

 

35 used & new from $14.98

[Mike Lynch 1148122]

If all else fails Im going to have a couple of student lessons at the airport

 

Ive acually flow a fair few trimes with a airiel photographer, he used to let me do all the flying but I never asked him about navigation

[Wycliffe Barrett]

Mike

 

Save yoru money and just do the lessons in flight simulator. Tou will find them very helpful indeed.

 

It's not as hard as you think, also why not download a freeware program designed for VFR flying called Plan-G

 

http://www.tasoftware.co.uk/ you can get it from here. This will help immensley.

 

Wycliffe

[Mike Lynch 1148122]

Wycliffe,. Thanks. I will follow the link. I ave tried a lot the VOR lesson and I still dont understand it.

[Wycliffe Barrett]

The one thing to remember about vfr flying is that basically you look out the window and see where you are.

 

You would be amazed atthe number of real world pilots who use nothing mor ethan a road map, draw on it which way the want to go, to get to an airfield, marking landmarks and points of interest and away they go looking out the window as they fly.

 

When airmail flight was developed in the early days of flight in America, pilots would follow rds and telegraph lines, from town to town.

 

Many of these routes across America remain to this day and are of course called airways.

 

The UK is very different in as much as we dont have so much space, but we still have airways that where developed in the early days of flight.

 

PLan-G is exactly the same in as much as it links with FS and allows you to see where you are flying on either a moving map or a satallite image from Google maps. All very clever and Free.

 

Wycliffe

[Mike Lynch 1148122]

I just downloaded. Its getting late so ill see what its all about tomorrow. My only other complaint is im cannot find add on scenery for Queensland Australia !!!!

 

So thanks again and ill let you know how i get on.

 

PS. I am thinking of gettting a restricted pilots Lic. You can do it for as little as $3500.

[Wycliffe Barrett]

Do a search on Google for ORBX or something like that. It's Oz scenery.

 

Wycliffe

[Mike Lynch 1148122]

PLan-G was a hell of a big install on my Sempron 3200+

 

I think it had scenery for countless airports.

 

I did get an error after install but i think its going to work. I have now downloaded FSUIPC

as they said that was a requirement.

[Paul Byrne]

Hi,

 

Try this graphical tutorial on VOR/NDB etc. navigation:

http://www.visi.com/~mim/nav/

 

Hope this helps.

 

Cheers!

[Mike Lynch 1148122]

Thanks i will try that link but if I still fail Ive contacted a local group of flight simmers that will help

 

In the mean time Ive USED A KINGAIR WITH A GPS

[Mike Lynch 1148122]

Am I one of the vary few that cannot figure out VOR by myself, or a nicer way of putting it , do most of you figure it out by yourselves

 

I did follow that link and it still unclear. When the day comes that I do understand I am going to write a fools fool proof method of VOR that a monkey could understand

[Shannon Wells]

Hi Mike

 

As I suggested above... have a crack at flying/naving visually - i.e., using a comp[Mod - Happy Thoughts], at a certain speed, over certain time intervals... then throwing wind into the equation ...

 

As in the real world, master visual, before you go on Instruments... and have a look at the VATPAC page above, and log onto the teamspeak room, you'll find people in there who will be more than happy to help

 

I just did http://www.google.com.au/search?q=flying+a+VOR&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a ... and well, the first link I found was a good summary ... not sure what else you are after - what specifically are you struggling with?

 

Shannon

[Mike Lynch 1148122]

Thanks Shannon, those links are better than Ive yet come up with, Ive been asking too mmany forum questions and not enough searching of the type you obviously did !

 

As an absolute novice when the Controller(ive bnot yet tried multi player of any kind) asks me to hit number 1 for instance I figure that or the flight plan i make sets the VOR instuments for me.

 

Then I wonder why isnt it that all youm have to do is keep the VOR arrow centered to ensure your travelling in the right direction.

 

This does not seem to be the way VOR works. During my VOR 'lessons' my co-pilot always ends up saying "you seem distracted, I'm going to end the flight now'"

 

Well he couldn't be more wrong, Im concentrating so hard I got a headache

 

So thank you for your troubles, I will read carefully as many as those links you have suggested as it takes for me to understand.

 

Regard,

Mike

 

PS years ago I flew a lot with an ex air force pilot (family friend)who was then an aerial photographer. He let me take off, land and fly a lot while he took photographs. He was telling me to keep an arrow on a certain point but I did never really ask much about navigation, I left it to him and now Im kicking myself for about 10 flights in a Cessna and not being curious enough get him to explain navigation a bit more.

[Johnathon Neilsen 955672]

Hi Mike, I live in Toowoomba aswell, and Im currently taking up my CPL course through the DDAC. Their courses are great and I highly recommend them if you are even remotly interested in flying a plane. The Trial FLights start at $97 for 45 minutes, which is great!

 

Now your FS issue, the way I see it, if you can see whats way ahead of you clearly, just look out the window. If cant see a damn thing, then use your DME or VOR equipment. DME is particulary helpful in the case of trying to find a VOR, and Oakey VOR (OK) definetly has DME equipment available (because it is a Cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts] 2 Military Airfield ) The VOR frequency is 112.9 and a NDB also known as OK is available on 254.00. So you just pop thoe frequencies into your DME equipment, which you should know about if you've attempted the VOR lesson in FS.

 

I hope this information helps and if you need any further info let me know.

 

Johnathon.

[David Zhong]

I highly recommend that you have a look at the weekly Friday evening "VFR Operations" events, run by VATPAC. You can find out more at http://vatpac.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=17 Just looks for anything that starts with "VFR Operations"! This week the event will fly from Mallacoota to Bairnesdale.

[Andrew Pechmann]

Think of a VOR station as a little box that emits invisible lines in all 360 degrees with a range of roughly 40 nautical miles in any given direction (for a cessna or comperable altitute aircraft)

 

All you need to do is tune into the VOR frequency you want to fly into your NAV 1 Radio, and then look at your NAV1 Gauge. It has a little circular "selector" called and OBS (Omni bearing selector) This is just a fancy term for "the dial to set your desired radial"

 

Lets say you tune into your VOR station, we'll call it HOM (home) VOR. Pretend you are at an airfield 10 Miles south of the VOR station, your magnetic heading TO the station would be 360° or 0°. With your OBS, set the arrow at the top (again we're using a Cessna 172) to that 360 Heading, and voila, your needle inside the NAV1 Gauge will center up...You will also see a little triangle pointing upwards, this indicates you are on the 360° Radial TO the station! Simple right? Now if you were to set the OBS to 350°, you'll notice the needle will slide over to the right, this is because the 350 Radial TO the station is off to your right....I suggest intercepting the course anywhere between a 20° and a 45° cut...when that needle centers up, fly your 350° heading and again....like magic, you'll fly yourself right to that station! It's quite simple, but it does take a little bit of practice to understand. Flight Simulator is the cheapest, BEST way you can learn how to navigate outside of doing it in the real world.

 

I suggest you go to http://www.skyvector.com and look up your hometown airport. Find a nearby VOR station and practice flying to it from different headings!

 

I really hope my rambling made at least a little bit of sense! Good Luck and Have Fun, there is a whole new world waiting for you up here!

[Dennis Taylor 1142182]

Start here:

http://www.navfltsm.addr.com/basic-nav-general.htm

 

Learn to use dead reckoning first, then move on to ADF, VOR, etc. You shouldn't be looking at SIDS/STARS/Airways at this point. Start with 0 winds then progress to stronger winds, different wind directions, altitudes, etc. Good thing about sim is that you always have the GPS or map so you can verify your position.

[Mike Lynch 1148122]

Thank you al for al your post links. Also i just upgraded to FSX and there seems to be a lot more lessons, and i will get stuck into them.

 

 

I cheat a bit using GPS all the time as i have not yet understord VOR. I believe i should only use GPS as a backup not as as i do now.

 

I have a niggle obout my system, my joystic is very basic, I rember i had a joystic once that let me look out every window. THis one dosent but ill probably find keyboard controls that alows this.

 

Im still flying a cessna as thatis the plane i realy flew at least a dozen times for real. I find that when i try to fly a bigger twin engine kingair and such, that the cockpit does not show all controls as in the cessna, like even throttle you have to hit a key to show the throttle for an example.

I wanted to fly a faster plane t get to my destination much quicker and practicew just getting 'there' if I added an extraa monitor could i have all cockpit controls on different screens. Well i gues ill have to try that my self.

 

I do find the cessna very very similar to the ones i was flying. I have set the realistm setting as I found that that my landings were too forgiving by far.

 

find that not all flight instruments fit on the screen. just not enough room i guess on the cockpit view which is why i hope if i use a second monitor I can have everything , control in full view.

 

One last curiosity, there are so many planes and their cockpit controls i have no idea how to operate, is there any docomeentation on how to understand the more compley cockpits because they are hard even finding how to start the motor