Realistic Instrument Training using MSFS 2004

On Feb 14, 9:13 am, Mark Hansen wrote:
On 02/13/07 20:53, wrote:

[ snip ]



My biggest issue right now is that when (in a real airplane) I'm only
focusing on the instruments, things go very well. When I have to look
up a procedure or find an intersection and take my attention away from
the instruments: that's when the worms can come out of the ground!

That's a common problem for us "green" IFR pilots ;-)

My instructor would always say "Fly a little, look a little" as a reminder
to not lose focus on the attitude of the airplane while fiddling with the
GPS or some such task. It sounds so easy, but in practice it takes some
getting used to.

You are right about that! Maybe someday I will finally learn how to
divide my time effectively.
--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane
Cal Aggie Flying Farmers
Sacramento, CA

On Feb 14, 11:12 am, Roberto Waltman wrote:
"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" wrote:
wrote:
... want to use MSFS to practice (cheaply). I do fine with
holding a heading, but I find it very difficult to maintain an
altitude. The real plane is much much easier.

Absolutely the real aircraft is easier. You can feel the pressure against your
hand in the real airplane. MSFS has never duplicated that accurately.

Neither X-Plane. As Steve, I tried using both X-Plane and MSFS 2002 to
reinforce the procedures while getting my SEL private rating.
Specially landing procedures. (Here I slow down, here I open the flaps
one notch, etc.)
In the final stages, when I was getting consistently good comments on
my landings from my flight instructors (on three planes: C152, C172,
Cherokees) I still couldn't hold a stable approach on a simulator.
(And I also got a CH yoke & pedals, not via a joystick.)

Roberto Waltman

[ Please reply to the group,
return address is invalid ]

I having using MSFS from way back. I had many simulator hours years
before I finally got my private ticket in '99. Contrary to popular
opinion, I think it helped immensely (even with stick and rudder
skills) when I finally got around to flying for "real".

The one thing I didn't like on the simulator was crosswind landings, a
concept which took longer for me to get through my thick skull than it
should have!

You are right about holding a stable approach on the simulator. It
seems especially hard for me during an ILS approach. With a real
airplane it I have never have seen a full deflection of the needles;
it's common on the simulator!

Thanks Roberto.

writes:

I didn't know that scenery was still calculated even when not
visible.

It's not. If you put solid fog in your window, frame rates will rise
substantially.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Roberto Waltman writes:

In the final stages, when I was getting consistently good comments on
my landings from my flight instructors (on three planes: C152, C172,
Cherokees) I still couldn't hold a stable approach on a simulator.

You're probably depending a great deal on physical sensations. You can
probably get away with that on the aircraft you've been flying, but not all
aircraft (it's hard to fly by the seat of one's pants in an Airbus).

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

On 2007-02-14, wrote:

Of course if I 'ever' do learn how to control altitude in a simulator,
I suppose the plane would be cake!

I find the real thing easier, but I also find that everything in FS
seems to take forever compared to real life. If you want more challenge,
try setting the simulation speed to 2x or 4x and doing some approaches.
You think holding altitude is touchy now -- wait until your virtual 182
has an effective climb/descent rate of 4000FPM!

--
Ben Jackson AD7GD

http://www.ben.com/

writes:

I guess I have to disagree with you there. The first priority should
be keeping the airplane from stalling/spinning/spiraling into the
ground (AVIATE, navigate, communicate).

That is situational awareness. As long as you know the aircraft's attitude
and condition, you can avoid stalls, spins, and spirals. To know that in IMC,
you need to read the instruments.

How you actually fly the aircraft once you know your situation is irrelevant
to IFR. You can use the autopilot if you want, and in fact doing so will give
you more freedom to worry about other things. The actual flying of the
aircraft is no different in IFR from in VFR--the aircraft behaves the same way
and responds the same way. So you don't need to worry about that if you
already know how to fly in VFR. What you need to worry about is keeping
tracking of your position, altitude, attitude, and so on, so that you know
what control inputs to make.

This being so, it's not "cheating" to use an autopilot for IFR.

This is easy when using an autopilot, but unfortunately autopilots aren't
as common on light single engine aircraft as one would hope.

I personally would question the wisdom of flying anywhere IFR without an
autopilot, but it's not a regulatory requirement (at least in the U.S.).

Failure to Aviate seems to be the most popular method of killing yourself
in instrument conditions.

Yes. But still, if you have an autopilot, use it. In IFR the difficulty is
determining what to do--not actually doing it (which is the same as in VFR).

Put another way, "aviating" is the same in IFR as in VFR, when it comes to
controlling the aircraft.

The only setting I saw in MSFS for gauge quality is for 3D. I don't
use that mode when flying instruments, but maybe there's another
setting I haven't found yet.

There's that one, but there must be other internal settings because add-ons
often give more options. You can control the update rates for scenery and
instruments separately inside the simulator.

I've seen those advertised before, but I haven't met anyone who has
tried one. If they are that much better, I would be very willing to
buy one.

The Reality XP add-on instruments are astonishingly realistic--absolutely
smooth, photographically real in appearance, and they also do _everything_
that the real-world instrument does--all the buttons work, etc.

The Garmin GPS units from Reality XP use the same Garmin software as Garmin's
own simulations, so they are guaranteed to behave exactly like the real thing.
You can step away from the sim and into the cockpit and continue using the GPS
unit without skipping a beat.

The built-in GPS units are lame by comparison. The same holds true for quite
a few other instruments.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Ben Jackson writes:

I find the real thing easier, but I also find that everything in FS
seems to take forever compared to real life.

What do you mean? It's a real-time simulation.

It's true that the clock in MSFS tends to run slightly slow over long periods,
for some reason, but that isn't noticeable except when you check the clock
after flying for a few hours.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

On Feb 14, 1:28 pm, Mxsmanic wrote:
writes:
I guess I have to disagree with you there. The first priority should
be keeping the airplane from stalling/spinning/spiraling into the
ground (AVIATE, navigate, communicate).

That is situational awareness. As long as you know the aircraft's attitude
and condition, you can avoid stalls, spins, and spirals. To know that in IMC,
you need to read the instruments.

How you actually fly the aircraft once you know your situation is irrelevant
to IFR. You can use the autopilot if you want, and in fact doing so will give
you more freedom to worry about other things. The actual flying of the
aircraft is no different in IFR from in VFR--the aircraft behaves the same way
and responds the same way. So you don't need to worry about that if you
already know how to fly in VFR. What you need to worry about is keeping
tracking of your position, altitude, attitude, and so on, so that you know
what control inputs to make.

This being so, it's not "cheating" to use an autopilot for IFR.


I don't want to have my life dependent on a working autopilot, so I am
purposely avoiding it for now I understand that the airplane doesn't
know if it's in the clouds, but I can sure tell. Being able to fly
without an autopilot, and using only the instruments as a reference is
a HUGE part of my training.

That said, once I have my rating I will take advantage of everything
(autopilot, handheld GPS) at my disposal. But I still intend to
practice partial panel, no autopilot, no GPS so I don't get too rusty.


This is easy when using an autopilot, but unfortunately autopilots aren't
as common on light single engine aircraft as one would hope.

I personally would question the wisdom of flying anywhere IFR without an
autopilot, but it's not a regulatory requirement (at least in the U.S.).

It sure is a lot more interesting when all you have are the "steam
gauges". But I agree with you that autopilots do make life easier
(and safer).


Failure to Aviate seems to be the most popular method of killing yourself
in instrument conditions.

Yes. But still, if you have an autopilot, use it. In IFR the difficulty is
determining what to do--not actually doing it (which is the same as in VFR).

When your autopilot breaks, there is also difficulty in actually doing
it.


Put another way, "aviating" is the same in IFR as in VFR, when it comes to
controlling the aircraft.

The only setting I saw in MSFS for gauge quality is for 3D. I don't
use that mode when flying instruments, but maybe there's another
setting I haven't found yet.

There's that one, but there must be other internal settings because add-ons
often give more options. You can control the update rates for scenery and
instruments separately inside the simulator.

I've seen those advertised before, but I haven't met anyone who has
tried one. If they are that much better, I would be very willing to
buy one.

The Reality XP add-on instruments are astonishingly realistic--absolutely
smooth, photographically real in appearance, and they also do _everything_
that the real-world instrument does--all the buttons work, etc.

The Garmin GPS units from Reality XP use the same Garmin software as Garmin's
own simulations, so they are guaranteed to behave exactly like the real thing.
You can step away from the sim and into the cockpit and continue using the GPS
unit without skipping a beat.

The built-in GPS units are lame by comparison. The same holds true for quite
a few other instruments.

I went to Reality XP's website, and they had a side by side comparison
of the "stock" gauges, and their product. Amazing. One of the planes
I fly (and will be training in) has the Garmin 430, so I might be
downloading that as well. Thanks for the tip.

Steve


--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Use it for procedures (only). MSFS is a great way to keep the proper
habits/procedures when you aren't really flying. Forget about using it
for manipulation of controls - with regard to transferring those
"skills" to a real airplane.

For example -

wrote:
Hi All,

I'm a longtime lurker here, but now I have a question I hope the group
can help me with. I am working toward my instrument rating (21 hours
so far), and want to use MSFS to practice (cheaply). I do fine with
holding a heading, but I find it very difficult to maintain an
altitude. The real plane is much much easier. I also noticed that
even when the scenery flies by smoothly (when I'm in VMC!) the
instruments seem to update at a slower rate. Not quite a slide show,
but harder than it should be to control. I've tried fiddling with
the realism and sensitivity settings to no avail. I have noticed a
number of folks posting on this group use this simulator to maintain
proficiency, and I was just wondering how you have it set up.

FYI...I'm using the CH products USB Flight Sim yolk, and the CH USB
rudder pedals. The computer seems plenty fast enough with a 256MB
graphics card. Like I mentioned before, everything is very smooth
except for the instruments refreshing.

Thanks everyone!

Steve

VFR flying is different than IMC - when using VFR rules your eyes should
be outside the cockpit - not inside on the instruments. In many ways an
instrument approach - even partial panel - is simpler - there are fewer
things to look at/be aware of.

Of course, if your flying experience is limited to MSFS then it is all
the same.

Mxsmanic wrote:
Roberto Waltman writes:


In the final stages, when I was getting consistently good comments on
my landings from my flight instructors (on three planes: C152, C172,
Cherokees) I still couldn't hold a stable approach on a simulator.


You're probably depending a great deal on physical sensations. You can
probably get away with that on the aircraft you've been flying, but not all
aircraft (it's hard to fly by the seat of one's pants in an Airbus).