Game Discussions Microsoft Flight Simulator

Para Handy

Para Handy
For people that want to actually learn about flying there exists many useful references on the net, you can't go wrong with downloading the FAA's free handbooks. Here are two links for the updated stuff:

Airplane Flying Handbook:

Airplane Flying Handbook

www.faa.gov www.faa.gov

and the Instrument Procedures Handbook:

Instrument Procedures Handbook (IPH)

www.faa.gov www.faa.gov

Download the pdfs and use them as reference, it is what iPads were made for. ;)

Don't forget to look on the site for other good stuff, the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge for example.
 
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Revenant69

Revenant69
Flight update: I'm finding IFR training is a very comprehensive subject, and one that requires a lot more basic control of the aircraft than I've been able to manage with a controller. It requires a lot of precise looking around and using the mouse to fiddle with dials while keeping the plane on a very steady course and I can't seem to get the hang of it with the imprecise nature of the controller itself. I'm sure I can muddle through, but I think having an accurate HOTAS with lots of intuitive buttons to assign is going to make a huge difference. Too bad that it's takes so long to get one.

On another front I've been having a LOT of fun just flying VFR using an economic sim addon called "OnAir" which is basically a modernized take on FSEconomy. It's pretty cool to have a "business" context to put all your flight endeavors into. When I look at MFS I can see awesome potential for rich immersion and learning for years to come, the added benefit being you're not really wasting time on a game but actually learning a real world skill that might benefit you someday.

One thing I'm curious about: does anyone know if Microsoft will eventually add more craft to the roster or is just going to be third party add-ons going into the future?
 

Juniper

Juniper
Revenant69 said:
One thing I'm curious about: does anyone know if Microsoft will eventually add more craft to the roster or is just going to be third party add-ons going into the future?
Click to expand...

Asobo have said they do want to add further craft (e.g. helicopters) further down the road, but it's not their focus at the moment. But you're looking at a 10 year minimum life cycle for this game, so it may be 5 years from now.
 

Revenant69

Revenant69
Juniper said:
Asobo have said they do want to add further craft (e.g. helicopters) further down the road, but it's not their focus at the moment. But you're looking at a 10 year minimum life cycle for this game, so it may be 5 years from now.
Click to expand...
I'll take what I can get. It's pretty academic for me anyhow as I bought the super duper premium deluxe grandiosity edition with thirty craft in it....and I've still only tried one so far. It'll probably take me 5 years to work through them all
 

Revenant69

Revenant69
Just had something happen that I don't understand. I was flying in the mountains of Wyoming in a 172 and reached a point where no matter what angle I had my nose pitched up to my plane began to stall and refused to climb. This started around 10,900 on the ALT. Even with the nose pitched up I just kept losing altitude. Ice was set to visual only, so I don't think that's it. Any ideas?

Edit: also, my fuel mixture was set to "automatic, not sure if that's reliable or not
 
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AkenBosch

AkenBosch
What was the indicated airspeed?
(As for the ceiling, can't remember the 172 one but it's surely well above 10000 ft)
 
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Revenant69

Revenant69
Fuel mixture was set to auto, what should it be at 11000-13000 feet?

My airspeed was very low, even trying to keep the nose level, probably around 60 knots
 

Faded Glory

Faded Glory
Well, at that altitude I imagine the mixture would want to be pretty lean - I'm no expert, but I'd have it around 40 - 60%. That squirrel fella did a video on fuel mix if you're interested.

Also, you are getting close to the maximum altitude for that aircraft which is given as 14,000 feet, but that's assuming standard temperature and pressure. So the other thing to consider is was your altimeter set correctly and therefore showing the correct altitude?
 

Revenant69

Revenant69
I don't know. I just tried it again and crashed the plane. It just gets to a certain point, around 10,800 and then not only won't it climb anymore, even with the airspeed indicator showing between 65-77 knots I'm still getting the stall warning and then losing altitude until I crash into the side of the mountain.
 

Faded Glory

Faded Glory
Well, not sure then, but I did just spawn quickly at Casper airport (in Wyoming) and the default altimeter setting of 29.92 gives an altitude of 5,090ft. Setting the altimeter to the correct location (pressure?) shows 30.16 with an altitude of 5,330ft. As I keep stressing, I'm not an expert, but I have noticed in some of my flights that the altimeter needs resetting even between airports, thus changing my altitude reading mid flight (this was in Alaska), so perhaps what is happening is that you are actually higher than you think, possibly taking you above the stated limit for the 172?

Also, which 172 are you using? I'm using the one from the standard game, the Skyhawk with the glass cockpit and that has a maximum altitude of 14,000 ft. It's again possible that if you are using the other one that comes with the upgraded games it has a lower maximum altitude.
 

AkenBosch

AkenBosch
Hardly that lower though. Haven't flown much with the 172, but the highest I have taken it has been on a tour around Mt. Etna, and while admittedly a bit of a slog on the way up, I could take it up the top of the volcano at around 11000ft and keep it there all the way to the Strait of Messina. Don't know how accurate the atmospheric simulation is, but maybe also to consider that I did that in late summer morning conditions, so if that gets taken into account I should have been flying in relatively hot and thus less dense air, not helping high altitude performance. I expect winter air over the mountains of Wyoming to be a good bit colder than the skies over Sicily in September.

Speaking of altitude: a few days ago I did my first turboprop flight, bringing the TBM 930 on a little trip around one of the landmarks of my region, if not THE landmark. The pyramid shaped peak of Monviso (also known as mountain-shaped mountain):

ElFBIEDWkAEdSFg.jpg

Damn this thing goes fast. I took off from my usual Aeritalia runway, west of Turin:
Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_Screenshot_2021.01.06_-_18.22.10.73.png

Less than 10 minutes later:
Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_Screenshot_2021.01.06_-_18.29.33.00.png

And another 5 minutes later:
Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_Screenshot_2021.01.06_-_18.32.19.17.png

A shame that gorgeous looking real time snow apparently didn't got carried over to the place it belonged the most. As of now, the entire arc of the Alps is majestically white, as it hasn't been in years. This is usually as it looks in summer. Bummer. (I'm a poet)

Once there, since the 930 felt like it could do whatever it wanted in the sky, I took it to the highest I've ever been so far in FS at 30000ft, for a brief detour of about 40 minutes that saw me crossing over the French border and then go back to land at Genoa.
I am glad I didn't end up using this for my ongoing Italy roundtrip, I would have made a complete tour in a couple days!

Bonus shot of the entire western half of Val Padana from 30000ft, from the Alps to the Tirrenian Sea.

Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_Screenshot_2021.01.06_-_18.45.40.22.png
 

Revenant69

Revenant69
Similar to the fever that gripped me when I first fell in love with ED I'm finding that MFS is slowly but surely ruining all of my single player story driven games.
 

Revenant69

Revenant69
Question for some experienced pilots: I was trying to familiarize myself with the Beechcraft instrument panel and I noticed that some of the toggle switches can be switched/dialed/toggled but have tool-tips that say "Inop" before the name of the switch. Any idea what that means? I suppose it could be short for "inoperable" but then why a tooltip?
 

Faded Glory

Faded Glory
Yes, inoperable, just means that Asobo haven't programmed the actions for those particular switches. They'd work in a real plane... :)

When you say they can be switched dialed or toggled - in my experience nothing happens with those particular switches, they are there because they are there in the real planes, but are not operable at all in the game.
 
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