1. Learjet 35A by FlySimWare

I think my favorite thing of 2023 was the sudden release of the FlySimWare Lear 35A. This is a humdinger of a masterpiece even if it’s still at the “early access” stage. I can’t recall another aircraft that has been so great right out of the box, with so little wait time or hoopla. I mean, we have the greats such as PMDG and Fenix, but they don’t get dropped suddenly without any long waits. 

The Lear 35A is a fabulous addition to the bizjet genre and one that will be continually upgraded. I have not flown an actual Learjet in real life, but since this product was designed with the input of real Lear 35 pilots, I can safely assume it’s been done well. From what I can see having flown bizjets for 20 years now, it’s spot on. The handling quality is sweet, balanced, and well tuned. Trimming, momentum, and effects of gear and flaps all seem accurate, as well as the feeling of liftoff and touchdown. The amount of float, touchdown quality, and steering on the runway seem good to me as well as the powerful reversers that will do most of the work after landing. 

The only thing is since it’s early access, some of the sounds are still lacking or missing. I would love more of the environmental system sounds, as well as a more robust thrust reverser roar, which would be quite loud. However, the engine spool-up and high rpm harmonic “humming” you’d hear from up front is spot on. Brilliant in that audio regard. 

This aircraft is so beautiful to look at, and all parts externally are replicated to perfect scale. My trained eyes usually find things not designed to scale or size, but in this case, I can’t find anything. It’s a perfect visual blueprint of the real thing. With a product this great, the problem is we wish for the release of many more bizjets immediately. Gimme more now!

Grab your Learjet 35A from the FlySimWare store.

2. Kuro 787-8 Dreamliner (freeware)

This little gem is a remake of the default 787-10 that brings forth the smallest 787 variant, the 787-8. This somewhat stubby-looking (perfect in my mind) version makes for an amazing private jet conversion with beautiful liveries available (any airline you want is an option too). This freebie comes updated with Asobo’s default 787-10 stretch (only in the premium deluxe Microsoft Flight Simulator installation), where service upgrades to panels and systems are already complete. The flying quality is great, and I have been able to perform perfect autolands with this model, a sign of a great build. It comes with its own sound set as well. It’s truly a great add-on and one of my favorites of the entire year.

It’s continually updated and available at the flightsim.to website (the greatest place to get all your MSFS 2020 free items and mods).

3. A2A Piper Comanche

This A2A gem is probably most GA flyers’ No. 1 product of the year for sure. I am not an expert on the smaller things, and haven’t used this enough  to give my expert opinion, but sometimes you need to rely on others. This is a living, breathing airplane that has to be maintained and treated well. 

This is a new function that a lot of designers are bringing into their products and MSFS supports constant-state aircraft that save flight times, wear and tear, health and maintenance practices as you fly. It remembers this so even after flying other aircraft, when you go back to this one, as long as you have a constant state toggled, you’ll be using this feature. Real Comanche pilots are heralding this is the best airplane ever for the MSFS series. Some folks have given up flying anything else. 

In my limited experience, I did enjoy the fact that I damaged the engine by not following procedures, proper warm-up, and fouled plugs. You can use a built-in tablet to view engine health as it runs live. The sounds are great and will accompany any problems with accuracy. A2A is known for top-quality sim aircraft and add-ons, and this one has certainly kept its reputation on the top of the pile. 

4. Carenado Turbo Stationair 207 

Recently released via the MSFS Marketplace is the Carenado Cessna (stretched) 207 Turbo Stationair— a spectacular looking replication of the real-life workhorse. For a mere $14, you can grab this beauty. I loved the appearance, sounds, and feel of hand flying this fabulous, fast-and-furious, do-it-all airplane. From short mountain strips to long-haul journeys, this works. And it kinda has that feeling that “maybe someday I could buy one of these things.” 

The aircraft comes with many fabulous variants, like passenger, cargo, pants or no pants, etc. A good variety of paint jobs, or liveries, are also included. I wasn’t expecting this either, and it’s a great addition to my sim that I really enjoy flying again and again.

5. Black Square (Anything it does is amazing)

Fairly new to the flightsim genre is Black Square. It has been making fabulous enhancements to default aircraft like the Bonanza, King Air 350i, and Baron 58 for a while now, complete with more realistic systems, panels, displays, analogue options (six-pack) with aircraft health and vulnerability built in. 

Just a few months ago, Black Square released its first entire airplane, the powerful Daher TBM 850, to compete with the default Asobo version. Some of us really enjoy the slightly older mix of steam gauges and modern stuff, and Black Square has certainly fulfilled many of our wishes. Everything it does is fabulous, and these products really stand out. The Just Flight store has them all here and here on the website.

6. Felis 747-200 for X-Plane 11/12

In my recent article, I went crazy over this X-Plane marvel. The classic 747-200 is simulated from head to tail in “study level” fashion. This is, by far, the most realistic airliner I’ve ever used for any sim, period. It may have to do with the built-in flying properties of XP itself, combined with brilliant programming and realism put into this production. You can actually feel the momentum, weight, and physics all at work as you hand fly this beast, unlike any other heavy jets I have tackled prior. It’s so good that I would recommend getting XP11/12 just for this. 

However, because of the unrefined status of XP12 currently (graphical and performance issues are still a problem when compared to MSFS), I’d recommend it on XP11 for the smoothest experience. Sometime by March, XP12 will be receiving a graphical and performance fix as noted by developer Laminar Research. This may be the actual piece XP fans have been waiting for to challenge MSFS performance and refined photorealistic visuals. 

7. FSRealistic or XPRealistic for both sims

Anyone who has followed me knows I am a huge fan of XPRealistic and FSRealistic. Both are an absolute must have during sim sessions. It adds everything that was left out of the native simulator versions—both by X-Plane and MSFS default programs—including wind, gear thumps, gear drag, flap noises, speed brakes, prop wash, touchdown sounds, thrust reverser roar, water landing sounds, screaming frightened passengers, turbulence-shaking rattles, and added motion and vibrational effects. All these things and more are now available and customizable by the user. It’s easy to use and I could not imagine sim flights without it. Not sure why base sims don’t include more of this style of immersion, but they don’t. These great add-ons are available from many outlets such as mine. 

8. FSLTL live traffic injector for MSFS

Since getting a new, more powerful laptop to run MSFS, I am now tinkering with live traffic. I had always avoided using any traffic due to the hit on performance and increased likelihood of stutters with such a draw on the CPU. But now it’s no longer really an issue. So after trying the built-in default traffic and getting screen freezes, I kept default traffic off and went to freeware third-party vendor FSLTL. 

FSLTL grabs live ADS-B data worldwide and puts the real traffic in sim with actual visual models of the traffic and their airlines if it is an airliner you’re supposed to see. The visual realism is great, and the immersion of seeing lumbering airliners in cue out to the active runway is jaw-dropping. Then they takeoff with a roar over your head or a trail of water vapor in tow if the runway is wet… wow! Seeing contrails in motion or distant aircraft lighting is very realistic. 

If you’re a fan of traffic watching, you can find out who you’re seeing either from the web, apps like FlightRadar24, or a built-in screen that you can open which shows exactly what traffic is being created, aircraft type, airline, and where they are going. 

All of this creates a performance hit. At large airports, it will take maybe 10 to 20 percent off the frame rate compared to what it would have with no traffic selected. That is far less than the hit from default live traffic by Asobo, because you can really allow a lot more traffic to display at any one time (adjustable). On a fast machine, you won’t care. 

For more information, check out the website.

9. FS-ATC Chatter for both sims

This little program available from Stick and Rudder Studios is available for both X-Plane and MSFS platforms. It will automatically play realistic ATC chatter from around the world, depending on where you are and what your current flight regime is. So you’ll hear accurate accents and dialects in each phase of flight. If you’re in Canada, you’ll hear its controllers. You’ll get accurate ground, tower, departure/arrival, center chatter, etc. The program features regular updates, and voice files are added often so you’ll never be bored hearing the same thing over and over. This is another little gem of a program that adds so much realism for both XP and MSFS.

I could keep going, but these are the 2023 add-ons that stand out to me as being exceptional products. There are many more items in my library that I use daily that could be honorable mentions. And it’s possible I have forgotten something. I am sure that 2024 is going to be another super year for this industry.   

The post Best Sim Add-Ons of 2023 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Since that beautiful day in August of 2020 when Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS2020) was born, some of us have had a pretty delightful time of it. Little trouble and mostly a great experience. There are others, however, who have had nothing but headaches and misery. 

Why is that? Let’s look at some issues and their solutions, along with general operating tips and hints, that have helped me through a recent upgrade to a better flight simming machine. 

I must say immediately that “less is more.” Anyone using a computer for work, office, graphic design, etc., probably won’t have as much luck with MSFS2020  as someone with a dedicated gaming or flight simming PC. It’s just that simple. A PC that is not crammed full of the extra programs the average office computer is bloated with will always serve you better.

I recently purchased a high-end laptop to use for all my sim needs. A 4090 GeForce graphics card is the highest you can go. However, the top-rated MSI machine I chose at first didn’t have “GSYNC” technology in its display which meant that running MSFS2020 resulted in choppy graphics and screen tearing issues despite blazing fast frame rates. In the past, I had always chosen GSYNC computers, but for some reason this one slipped right past me. I returned it immediately for a GSYNC Asus ROG 18 gaming laptop and couldn’t be happier with the smoothness and performance. 

All that is to say I highly recommend a GSYNC based computer and video display. I now see frame rates over 100 where my old 3070 laptop maxed out at about 50 in rural areas. I have to give a shoutout to my local Boston Microcenter for being such a great place to purchase technology such as my new beast of a laptop. You’ll probably never find a good sim PC in a typical store. Specific online retailers specializing in high performance PCs and gaming laptops are pretty much the only way to go. Personally, for something this valuable, I like being able to return it in person if something goes wrong.

Let’s face it, MSFS2020 is very demanding and requires a great gaming-style PC with high end hardware. That said, most computers and laptops built since 2020 do a pretty great job of running it right out of the box. The problem is no two computers are the same and everyone on earth will have a different set of experiences to report. Many having non-stop issues with the sim have an old or slow computer. Some may have newer, powerful machines that still run everything poorly due to outdated drivers, bloatware, overly clogged hard drives, or actual hardware issues. 

In my recent upgrade to a better gaming laptop, I had a some @#%$!!! moments myself. I would say if you’re having trouble with poor performance, crashes, freezes, and nonstop aggravation with your sim, then simply reset windows to new and use the option to do a complete restore. This will wipe the drive clean, leaving nothing behind. Doing this will ensure getting as new a PC as possible with no bad files or programs left behind to do bad things. In my experience, the time it takes to do a reset (about an hour is all) is way faster than spending days trying to troubleshoot.

Let’s say you do this or actually get a new computer. There is a lot of “junk” to be done before you install the sim and hopefully the things I’ll talk about here will help someone out there! If I can help at least one fellow pilot or flight simmer solve their issues, it will be worth it. 

Before anything can be done, make sure you have a great internet connection. This program will not install or run well on slow internet, period. This can be a major issue for folks in places where the internet is poor and spotty. It can make using MSFS2020 nearly impossible. This is where X-Plane can be the sim of choice, as you can use it easily offline without any internet. 

Here are some important steps to take (in order) after a new install of Windows or getting a new PC:

Windows Updates 

Go to the search box on the bottom area of the desktop, (the one with the magnifying glass symbol). Type in “update” and then click on “Check for updates”. You’ll be brought to the main update interface. Next, click on update and let it go. Now, you may be prompted to do this several times and some “restarts to take effect” will occur. If it hasn’t been done in a while, this could take time (possibly hours depending on your internet speed). Once it says  “your computer is up to date,” you’re ready to do more. 

Startup, Sleep, and Shutdown Options

Type in “Closing lid” in the search box. Click on “Change what closing the lid does” which will bring you to the options to select variables under the heading “Define power buttons and turn on password protection.” Be sure to stop all sleep, snooze, and lid closing options. Having a computer “hibernate” when attempting to run a sim for hours will cause issues! Also, click the “Change settings that are currently unavailable” link to get access to the “Shutdown settings” section. Once there, uncheck “Turn on fast startup” to disable that feature. Experts say to shut off this option as it can introduce problems and system hangs since using fast start was originally meant to speed things up, but can also cause instability and issues if not everything got loaded properly. I have always shut it off on my computers and honestly my laptop boots just as fast and with less worry.

Editing Advanced Power Settings 

Editing these settings will enable you to change the way the processor and other components run. First, type “Edit Power Plan” into the search box. Then click on “Change advanced power settings.” Don’t allow them to reduce less than 100 percent off the max settings, and if on a laptop, don’t allow anything less than 100 percent unless the machine is not plugged in, like on battery. Spend time to look around at all the options and don’t just accept the default ones as good. You need all the power you can get! Hard Disk,  Desktop background settings, Sleep, PCI Express, Processor power management, Display, and Battery options all need to be tweaked for power and not rest. Computers don’t need naps, only pilots do.

USB Controllers

Type “Device Manager” into the search bar. Click on it and then navigate down to “USB serial bus controllers”. Click on that and find “USB Hub” in the dropdown menu. Right click on USB Hub and select “Properties”. Click on the “Power Management” tab, where you will find another hidden option allowing you to uncheck the “Allow the computer to run off this device to save power” box. As we use many connected hardware devices, having a USB port suddenly napping away, can cause the sim to freeze or lock up sometimes. This option may work if you have any issues where the controls aren’t working fast enough or you get sim lockups. 

Game Mode 

Go back to the search bar, type “Game Mode” and select “Game Mode settings.” Click the toggle to turn OFF Game Mode. Most experts say not to use “game mode,” so (to be honest) without much evidence, I leave it off as well. Hopefully it’s not just a placebo. However, once you search for game mode, you’ll find an option under “Related Settings” called “Graphics.”  Click on that and you’ll see a list of programs. Look for Microsoft Flight Simulator or X-Plane and click on it. Next, click “Options”  and choose the one for  “high performance.”. Click Save. This is a new feature and seems to be one that many experts suggest. 

HAGS

Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling (HAGS) is necessary for 4000 series NVIDIA cards to get the best quality and performance as well as the new DLSS and frame generation technology. This can also be enabled on the “Graphics” page (if needed, you can navigate back to it by typing “Graphics” in the search bar and selecting “Graphics settings”). Once there, click on “Change default graphics settings” and make sure the Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling toggle is set to ON. Below HAGS, also set the toggle for Optimizations for windowed games to ON. If you have a lower card like a 2 or 3000 series, it may be better to leave HAGS off. Experiment to see. 

Windows Defender 

Next, type in and click on “Windows Security.” Go to Virus & threat protection and find Virus & threat protection settings. Click on “Manage settings” and scroll down to “Exclusions.” Select “Add or remove exclusions” then “Add an exclusion.” From the dropdown menu, pick “Folder.” From there, find and select your install directory for the sim you use. Now processing power won’t be used to scan this while you’re busy flying. Less intrusion is necessary! MSFS2020 and all my other games run from the Steam network so I just have the entire steam folder selected to ignore my games and sims I use. Defender is all you’d ever need to keep your PC safe in the first place. It is well made and doesn’t slow down your PC by keeping it active. 

Nvidia Drivers 

I personally prefer Nvidia graphics cards. For a long time, it’s been widely accepted in the sim community that they provide the highest quality and power for a sim. Nowadays, I could be wrong on this as gamers have accepted–and some even prefer–Ryzen. For me, I am sticking with Nvidia. If you have a Nvidia or Ryzen machine, you’ll need to upgrade to the latest or near-to latest drivers. Realistically, something less than a year old will do. Googling your specific card  is probably the best way to bring up your upgrade options. As always, when upgrading on Nvidia, be sure to choose the “Custom Installation” option and check the “Perform a clean installation” box to completely clear out old drivers and do a fresh install. 

Nvidia Control Panel or Other GPU interface 

It’s extremely important to make sure your main graphics card is listed as either the only one or top priority. On my laptop, I have a Nvidia Control Panel whereby I can select my 4090 graphics card as the priority and main card to use during any gaming or simulation, or just always use it bypassing the internal one on the motherboard. You can’t run any sim on an internal graphics processor. Usually this hassle is only on a laptop. With Nvidia, I have found that customizing settings to anything other than default usually doesn’t result in any added benefit to performance or quality. Some may disagree and have had good luck. The only thing I might change is the option to always use maximum performance vs. normal, but then again, even in default normal, the GPU will go to highest performance when required. Snake oil? No clue on this one. After years of fiddling I still have no proof. All I can say is less “tweaking” seems to result in the best performance and quality overall.

Getting Rid of Bloatware 

One of the most beneficial and satisfying things to do for me is to get rid of system hogging, clogging programs like any outside antivirus software. It’s not necessary and will cause system slowdowns, intrusions, and worse. Windows Defender is plenty all by itself. So via the search bar look up “Add or remove programs” and click on it., Go down the list and uninstall things like McAfee antivirus, Norton antivirus, Windows Office (a massive hog), and other junk a flight simmer will never need. Years ago, virus were a big threat. They’re much less these days, and I used to always find computers so bogged down, so slow and unresponsive, because they are plagued by antivirus software that everyone is told to use. Throw it all out. Just be careful not to delete something either Windows requires or you may need later. 

• READ MORE: Tips and Tricks for Flight Sims

Installing MSFS2020

Once you install the sim for the first time you don’t have to do anything with the so called “community folder.” However, if you have either a pre-existing installation or items you had downloaded or purchased, those are going to need to be re-installed. 

That “Community Folder” Thing…

All the addons you purchase or download for free will be placed into the “community” folder. Become familiar with it as during updates it’s important to temporarily either empty it out (i.e. select all, cut [ctrl-x] and paste the contents elsewhere [ctrl-v], or rename it to something like [Community_backup]. This must be done prior to any Asobo Studio pushed updates. You’ll know it’s time as you’ll be prompted to update. Just exit out the sim, and do this procedure, then re-start the sim and let it do it’s update thing. Once done, you can place your community folder contents back where they were prior to the forced update.

The location of your community folder depends on whether your MSFS2020 is from the Microsoft Store or Steam. 

The location for a Microsoft Store installation is:

C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Flight Simulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages\Community

The location for a Steam Store installation is:

C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages\Community

If you’re redoing a new installation from scratch–or just a new one from a new computer–do not just “copy” over your pre-existing community folder. I ran into trouble when I did this by just dragging the community folder over onto my new PC, and trying to install the sim. MSFS2020 failed to update properly on installation and all my addons didn’t work right. The sim was unusable and crashed, as I believe the underlying paths to installed options made the new installation think they were still in the area they were on the previous PC. In any event, a new installation with you re-downloading your add-ons and not including them in the community folder during the installation is the only way to do this error free. You should be flying high now.

I hope this helps at least one person out there get the best out of their sim with the least amount of anguish. For those of you who are real pilots, I can hear it now, “it’s much easier just to fly a real plane.” Well, kinda…But addicted sim geeks like me know we can’t live without both, real and virtual.

The post Optimizing PC Performance for <i>MSFS2020</i> appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The system—called the Amorphic Appearance Zero-Projector Environment visual display system, or AMAZE—uses  LED modules and light relays to create a more immersive training environment. The light relays allow for the unique shapes needed to create a 360-degree dome, according to Lockheed Martin.

• READ MORE: Air Force Pilot-Training Numbers Come Up Short of Aspirations

“Using the LED screen behind it, the shapes from the light relay bring the image from the screen forward and create the full immersion in the surrounding dome,” said the company, adding that  the result is superior to current projector-based flight simulators. “These current systems use projectors and mirrors to cast the images on the walls of the structure around the students—think of it like being in a snow globe. AMAZE’s LED-based display provides a higher contrast and brightness and creates a better experience overall for the pilot.” 

• READ MORE: United Zeroing In On Military Pilots as Air Force Tempts Them to Stay

The system has a modular design, requiring a maximum of 240 square feet for setup. It also doesn’t require projector calibration, and if an LED panel fails, it can be replaced in minutes, the company said.

“You have direct-view LEDs right in front of you that get extremely bright,” David Haeske, Lockheed Martin engineering director, said in a statement. “It gives us a high-contrast ratio, so we can increase training opportunities for pilots across scenarios, such as training at night or in various weather conditions.”

The post Lockheed Martin Deploys Jumbotron Tech in Fighter Pilot Training Sim appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The safety altitude most instructors teach is to never turn around if less than 1,000 feet above the airport elevation. It is always better to land straight ahead, or at the most a few degrees either left or right to avoid the hardest objects in your path. 

If you’re an expert, or perhaps maybe more daring than you ought to be, perhaps, the absolute minimum a turn back could be accomplished is 700 feet agl. With no more risk other than your pride, we can try the 700-foot turn back at engine failure as much as you want in the new Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS). 

• READ MORE: Simulated Flight in Real, Uninterrupted Time

Doing it in a sim has some incredible benefits to learn from. First, it’s an exercise in mental awareness and “big picture” thinking.

Before imitating these sim scenarios, I’d highly recommend getting FSRealistic add-on to enhance ground noises, cockpit vibrations, and effects, especially when landing off-road like we are about to do. It’s my favorite enhancement to date, for the MSFS series. 

One other important option is to disable any “realistic” crash modeling. The sim doesn’t portray impacts in the classic sense and the result is annoying—fade to black and a message that you have crashed, resetting you to the beginning. 

To have more realistic moments, and endure sink rates higher than just 700 fpm, setting the sim to “easy mode” gives you a more realistic impact. It is opposite of the way they intended. So for horsing around, off-road landings, emergency training, please disable “crashes” by going into the menus and do the following:

• Options/ Assistance options/ failure and damage, then disable both impact damage and aircraft stress damage.

Once these features are disabled, you don’t have to worry about landing in storms, bouncing, or overstressing your aircraft into a message or reset.

MSFS offers a great visual simulation with some pretty incredible flight models. I used an airplane I often flew in real life, a Piper Arrow III. The flight modeling is great in the Just Flight Piper Arrow III, easily available on the Microsoft Marketplace in sim. 

In this example, I used real weather in a random location in Nebraska, at an elevation of about 2,500 feet. The temperatures were ISA standard, about 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) on the ground, so climb performance would not be in the “hot and high” category.  The only detriment was a slightly higher elevation, so you could account for some added difficulty. You can set the sim to give random fails, but in this example I cut the mixture at about 3,200 feet msl (700 agl). 

I immediately started a fairly steep turn, lowered the nose, holding airspeed at about 75 to 80 kts, aware that the bank angle would raise stall speeds. I kept the airplane “clean” with no flaps or gear until at least wings level, hopefully aiming at the runway or airport environment. 

Stall horn peeping, I whizzed it around and did line up on final. I actually lowered the nose, gained some more speed then “zoomed” a bit up to gain or at least stop further altitude loss. Once I knew the airport boundary would be made, I yanked in 1, and then a second notch of flaps.

The gear thumped down during the last 10 feet, and I could feel it.

Wing’s Length Away

Our second adventure is based on the old private pilot training exercise to always keep a landing site a wingspan’s distance away from you. 

The old adage is that anything that rests under your wingspan should be reachable if your engine quits and your gliding range is roughly that of your wingspan distance at your viewing angle. I am always scanning around for safe havens in both real and simulated life. Even in the business jet I fly professionally, I think of this all the time. We all know a particular US Air pilot that thought this way too. 

• READ MORE: Flying Through Snowy Southern California, Virtually

In this next scenario, we will call any highway or road a safe makeshift runway. In some cases, roads can exceed the straight-away lengths of most GA airports.

You can see the red master caution with a horn reminding me of the gear still up at below a pre-designed manifold pressure. The oil, vacuum, and alternator lights are on too.

Don’t get close to cars immediately ahead of you as panicked drivers will only do one thing, slamming on their brakes in a sudden panic, not knowing how to deal with an airplane approaching in the rearview mirror.

Coming to a nice stop was very satisfying. Unscathed! I wonder if the local sheriff will stop by to give me a citation?

Don’t Buy the Farm, Use It

In my third adventure of the day, I decided to try another favorite old instructor routine that I used to pull on students to surprise them. Having big wide open fields nearby is always comforting. Doing my sample flights here in MSFS, choosing Nebraska as the place to demonstrate was as easy as you could get. 

This time, however,  my turn back was too wide, and there’s no way I could have made the runway as seen in the left corner of this pic. Instead, I chose the least dangerous option, which is straight ahead in the nicely plowed fields. 

• READ MORE: Flight Simulator’s Cessna 310 Offers Up Realistic Weather Lesson

Choosing which one was the only quick decision to make. Here I am without an engine, with the three glowing annunciations showing. The engine is still windmilling. Gear and flaps are up but not for long. Remember your soft field landing technique and try to come in with as little sink rate as possible as the gear could dig in. Even landing gear up could be a better option. Here, I quickly lowered it since the ground looked groomed. I barely made it over the first row of trees, then plunked down, rolling and banging along.

I was happy with how realistic the landing on soft soil felt. Bouncing and banging along was great, and using the Honeycomb controls with Thrustmaster pedals and quality foot brakes made this off-roading adventure all the more believable.

This is one of the greatest examples of how a desktop sim can help you plan, and think about the unlikely events that could pop up in your flying career. Although not an exact science, it’s a precise tool for mental awareness, quick thinking and problem-solving. 

The post Practicing the Impossible Turn appeared first on FLYING Magazine.