Since I got back into home flight simulation, I look forward to the winter as the cold weather guarantees a few more weekends that I get to spend indoors, guilt-free. The winter makes it easier to schedule a weekend afternoon flight in my flight simulator, no matter what the real weather is doing outside.

One goal I set was to begin the BVARTCC WINGS series of training flights, which are self-paced and available to be flown whenever there are live air traffic controllers from the VATSIM service controlling the Greater Boston airspace online.

To help complete the WINGS program, I set the secondary goal of learning to use the G1000 for IFR flying, with the BVARTCC WINGS flights serving as an ideal live training environment. The volunteer VATSIM air traffic controllers watch and assess each WINGS flight and issue a pass or fail rating at the end, turning each into a mini-check ride, all from the comfort of your home  simulator. The WINGS flights also require that pilots follow the correct communication and navigation procedures for transition in and out of the airspace in the Greater Boston Class Bravo.

Although many sim pilots have flown the full series of BVARTCC WINGS flights, I am always surprised at how few real-world pilots are aware that this program exists and can be completed with only a basic flight simulator.

The BVARTCC WINGS training program is broken down into six VFR flights, typically flown first, and then 24 IFR flights, all designed to be flown sequentially. As stated in the introductory reading, a BVARTCC club member may fly the flights in any order, and skip flights, but you must eventually fly all 30 flights to become a WINGS graduate.

In summer 2022, when I began the WINGS VFR flights, I decided to fly each of them in order, predicting that I would enjoy the learning and preparation required to successfully pass them. Each flight features increasing levels of difficulty requiring some studying and preflight planning before launching on them.

I found that the WINGS VFR program was an enjoyable way to knock the rust off my VFR Class D, C, and B airspace and communication skills as I prepared for the start of the WINGS IFR program. My relatively slow pace fit my learning goals and available free time, but if you take up the challenge of the WINGS program, you can choose the speed that works for you, provided you fly each flight when there are controllers actively managing the airspace.

BVARTCC publishes a schedule of controller coverage and updates its discord channel when volunteer controllers are working the airspace so you can plan ahead for your flights. When flying in the BVARTCC, you are expected to set your simulator to the live weather conditions.

Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) and X-Plane (XP) will reference current METARs based on your departure airport, which are updated roughly every 15 minutes, and will build the weather conditions in the simulator to match the real world. Each flight simulation program has its strengths and weaknesses concerning the execution of live weather in the simulation. Your experience will vary.

• READ MORE: Here Are 2 Quick VFR Flights to Try on Your Home Flight Simulator

However, one benefit of METAR-based live weather is that you can use ForeFlight or Navigraph on your tablet or secondary screen to check the weather at your departure and destination and have confidence that you’ll experience those conditions when you are flying in-sim. Accurate winds and barometric pressure settings are important components to using live air traffic control services like VATSIM so that weather conditions you’re experiencing in the sim are the same as the controllers are referencing when assigning runways for takeoff and landing.

I also set the simulator to the current time of day so that daylight changes realistically over the course of my flight. There are some additional basic hardware and software items you should have on your PC to get the most out of flying in the BVARTCC with live air traffic control. See the “Introduction” and “Getting Started” tabs of the WINGS section of the BVARTCC website for more information.

WINGS IFR 1: Introduction to IFR

The WINGS IFR 1 is aptly titled the Introduction to IFR flying. It is the IFR equivalent to a trip around the traffic pattern at KBOS.

To successfully pass the flight, one must file and fly the LOGAN4 departure, with vectors expected to bring the aircraft around to intercept the ILS approach back to the active runway for landing. All of the taxiing and ground movement must be done correctly as well, requiring full attention from startup to shutdown. Making a major taxiing mistake would fail the flight, so my iPad running ForeFlight was prepped with the aircraft checklist, map (zoomed in for taxiing) and the ILS chart for the active runway preloaded onto the “Plates” tab.

KBOS ranks well within the top 10 busiest airports in the VATSIM system measured by total aircraft movements per year. In the real-world, KBOS is typically just inside the top 30 for all international airports, but in VATSIM, KBOS is well-liked for its dynamic New England weather and challenging wind conditions.

It also is a popular destination for sim pilots who depart from Europe and fly across the Atlantic ocean and time their flights to conclude when there’s live ATC coverage from VATSIM controllers at KBOS. Someday I hope to make that cross-ocean journey, once my IFR and widebody jet operational knowledge is at the requisite level for the undertaking.

• READ MORE: Our Pilots of the Future May Share Sim Stories

With cross-ocean goals in the back of my mind, my journey into IFR flying began at the Signature Flight Support ramp on the northwest side of KBOS as it is the main parking area for general aviation aircraft. The winds were 19kts, gusting 28kts (above my personal minimums in the real world) and the Cessna 172—the recommended aircraft for this flight—was rocking in its chocks when I began the engine start procedures.

MSFS models wind noise, and I could hear the wind blowing and the airplane creaking while I started working through the checklist. With the engine running, I checked the ATIS, dialed in the correct frequency to request my IFR clearance and patiently waited my turn to key the mic.

The volunteer controllers do a great job managing “the weekend rush” of flight sim pilots seeking to fly while the airspace is live and I did my best to bide my time between the pushback requests, taxi instructions and other sim pilots opening their IFR flight plans. There aren’t always enough volunteer controllers to completely staff a given airport or airspace, so we all do our part to share this valuable resource as the controllers often have to stretch themselves across the clearance, ground, and tower communication roles.

Sometimes there are waits to get started but I’m always comforted by the fact that no real avgas is being burned. The busy communication frequencies offer the added challenge of being succinct on the radio when it is your time to push to talk.

After 10 minutes, I found my opening, asked for and then nervously read back my clearance, certain that all the other sim pilots could hear how green I was. As instructed, I filed my flight plan before starting my flight so that the controllers had my virtual flight strip on their display ahead of time. Soon I was following the taxiing toward Runway 9 following at least six aircraft taxiing ahead of me, holding at various intersections, with more sim pilots receiving their permissions for pushback from their respective gates. I could see three aircraft in the air on final for Runway 4-Right.

Until this point, I had never experienced such a busy live flight sim environment, and it was really exciting and immersive. The frequency was jammed with controllers conducting the symphony of aircraft movement, and from listening I could tell that there were pilots from all across the world taking part in this flight simulation experience.

• READ MORE: Highlights From FlightSimExpo 2024

Accents from the United Kingdom and the southern United States mixed in with pilots from New England, the Midwest, Latin America, and Germany as well. The international and domestic mix of pilots felt and sounded just like the real KBOS on a normal day.

Passing intersection Charlie on taxiway Bravo, my Ground controller offered me a takeoff from Runway 4-Left. I fumbled for the LOGAN4 departure chart on ForeFlight to verify the amended takeoff instruction, a quick reminder that the simulated IFR flight environment can be dynamic and that I must also be ready for a change of plans.

The 4L takeoff prevented me from waiting in the growing line of airliners cueing for Runway 9. Soon I was cleared for takeoff and lifting off from 4L, fighting the gusty conditions, keeping focused on my departure heading and altitude while awaiting my first turn to heading 090. Being vectored through the busy airspace was even more exciting than my usual flight sim adventures as I could hear and see the aircraft I would be joining shortly on final approach.

The visual resolution of other traffic is not what you are accustomed to in real-world flying. Still, it is usually easy to see the navigation lights and a distant but somewhat blurry shape of the aircraft near you making see-and-avoid relatively easy. I had been handed off to Boston Approach and was soon given my final vectors to intercept the localizer for 4R.

Switching back to Boston Tower, I received my clearance to land and tried to keep my approach speed up to minimize the impact of the traffic needing to slow behind me. On short final, I could see one airliner in the air and three aircraft waiting to takeoff on Runway 9.

There would be a small audience for my landing, but I needed to shift my focus to the lateral and vertical guidance of the ILS on my G1000 PFD while trying to maintain the centerline amid a blustery winter afternoon. Although it wasn’t the smoothest landing, I was happy to be back on the ground and safely clear of 4R. Departures on Runway 9 resumed and the controller let me know I had passed the WINGS IFR 1.

Being careful to follow the taxi instructions back to the ramp at Signature, I was excited and relieved to have my first IFR flight in the books. The busy and short flight in the IFR system required my full attention, and was a fitting introduction to IFR flying. I was grateful the live weather was VFR and not at minimums.

I couldn’t have known at that time, but my next IFR flight, the WINGS IFR 2, was going to be flown in actual instrument flight conditions and would really test my rookie IFR flying skills and sim pilot decision-making.

WINGS IFR 2: VOR Navigation

To begin the WINGS IFR 2 flight, I loaded into my Cessna 172 G1000 at the Signature Flight Support ramp at Boston Logan where my WINGS IFR 1 had concluded. The weather for the afternoon flight was 3 miles visibility, light rain and ceilings around 1,000 feet, with winds at 16 knots, gusting 27 knots.

Today’s flight would take me from Boston to Providence, Rhode Island (KPVD), via the TEC route found in the FAA’s preferred route database. The purpose of the flight was to build experience navigating with the VOR radio and then land at Providence using the ILS approach onto the active runway.

Per the instructions, I filed the LOGAN4 departure, received my clearance and began my taxi. Preemptively this time, I asked the tower controller if I could depart off 4L, which would keep me out of the snarl of airliners waiting their turn for takeoff. I quickly double-checked the departure instructions, received my takeoff clearance and was soon climbing up into the soup, fighting to stay on the correct heading while being pushed around by the winds.

After a few vectored turns I was given the ATC instruction “Direct to PVD,” and turned the CRS knob on my G1000 PFD to select a radial to follow to the PVD VOR. The CDI “needle” allowed me to finetune my course to the PVD VOR, and I was on the way to Providence.

Climbing to 4,000 feet, my filed altitude, I was mostly in the clouds, occasionally getting glimpses to either side or a quick look at the sky above. It was an airborne mess of conditions I had heretofore avoided as a private pilot and as a sim pilot. The late afternoon winter sun was breaking through the clouds and the light rain on the ground at KBOS had turned to freezing rain.

I made small lateral changes to try and avoid going through thick clouds where I anticipated the rain becoming more intense. There was turbulence to contend with, and it moved the airplane around a lot, but I decided to keep hand-flying the 172 for the practice of juggling the simultaneous responsibilities of aviating, navigating and communicating with ATC.

The westerly winds I was flying against were slowing my groundspeed and the freezing rain was starting to adhere to the outside of my 172, creeping up onto the windscreen and attracting my attention. I switched on the cabin heat and pitot heat and thought about what options I had if the icing proceeded to get worse.

With the sunlight changing the color of the clouds above me, I estimated the top of the broken layer to be at 4,500 feet and figured I was one request away from a climb out into clear air, which represented my best chance for the ice to sublimate off the surfaces of the 172. ATC surprised me, letting me know there was traffic transitioning at 5,000 feet and I would need to manage at my current altitude.

I knew I had the option to declare an emergency but that would have concluded my WINGS IFR 2 flight early, without a passing grade. The icing had covered about 50 percent of my windscreen, but it was not immediately getting worse. Looking left and right, I couldn’t see a significant amount of buildup on the leading edge of the wing and still had normal control authority, so I decided to hang in there, hoping that the forecast of 5 miles visibility and a 3,000-foot ceiling at Providence was going to hold up.

The ride was not improving, and I was constantly chasing my heading and altitude in moderate turbulence. No physical discomfort in my sim cockpit, but the aircraft was moving around a lot, more than I had seen before. Having never flown in clouds for an extended amount of time, I was keeping focused on my basic instrument scan of the G1000 PFD, which included watching the attitude indicator, the altitude, the vertical speed tape, the turn coordinator arrows, and the CDI/needle of the VOR. Coming in and out of the freezing rain and into the momentary gaps of sunlight made for dynamic visuals and enhanced immersion caused by the high-fidelity winter weather modeling.

After about 30 minutes en route, I had flown over the Providence VOR and was now south of Quonset State Airport (KOQU). I was out of the cloud bank now and being given vectors to intercept the ILS for Runway 5. I had the chart loaded onto my iPad and I switched my nav radio to the correct frequency. I was vectored back to the ILS about 12 miles south of KPVD and used the extra time to think ahead of the airplane and I quickly briefed the anticipated turns and descent required to pick up the final approach course.

ATC cleared me onto the approach and then quickly cleared to land since I was the only aircraft in the area. With clouds behind me, and a low cloud deck over the Providence Airport, it got significantly darker and the wind blew my 172 all over the approach. Although the freezing rain had stopped, the cloud deck over Providence was lower and the visibility was less than what the METAR had reported before I left Boston.

The icing on my windscreen hadn’t melted and turned the approach lighting to Runway 5 into a fuzzy blur ahead of me. Fighting the wind gusts, I kept my focus on the localizer and glideslope, with occasional visual checks through the windscreen ahead.

On final approach 1.5 miles out and 500 feet above ground, I kept my speed up and my flaps at 20 degrees as I encountered low-level wind shear causing large changes on the vertical speed tape and my aircraft to shudder noticeably. Clearing the “fence” just before Runway 5 at Providence, the gusty surface winds pushed the 172 back and forth across the centerline as I tightened my grip on the yoke and worked corrections on the rudders. 50 feet above the runway, I pulled back on the throttle and tensed for a brisker than normal landing.

Once I made contact with the surface, it took a lot of rudder input to keep the airplane on the cement as I had a roughly 30-degree crosswind and wind gusts that threatened to push me into the grass. Finding an opening on the frequency, I made my clear-of-the-runway call and the controller let me know I had passed the WINGS IFR 2.

In my parking spot on the ramp in front of the Atlantic Aviation FBO building, I reflected on the strain and challenge of the 40-minute flight from Boston as the wind whipped over the control surfaces of the just shutdown 172. It was my first short cross-country flight in the IFR system, my first encounter with simulated icing conditions in the clouds and it was a challenge from start to finish with the moderate turbulence and gusty winds. Also, I was challenged to rely on VOR navigation as my main navigation source, not having done that since my private pilot training.

Admittedly, the G1000 PFD in CDI mode offered some additional situational awareness compared to a traditional steam gauge instrument and I was also running ForeFlight on my iPad.

I justify the ForeFlight map as it really aids in situational awareness since my flight simulator is connected to a single 4K TV and does not provide the peripheral vision you have in a real airplane. I use the moving map in ForeFlight to help supplement what I would normally see outside the airplane. I had made the flight more challenging by deciding to hand-fly it but I wasn’t confident that I could manage the automation provided by the autopilot and the other variables.

In future WINGS IFR series flights, I’ll need to be able to use the autopilot proficiently, so I noted this as an area for additional practice. It is one of the many features of the G1000 that I will need to better understand before getting deeper into the WINGS program.

The weather en route provided the biggest challenge, and I now had my first minutes of simulated IMC under my belt. I also contemplated how close I came to a very serious icing situation in the 172, knowing that it had no Flight-Into-Known-Icing capability. I’d like to think that I would never have found myself in that situation in a real airplane, but I was glad to have experienced it in my simulator first. Also, I’m careful to make sure the experience doesn’t build any false confidence, the images I have seen of the real icing lead me to believe that I narrowly avoided a situation that could have doomed my flight.

The MSFS2020 experience was all in the digital world, but the fidelity of it was impressive and the decision- making it prompted resulted in real stress and discomfort from the task saturation I encountered.

This feature first appeared in the May 2024/Issue 948 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Earning Your Winter WINGS appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Over 2,000 simulator enthusiasts, a new attendance record, gathered in the comfort of the air conditioning inside the Rio Las Vegas Hotel & Convention Center while near-record heat scorched the city’s world-famous strip and surrounding desert.

Here are the news highlights from FlightSimExpo 2024:

Flight Simulation Software

Development teams from the two most popular flight simulator software titles provided updates on their current and future development schedules, outlining new features:

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (MSFS2024): MSFS2024 will be a new, stand-alone, flight simulator—not an update to the current MSFS software, with a planned launch date of November 19. Jorg Neumann and Sebastian Wloch, who together head up the development of the MSFS software titles and represent a worldwide workforce of 800 employees, took the stage on Saturday afternoon and shared some key highlights about the upcoming 2024 release:

• Airliner news was the main focus of the new aircraft updates, with the development team confirming that the Airbus A330, Boeing 737 Max, A400M, Twin Otter and Stemme S12 glider will be new aircraft expected at launch. Also announced were real airline liveries, adding to the overall realism and immersion in-sim. 
• Approximately 30 different types of ground vegetation will enhance the ground scenery and the changes of season, a new feature in MSFS 2024.
• Improved and more accurate flight dynamics, including aircraft wake turbulence, which will disperse in-sim after six minutes. New to MSFS 2024, the improved CFD model will cause trees and vegetation to bend and move in reaction to jet wash.
• Improved cloud modeling, which will include cirrus clouds and improved cloud lighting
• A working replay function, allowing users to capture video replays from in-sim will make its debut in MSFS2024, a sorely missed function of the current MSFS software
• A team from Microsoft will be back at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in 2025. The company has attended the last few years of the show, exposing real-world pilots and aviation enthusiasts to the flight simulation experience. They will miss Oshkosh 2024 due to its proximity to the MSFS2024 launch.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS2020): The team recapped a few highlights about MSFS 2020. In four years, the development team issued 48 updates, had over 15 million unique members, and over 1 billion total flight sessions—all since the August 2020 launch. Community developers and members have built over 5,000 add-ons, including aircraft, features, challenges/events, airports, and other scenery. These items have helped to enrich the experience and speak to the dedication and passion in the flight simulation community supporting MSFS. Calming the flight sim community’s concerns that MSFS 2020 would not be supported after the launch of MSFS 2024,  Neumann confirmed that MSFS 2020 will continue to be updated monthly until 2028.  Watch the full update video here. 

• READ MORE: Taking Risks at a Trio of Mount Rainier Airstrips, Virtually

X-Plane 12 (XP-12): Sim pilots of the popular flight sim title can expect performance updates as early as Q3/Q4 of 2024. These will be driven by structural updates to the software, allowing XP12 to utilize multicore CPU processing, providing better overall sim performance. The development team at X-Plane is also working on a user-tunable visual improvement to the light exposure in the cockpit, allowing a greater degree of detail in the cockpit in sunny conditions. The X-Plane store is being updated to be fully integrated into the XP12 software. It has always been a separate marketplace, found on the web, and will now offer the X-Plane developers greater control over the quality of third-party add-ons and will benefit developers with increased digital rights management controls.

Artificial Intelligence

AI was a main theme of the expo presenters, as software developers were keen on incorporating the technology’s advanced learning capabilities into new applications for use in flight simulation. Falling costs for premium AI services allowed some developers of AI-driven software products to lower their monthly subscription fees, drawing enthusiastic applause from the audience. 

Development in the flight simulator industry occurs at an extremely rapid pace as evidenced by a new category of software add-ons providing AI-powered air traffic control services to flight sim pilots looking to replace the “stock” ATC that comes with popular flight simulation software titles.

• SayIntentions.AI is a service that works for both MSFS and X-Plane 11/12, offering full VFR and IFR AI-powered ATC services and new functions, including a flight instructor whom users are encouraged to have a conversation with while flying. Other new features include a tour guide for sightseeing and three versions of AI cabin crews for sim pilots flying airliners. With a touch of showmanship, the chief technology officer of the company happily announced a new lower monthly subscription price of $19.95, down from an earlier price of $29.95.
• FlyShirley.com is an AI service paired with X-Plane 12 that was described as an AI-powered coach, copilot, and guide for all of your flight simulator adventures. Interestingly, you can ask “Shirley” to tell you the weather ahead or recommend a nearby airport with favorable winds. See if this AI companion is for you with a free trial available at the company’s website.

Hardware

Hardware updates were the second most popular category of announcements at FlightSimExpo 2024:

WinWing: It drew big applause from the crowd by announcing new and lower priced EFIS and CDU controls to be paired with popular A320 and 737 aircraft in both MSFS and X-Plane 11/12. The company also teased a full set of fighter jet controls, avionics, throttles, and switch panels in an impressive launch video. Check out the WinWing hardware on a new flight simulator chassis called Dogfight Dynamics—also new to Flight Sim Expo 2024 (see photo below).

FliteSim.com: The new entrant to the flight sim hardware market announced the successful completion of its recent Indiegogo campaign and the shipping dates for its first production run of a competitively priced force feedback yoke. Two models are available, offering different strengths of resistance.

The base CLS-60 comes with a yoke design modeled after the C172, with a 737 yoke available for purchase as a do-it-yourself upgrade. Also available is a stronger 120N motor that can also be replaced if the user wants more force feedback offered by the stock 60N unit.

• READ MORE: Remembering the Most Successful Carrier-Based WWII Fighter

The CLS-60 offers a maximum pitch force of 13.5 pounds, and the CLS-120 offers a maximum pitch force of 27 pounds, which company founder Fabian Lim, an accomplished real-world pilot, equated to “a real workout.”

Both the CLS-60 and 120 yokes offer tunable behavior for all envelopes of flight, so the user can dial in the realism for the aircraft they fly. Units are available to order now (see photo below).

New Aircraft

No flight simulator expo would be complete without a quick update from flight sim development studios announcing new aircraft launching into MSFS and X-Plane.

Building airliner-sized aircraft can be a multiyear undertaking involving small teams dedicated to getting the flight model and all the complex systems right. Many developers work with real-world pilots of these aircraft to make sure they are authentic representations of the real-world machines. Thousands of hours of software development and thousands of photographs combine into models that are highly accurate.

• Bluebird Simulations announced a new Boeing 757 model coming to MSFS later this year, with a Boeing 767 and 787 to follow. It shared photos of measurements being taken on the flight deck of a real aircraft and that laser scanning was done to increase rhetorical accuracy. Committed to unparalleled visual and systems accuracy, the yoke is modeled to be accurate down to a few millimeters in size. 
• For those pilots wishing to experience the golden age of jet airliners, Nimbus Simulations announced the Boeing 707 being developed for X-Plane 12, complete with full working systems and modeling.

The team here at FLYING will continue to bring you updates from the world of flight simulation, including news and flight sim hardware reviews. 

The post Highlights From FlightSimExpo 2024 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The news announced Sunday marks the most recent update to the massively popular Microsoft Flight Simulator (MSFS) that came out in September 2020. 

The release, which is set for November 19, is a few months later than initial speculation that pointed toward a potential September launch. Given all of the improvements that are coming in the new title, there is a lot to look forward to. 

In 2020, MSFS captured the imagination and attention of real-world pilots, flight simulator enthusiasts, and aviation fans around the world during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic when many were still on lockdown and were drawn to the title’s sophisticated graphics and renewed offerings. 

• READ MORE: What Is the Best Flight Simulator?

Earlier this year, the Microsoft team reported that 12 million unique users have played MSFS since its launch nearly four years ago and that streaming game service Steam is reporting a consistent and strong monthly user base. 

In addition, the flight simulation community has developed hundreds of free or low-cost aircraft, airports, and components of the flight sim to further improve upon the basic or premium content packages and functionality offered in MSFS.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is expected to build on the success of MSFS, improve upon some of the weaknesses, and grow the overall offerings within the sim:

New Aircraft 

Building on the wide range of aircraft in MSFS, pilots will be able to fly many commercial airliners and a variety of specialized mission-specific airplanes. Hot-air balloons were an eye-catching part of the new trailer. 

New Career Path Functionality

MSFS2024 will introduce a new set of aviation career modes to pair with the new aircraft offerings. These will include aerial firefighting, search and rescue, Red Bull air racing, air ambulance services, and cargo transport by fixed wing aircraft and helicopters. New career modes and objectives will more closely resemble real-world civil aviation activities.

New Weather Conditions

The weather system in MSFS 2024 will receive a major overhaul and include additional  conditions for pilots to manage, including tornadoes, large storms, and dynamic seasons—a long-awaited feature not available in MSFS2020. 

Failure, Wear & Tear

In addition to new, more dynamic weather conditions, new aircraft failure modes and a wear-and-tear system in MSFS2024 will provide deeper immersion as sim pilots will need to properly manage these aircraft systems

Cloud-Based Data Storage, Shorter Load Times

Any current MSFS user has gotten used to the annoyance of the long wait required before the sim is ready for flight. Using cloud-based data storage and other technical performance improvements should shorten the title’s load time.  

The MSFS2024 development team is expected to provide additional details during Flight Sim Expo 2024 in Las Vegas from June 21 to June 23.

The post Launch Date Set for ‘Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024’ appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

To mitigate that, I chose two short flights that can be accomplished in a normal evening’s flight sim session. My selection criteria was to fly my first flight in New England, between two airports that I flew out of when I was training to complete my private pilot certificate. The second flight was a departure and destination in a part of the world where I had zero experience and no prior knowledge of the topography. The idea was to use the first flight of the evening as a warmup with the familiar and then end the night with the challenge of the unknown.

To add to the fun, I met up with a friend of mine from college in the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS2020) multiplayer environment so that we could pilot the flights together in a very loose formation. My friend was just getting back into flight simulation after many years away from the hobby. We used Discord, the free communication app, to stay connected during the flights. Although we flew on MSFS2020, these flights are software-agnostic, and you can easily fly them on X-Plane 11 or XP12. Across both flights, there was only a short time spent in cruise, allowing all phases of the flight to occur quickly, adding to the challenge of staying ahead of the airplane. As a result, both flights delivered adequate feelings of accomplishment and a chance to enjoy a fun, aviation-themed experience from home.

Flight 1, The Familiar: New England Island Hop

• Purpose: Sightseeing
• Software: MSFS2020 with free enhanced airports from www.Flightsim.to
• Route: Departed Nantucket (KACK) Runway 24 to Katama Airpark (1B2) Runway 3
• Aircraft: Cessna 208 Caravan
• Conditions: Summer; live weather, adjusted to midday at noon local time
• Distance: 22 nm
• Time en route: 14 minutes
• Modification: If you are interested in roughly doubling your flight time, I recommend you depart from Block Island (KBID), especially if you have never flown out of the 2,500-foot runway.

After getting Discord set up outside of the flight sim environment, we met up on the ramp at Nantucket, Massachusetts (KACK), using the multiplayer function in MSFS2020. My friend’s father was an active pilot during his childhood and even flew one of the B-17s that toured the country during the 1980s and ’90s.

Since we both share an interest in all things aviation, I jumped at the opportunity to welcome him back into the exciting world of flight simulation, especially considering all the advances made since the flight sims of our college days. Neither of us had tried the multiplayer function in MSFS2020 before, and I was eager to fly with some company since most of my flights from home are solo endeavors, save for the excitement and immersion offered by live ATC services provided by VATSIM and PilotEdge that I regularly layer into my experiences for added realism and a chance to practice on the radio.

• READ MORE: Our Pilots of the Future May Share Sim Stories

For our first flight, we selected the venerable Cessna 208 Caravan, a popular island-hopping aircraft with robust landing gear, which seemed like an ideal choice for our destination. Sitting in our cold and dark aircraft, my friend suggested that I try the digital checklist function in MSFS2020, which is accessed by clicking the icon in the menu bar near the top of your screen once you are loaded into an airplane. Having never flown the Caravan, the digital checklist features a small “eye” icon to the right of the instructions listed. Clicking the “eye” causes the camera to cleanly sweep to the individual button, switch, or lever you need to operate to perform the checklist item. Using the “eye” icon provided a visual flow of the checklist during engine start and helped me understand the layout of the cockpit and controls.

Alternatively, you can use your mouse or hat switch on your yoke to move the camera manually to each item in the cockpit, but the “eye” was much faster and more convenient. Many general aviation aircraft in MSFS and X-Plane offer in-depth systems modeling, making the start-up experience a learning opportunity for the curious sim pilot. On the evening before I try a new airplane, I search for a start-up procedure video on YouTube, just to get familiar ahead of time. @JonBeckett’s channel on YouTube offers both videos and checklists to help get you started. For many years, I used a physical paper checklist in-sim but recently started using the ForeFlight checklist function on the iPad mounted in my flight sim cockpit.

Even though it is another piece of technology to manage, I like the green check mark that is displayed next to each completed item in the ForeFlight checklist. This shows your progress, making it easier to see if you skipped a step. You can also edit a checklist in ForeFlight. I added reminders to complete a takeoff briefing before departure and tap the brakes during climbout to halt the wheels from spinning before raising the landing gear. The sim is an ideal environment to become comfortable with new checklist behaviors, and I have enough practice that I am ready to try it on a future real-world flight.

After engine start, my friend and I taxied our Caravans to Runway 24 for takeoff. We opted for a formation takeoff, and I found it very difficult to stay within 500 feet of my friend’s aircraft. I could immediately tell why formation flying requires a lot of training and how challenging it must be to hone this skill in the real world.

Departing KACK in the Cessna 208 Caravan

Once in the air, we turned west over the ocean toward Katama Airpark (1B2), located on the southeastern corner of nearby Martha’s Vineyard. A popular real-world New England fly-in destination, Katama features a short taxiway connected to a grass parking area right next to the beach, making it one of few beach-side general aviation airports accessible to private aircraft in New England.

I selected Runway 3 as I had landed on it a few times with my instructor during my private pilot flight training a decade earlier. I hadn’t been back to visit Katama in the sim yet, so I hoped my memory of the real-world location would help me with my visual approach. It was a short flight across Nantucket Sound, and I opted for a 2,000-foot cruising altitude, keeping our two-ship flight VFR below a broken line of puffy, fair weather clouds at 2,500 feet that stretched south of the island out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Turning Final for Runway 3 at Katama Airpark (1B2)

Since I use a single 4K 55-inch TV screen as my main monitor, I supplement my situational awareness with ForeFlight on my tablet and my Real Sim Gear G1000 PFD and MFD sitting in my Stay Level Avionix panel. Using all of this information together kept me from overflying the right-base-to-final approach turn, and I rolled out on a 3-mile final with “030” bugged on my heading indicator. Spotting Runway 3 is an interesting visual exercise in both the real and flight sim world.

• READ MORE: Taking a Virtual Flight with the Yawman Arrow

The runways at Katama are neatly cut from the flora of a large field. As there are fields that border the airpark on both the left and right sides, I double-checked to make sure I was lined up with the correct one.

Although Runway 3 is 50 feet wide and 3,700 feet long, it looks narrower and shorter from the air. The light winds kept the last few hundred feet of my approach stable, and I checked to make sure I was at 75 knots, with full flaps and prop full forward. I was interested to find out if grass had been modeled differently than pavement, as the surface in the real world typically requires a soft-field landing, slightly nose high, to minimize the vibration on the aircraft’s landing gear.

With one last trim adjustment before touching down, the Caravan’s muscular suspension deftly swallowed up any surface undulations that may or may not have been modeled, and I let the aircraft roll out to the end of the runway, where I turned around in time to watch my friend come in for his landing.

I particularly enjoy landing at airfields that I have flown into in real life, using the flight sim’s digital version as a bridge back to a memory from my real-world logbook. However, one of the many benefits of home flight simulation is the option to leave behind the familiar and try new destinations in unfamiliar parts of the world. The only cost is your time, and selecting from any of the 37,000 registered airports in MSFS2020 can spark some anxiety of choice, which often leads me to stay in New England, where I have the most real-world flying experience.

But such “comfort zone” behavior does a disservice to a world full of new airport destinations, re-created in impressive detail, waiting just beyond the click of a mouse.

Flight 2, The Unfamiliar: Skagway to Haines, Alaska

• Purpose: Sightseeing
• Software: MSFS2020
• Route: Departed Skagway (PAGY) Runway 20 to Haines (PAHN) Runway 26
• Aircraft: Beechcraft Baron BE58
• Conditions: October; live weather, marginal VFR, light rain, 4 p.m. local time
• Distance: 19 nm
• Time en route: 15 minutes
• Modification: Consider departing from PAHN and then returning to Skagway (PAGY) to try landing on Runway 2. The airport at Skagway sits at 44 feet msl but is ringed by 5,000-plus-foot peaks, making it an intimidating approach but visually stunning.

My friend from college spent part of his formative years living outside of Seattle. An Alaskan cruise with his wife found them departing as passengers in a single-engine GA aircraft out of a small airport called Skagway (PAGY), located roughly 65 nm north of Juneau in a mountainous and glacial region of Alaska near the Canadian border and Coast Mountains. It would have taken me decades of sim flying to find Skagway, and when my friend described the unique geography of steep mountains rising around three sides of the airport, it sounded like the ideal unfamiliar departure point for our next flight.

With live weather enabled, my friend and I met up on the ramp in marginal VFR conditions with light rain and 3 miles visibility. Despite the weather being definitely below my personal minimums in the real world, the conditions gave us a chance to test our visual navigation skills as we flew down the Taiya Inlet to Haines Airport (PAHN). Climbing out of Skagway in the MSFS Baron, I had all the de-icing equipment and pitot heat on as a precaution and was cruising at 3,000, well below the 5,000-foot ridges, to avoid the clouds.

The light rain stopped, and the weather in-sim improved as we approached the town of Haines, and I had a clearer picture of the mountain peaks through the remaining tattered clouds. Beautiful was an understatement, and I used my camera commands to look out over the wings for a better view. The geography of Haines was no less striking than Skagway, and both airports should be on your short list if you have never explored Alaska in the real world or flight simulator. MSFS pulls local METARs when using live weather, and I cross-referenced the information on ForeFlight. The winds were coming from the west out of 220 degrees at 23 knots, providing a 40-degree left crosswind for landing on Runway 26. We chose a flight path that had us make a right turn over Haines toward the airport located northwest of town. My friend opted for a 3-mile right base to final.

Wanting a closer view of the mountains to the west of the airfield, I flew southwest over the Chilkat Inlet. Being mindful of the peaks to the west and blowing snow that was starting to lower visibility, I turned back toward the airport and descended to traffic pattern altitude, which I had set using my altitude selector on the Garmin G1000 PFD. I entered the pattern using a standard 45-degree entry to a left downwind for Runway 26. Consequently, that also gave me a great view of my friend’s aircraft on final approach.

We kept it mostly quiet on the comms for landing, but my friend mentioned the strong crosswind on final. Turning from left base to final, I double-checked that my fuel selectors were on, verified my gear was down, mixtures were set to full, and I moved the Baron’s props to full forward. The strong westerly wind was pushing me off the centerline of 26, which I started correcting with rudder and aileron. I opted for approach flaps only and worked pretty hard to touch down on the left rear wheel first. My Virtual Fly YOKO+ flight yoke builds up mechanical resistance as you approach the edges of the control travel, providing valuable immersion during high workload moments like short final. I landed a bit off the centerline but kept the Baron out of the snowy grass and taxied to the end of the runway, having needed most of the 4,000 feet available.

The unfamiliar geography, marginal VFR conditions, and crosswind on final provided plenty of challenges for a short flight, reminding me how much the home sim experience has to offer. Add to that the unexpected challenges of live dynamic weather, and there were a lot of variables to be managed during the 20-minute flight.

Sometime this winter when the weather in the real world is below your minimums, load up MSFS or X-Plane and try one of the innumerable short flights to a new destination. I hope you enjoy the exploration. Let us know your favorite short flight aircraft/airport combination by writing to edit@flying.media.

Quick MSFS2020 Tips

Visit www.flightsim.to and search for the airports you will be using for your flight. The flight sim community has built enhancements of all kinds to the base Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 sim experience, including both free and payware.

You may find free upgraded airport scenery that you can download and place into your MSFS2020 community folder so that it will be loaded automatically for your flight. Run a search for how to find your community folder, and then set the location as a favorite so you can find it easily in the future.

This column first appeared in the January-February 2024/Issue 945 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Here Are 2 Quick VFR Flights to Try on Your Home Flight Simulator appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

At the beginning of the film, a B-17 returning from a World War II mission makes a low pass over the Memphis Belle’s aircrew playing touch football at their base, signaling the return of the squadron. The beautiful shape and proportions of the B-17 and the unmistakable sound of those four Wright R-1820 engines thundering over me in the theater made the most indelible impression, and my love for aviation began at that very moment.

In spring 1991, David Tallichet, the pilot/owner of N3703G, one of the B-17s flown in the film—the other was Sally B—brought it to Concord Municipal Airport (KCON), and I waited in line one rainy afternoon to tour the interior with my mother and grandfather, all three of us climbing up the steep ladder into the hatch located below the cockpit on the pilot’s side. One of my favorite early memories was pausing with my grandfather behind the pilot’s seat as he patiently answered my questions about the dizzying array of instruments, levers, and switches in the cockpit. As a boy, it looked impossibly complicated, but I was intensely fascinated.

• READ MORE: Taking a Virtual Flight with the Yawman Arrow

After the tour, I purchased a poster at the souvenir stand that Tallichet politely signed for me. At nearly 70, he was gallant in both appearance and manner and spent some extra time with my grandfather and I, taking us around the exterior of his B-17 while he and my grandfather compared notes on their flying experiences. During WWII, Tallichet was a copilot of a B-17 in the 8th Air Force, completing 20 missions. After the war, he became a successful businessman and amassed an impressive personal collection of military aircraft.

Before we departed his company, Tallichet asked if I wanted to fly when I grew up, and I automatically answered yes. Standing between him and my grandfather, who wouldn’t aspire to what each had accomplished as pilots? That poster with his autograph hung in my childhood room until I went to college.

After that close encounter with the movie Memphis Belle on the ramp, I drove my friends and family crazy by asking to rent the film at least once per month, watching it until I could recite most of the dialogue with my sister. Without YouTube in the mid-’90s, there was no easily accessible footage of what it looked like to fly a B-17 from the pilot’s seat, so I repeatedly rewound the videocassette to watch the flying sequences to try and understand how it all worked. In 1993, a friend of mine in the neighborhood heard me talking about the movie and invited me over to his house after school. He owned an early PC with a color monitor and had a copy of the recently released combat flight simulation called B-17 Flying Fortress: World War II Bombers in Action by MicroProse. This was my first flight sim experience of any kind, and I had so much fun trying to fly the B-17 that I didn’t move from the cockpit to try the other crew positions. The cockpit and the gunner stations on the bomber were faithfully modeled as much as was possible at the time. For example, in the waist gun position, you could look toward the front of the B-17 and see the wings, round engine nacelles, and propellers spinning. Your role in one of the gunner positions was to defend the Flying Fortress from attacking enemy fighter aircraft. All of this sounds rudimentary today, but the missions, crew stations, and color animation were created in the early 1990s.

Experiencing the B-17 combat simulator came at a critical and impressionable time in my childhood, and I can still remember the thrill. In speaking with many pilots I have met over the years, a lot of us had a chance to try a home flight sim that served as a connection and an on-ramp to the larger world of aviation. For me, using a flight sim was a lot of fun, and it only made me more excited to try my first real-world flight lesson when I turned 14.

Back during the late ’90s, Chris Palmer—aka @AngleofAttack and a CFI who now runs a successful general aviation training business and popular aviation YouTube channel from his home airport in Homer, Alaska—started flying the European Air War WWII combat simulator. Palmer remembers learning the basic flight and power controls and the thrill of flying a fighter aircraft over the English Channel to challenge the Germans in air-to-air combat. As a teen, he purchased Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX) and dreamed of becoming an airline pilot. He would load an airliner into the simulator and enjoy departing from many of the major airports around the world contained in the title’s library.

That early exposure inspired him to pursue real-world flight training. By the time he turned 17, Palmer started ground school and had already learned radio communication basics from the hours he spent on VATSIM, the live air traffic control service staffed by trained volunteer controllers that can be layered into a home flight sim with a software plug-in. After learning how to edit highlight videos for his high school football team, he built a study-level training course on how to fly the Boeing 767 on FSX. These video lessons achieved scale and, 17 years later, the DVDs, which complement a professional ground school study program, are selling to aspiring pilots training for their next upgrade.

When I came back to the world of GA to finish attaining my private pilot certificate in 2010, there was nervousness about the coming pilot shortage. Articles on the topic abounded, and writers made educated guesses about from where the next wave of pilots would come.

The question poised at that time was could enough discovery or EAA Young Eagles flights be conducted to successfully introduce the next generation to general aviation in time to stave off the looming airline pilot retirements not too many years in the future.

In 2014, I changed jobs into a marketing position where I could combine my passion for GA with my skill set as a social media marketer tasked with representing a leading general and commercial aviation product. Around this time, YouTube’s user base was rapidly expanding in popularity, and aviation enthusiasts could follow pilots on journeys from their first training lessons all the way to the airlines. Some pilots such as @flightchops (Steve Thorne) and @steveo1kinevo, who had modest followings of around 30,000 subscribers at that time, would amass hundreds of thousands of them over the next few years as their content attracted aviation enthusiasts from all over the world.

Today there are popular pilot/content creators who have used their engaging videos to help bring pilots of all ages to the airport for their first flight lessons. YouTube and the other social media channels have connected a global audience made up of millions around the world to pilot content creators with the time, equipment, and capability to publish their flying stories and share the world of GA with new, ever-widening, and more diverse global audiences through the mysterious and perplexing magic of the algorithm.

Fast-forward to this summer, and Jorg Nuemann, head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, presented to a large, in-person audience in June at FlightSimExpo, where he shared that MSFS2020 had achieved more than 12 million individual users since the software launched in September 2020. With the recent launch of X-Plane 12 in 2022, and the continued growth in popularity of Digital Combat Simulator (known as “DCS” and featuring modern fighter and rotor wing aircraft), each software program continues to attract a specific segment of digital aviation enthusiasts. Acknowledging that there is some crossover of home flight simulation pilots between these popular software titles, each offers a digital aviation experience where the user can hop over the virtual airport fence and climb into the cockpit or flight deck of so many faithfully digitally created general, commercial, and military aircraft.

Taken together, these software titles have amassed a worldwide user base on a scale not seen before. The result is YouTube and flight simulation are introducing enthusiasts to the world of aviation by serving as the top of a giant funnel, bringing the user into digital aircraft that are visually accurate to their real-world counterpart complete with high fidelity systems modeling. I believe the next generation of pilots is already here. They are fluent users in the digital world, easily finding flight simulation and aviation video content online.

Although we may not see them at real-world GA airports yet, I am already flying with them in the flight sim club of which I am a member. Listening to their radio calls approaching the Boston Class Bravo airspace, these flight sim pilots, many years my junior, are flying digital airliners into KBOS executing complex IFR arrivals with crisp and professional radio communication. Any of these flight sim pilots could show up to their first real-world discovery flight and surprise their unsuspecting CFI by being able to file and read back an IFR clearance without a single hour in the real-world logbook. Although these students will be well prepared in some aspects of flight training, they will have areas where the flight sim experience can’t adequately do so. But I’m confident a capable CFI will be able to diagnose any weaknesses and bring the student up to the relevant test standards.

To check that assumption, I asked Palmer about his thoughts on home flight-sim use and how it could potentially complement real-world flight training. As an experienced CFI who has successfully trained many private pilots, I wondered if he had any concerns about flight students crossing over from the digital world of flying into the real world—specifically the cross-country stage of private pilot training.

“If flight sim is used in the correct way, it can help you advance your flight training,” Palmer said. “There are more advantages than disadvantages. For example, you can easily mix pilotage and dead reckoning to practice navigation skills. You can plan the flight, get the

exact winds, get the exact weather, and set the correct time of day. Putting that high-fidelity tool in the hands of a student will allow them to find the airport, and [so] on their first cross-country flight, it doesn’t have to be a surprise anymore.”

Within the MSFS2020 and X-Plane 12 software, the student can explore most local airports since they are nearly all modeled. If the student pilot already has ForeFlight, they can pair their tablet with the sim and use it to find the FBO and plan the radio frequencies and approach to the airfield. Even just being able to explore the basics of ForeFlight while on your home sim can be time well spent.

“If you approach the sim seriously, and fly it to a high fidelity, it will pay you dividends by helping you feel more prepared for your private pilot flight training,” Palmer said.

In terms of behaviors to watch, Palmer cautions the new student to be ready to practice converting some of the flight sim knowledge into the real world, including getting used to the traffic scan since that is a habit not readily practiced in the sim. Simply recognizing there will be areas to relearn in actual flight training is the first step.

Equipped with their many hours of flight simulation experience, the student may already have a strong understanding of airspace, communication, navigation, and checklist use but may require some fine-tuning by their CFI.

“There’s nothing like real flying, no matter how much flight sim time you have,” Palmer said. “Go try flying a real airplane. You’re one of us. You like flying things. I am passionate about it, and I want flight sim pilots to experience real-world flight. Take a few discovery flights and see where it leads. At the very least, a real instructor can provide feedback and lesson pointers that you can bring back into the flight sim world.”

The next generation of pilots will one day share their stories about how they found aviation. In our youth, both Palmer and I supplemented our interest in aviation with early flight simulation experiences.

With the growing popularity of the home flight simulation, coupled with aviation content on YouTube and other channels, we are in the middle of a rising tide of digital flying activity that will hopefully continue to widen the funnel, bringing new people into real-world aviation, making it more accessible, and strengthening it for the future.

This feature first appeared in the November 2023/Issue 943 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Our Pilots of the Future May Share Sim Stories appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Having been a flight sim enthusiast in the decade before, but inactive since Microsoft Flight Simulator X and X-Plane 9, I decided to launch into building my own home flight simulator with the goal of pairing it with the freshly launched Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS2020). My goal was to create a cockpit that featured the avionics equipment that I wanted to learn when I could eventually go back to flying in real life, and I wanted my simulator to replicate all the switches and buttons found in most GA aircraft. After three years of building and customizing, my flight simulator reflects the missions and aircraft I like to fly while also allowing the practice of basic maneuvers and procedures at home. 

When the opportunity came to review the Yawman Arrow, I was apprehensive about an all-in-one hand controller designed for a mobile or minimalist home flight sim setup that seemed a world away from the cockpit I had purposefully built. 

The Yawman Arrow team took on the audacious challenge of condensing all of the major flight controls that flight sim pilots have in their home cockpits down into a single hand-held controller. It features two Vernier-style sliders on the bottom center. On the bottom left of the controller is a trim wheel. All the way to the right side are two conventional throttle sliders. Above them is the “six-pack” of black buttons. On the top left of the face is a thumb stick used for the yoke. Directly below and in the center-left position is a five-button switch, and a multidirectional hat switch sits in the center-right position, directly below the six-pack of buttons. At the very top of the controller is the most novel component of the Yawman Arrow—two rudder controls operated by each of your index fingers that are linked together like the rudder controls of a real airplane. When you depress one side, the other side moves in the equal and opposite direction. Two additional buttons near the rudder controls can be assigned to various tasks like the parking brake or for changing Yawman Arrow menus so that more than one function can be paired to a single button. 

While plugging in the controller and jumping into a quick flight is possible, I recommend spending time getting acquainted with the controller’s default button assignments. The Yawman Arrow website has pre-built these so you can print them out, or you can keep them on a second screen as a helpful reference for your first flight. Note that it is best to double-check the button assignments in the control options menu in MSFS2020 (and the equivalent location in X-Plane 11 or 12). I found that some default control assignments differed from the printable document available on the Yawman website. 

To effectively fly with the Yawman Arrow, I needed to spend time sitting in my home flight sim cockpit seat, looking at my controls and then making a plan to determine what assignment to give the most important buttons and sliders. Sitting in my cockpit allowed me to make a visual inventory of the controls, assign them, and then verify the assignments in the MSFS2020 control options menu to make sure I completed the process correctly. It went quickly once I had determined what controls I wanted to assign to the Yawman Arrow. I kept as many of the default settings as I could, only editing what I needed. 

• READ MORE: Setting Up Your Sim

For my first flight, I loaded into the Cessna 172 at KPWM and planned for some basic maneuvers out over the waters of Casco Bay, east of the Portland International Jetport in Maine. I used standard weather and light winds to minimize external factors influencing the aircraft. Preflight and taxiing were no problem once I set the necessary buttons for wheel brakes, parking brake, and flaps. Taxiing using the rudders was enjoyable. The linked rudder controls were my favorite feature of the Yawman Arrow. As a habit, I squeezed both rudder controls at the same time to bring the airplane to a stop near the end of the taxiway before remembering that I needed to use the braking button I had previously mapped. 

Takeoff proved to be more challenging than I anticipated. As I am used to using a realistic, full-size VirtualFly yoke, I needed to acclimate to the relatively small control deflection offered by the thumb stick of the Yawman Arrow. Add to that the effects of P-factor on the aircraft when under full power during takeoff, and my fingers were dancing between the action of rolling the trim wheel, pulling back the yoke hat switch and moving the rudder controls. It was an exercise in small movement motor control, which didn’t take long to get used to. In subsequent takeoffs, I spent time dialing in the yoke/hat switch control sensitivity settings and keeping an eye on my Air Manager display to double-check how much trim control I was using. I was challenged to find the control harmony on takeoff and believe there is more work to be done between dialing in the default sensitivities “out-of-the-box” in MSFS2020 on the Yawman Arrow and simply spending more time getting used to the way aircraft must be flown using the controller.  

Once airborne over the practice area, the 172 was stable, and I found the control harmony between the yoke and rudder controls on the Yawman Arrow was sufficient for slow flight and recovering from power-on and power-off stalls. Satisfied after completing a few basic maneuvers, I returned to the airport to practice a visual approach to a full-stop landing. I set up for a 5-mile, straight-in approach to Runway 29, having flown it before as an active private pilot in real life. I enjoy coming in over the waterways surrounding the city of Portland and MSFS2020 provides some great visual landmarks. 

On a 2-mile final, I set the power for the remainder of the descent and focused on fine-tuning the pitch using the trim wheel. Backing up my trim inputs again visually using the trim display instrument on Air Manager definitely helped. Setting the trim is a critical ingredient of a stabilized approach, and being able to do this consistently is key to making the Yawman Arrow an enjoyable companion or primary controller. The landing was satisfactory, and I felt that I had adequate control authority. Landing provided a good place to try the controller, as it combines relatively slow air speeds with a need to have your fingers near the trim wheel, on the yoke, on the throttle, and up at the rudder controls. This is easier than it sounds given the controller’s natural position in the hand and the thoughtful location of the aforementioned controls. It made me curious to see what a larger version of the Yawman Arrow would feel like, with just a bit more room for hat switch, trim wheel, sliders, and buttons. 

Yawman Arrow founder Jon Ostrower and I discussed the trim wheel in one of our exchanges, and he recommended using it when flying most GA aircraft but to then map the electric trim controls to the second hat switch if flying an aircraft that primarily uses electric trim controls—such as a Cirrus or any small, medium, or large jet—to better simulate how those controls would be moved in the real aircraft. It didn’t occur to me that the trim wheel could be set as a dial for other control uses, such as changing the settings of the autopilot or tuning radio frequencies. It was a reminder that the Yawman Arrow can be set to control nearly any function you need. Other buttons can serve as menu buttons that can be held so that the same button can have more than one function. Here’s where spending time with the default button layouts from the Yawman Arrow website and manual, watching a few how-to videos for tips, and really working through your own customized setup will pay dividends in terms of finding the correct controls at your fingertips when you need it. 

Since I mainly fly GA aircraft in my flight simulation adventures, I loaded up a few of the landing challenges in MSFS2020 that didn’t feature strong crosswinds, so I could better acquaint myself with the Yawman Arrow as a primary controller for jet aircraft. The Aspen, Colorado, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, landing challenges are favorites of mine and served as good test flight profiles as controlling airspeed is the primary objective once the aircraft is lined up correctly on short final. If flying jets will be your primary use for the Yawman, be sure to set controls for the landing gear, speed brakes, flaps, thrust reversers, and other key controls that you’ll need to execute your landings.

Final Impressions  

Overall, I believe the Yawman Arrow controller is a good value for the cost—especially if you’re the type of user who must have a minimalist cockpit setup based on your budget, or you’re someone who travels a lot and desires a portable sim solution. Like any new flight sim equipment, I continued becoming more comfortable as I flew with it, even though I wish I had spent a bit more time with button assignments. I never managed to get the takeoff behavior harmonized to my liking, but I recognize that we’re still in the early days of the Yawman Arrow, and I know that the team behind its development and the flight sim community will begin sharing their collective knowledge to help tune the sensitivity of the yoke and trim settings and make it a bit more intuitive right out of the box in MSFS2020. Note that I limited my testing to MSFS2020 as I currently don’t use X-Plane 11 or 12, so controller sensitivity and differences in the aircraft’s flight model behavior can vary widely between both flight sim software titles. 

Although this is just a nitpick, I would have preferred a grippier outer surface and potentially a larger form factor, like an “XL” size. Given Ostrower’s deliberate design choices, I am sure these factors were given considerable weight, and they amount to subjective personal impressions of my time flying with the Yawman Arrow. Also, I suspect that the controller would pair well with popular head tracking units, such as TrackIR or Tobii Eye Tracker, which would allow those small glances around the cockpit to check the trim and flaps settings. Using them compliments a minimalist setup and would increase immersion. I relied on my copy of Air Manager running on an adjacent screen to help me verify my trim wheel inputs. 

Although the Yawman Arrow won’t be my primary controller, it does offer even the most hardware-obsessed among us the chance to break it out for quick, casual sightseeing flights. It also provides a chance to use your flight simulator while you’re traveling and  to do more intense jet flying with it if you’re committed to learning the control bindings. It is priced at $199.99 and available at Sporty’s Pilot Shop. That price is $79 below that of a Honeycomb Alpha yoke and about in the middle of the cost range of popular joystick HOTAS options. 

Default settings for Yawman Arrow can be found here. 

Pros:

• Best feature is connected rudder controls.
• The Trim wheel is  a novel addition to the hand controller. 
• There are two options for throttles (vernier style or slider).
• Basic camera movement and autopilot controls worked effectively.

Cons: 

• Since there is no wireless function, it must be plugged into your PC or laptop.
• Yawman Arrow does not work with Xbox. 
• A grippier outer material and potentially larger form factor would be preferable.

The post Taking a Virtual Flight with the Yawman Arrow appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Thrilled with the chance to go flying again, I found my flight gear in the basement, grabbed my aviation headset, kissed my wife and kids good night, and hurried off to the airport to meet my friend.

As I would be a front-seat passenger on the flight, I intended to observe the goings-on and effectively get a reintroduction to the world of GA that I had missed over the last few years. From previous articles, you may recall that I am a vocal proponent for the use of home flight simulation, a believer that the benefits of a modest setup can engage the user in aviation decision-making, learning, and fun. However, having not flown a real-world flight in four years, it felt like sufficient time had passed where I could be reminded and maybe surprised about some facets of the experience I had forgotten.

• READ MORE: To Providence or Bust, in Simulated Flight

Driving to the Airport

I did not expect to enjoy it, but the drive to the airport provided some post-workday decompression and reflection time. I’d be joining my friend at Plymouth Municipal Airport (KPYM), located 30 miles south of Boston on Massachusetts’ southeastern coast. Usually, the 90-plus-minute drive from my home to the airport would be arduous and traffic-filled, but the relatively late departure gave me an unusually stress-free drive. It felt great to have my flight gear on the seat next to me again, a little stiff and dusty from lack of use, but ready to go.

I used some of the windshield time to think ahead about where I could try and be a helpful addition to the flight. Pulling off the highway to stop for fuel, I opened ForeFlight to check the weather. Clicking on the “Imagery” tab, I reviewed the “CONUS Weather” section and then read the Boston and New York area TAFs and METARs.

Although my friend had already reviewed the weather, it helped to get my head back in the game. Before arriving at the airport, I took some time to recall some favorite flights when I was PIC, flying friends and family on short flights around New England. Flipping through those memories in my logbook, I realized this would be my first flight since my grandfather passed back in December 2020.

As was our tradition in his final years, I would write him a complete account of every flight so he could enjoy it vicariously. It was a small token of my appreciation for the gift of heavily subsidized flight training he and my grandmother had provided me when I was in high school. I am fortunate he lived a long life in which he shared flying memories, such as taking the F4U Corsair on training flights in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

Arriving at the airport, I had a few minutes to myself after parking at the hangar. Walking out to the airport fence, just as the sun sunk below the tree line, I reached into my jacket pocket to find a special artifact. I closed my hand around my grandfather’s pair of U.S. Navy wings he gave me for safekeeping. I looked out over the quiet evening of airplanes at rest in their tiedowns, a little bit of haze on the horizon lit up the sky in orange and dark pink. It was calm and peaceful, and I had forgotten how moving this scene could be at golden hour. In a few minutes, I would be on the fun side of the fence, getting to fly with a good friend in a gorgeous airplane on a near-perfect VFR evening.

The Preflight

Within a few minutes, my friend arrived, and I was trailing him through the ritual of the preflight and being reminded of how much I used to enjoy the process. Per the checklist, we started at the back of the leftwing, examining the aileron, flaps, and the assorted hardware. As we worked our way through the checklist to the right wing, I placed my hand on the leading edge and realized how much I missed the tactile connection with the airplane prior to flying it. The aircraft in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and X-Plane 12 are faithfully digital replicas, down to the finest visual details, but there was joy again in physically prepping the machine that would soon take us aloft. Following my friend, I contorted myself below the wing. Assuming a push-up position next to the right tire, he showed me how to check the brake condition and then used the fuel strainer to sump the fuel. Then, we checked the oil, engine cowl, propeller, and the rest of the checklist items.

Satisfied the aircraft was ready to fly, my friend offered me the left seat for the evening. Soon we were taxiing ahead into the calm darkness of the night. No other aircraft were moving at KPYM and the unicom frequency was quiet, save for our radio calls.

Takeoff was exciting. The vibration of the engine at full throttle and acceleration into the climb were physical sensations I definitely missed from my previous years of flight simulation. To address this, I recently added an HF8 Haptic Gaming Pad by Next Level Racing to my home flight sim. The pad sits on top of your flight sim seat and is used across the gaming and simulation world to bring additional sensation to your in-sim experience. Using tunable vibrations within eight different locations on the pad, it cleverly alerts the user to physical changes occurring to the airplane in different phases of flight.

For example, flying my Cape Air-liveried Beechcraft 58 Baron in MSFS2020, there is a satisfying thump felt in the seat pad when the landing gear fully retracts into the fuselage and the doors close. It reminded me of when the gear doors closed in the Piper Arrow I flew a few years ago. The pad also activates when the flaps are lowered into the slipstream and when the aircraft engines are idling below 1,000 rpm. Also, the pad vibrates when rapid pitch changes occur, alerting you to the buildup of G-forces. Without a haptic pad, the dynamic changes to the airplane during flight could only be experienced visually or audibly, leaving out the rest of the body.

Night VFR

Back in the real world, we were cruising through night VFR conditions that couldn’t have been much better. The first major landmark below us was the yellow-lighted outline of the Newport Bridge in Rhode Island, pointing like an arrow due west toward the Connecticut coastline. From the air, we followed the glowing path of vehicle headlights traveling on Interstate Highway 95 South. The lights from cars, neighborhoods, and nearby towns flowed forward, ahead of the airplane, all the way to Manhattan, just barely visible on the horizon. We crossed over Westerly, and my friend confirmed that a small patch of lights off the left wing was Montauk on the most easterly tip of Long Island. Between us and that thin sliver of land were the waters of Long Island Sound, which seemed to reflect almost no light and were the deepest black, exactly like the night sky above. Looking beyond Montauk, the only lights were a few stars and distant airliners making their way to and from the New York City airspace.

Next, we flew over the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and were soon turning back toward KPYM, picking up Boston Approach on com 1 and passing over the Class Charlie airspace of nearby Providence, Rhode Island (KPVD). Twelve miles west of KPYM, we started looking for the airport, leaning forward in our belts and peering out into the murky darkness ahead. With only a crescent moon above us, there was just enough haze to make it slightly challenging to find the horizon. The Cirrus SR20’s MFD indicated exactly where the airport should be, so my friend dialed up the correct frequency, hit the push-to-talk switch seven times, and a dazzling blue jewel, made up of hundreds of individual airport lights, burst from the darkness, giving shape to the airport a few miles ahead. Looking out over the nose, I watched how the perspective of the runway changed as we descended to the touchdown point.

Comparing both the real-world landing with some recent night landings from the left seat in my sim, I was very impressed by MSFS2020’s faithful digital representation of that critical phase of flight. On your own home simulator, you can easily adjust and tune your field of view to work best for your specific monitor and hardware setup. A majority of the work can be done through simple adjustments of the slider bars. Tuning the field-of-view and camera settings in your simis time well spent since being able to look around your virtual cockpit easily is critical to improving immersion and having an enjoyable experience.

After landing, we taxied back, shut down, and began the postflight activities of putting the aircraft back in the hangar for the evening. I was grateful for my friend’s invitation to join him and the subsequent reintroduction to GA and night VFR flying. All of my flight sim experiences at home are solo, except for the live communication with volunteer controllers, and a highlight of this flight was getting to catch up with my friend in person. It was all the more special knowing his departure to airline training would be coming this summer, making opportunities to fly together more scarce. After four years away from GA, I realized how much of the flight experience I had missed, both the familiar and unexpected. But being back at the airport, I felt like I was home again—and it felt great.

Hardware Recommendations

Gaming PC: This article was written during my switchover to a new Doghouse Systems gaming PC. John Pryor, Doghouse Systems owner and founder, specifically built the PC to tackle the graphic demands of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, significantly shortening the load time and allowing its highest graphics settings to be utilized. I have been busy tuning the graphics and switching over the flight controls and avionics. Having been an X-Plane user since 2015, I am learning the finer points of MSFS2020. If you’re in the market for a home flight simulator, look at Doghouse Systems custom-built gaming PCs.

HF8 Haptic Gaming Pad: I am really enjoying the recent addition of this upgrade to my flight sim seat. After installing the driver required to make it run with MSFS2020, I plan to use it on every flight. Even a Class D level simulator can’t replace the physical sensations of flying, but that isn’t the point of the pad. When I add new hardware to my sim, I do so hoping it will provide incremental improvements in the form of additional fun, greater immersion, or a new challenge—and the sensor pad checks those boxes.

This article first appeared in the August 2023/Issue 940 print edition of FLYING.

The post A Midsummer Night’s Flight appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Months before this flight, I added the Reality Expansion Pack (REP) plug-in by SimCoders to the default X-Plane 11 Baron. For $19.99, the plug-in brings additional aircraft systems to life in X-Plane 11 and improves upon the default version. This “study-level” simulation requires precise management of the engines and other aircraft systems, and models additional parts within systems that can be set to fail randomly or at specific intervals. As a result, flying with the reality expansion pack makes the sim pilot responsible for more of the digital aircraft and can increase the workload.Unbeknownst to me, a random failure was lying in wait, destined to alter my flight this particular evening.

The air at cruise was calm, and the digital sun—almost fully set—turned the horizon orange except for a thin layer of clouds building up over the mainland above my cruising altitude. The VFR conditions forecasted in the preflight weather briefing were holding. I had been looking forward to this night’s flight all month as I would be joining up with other flight sim pilots in the live airspace over KPVD. This was my first chance to participate in a “showcase” event hosted by my flight sim club, and was the last fly-in event scheduled for the month. One feature of a showcase event is that volunteer air traffic controllers fully staff the airspace around the Boston area (ZBW), giving all sim pilots a chance to do multiple realistic frequency changes during the course of the arrival to the destination air- port. Similar to the real world, Boston Center would hand off flights to Providence Approach, and then to Providence Tower for landing—with ground, clearance delivery, and departure controllers available for aircraft departing KPVD.

Crossing over the mainland just south of New Bedford (KEWB) in Massachusetts, I was now 10 miles southeast of the Class C airspace and expecting my handover to Providence Approach at any moment. Listening to the traffic on the frequency, I could hear many pilots on IFR approaches and was glad to have opted for VFR flight following. The radio chatter reminded me of flying in the ZBW when I was an active private pilot in the real world. It was exciting to feel like I was back in the big show again. Many of the sim pilots sharing the digital skies with me really know their stuff, flying the airspace competently on IFR flight plans and using professional radio work. It was motivating to be part of the group, and I wanted to bring my best when it was my turn to squeeze the push-to-talk button.

Using my call sign, Boston Center got my attention and provided my handoff instructions. Upon checking in with Providence Approach, a friendly controller greeted me with a right turn to 040, setting me up on a 5-mile left downwind for Runway 23. Moments later, the same controller was in touch with some in-sim traffic for me to see and avoid. I could hear the other sim pilot receiving his see-and-avoid instructions, and by looking out my windscreen to the left, I could make out his aircraft, a Citation, in the distance, lining up for final approach a few miles ahead. I couldn’t see the shape of the aircraft yet, but I could see the nav and strobe lights marking his position, which I cross-checked on the MFD of the G1000. The workload of aviating, navigating, and communicating was keeping me fully in the zone. I love the challenge of the arrival phase of flight, complete with its many variables to manage, and the crowd of sim pilots and controllers on frequency really added to the immersion. Although orderly, it was a virtual rush hour within the KPVD Class Charlie as the fly-in was set to close within the next 30 minutes.

With the landing Citation traffic in sight, Providence Approach turned me onto an extended left base for 23 and handed me off to the tower. I repeated the correct tower frequency but didn’t write it down on my kneeboard. When I dialed in what I thought to be the correct frequency, my call was met with silence. I tried one more time, but realizing that I must have mistyped it, I quickly punched the COM flip-flop button to ask Approach for the correct tower frequency. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach, knowing I had started to fall behind the airplane in a critical phase of flight. With the correct frequency, I radioed Providence Tower, but my delay caused me to fly past the left turn for final. I sheepishly reported my position to the tower, and the controller took it all in stride, patiently giving me instructions to turn 180 degrees and set up for a right base for 23. Once turned around, I double-checked my airspeed and lowered my landing gear. I took a deep breath so I could focus on the next steps of the arrival.

I needed to settle in and concentrate on the next steps of the approach, but something with the airplane didn’t feel right. I checked my gear lights and had three green. Next, I checked my flaps, and they were retracted. However, I was putting unusual pressure on my yoke to keep my wings level. Immediately, I added rudder to keep the nose on the horizon, and I was now cross-controlling the yoke and rudder to keep the nose level. Not good.

I immediately checked the MFD and backup engine instruments and determined I was not experiencing a powerplant issue. Oil pressure, rpm, and manifold pressure were where they should be for the selected power setting. A few weeks before, I added an additional monitor to my sim cockpit to serve as a backup instrument panel. I attached a suction cup mount to my Stay Level avionics panel that houses my G1000 PFD and MFD. The monitor hosts additional indicator lights, gauges, and controls. With just a glance, I could see critical information about the Baron’s systems that would be available to me if I was flying the airplane in the real world.

One specific gauge caught my attention: The aileron trim position indicator was showing it was rolling uncommanded from full left deflection to full right deflection and back. I quickly clicked the aileron trim controls on the yoke to arrest the trim’s movement but to no avail. Immediately my face felt hot and my heart rate picked up as this problem quickly became an in-flight, in-sim emergency. My chance to land at KPVD with my fellow sim pilots was dissolving rapidly, like my altitude, airspeed, and ability to control the aircraft.

Since I am not a Baron pilot in real life and have not had real-world multiengine training, I predicted the landing would be a challenge. However, this situation provided a great opportunity to work out the problem using what I knew about aircraft systems and emergency procedures. Having never experienced a runaway trim issue in real life or in the sim before, I decided to use the rest of the flight as a test to see if I could survive the emergency. With no physical or monetary consequences, if I failed, it was a very low-stakes learning opportunity. Challenge accepted.

To minimize drag, I raised my landing gear, hoping it would improve controllability. Letting the tower know I was experiencing a flight-control problem, I was cleared to fly south toward the edge of the Class C. So as to not interrupt any fly-in arrivals or departures, I communicated my intentions to the tower and disconnected from the live air traffic control service. I was alone in X-Plane 11 now, and I was running out of troubleshooting ideas. The control of the Baron had not greatly improved with my gear up, and my mind was racing to identify a solution. With both feet and hands working the flight controls, I kept working on the problem mentally. Was I fighting the autopilot? It was definitely possible that I had engaged the AP by mistake. A quick glance at the G1000 and back down to the AP controls confirmed that autopilot was off.

Next, I gripped the yoke tightly—not knowing how the Baron would respond—and activated the autopilot into heading mode to see if that would stop the aileron trim’s maniacal cycling. I recalled that X-Plane 11 has extensive and programmable failure modes. Back in 2021, I had enabled the failure mode to randomly select one failure per 60 hours of flight time and, although I had only flown the Baron about 20 hours in the past 12 months, I realized the runaway trim condition was most likely caused by this programmable setting lurk- ing in the background of my previous months of sim flying, and was now showing itself.

I used the manual in-cockpit camera controls to zoom into the circuit breakers to see if I could pull the appropriate one with a click of my mouse. I knew some X-Plane aircraft modeled circuit breaker behavior but wasn’t sure if my REP Baron was included. When no circuit breakers responded to my rapid-fire mouse clicking, I zoomed in on the base of the throttle pedestal to see if I could manually stop the aileron trim wheel from turning. My mouse was unable to click the control wheel and stop it from continuing to turn. At this point, I was out of options to diagnose and but- tons to click, and still struggling to keep the aircraft under control.

Fortunately, my path south of KPVD led me to the western edge of the Class D for KOQU. Having attended a real-life air show there in 2012, I recalled the main runway of 16/34 would be my best shot at an emergency landing location. I was due west of KOQU by about 2 miles, flying at 170 kts at 600 feet agl, but I had Runway 16 in sight. I dropped the gear and swung the nose toward the runway. It was an ugly short approach over the western side of the airfield, and I did my best to line up with 16, all while fighting the aileron trim and losing altitude in the process. I was coming in fast, at roughly 130 kts, but the directional control seemed to worsen at lower speeds. My best option was to get the wheels on the ground and salvage the best landing possible. Since I would be the only witness in-sim to the outcome, there wasn’t anything to lose. I had flashes of aviation legend Bob Hoover’s sage advice go through my mind as I committed to the touchdown: “If you’re faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as possible.”

Thanks to the aileron trim, keeping on the centerline of 16 was nearly impossible, so I floated messily down the runway, slowly reducing the throttles and trying to maintain control. I tried touching down on the mains at roughly 120 knots, about halfway down the 7,500-foot runway, but I swiftly bounced into the air. I pulled back on the yoke to try to arrest the inevitable follow-up contact with the runway and bounced again. I would not attempt a go-around in this condition, so I reduced the throttles to idle and did what I could to minimize the impact of the final bounce. The digital propellers departed both engines with the impact, but the gear stayed connected to the undercarriage, and I skidded to a stop off on the left side of 16, just past the intersection with Runway 5/23.

I unclenched my hands from the yoke and enjoyed the silence in my gaming headset as I switched off the avionics, lights, batteries, and mags. Sitting in my flight sim cockpit in the quiet of my basement, I let my heart rate settle and reflected on how real moments of the flight had felt—especially the last 10 minutes as I was troubleshooting the aileron trim malfunction while trying to keep the Baron under control. Although there were areas for improvement, I flew the surprise emergency to the best of my abilities and enjoyed the mental workout. I never made it to KPVD, but the fidelity of the entire experience will keep me coming back for more.

The post To Providence or Bust, in Simulated Flight appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The FBO hosted a good amount of business jet traffic from two NASCAR races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in nearby Loudon—the highlight each summer. The races brought in the latest Gulfstreams, Challengers, Learjets, and Beechcraft King Airs, with enough aircraft parked wing to wing to fill the runway closed for the occasion.

I quickly learned to love the smell of jet fuel in the morning, working the flight line, cleaning the restrooms, washing the hangar floors, and making the coffee. I had no idea how to make coffee back then, soI can only imagine what the FBO guests thought when they enjoyed a complimentary cup.

With my boss’s approval, I would pick up a spare copy of FLYING off the coffee table and take it home to read at night. On those pages, I connected with the aspirational world of aviation: sleek business jets, general aviation adventures, and flying wisdom from Collins, Abend, Garrison, Karl, and Lunken. The magazine helped keep my aviation dream alive as I pursued my private pilot certificate.

Many years before my first flight lesson, my grandfather took me to the airport. He flew the F4U Corsair for the U.S. Navy during WWII, and financially supported part of my flight training if I got good grades and wrote him a summary of every flight lesson. I was so fortunate to have his support. I soloed at 16 and planned to finish my private certificate during college, as the one I would attend had a flying club.

Starting my freshman year in September 2001, my world was full of opportunity and optimism. Unfortunately, after 9/11, the college flying club shuttered as CFIs at the nearby airport got laid off—and college life took me in new directions.

Finishing—Finding a Way

Like many of us, the itch to fly never abated, and I completed my private certificate in March 2011, 10 years after my first solo. Having been married the year before, I was grateful that my wife supported my dream-chasing ambition to go back to flying again—this time to finish what I started.

In 2012, I took my 88-year-old grandfather for a flight around Concord to celebrate the completion of my certificate. We spent the flight mostly in blissful silence. After some sightseeing, he flew some straight-and-level, made a few smooth and coordinated turns, then handed the controls back to me for a late summer afternoon landing on Runway 35. It was our first and last flight together, but remains a sublime memory I’ll hold onto forever.

In 2014, my wife and I started a family and—anticipating that this new phase of life may be disruptive to real-world flying—I began building a modest home simulator paired with X-Plane 10 software. Over the next year, I acquired the basic equipment, including a gaming PC, a 10-year-old joystick I had in college, some used rudder pedals, and a 5-year-old monitor I had in the basement.

I had not used any flight sim software since using the mid-90s version of Microsoft Flight Simulator, so the fidelity of X-Plane 10 amazed me. It definitely lived up to the YouTube reviews.

One of my first sim flights was shooting a practice approach at dusk in VFR conditions at KASH, my home airport at that time. Using my mouse to tune the ILS frequency on the nav/com, the X-Plane 10 Cessna 172 SP was equipped identically to the one I rented in real life. The warm glow of the panel, the fading light of a digital sunset, and the hum of the engine in my headphones made the experience feel real. The needle movement in the gauges was smooth. The occasional slight flutter caused by the vacuum system faithfully resurfaced in the sim, adding to the feeling of immersion.

I exercised mental checklists, scanned the instruments, and made pitch and power changes to establish and hold a stabilized approach through touchdown. After experiencing the airplane response to my inputs and nailing that first approach, I was swiftly bitten by this particular variant of the flying bug.

Return to MSFS?

In September 2020, in the midst of the first long year of COVID, Microsoft launched the much-anticipated return of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 when most of the world quarantined at home. I felt an overwhelming need to reconnect to aviation, and I eagerly unpacked the components of my sim that had been sitting dormant while my family and I relocated to neighboring Massachusetts.

My gaming PC was now six years old, but I could run the minimum settings for MSFS 2020 and try many of the fun landing activities, which generated a score based on your speed at touchdown, runway location compared to the target and the rollout distance. The gorgeous simulation features nearly photo-realistic scenery.

In early 2022, I set a goal of bringing my rusty radio work and airspace knowledge back up to speed. To accomplish this, I paired my updated X-Plane 11 flight sim software with the live air traffic control service called PilotEdge. PilotEdge staffs the service with real trained air traffic controllers who don’t suffer fools—or sim pilots who don’t prepare for their flights. As will be covered in future articles, the service also provides a series of challenging scenario-based activities called Communications and Airspace Training (CAT) flights that focus on VFR flying. Being a rusty pilot, I found that I needed to study to pass these flights—and I enjoyed the preparation required.

Often I would begin prepping a few nights before the flight, reviewing the accompanying YouTube video, and writing a flight plan, all in a very similar manner to how I prepared for a real-world flight.

Into the Bravo

The 11th and final flight in the CAT series was a ClassBravo departure from Los Angeles InternationalAirport (KLAX) and a Class B arrival at San Diego International Airport (KSAN). Having never departed or landed at a Class B airport in real life, and conducting the sim flight in an airspace occupied by other real sim pilots, watched over by real live air traffic controllers, I knew this flight would take my full mental effort.

After a busy and tense departure from KLAX and some not-so-perfect radio work, I landed rubber side down at KSAN and made my “clear of Runway 27” call. Within a few moments, the PilotEdge controller told me I had passed the CAT 11. I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. Taxiing to Signature Flight Support in the simulation, I watched as a virtual airline Boeing 737, piloted by another real-world flight sim pilot, received his takeoff clearance and thundered down the runway.

Flying with other live aircraft and the accompanying radio chatter was an experience like no other. Sure, my feet never left terra firma, but my mind was really flying. The prep work to pass the final CAT flight was real, and using the correct phraseology on the radios and working through the three-dimensional problem-solving in real time to navigate the complex airspace of KSAN required my complete attention. The effort was real, even though the flight was virtual.

This is the value proposition provided by having a flight sim in your own home: You can focus on nearly any element of flying that you want to learn or practice and, by doing so, carve back some quality aviation time in your life. My goal has been to fly in my sim once or twice a week, usually starting at 10 p.m. to best minimize distractions. 

I enjoy scenario-based training flights paired with live air traffic control, but a flight sim can be used simply for fun, exploration, and virtual sightseeing. You can visit almost any airport or enter any airspace in the world, in nearly any weather conditions, and do so in faithfully-recreated versions of hundreds of different airplanes made by enthusiasts or programmers who care about getting the details right. And just like the real airport environment, I’ve found the people involved in the flight sim community are passionate, welcoming, and genuinely want to help new sim pilots get started.

In future articles, the FLYING team will cover some flight sim “watch-outs” to help you avoid developing any bad habits. However, I believe that the upsides to flight simulation far outweigh the potential downsides. I am neither a high-time professional pilot nor particularly tech-savvy, but I believe that my sim will help me become a better pilot when I go back to real-world flying. In the meantime, it helps me keep the dream alive.

If this interests you, I encourage you to go explore the amazing digital world of flight simulation. Perhaps it will grow into a new hobby that helps to keep your own dreams of flying alight. There’s never been a better time to get started.

This article was originally published in the April 2023, Issue 936 of  FLYING.

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