Realistic Instrument Training using MSFS 2004

wrote:
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.


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



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,


When I'm flying the sim IFR (which is 99% of the time... I fly a real airplane
when I want to see something), I have the sim set to fly solid IFR with 300 foot
ceilings at night. I waste very little resources on outside views.



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.


Yolks are the yellow parts of eggs; I think you mean the yoke. But I digress.
On the top of the left horn of that yoke is a vertical toggle; assign the trim
to that toggle so it's just like the electric trim in a Cherokee. Trim is
everything in getting your altitude hold under control.

You know, the first thing to go when you don't fly enough solid IFR is your
instrument scan. That's where the flight sim comes in very handy. I had been
out of flying for 15 years and then passed a IFR comp check with minimal
difficulty because I got my scan going with MSFS. I was all over the sky to
start with (in the sim) but by the time I climbed into a real airplane with a
CFII, my scan was sharp again. And the leading cause of difficulties in flying
IFR is a slow scan. You fixate on something while everything else is going to
hell in a handbasket.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com