Thirty years later, as I have racked up thousands of hours flying business jets, fulfilling my cloud-popping dreams, I get to do the same on my home flight sim thanks to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS2020).

In the four years since MSFS2020’s release, so many improvements and features have been added to make its visual world more realistic. The weather modeling seems to improve almost daily. 

• READ MORE: Launch Date Set for ‘Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024’

MSFS2020’s live weather feature has always been fabulous and seemingly accurate. Yet with all its improvements, I still have an affinity for manually setting up the sky. I call this “skyscapes.”

Creating Skyscapes

I make my own skyscapes all the time now—and you can too. Or you can download them from others. It’s easy to do, tons of fun, and has become an artistic way of enjoying the sim.

It’s perfect for making coffee-table-perfect screenshots and also allowing overriding the live weather in case it’s interfering with your plans on that day. 

I enjoy modeling convection. The visuals of the cumulus clouds against a deep blue sky is intoxicating to me. Up until recently the cumulous model or thunderstorm was dead, with little or no turbulence. I would have to turn to X-Plane 12 storm modeling to be challenged. 

X-Plane has always done a superior job in convective modeling. But in the last two months until now I have noticed something in MSFS2020 has changed. 

Recently, I took a sim flight around Thailand testing out the new incredible PMDG 777-300 (pmdg.com), using my self made tropical skyscape. I programmed cumulus clouds with tops exceeding 30,000 feet, which suddenly started to upset the mega airliner as I flew traffic patterns. 

Near the cumulous, there were sudden upheavals, airspeed changes, and shear. It was rough. Some clouds did nothing, while others had winds gusting to over 50 knots in spots, varying on the direction, creating shear and moderate turbulence.

I tried numerous circuits around the area, with some 30 miles around the airport intentionally penetrating and circumnavigating the cumulous, some of which had grown to thunderstorms with lightning bolts. Adjusting the manual slider for customization I increased the lightning percentage and rainfall rates. The visual effect was spectacular, with visible rain shafts, downbursts, and rainbows.

Creating Sim Weather Themes

Creating your own weather themes is a breeze.

To get started, just untoggle the live weather button then manually tweak clouds, wind, visability, and temperature. Use the little icon to the upper-right corner to give it a unique name. That’s it, and it is saved forever for recall or to share online with others. I have started making many, based on real-world location and with the typical weather. 

Using manual weather offers the ability to deepen the blue sky to accurately represent areas that don’t have pollution, like the Pacific Islands or the Rocky Mountains in the U.S.

To do this, drag the humidity slider fully to the left. Moving it to the right creates more humidity, leading to a reduction in visibility or even fog if you keep going full right into a zero/zero type of world.

Temperature is self explanatory. Lightning is fun to tinker with, as is precipitation. By having high bases and no precipitation, you can simulate typical high altitude Rocky Mountain-style convection.

Throw in gusty winds in varying degrees with altitude or shear to simulate a day filled with thermals and convective winds. Dry base storms in the Rockies can be deadly, even without any precipitation falling. By adding a lot of precipitation you’ll get intense rain shafts and flooding.

By lowering clouds to under 3,000 feet msl, reducing visibility, and having intense rains, you’ll be creating a typical tropical-style setup. Make the winds light. The combinations are endless. 

The PMDG 777 is the epitome of a realistic, study-level aircraft. I am currently using an Asus ROG 18 (i9, GeForce 4090) laptop for all my flight simming sessions. 

As I fly the heavy jumbo, which in itself is a task, I wondered how the effects would affect a Cessna type aircraft. I booted up a brand new late model  Carenado Cessna 182T and flew over the intermountain western U.S. for testing using a similar weather model but raising the CU bases to about 7,000 agl and tops to near FL 400. 

It’s a random occurrence, but climbing near the bases resulted in some light chop and shear, though not as much as expected. After adding in more lightning and rainfall, I experienced some massive vertical spikes with winds gusting to almost 50 knots while in cruise at some places near clouds.

In preparing this article, I used a recently released add-on called SimFx by Parallel 42. It is available here, and includes other visual aircraft effects like wing fogging, tire spray, rubber trails, dirt, and much more. Some pretty cool premade “skyscapes” are included as well. 

Your home sim may not be able to replicate everything, but the amount it can do is staggering. The lack of motion is really about the only thing that stands out. Visuals are better than FAA-level D sims—and sound better too.

Hopefully you too will try making some of your own “skyscapes” in MSFS2020 and discover the fun of doing so as I have.

The post Skyscapes for Simmers appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Born in 1882, Geoffrey de Havilland was the second son of a village pastor. At an early age, he displayed a mechanical interest and pursued a career as an automotive engineer, building cars and motorcycles. Frustrated at work, in 1909 he received a gift of 1,000 pounds from his grandfather to build his first airplane, just a few years after the Wright brothers had made their first flight.

By World War I, de Havilland was working for Airco, where he designed a number of early warplanes, which enjoyed varying success, and flew as his own test pilot. In 1920, with the support of his former boss, de Havilland set up his own independent company and embarked on a series of aircraft named after moths, inspired by his love of lepidopterology, or the study of butterflies and moths.

• READ MORE: Reaching Uncharted Corners of the Globe in a Fokker F.VII

In 1932, he introduced the DH.82 Tiger Moth, a variant of earlier aircraft designed specifically as a military trainer for the Royal Air Force (RAF), as well as other air forces. Like many aircraft at the time, the Tiger Moth’s fuselage is constructed of fabric-covered steel tubing, while its wings are made of fabric-covered wooden frames. I’ve seen a single person lift a Tiger Moth by the tail to take it out of its hangar. The Tiger Moth was powered by a de Havilland Gypsy air-cooled, 4-cylinder in-line engine which produced 120-130 hp, depending on the version.

Like most trainers, the Tiger Moth had two seats, each with its own set of controls, with the student in front and the instructor or solo pilot in back. One of the major changes introduced to the Tiger Moth, at RAF insistence, was folding door panels that made it easier to enter and exit both cockpits. The feature was absolutely essential when a student or instructor needed to quickly bail out wearing  heavy parachutes.

The silver knobs on the left control throttle, fuel mixture, and aileron trim. The knob on the right enables “auto slots,” slats on the wings that automatically deploy like flaps to provide additional lift at low speeds and high angles of attack. Notice that there is no artificial horizon. However, there is a turn indicator (in the center) as well as a red column that indicates the aircraft’s pitch. It is currently showing nose-up because the plane is resting on its tailwheel.

The compass, situated just in front of the stick, is a bit tricky. You can either keep it pointed toward north and look to where the line is pointing, or you can rotate the compass ring to show the current heading at the top and follow that by keeping it centered.

• READ MORE: Reenacting Bombing Missions in an F-117 Nighthawk

In addition to the cockpit gauge, there’s also a mechanical airspeed indicator on the left wing. Red shows typical stall speed range (below 45 mph).

I’m at England’s Upavon Airfield, a few miles north of Stonehenge, which was home to the RAF’s Central Flying School, founded in 1912, and where the first Tiger Moths were delivered. It is now a small army base (hence the vehicles) and is also used as a glider field. With no electrical starter, the Tiger Moth is hand-propped to get it started. The turning of the propeller, by hand, engages the magnetos that send charges to the spark plugs, starting the engine.

This particular Tiger Moth, N-6635, is based on the one on display at the Imperial War Museum at RAF Duxford, near Cambridge. It’s actually a composite that was put together with parts from different Tiger Moths.

The engine is modeled realistically. If you overstress it on full throttle for more than a few minutes, it will overheat and conk out. If you let it idle for too long, the spark plugs will foul up. With a small engine like this, the left-turning tendencies are not pronounced. However, the trickiest part of takeoff for most tailwheel airplanes is still when the tail comes up. The descent of the rotating propeller causes a gyroscopic precession to the left.

The Tiger Moth gained immediate popularity as the RAF’s primary trainer—the first airplane a would-be pilot learned to fly after ground school before moving on to more advanced fighters or bombers. It gained a reputation for being “easy to fly, but difficult to master.” In normal flight, it was forgiving of mistakes. On the other hand, the Tiger Moth required great precision from a pilot to learn aerobatic combat maneuvers, without going into a spin. However, it recovers easily from spins, which meant it highlighted a student’s shortcomings without (usually) putting them at fatal risk. Though I did notice that when flying upside down (or going through a roll), the engine sputters, probably because gravity messes with the fuel flow.

During the 1930s, between world wars, students selected by the RAF took about nine to 12 months to earn their pilot wings, building up about 150 hours of flight time, about 55 with an instructor and the rest solo. Their instruction included night, formation, and instrument flying, along with gunnery and aerobatics (for combat).

The Tiger Moth was sold to 25 air forces from different countries and proved popular to private buyers as well. It was a big commercial success for the company. A total of 1,424 Tiger Moths were produced prior to the outbreak of WWII, most of which were manufactured at the de Havilland factory in Hatfield, north of London.

Slowing down while descending to land can be difficult. I found I usually needed to cut the power to idle and glide in. Power-off landings were a very typical method in that era. It’s nearly impossible to see forward in the Tiger Moth, especially when landing. It’s best to lean your head out the side, while keeping one eye on controlling the airspeed at around 60 mph (about 15-20 mph above stalling).

• READ MORE: Exploring the Checkered History of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter

There are also no wheel brakes. So once you do land, you just have to let friction slow you down. It’s easier in a grassy field like this.

The success of the Tiger Moth led to Geoffrey de Havilland being awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1934. But its story was only just beginning.

Welcome to Goderich Airport (CYGD) in Ontario, Canada, about 2.5 hours north of Detroit on the eastern shore of Lake Huron. In 1928, de Havilland set up a subsidiary in Canada to produce Tiger Moths to train Canadian airmen. This Tiger Moth, #8922 (registration C-GCWT), is based on a real plane that belongs to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Mount Hope, Ontario, and is in airworthy condition.

With the outbreak of WWII in 1939, the British government realized that Britain itself was an unsuitable location for training large numbers of new pilots. Not only is the weather often poor, the airspace over Britain was quickly becoming a battleground between the beleaguered RAF and the German Luftwaffe—the last place you’d want a student pilot to learn how to fly.

Canada, in contrast, offered vast areas far from enemy activity, where pilot training could be conducted. To take advantage of this, the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP) was created to instruct thousands of airmen from Britain and across the Empire in safer locations like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Bermuda, and South Africa. The yellow “training” livery was typical of the BCATP, though the real-life airplane was also equipped with a plexiglass-enclosed cockpit to permit winter training.

Many of the small airports dotted across Canada from east to west—as well as some large ones—got their start as part of BCATP, commonly referred to as “the Plan.” I selected Goderich to fly from because after it was built in Canada in 1942, this plane, #8922, was used to train pilots here at the No. 12 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS), as part of the BCATP. The same airplane later went to No. 4 EFTS at Windsor Mills, Quebec, an airfield that no longer exists.

Eventually, there were 36 elementary flight schools across Canada, in addition to dozens more devoted to training bombardiers, navigators, and gunners. At least 131,533 Allied pilots and aircrew were trained in Canada under BCATP—the largest of any country participating in the Plan—of which 72,835 were Canadian. The program cost Canada $1.6 billion but employed 104,000 Canadians in air bases across the land. De Havilland produced 1,548 Tiger Moths in Canada, by war’s end, to help stock these flight schools with aircraft.

While training pilots in Canada was safer than in Britain, lives were still lost. From 1942 to 1944, a total of 831 fatal accidents took place, an average of five per week.

• READ MORE: The Story of the Schneider Trophy and the Supermarine S.5

BCATP training was by no means limited to Canada. I’m here at Parafield Airport in Adelaide, Australia, which was home to that country’s No. 1 Elementary Flight Training School and received its first Tiger Moths in April 1940. This particular Tiger Moth, A17-58, was built by de Havilland in Australia in 1940 and apparently still continues to fly. Australia eventually had 12 elementary flight schools (plus a host of other schools) as part of BCATP, which was known there as the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS).

Prior to BCATP, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) only trained about 50 pilots per year. By 1945, more than 37,500 Australian aircrew had been trained in Australia, though many then went to Canada to complete their more advanced training before going into combat. Most Australians in the RAAF went on to fight in the Pacific Theater, though some joined the RAF to fight over Europe. De Havilland built a total of 1,070 Tiger Moths in Australia and even exported a few batches to the U.S. Army Air Forces and the Royal Indian Air Force.

The BCATP was one of the largest aviation training programs in history, providing about half of the airmen who flew for Britain and its dependencies in WWII. The ability to train in safety, away from the combat zone, gave Allied pilots a crucial advantage over the Germans, who typically went into combat with roughly half the training hours of their  counterparts. The program was so important that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who called the U.S. “the arsenal of democracy,” dubbed Canada “the aerodrome of democracy” as a result of its contribution to training Allied airmen—many of them in the Tiger Moth.

Tiger Moths were not only used to train pilots during WWII. Some were deployed for coastal patrols. I’m here at Farnborough, Britain’s former center for experimental aircraft development (southwest of London), to investigate another interesting purpose they served.

No, it’s not a mistake—there’s a reason why there are no pilots visible in either cockpit. This aircraft, LF858, was what was known as a “Queen Bee.” British anti-aircraft gun crews needed practice firing at real targets. But flying an airplane with people shooting at you is, well, rather dangerous. So de Havilland figured out a way to put radio equipment in the rear cockpit that could receive messages for an operator on the ground and work the aircraft’s controls accordingly. In other words, it was the world’s first “drone” aircraft.

Besides being able to fly by remote control, the main difference between a regular Tiger Moth and a Queen Bee is that instead of metal tubing for the fuselage frame, the latter used wood (like for its wings) to save money. The objective wasn’t to shoot down the Tiger Moth—that would be wasteful. Gunners used an offset to hopefully miss, so the airplane could land and be used again. But if they did hit, no pilots were at risk.

About 470 Tiger Moth “Queen Bees” were built during WWII. The term “drone” for a pilotless airplane derives directly from the Queen Bee program and refers to a male bee who flies just once to mate with a queen then dies.

By the end of WWII, nearly 8,700 Tiger Moths had been built, 4,200 of them for the RAF alone. It continued to be used by the RAF for training until it was replaced by the de Havilland Chipmunk in the 1950s.

The fact that so many people across the British Empire had learned to fly in a Tiger Moth made them immensely popular after the war, among private pilots and enthusiasts. An estimated 250 Tiger Moths are still flying, including this one based out of the small airstrip near Ranfurly on the southern island of New Zealand.

A number of Tiger Moth clubs exist around the world. The late Christopher Reeve, of Superman fame, once joined one of these clubs and learned how to fly the Tiger Moth. Reeve even made a movie about it, which you can find on YouTube. He said it took some time getting used to how slow they approach and land.

Tiger Moths have appeared in several films, often disguised as other biplanes. For instance, the plane in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) was a Tiger Moth, decked out to look like a German Fokker. The silver biplane in The English Patient (1993) was a Tiger Moth (the other, yellow biplane in that movie was a Stearman). It’s worth mentioning that the biplane in Out of Africa (1985) was not a Tiger Moth, but the earlier and very similar Gypsy Moth, also built by de Havilland. Apparently there was even a movie in 1974 called The Sergeant and the Tiger Moth (1974) about a guy and his girlfriend who aren’t even pilots but build and fly one anyway. I have no idea if it’s any good, so please find and watch it for me.

If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here. This story was told utilizing Ant’s Airplanes Tiger Moth add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries and scenery downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post Recreating the de Havilland Tiger Moth appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Innsbruck is one of the most beautiful and spectacular places on earth with an airport that can support a variety of airline equipment up to a small widebody such as the Boeing 767-300ER. I have traveled to LOWI for my entire “sim life” but sadly haven’t been able to see it in person yet.

To demonstrate this magnificent place, I chose horrendously gusty winds by manually editing the weather in both X-Plane 12 (XP12) and MSFS2020. I wanted to test terrain-induced dangers with modeled shear, downsloping, thermals, and maybe some rotor effects. 

The results were good and depicted simulated wind over steep peaks equally well. Both sims have enhanced their ability to handle wind flow over terrain and objects, such as buildings. Each will delight and tantalize you into taking risks you would not in real life. However, if you find yourself in a real-world situation that demands all your wind-battling skills, I am confident some, if not most of which you experience in either sim, will translate to useful skills. 

• READ MORE: Ultimate Realism ‘X-posed’ in 747-200 Classic

I started this exercise using the closest thing to a large bizjet I could find, which in MSFS 2020 is the Aerosoft CRJ 550 series with corporate livery. I enjoy this model and use it often, as I have seen these converted to private use in the real world.

I began and ended all my flights at LOWI to test terrain, feel out the winds aloft, as well as terrain-based wind flows and shear. 

The CRJ is interesting to fly with a lot of trimming required as it’s a long-bodied jet with a large swing either side of the CG. I have not flown one in real life, but I find flying pitch with stab trim almost entirely while hand flying. I mean, all jets I have flown are like that, but this is fairly sensitive to pitch, power, and flap configuration—all requiring lots of trimming. Taking off in violent winds was a task. The small aileron “tabs” were not doing a great job in crosswind ability.

Using live weather in my first view patterns was wild enough. On the downwind to the westerly runway at LOWI, I experienced a lot of up and down drafts, shear, varying winds, and sloppy controls. Even some unstable virga bursts were in the valley, corresponding to the actual METAR at the time. 

Snow cover is supposed to be realistically placed, and if it was, the coverage seemed quite believable. Snow still was deep in most elevated regions and spotty in the valley floor by the airport. Also visible was green grass and flowering trees. 

For the final approach, I calculated V_REF of about 128 was fought with much shear, with airspeed variances of up to 20 to 30 knots, providing a wild ride. In the CRJ you can not hear any engines from the cockpit, making for an odd audio sensation. You must look at your power settings only. This makes it easy to get behind the “power curve,” and often I found myself overcorrecting or undercorrecting on speed control. 

I imagine this is how a real CRJ pilot must feel. To me, engine sounds are extremely useful and one of the senses you can not operate without. I imagine MD80-style pilots are used to the same sensation.

I love comparing sims, so I loaded up manual weather in XP12 to mimic the same windy conditions, as live weather in the sim works well. 

I wanted unlimited visibility and no rain. Live weather in XP12 has a defect where it rains all the time, regardless of actual METAR. With a lighter corporate jet, that is powerful. As is often the case with swept-wing jets, sometimes extra drag is required beyond gear and flaps. In this case, I ran the speedbrakes often on final, as gusting winds often increase speed and put you high on the glideslope. 

It definitely was a jarring trip and was often violent with bank angles going beyond 40 degrees. Landing was wild, leading to the aircraft’s big wings striking the ground at times in the crosswinds approaching 35 knots. Its powerful reversers worked great, and slowing down was not an issue. The same monster engines worked great on climbout also, blasting through the shear layers.

Lastly, I tried the heaviest aircraft I could use at LOWI that I had in my library: the 737-700 BBJ models from PMDG and LevelUP for XP12.

Using 130,000 pounds as my test weight, I kept the same weather parameters going, with equally set manual weather in both sims, featuring the same winds. Hand flying the circuit, I blasted through the shear with ease, but the big wings made it even more noticeable in rolling motions and aileron slop.

I have noticed when flying big jets in my sims, the longer wings and winglets of newer airliners tend to “right the jet” quickly as it creates a stable platform in roll. However, it often results in necessary “tugging” or more force to start or end a bank. Older jets without winglets or shorter wingspans are much faster in roll and lack some stability in bank.

• READ MORE: A Better Virtual Flight Deck

I only have my real-world corporate jet experience to draw upon, but I do believe this is true. I have flown “wingleted” Challenger 300s and non-wingleted Falcon 2000s, Hawkers, and Beechjets. Of those, I found the Challenger 300 has a more stable roll and is more sluggish as well in that axis. When I flew Beechjets, with short stubby wings and no winglets, I realized it would simply roll off into oblivion if pushed more than 30 degrees over. There was no inherent stability. 

Some circuits were done taking off downwind. I could actually feel the requirement to push forward on the yoke, keep the stab down, and “dive away from the wind.” That technique works here as well. By neutralizing the yoke, I lost the ability to steer and attack whatever crosswind component was evident. Pushing too far down made steering overly sensitive, but pulling toward takeoff made steering impossible. It was a battle and balance that is realistically conveyed in both sims. 

Initiating the PMDG 737-700 BBJ was equally satisfying in XP12, with more fantastic weather modeling. The “violence” was real, and two landing attempts were met with sudden go-arounds as crosswinds, sudden sink rates, and warnings were severe. 

After a 50-degree sudden roll over at 500 feet, I was done and practiced wild go-arounds. This was in XP12. In both sims, if your sound settings are accurate, you can really hear the gusts on the windscreen on final as power is relatively low. This is something that is present in the real jet I fly.

Once again, I must tout the amazing XP-Realistic Pro, available at www.x-plane.org, for XP12, or the FS-Realistic Pro for MSFS2020. Both enhance and add necessary sound and visual effects for each sim.

Unexpected rolling motion hit me in XP12—and I loved it. Downwind washing wind flow is the reason I suspect, but I can imagine how nauseating this would be in real life. As a captain of jets for many years, I am OK while up front, but as soon as you make me a passenger, all bets are off for my stomach.

Even in the default XP12 scenery you do get the feeling of new worldly locations, with the local-style architecture and buildings changing. The European look is quite evident in Austria, creating an immersive experience, although not quite as dramatic as in MSFS2020.

Doing multiple takeoffs and landings to and from such a beautiful place is fun and satisfying to watch on the replay mode of XP12. I hope Asobo Studio will include replay into future versions of MSFS2020. You can learn a lot from sims, and being able to watch every aspect of it over and over during challenging situations is a great tool. 

The post Simulated Austria Is Wild, Wonderful appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The story of the F-117 begins in 1964, when Soviet mathematician Pyotr Ufimtsev published the paper, Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction. It demonstrated that the radar return from an object depended more on its shape than size. Given the technology at the time, Ufimtsev’s insight was dismissed as impractical in Russia. But by the 1970s, given friendly aircraft losses to SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) in Vietnam and the Middle East, engineers at Lockheed’s “Skunk Works”—famous for designing cutting edge military planes like the P-38 Lighting, U-2 spy plane, and F-104 Starfighter—began taking the idea seriously.

• READ MORE: Reaching Uncharted Corners of the Globe in a Fokker F.VII

One key to minimizing radar return was to replace conventional streamlined, rounded surfaces with flat, angled surfaces designed to scatter radar waves in different directions. The wings would be swept back at a steep angle, like an arrowhead, and the vertical stabilizer (tail fin) replaced by an angled V-tail, all to reduce its radar profile.

The two turbofan jet engines were placed above the wings to shield their heat signature from the ground. The flat, reflective surfaces of the turbofan itself were shielded by an intake grill (to the right).

The engines have special exhaust ports in the rear to shield and minimize the heat released. The F-117 has no afterburners to give it extra thrust, as this would defeat the purpose of nondetection.

Instead of slinging weapons and bombs outside the fuselage, they are stored in an interior bay, safe from radar detection. Even opening the bay doors dramatically increases the F-117’s radar profile, so it must only be done for a few seconds over a target. Additionally, the exterior surfaces of the F-117 are all covered in a special coating, designed to absorb and deflect radar waves. The fork-like prongs jutting from the front of the F-117 are sensors to detect airspeed, angle of attack, and other instrument readings. The F-117 has no radar, which would immediately give away its presence. The glass panel in front of the cockpit is an infrared “eye” that enables the pilot to see in the dark and guide bombs to their target.

The windows of the F-117’s cockpit are ingrained with gold, which allows radar waves in but not out. Examples of the F-117’s cockpit are now on display in museums, and the layout is fairly similar to other single-pilot combat airplanes.

• READ MORE: Exploring the Checkered History of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter

Initially a “black project” funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), starting in 1975, Lockheed cobbled together two prototypes under the code name “Hopeless Diamond,” which first flew in 1977. Although both prototypes crashed, the project was a sufficient enough success to proceed with a production model, which took its first flight from Area 51 in 1981. The first airplanes were delivered to the U.S. Air Force in 1982.

The radar-minimizing design features of the F-117 make it quite unstable to fly. In fact, it can really only be flown with computer assistance, using a fly-by-wire system derived from the F-16. Because of its difficult aerodynamics, the F-117 quickly gained the nickname “Frisbee” or “Wobblin’ Goblin.”

The shielding of its jet engines, and lack of afterburners, also means that the F-117 is subsonic (it cannot break the speed of sound), making it much slower than most conventional fighters. In fact, despite its designation, the F-117 is not a fighter meant to intercept and dogfight with enemy airplanes. It has no guns, and though in theory it could carry air-to-air missiles, its lack of radar would render them fairly useless.

• READ MORE: The Story of the Schneider Trophy and the Supermarine S.5

The “Stealth Fighter” is actually an attack aircraft or light bomber, intended to be used in covert missions or evade air defenses, mainly under the cover of night. Some say that the “fighter” designation was used to attract pilots to the program who would normally have preferred flying fighters over bombers.

After testing at Homey, the F-117 was assigned to a special secret unit at Tonopah Test Range, also in Nevada. A total of 64 combat-ready airplanes were eventually built. Throughout the 1980s, however, the F-117 was kept completely secret. While rumors and sightings of it abounded, the U.S. government refused to confirm that any such aircraft existed. The first acknowledged use of the F-117 in combat was during the U.S. invasion of Panama to topple dictator Manuel Noriega in 1989.

Before I elaborate on its combat history, I need to land this airplane. The F-117 doesn’t have any flaps or air brakes to slow it down. I pull the throttle back to nearly idle just to descend. The approach speed of the F-117 is really fast—around 250 knots—and it touches down at 180 knots. So on landing I pull a handle next to the landing gear to deploy a parachute, to slow me down in time.

Now let’s talk about the known combat record of the F-117. It’s 3 a.m.  on January 17, 1991. Just over a day since the coalition deadline for Saddam Hussein to withdraw his Iranian forces from Kuwait has expired. An F-117 flies over the desert just south of Baghdad.

F-117s are leading the first strike of the coalition air campaign in the first Gulf War, aimed at taking out key command and control installations in the Iraqi capital. With a radar reflection the size of a golf ball, the F-117 glides silent and unseen over the bends of the Tigris River toward its target. Meanwhile, Iraqi anti-aircraft guns fire blindly into the night sky—a scene I remember watching unfold live on TV as I sat in my college dorm room. Combat losses for the F-117 that first night were projected at 5 percent. In fact, every single one of them came back from their missions safely.

By the end of the first Gulf War, the F-117 had flown 1,300 sorties, hitting an estimated 1,600 high-value targets, with the loss of a single aircraft. Though some of its performance may have been exaggerated—initial estimates of 80 percent target accuracy were scaled back to 40-60 percent—the F-117 became a leading symbol of the U.S. technological edge that helped establish it as the world’s sole superpower going into the 1990s.

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Fast-forward to the evening of March 27, 1999. At Aviano Air Base in northern Italy, an F-117 prepares for another night of bombing Yugoslavia, as part of NATO’s intervention to compel Serbian forces to withdraw from Kosovo. The aircraft, call sign “Vega 31,” is flown by Lieutenant Colonel Darrell Patrick “Dale” Zelko, a Desert Storm veteran. His target is a command-and-control center in downtown Belgrade, the Serbian capital. Along with several other F-117s on similar missions, he will fly east across Slovenia and Hungary before refueling midair and turning south to enter Yugoslav airspace.

I’ve heard the story two ways. The first has Zelko approaching Belgrade from the northwest and being picked up by Serbian radar as he opened his bomb bay doors—presumably before he could hit his assigned target. The second version, which the pilot himself tells, has him skirting Romanian airspace and coming toward Belgrade from the east. He dropped his bombs on target then continued west to head back home. (From what I can gather, Zelko was actually quite a bit higher than I’m portraying here, and there was a cloud layer about 2,000 feet above the ground.)

Just south of the two in Ruma in the countryside west of Belgrade, a mobile S-125 Neva SAM unit detected the F-117, despite its stealth profile, and locked on. Two SAMs were fired. The first missed the cockpit by inches, and the proximity fuse somehow failed to trigger. The second hit one wing and sent the F-117 tumbling out of control. After an initial struggle, the pilot ejected, was able to evade Serbian ground forces, and was rescued by U.S. helicopters. Years later, Zelko met the man who commanded the SAM unit that shot him down, and the two became friends.

Interestingly, the U.S. did not take any steps to destroy the wreckage of the downed F-117. The official reason was that the technology was already out of date, and there was no rationale to fear it falling into enemy hands. While the F-117 Nighthawk was used in 2001 in Afghanistan, and again in 2003 over Iraq, it became increasingly clear that it was nearing the end of its useful days, soon to be replaced by newer aircraft like the F-22 and F-35 that incorporate further advances in stealth technology. In 2006, the U.S. Air Force announced that it was retiring the F-117 and began putting the fleet into storage. A few went to museums, and others began being scrapped.

However, in recent years, there have been a number of sightings of F-117s flying near Edwards Air Base near California’s Death Valley. Some were reportedly painted grayish white, earning them the nickname “ghosts.” It is widely suspected that these F-117s are taking part in exercises designed to train pilots to detect and intercept enemy stealth aircraft. For fans of the iconic “Stealth Fighter,” it’s gratifying to know that some of them still appear to be flying.

In its entire operational life, there was only one known F-117 shot down. Its time may have passed, but that’s a remarkable record.

If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here. This story was told utilizing Aerial Simulations’ F-117 Nighthawk add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries and scenery downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post Reenacting Bombing Missions in an F-117 Nighthawk appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Anthony Fokker was Dutch, born in the colonial East Indies. In 1910, at age 20, he moved to Germany to pursue his interest in aviation. He soon founded his own airplane company there, and during World War I it designed a number of successful and famous fighter planes for the Germans. Fokker himself was an accomplished pilot. I wrote a previous article on the Fokker Dr.I triplane, which you can check out here.

• READ MORE: Recreating the Final Flight of the Red Baron

After losing WWI, Germany had to surrender all its warplanes and aircraft factories, including Fokker’s factory, under the Treaty of Versailles. Fokker, however, was able to bribe railway and border officials to smuggle some of his equipment back to his native Netherlands. That equipment allowed him to reestablish his company in Holland and design the Fokker F.VII, a single-engine transport for the fledgling postwar civilian market. I’m in one of those models here, in KLM colors, at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport (EHAM).

The F.VII’s fuselage was fabric stretched over a steel-tube frame. Its wings were plywood-skinned. The original, single-engine version of the F.VII was powered by a variety of different models of radial engines, which ranged from 360 to 480 hp. Inside there was room for eight passengers, as well as a bathroom (the door to my right here).

The cabin was connected to the two-man cockpit by a little door under the fuel tank and starter switches. On the instrument panel, from left to right: oil pressure and temperature, altitude, another oil temperature gauge, air speed indicator (with a turn indicator below it), clock, and rpm tachometer. Around the cockpit you can see all the wires and pulleys connecting the controls to the flight surfaces outside. Turn or push the yoke and they quite clearly move. Fly by wire, indeed. The compass is basically a bowl with a magnet floating in it.

The designer of the initial F.VII was Walter Rethel, who was later hired by Willy Messerschmitt and went on to design the famous Bf 109, the main German fighter at the start of World War II.

With a single engine, even a fairly powerful one for its time, the Fokker F.VII didn’t exactly spring off the ground. It lumbers into the air and climbs gradually. Nevertheless, in the early 1920s, the F.VII became a successful early passenger transport for early airlines such as Dutch KLM and Belgian Sabena. Here I am flying over the historic center of Amsterdam.

In 1924, the F.VII even introduced flights from Amsterdam to the East Indies. Needless to say, it wasn’t nonstop and could take many days.

In 1925, automakers Henry Ford and his son Edsel began the Ford Reliability Tour, a challenge for aircraft to successfully complete a 1,900-mile course across the American Midwest with stops in 10 cities. To compete in Ford’s challenge, and make the airplane more reliable in general, Fokker had the F.VII redesigned to have three engines, adding two mounted on the side struts. The new F.VIIb/3m, decked out here in Sabena colors and flying over Brussels, became immediately popular, with 154 built. Each of the three engines was a 200 hp Wright J-4 Whirlwind.

• READ MORE: Exploring the Checkered History of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter

Belgian tycoon Alfred Loewenstein, calculated to be the third-richest man in the world at his peak in the 1920s, even owned his own private Fokker F.VII. Flying over the English Channel in 1928, he had one of the most unfortunate bathroom breaks in history. You see, the door to the bathroom (left) is directly across from the door to the outside (right). It seems Loewenstein opened and walked through the wrong one and fell to his death in the water below. Though to this day, some still suspect it was murder. There’s even a book about this incident, The Man Who Fell from the Sky by William Norris.

If that were the sum of the F.VII’s history, it might be pretty uninspiring. But to tell the rest of it, I’m here at Spitsbergen in Norway’s Arctic archipelago of Svalbard for Byrd’s flight to the North Pole. Richard Byrd was a U.S. naval officer who commanded air patrols out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, during WWI. He played an active but supporting role in the first attempts to cross the Atlantic by air, and in 1926 had his big shot at fame. His Fokker F.VIIa/3m, mounted on snow skis, was named the Josephine Ford, after the daughter of Edsel Ford, who helped finance the expedition.

This was a two-man expedition, with Byrd accompanied by Navy Chief Aviation Pilot Floyd Bennett. The passenger seats were torn out and replaced with extra fuel tanks and emergency supplies.

The inside of the cockpit is quite similar to the one-engine version but with three separate throttles and tachometers (showing rpm). There was no airport in Svalbard at the time, so they had to take off from a snow-covered field—hence the skis. Byrd’s flight, from Svalbard and back, took 15 hours and 57 minutes, including 13 minutes spent circling at their farthest north point, which Byrd claimed, based on his sextant readings, to be the North Pole.

Did he really reach the North Pole and become the first to fly over it? This remains hotly disputed to this day, with some researchers claiming that he faked his sextant readings and fell short of his goal. In that case, the true prize would belong to Norwegian Roald Amundsen, already the first to reach the South Pole by land, in his airship Norge.

• READ MORE: The Story of the Schneider Trophy and the Supermarine S.5

A few observations about flying the Fokker F.VII, at least in the sim. First, it’s not very stable, in the sense of wanting to correct back to straight and level flight. It’s sensitive to being loaded either nose-heavy or tail-heavy and requires a lot of control input. Second, that big wing really likes to glide. To descend without overspeeding, I basically have to put all three throttles back to idle and glide down.

Last, there are no differential brakes and no tailwheel. That makes the F.VII extremely hard to control on the ground, even just to taxi. That’s especially true on snow skis.

Whether Byrd truly did reach the North Pole or not, he became a huge national hero when he returned to the U.S. Byrd and Bennett were both presented with the Medal of Honor by then-President Calvin Coolidge at the White House.

The following year in 1927, Byrd outfitted a new Fokker F.VII/3m, named America, to bid for the Orteig Prize, promising $25,000 for the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris (or vice versa). Anthony Fokker himself had recently moved to the United States and was part of the team preparing Byrd and his crew—the odds-on favorite—for the Atlantic crossing. During practices, however, America—piloted by Fokker himself—crashed, injuring both Byrd and Bennett and postponing their attempt. As a result, while America was being repaired, Charles Lindbergh—an unheard-of underdog—made the flight solo in the Spirit of St. Louis, becoming an aviation legend.

• READ MORE: Simulating a Bombing Raid in an F-16

The Fokker F.VII would still achieve fame, though, crossing a different ocean at the hands of Australian pilot Charles Kingsford Smith in 1928. If you’ve ever passed through Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (YSSY) and wondered who it’s named after, you’re about to find out. (If you’re an Australian, you already know).

Movie star handsome Smith, known as “Smithy,” fought as a combat engineer at Gallipoli in WWI but soon joined the Royal Air Force as a pilot. He was shot down, injured, and returned to become a flying instructor in Australia. From that day, Smith had a dream to cross the Pacific Ocean by air from the U.S. to Australia. By 1928 he was ready to try to achieve that goal. That’s why I’m here at Oakland Municipal Airport (KOAK) in California, where he took off in his Fokker F.VIIb/3m Southern Cross. Not unlike Byrd’s airplane, the inside has been altered to make space for extra fuel tanks.

At 8:54 a.m. on May 31, 1928, Smith and his four-man crew lifted off from Oakland on the first leg of their journey to Hawaii. At the time, flying to Hawaii, much less Australia, was an extremely daunting prospect. While they had a radio with limited range, there were no radio beacons to guide them. They could only estimate a course based on the latest, often inaccurate, weather reports over the Pacific and hope that unexpected winds wouldn’t blow them off course and make them miss Hawaii entirely. As they flew over the Golden Gate— the bridge hadn’t been built yet—they knew that several aviators before them had estimated wrong and simply vanished into the vastness of the Pacific.

The first stage from Oakland to Hawaii covered 2,400 miles and took 27 hours and 25 minutes (87.54 mph). It was uneventful. But one can only imagine their joy as they arrived here over the northeast shore of Oahu.

They landed at Wheeler Army Airfield in the center of Oahu. The Southern Cross was the first foreign-registered airplane to arrive in Hawaii and was greeted at Wheeler by thousands, including Governor Wallace Rider Farrington. Smith and his crew were put up at Honolulu’s pink Royal Hawaiian Hotel to rest for the next stage.

• READ MORE: A Virtual History of the Piper Cub

The runway at Wheeler was too short for the Southern Cross to take off fully loaded, so they flew to Barking Sands on the west coast of Kauai, where a special runway had been constructed. They took off from Barking Sands at 5:20 a.m. on June 3, bound for Suva in Fiji.

The journey from Hawaii to Fiji was 3,155 miles—the longest flight yet over continuous seas. It lasted 34 hours and 30 minutes at an average speed of 91.45 mph.

Halfway across near the equator, the Southern Cross encountered a tropical thunderstorm. Keep in mind, the crew did not have the benefit of an artificial horizon. The only way it could keep level, flying blind, was keeping a close eye on airspeed, altitude, and the inclinometer (or turn indicator). Somehow, the crew weathered the storm and kept going.

The crew undoubtedly felt great relief when it spotted the green landscape of Fiji ahead. There was no airport at that time, so the Southern Cross landed on a cricket field. Once again, it was far too small to use to take off again, so after a few days’ rest, the crew relocated to a beach from which to depart for the next and final leg of the journey. Leaving Fiji on June 9, the aviators embarked on their final 1,683-mile stretch home to Australia.

Once more they encountered storms, which blew them nearly 150 miles off course. Even when the weather was clear, the unrelenting and trackless ocean must have been overwhelming.

The Southern Cross reached the Australian coastline near Ballina, well south of its intended target, and turned north toward Brisbane. As the crew reached Brisbane, it was greeted by an aerial escort. The goal was Eagle Farm Airport northeast of the city—now the location of Brisbane’s main international airport.

The Southern Cross had flown 7,187 miles (11,566 kilometers) in 83 hours and 72 minutes. The Pacific Ocean had been conquered by the air for the very first time. A crowd of 26,000 greeted Smith and his crew when they touched down at Eagle Farm.

Smith died in 1935 at 35 when his airplane disappeared over the Indian Ocean while attempting to break the England-Australia speed record. His career was filled with both triumph and scandal, but he is still considered Australia’s great aviation hero. If you visit Brisbane’s airport, you can still see the real Southern Cross on display in a dedicated hangar.

The Fokker F.VII continued as a popular airliner into the 1930s. However, the vulnerability of its fabric-and-wood construction became apparent following a 1931 TWA crash that resulted in the death of famed University of Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne. As a result, the Fokker F.VII gave way to all-metal airliners such as the Boeing 247, Lockheed L-10 Electra, and eventually the DC-3.

One of the most popular early successors to the Fokker F.VII was the Ford Trimotor, basically an all-metal version of the F.VII. For all their sponsorship, the Fords seem to have gotten something out of it in the end. Anthony Fokker, nicknamed “The Flying Dutchman,” lived most of the rest of his life in the U.S. and died at  49 in New York in 1939 from pneumococcal meningitis.  

If you’d like to see a version of this story with more historical photos and screenshots, you can check out my original post here. This story was told utilizing the “Local Legend” Fokker F.VII add-on to Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, along with liveries and scenery downloaded for free from the flightsim.to community.

The post Reaching Uncharted Corners of the Globe in a Fokker F.VII appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Redbird Flight Simulations asked questions along these lines for its annual report on the state of flight training.

Redbird’s 2024 report was culled from survey responses that included questions about the frequency of training flight, use of a syllabus, and how busy flight schools are to name a few.

The report consulted CFIs who work at flight schools from the mom-and-pop variety with a handful of “seasoned” trainers to the larger academy style with 20 or more later model aircraft.

• READ MORE: EAA Education Center Continues to Expand with New Investment

This year 1,701 people responded to the survey, representing a 57 percent increase over 2023.

Student pilots were put into three categories: active, lapsed (have not flown within three months), and prospective. Active pilots were defined as a certificated pilot who has flown in the past 12 months but isn’t receiving training toward a new certificate or rating.

The survey took information from student pilots, lapsed and prospective pilots, flight instructors, and designated pilot examiners.

Among the findings, according to the 27-page report, are that flight schools are busier than they have been before—so much so that some have waitlists. Of those surveyed, 70 percent received flight training, 49 percent received ground training, and 18 percent received a new rating or certificate.

The survey found the cost of training has increased—you’re looking at $14,000 for a private pilot license (PPL), taking an average 24 weeks. Last year, training costs for a PPL averaged $12,500. According to the report the most expensive certificate is the commercial pilot license (CPL), costing $15,000 and requiring an average training time of 18 weeks.

According to the survey, 48 percent of the pilots flew one to 50 hours in the past year, and 28 percent 50 to 100 hours.

At least 83 percent of the active students did their training at one flight school with more than one primary CFI, and 57 percent were on the professional pilot track.

• READ MORE: FLYING’s Flight School Guide

When asked to rate their CFIs on a scale of 1 to 5, the average rating was 4.3 while the flight schools received a 3.6.

The survey also asked about the use of simulation technology for flight training. According to respondents, students and prospective students placed a higher value on its use than many instructors.

The survey also took note of the challenges facing flight training. Both flight schools and independent CFIs noted they had concerns about aircraft insurance, maintenance challenges, and pilot examiner availability. The schools also reported some concerns about finding and hiring qualified flight instructors.

• READ MORE: What Is the Right Age To Start Flight Training?

The report did not address CFI turnover. This can have a dramatic impact on the quality of instruction given, as it takes awhile to learn to be an effective teacher. According to the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators and the National Association of Flight Instructors, many CFIs actively teaching have less than a year of experience as flight instructors. 

The Redbird survey also determined that getting CFIs to use a syllabus is still a challenge as 32 percent of the learners surveyed said their CFI didn’t use one.

Designated Pilot Examiners (DPE) were also included in the survey. The average number of applicant tests conducted in one year by full-time DPEs was 245, while part time DPEs did 130 tests. When asked about the quality of applicants as compared to five years ago, 45 percent of the DPEs stated the applicants were worse and cited a lack of preparation of the applicant followed by a lack of skill as the dominant factors in check-ride failures.

More information about Redbird’s “The State of Flight Training” 2024 survey and report may be found here.

The post Redbird: Learning to Fly Has Gotten More Expensive appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The audience for the virtual aviation experience—I hesitate to call it a ‘game,’ and more on that later—was both aviation enthusiasts and certified pilots, as MSFS 2002 had been developed to be “as realistic as possible.” I promptly tested this assertion by rolling a virtual Cessna 172 inverted and keeping it there. As the fuel tanks on the 172 are in the wings and the aircraft has a gravity-fed system, going upside down means the fuel doesn’t reach the engine. In real life, you expect it to stop—and quickly. I silently counted alligators as I held the aircraft inverted—there was the sputter and cough as the engine quit approximately 15 seconds into the maneuver.

The MSFS representative looked awfully proud as he told me that the development team included pilots who took great pride in crafting this realistic virtual aviation experience.

Kit Warfield was one of these pilots. It is Kit’s voice you heard on your virtual check ride. Now a retired commercial seaplane pilot from the Seattle area, Warfield was the content lead on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000, 2002, 2004, Flight Sim X, and all three versions of Combat Flight Simulator.

“The tagline at the time was ‘as real as it gets,’ and we took great pride in trying to replicate the aircraft aerodynamics, the weather, and the scenery and so forth,” she says. “To call it a game seemed to trivialize that, but officially and formally, the category that Microsoft Flight Simulator fits into is a game, as it is entertainment software.”

The Fun and Fantasy Factor

Simulation games allow you to fly anywhere in the world in a variety of airframes—from gliders to commercial jets—and you can do silly things that you would never, ever do IRL, such as landing a 172 on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

According to Warfield, the MSFS developers went looking for ‘fun’ approaches to build into the experiences.

One of these is the approach into Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport (VHHX), known as the Checkerboard Approach or Hong Kong Turn, created by a retired Northwest Airlines captain turned programmer who had flown the approach in real life. The approach put aircraft very close to high-rise buildings.

“He knew the [Boeing ] 747, and he knew that approach, and he knew it in enough detail that he would take off and fly the Checkerboard Approach inverted,” says Warfield. “I’ve heard the airport is closed now, but from people who have been in there, I asked, ‘How close did they get to the buildings?’ And I was told, ‘You could see people cooking in their kitchens.’”

Go Anywhere

With aviation simulation, you can virtually fly an aircraft any place in the world—feeling homesick for NewYork? You can take off from LaGuardia. Have a hankering to fly up the Vegas strip at night? Or around the pyramids of Egypt? That can be done.

There are some areas where game designers won’t cross the line into absolute fantasy, says Warfield, “You’ll never be able to take your general aviation aircraft into space.” Also, there will be no dramatic and frighteningly realistic crashes in MSFS because, for all the attention paid to making sure the virtual aircraft fly as close to the real thing as possible, the developers have agreements with aircraft manufacturers if the virtual aircraft crashes, the simulation simply ends or the aircraft bounces back into the air.

Getting Started

There doesn’t have to be a steep learning curve with the games, says Michael E. Puochi, a game developer who has been tinkering in virtual aviation since 1987 when he played Maverick in Nintendo’s Entertainment Systems Top Gun. He’s also a student pilot IRL.“Most modern sims will let you fly in a few different modes from a ‘simple’ flight model that may have things like auto trim, auto rudder, self-righting, unlimited fuel, so the non-pilot can just experience flight with very little instruction or understanding of flight dynamics and basic pilot instruction. You can also go full realistic or ‘advanced’ where the aircraft will not fly itself and requires full input from the virtual pilot. The games are made to be accommodating to all skill levels.”

Puochi notes the sim creators use the pilot’s operating handbook for the aircraft and rely on the guidance of subject matter experts (SMEs) such as pilots, aircraft designers, and mechanics to get the most accurate information for the aircraft’s performance. They use laser scans of the cockpit and thousands of photos, videos, and recordings of various operating envelopes to get the virtual aircraft as close as they can to the real thing.

The Cost of the (Virtual) Cockpit

The price of virtual flight depends on how elaborate as setup the pilot wants. There are some who are content with a small control device and a laptop screen, while others will spend thousands of dollars on building a cockpit with rudder pedals, a yoke or stick, and even a VR panel.

“The more modern sims on the market you can spend upwards of thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. Some people have full motion flight platforms, scale pits that are fairly accurate to the actual aircraft in real life,” says Puochi.

The interest can start young.

“About one-third of my students have a flight simulation set-up at home,” says Robert Prosch, aeronautical lead instructor at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. The museum offers a Pathway Program for highschool students, several who developed their interest in aviation through games. The Pathway program uses light simulation to reinforce classroom concepts, such as basic flight and aircraft handling and instrument interpretation, and helps students develop hand-eye coordination and aviation communication skills.

Prosch and his students assert that middle school is a good age for students to be exposed to flight sims, as this is the time in their life when they develop interests in things that often carry into adulthood.

“Start out with simple ‘sandbox’ type games, many of which are free or relatively inexpensive,” suggests Prosch.

Top Gun for Fun

Would you like to be a Top Gun? There are virtual scenarios where each player is part of a squadron. Puochi, call sign ‘Puffin,’ is a regular participant in Virtual Naval Air Operations (VNAO), which celebrates its 15th anniversary this year.

According to Puochi, the premise of the group is emulating procedures used by the U.S.Navy, which means using the same methods as Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures Standardization. Participants become members of a squadron.

The group includes formally-trained military and civilian pilots who impart their extensive training and wealth of knowledge to the participants who are looking to learn as much as they can from the mentorships. The virtual pilots learn how to fly in formation, do inflight refueling, navigate, and practice launch and recovery off a virtual aircraft carrier.

“Taxi instructions, launch orders, and handoffs are done to the best of the ability of those involved in as realistic fashion as possible,” says Puochi, who also has logged several hours as a private pilot candidate. “The mission commences, and then the recovery phase proceeds, probably one of the most fun parts because we have trained live LSOs (landing signal officers) in the sim on the LSO platform waving in recovering aircraft. It’s really stressful and very fun at the same time, especially when you snag that third wire.”

It can get complicated quickly, says Puochi, as the mission requirements of a multiplayer game often do. The virtual pilots need to understand procedures and their role in the mission. The pilots choose their own level of training and involvement, says Puochi, “from the casual pilot that just wants to know what it is like to do recovery and launch operations aboard the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carriers, to the extreme enthusiast that wants to learn everything about how to fly and strategically use these study-level aircraft.”

SIMS as an Aviation Gateway

At CalPoly Humboldt in Arcata, California, a homebuilt simulator is a favorite of library patrons. Humboldt is the northernmost campus in the state university system, located on the rugged north coast.

In 2019 the PC gaming club built and installed the simulator, which consists of a non-moving platform, a gaming chair, and a console with toggle and rocker switches and appropriately colored knobs for throttle, propeller, and mixture. The aviation club took over operation of the simulator in 2022.

The simulator runs X-Plane. The sky and airplane are projected on a curved wall of video screens. The instrument panel is digital and correct. When the simulator was built, professor David Marshall, who holds both remote pilot (drone) and private pilot certificates, was the advisor to the club. Today, the aviation club, also advised by Marshall, takes care of and oversees the simulator, which is located on the second floor of the library in the area designated for collaboration. The space has whiteboards, desks, a VR setup, and a classroom-sized manual E6B.

Because the simulator is out in the open, posters are mounted over the screens providing instructions for its use.

At this time, the university doesn’t have an aviation program per se, but the simulator is proving to be popular with students looking for a way to have some fun and explore aviation without making a big investment of time or money. They are learning that flight sims can be just as enjoyable as flying IRL, and as it is much less expensive, is an activity in reach of many.

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

The post For the Love of the Game appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Ansett, which is based in Australia, said it is partnering with Dynamic to develop a one‐stop training program for airlines and pilots that is a five-minute drive from Dubai World Central Airport (OMDW). 

The company said its new Middle East operation initially will add an ATR 72‐600 full flight simulator to Dynamic’s training facilities, which serve a large number of commercial airlines and business jet operators worldwide.

“Ansett Aviation Training has a proud history of offering simulator training services in Australia, Europe, and Asia,” said Mark Delany, CEO of AAT. “We are delighted to be expanding our services into Dubai and working closely with the teams at Dynamic Advanced Training and Dubai South to develop training solutions for the aviation industry.”

“We are pleased to welcome Ansett Aviation Training to Dynamic Advanced Training’s facility, with whom we are proud to have a partnership,” said Tahnoon Saif, CEO of Mohammed bin Rashid Aerospace Hub. “We are confident that the new addition in the center will enhance the capabilities of pilots and airlines through its training solutions and contribute to Dubai’s vision of becoming a leading aviation hub.”

Ansett noted its new training center in Dubai will be ready for operations in September.

The post Ansett Aviation To Open Simulator Training Center in Dubai appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

My weather was live and real-time as usual, and I was greeted by ceiling and visibility unlimited (CAVU) the day I started this trip. Once there, I marveled at the incredible scenery and beauty of it all, with lots of snowy landscapes to view. It was early spring but winter in Alaska using the live weather features of MSFS, showed the heavy snows they have been having this year are still in place. 

But once flying a variety of heavy aircraft west along the Aleutian Islands, far western Alaska isn’t far from Russia. My curiosity got the best of me, so I continued the short two-hour trip westward to land in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Airport (UHPP), a fairly remote outpost but real-world fuel stop for Asia-bound ferry flights. 

From UHPP, it was only another two hours or so to northern Japan, where the flowers were in full bloom and the weather warmer and more inviting. From there, I decided to explore North Korea, but my stay was brief. I entered illegally and had to get out fast, prohibited from taking any photos.

A day trip was reduced to 20 minutes at hypersonic speeds. After some great difficulty hand flying this beast, I was able to get it back into the normal atmosphere, approach the new Hong Kong International Airport (VHHH) with wide open runways, and land at some 200 kts. I was exhausted, but the real reason to come to the new Hong Kong airport is to see the old one, Kai Tak International Airport (VHHX), which operated until 1998. 

For any aviation fan, the destination rekindles some great memories of when airline pilots had to practice the famous “checkerboard” approach to Kai Tak’s Runway 13. It was perhaps the most famous airport in the world back then, and lives today in fame. 

We can explore what landing at Kai Tak was like via MSFS, which still has the airport open and fully operational. Here, I selected the Boeing 747-8i, an aircraft popular among passenger airlines until recently. 

This was one of those special flight sim moments where I remember this event as if it were real. To be able to experience a famous, challenging airport, one that thousands of aviators worldwide got to experience first hand, hand flying in their wide bodies and heavy jets of their time into this exciting airport. 

I had hoped in my lifetime that I would have been able to experience flying into Kai Tak International but sadly missed that opportunity. My feelings are similar to having never been able to fly or even be a passenger on the Concorde. Yet we have all of this in MSFS and other simulators as well, keeping this dream alive. 

The post Simulated Flight in Real, Uninterrupted Time appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Conditions were lousy—a snowy scene with snow squalls or flurries about. The radar on ForeFlight showed the snow showers in spots west and southwest of the field. Since live weather runs constantly, I wanted to take a look.

• READ MORE: Flight Sims, Real World Flying Interact Beautifully

The sim models ridge lift almost perfectly, and thermals work based on sun angle, strength, and time of year.

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

We’re clearly doing a bit of scud running in the valley, which you don’t want to do in real life in a non-icing aircraft with mountains involved. But if you’ve ever wanted to be a bit foolhardy, this is the place to play.

In order to blow the realism factor way up, I recently got a Honeycomb throttle system, yoke, and pedals. To be hands-on, pulling, and pushing, using real scaled controls has the immersion factor much higher than ever before. 

The realism and ability to handle each airplane with higher fidelity really adds to the theory that flight sims and real life can go hand in hand with proficiency.

Some pretty intense sudden wind shear close in over terrain, and trees and buildings are now simulated. I continue to add power. The shaking, bouncing airspeed and changing throttle are lots of fun. Snow squalls and clouds are to the west and southwest, just as seen on the radar. Wow. Real weather does work.

The “CaptainSim” 767-300 is a light, simplistic systems-wise, version of the iconic airliner. While it is simplistic, it looks fabulous, and I would recommend it for getting from one place to another, but not in a “study level” or nuts and bolts type of detailed simulation. It is similar to default airliners in quality. 

In this photo you can see the live snow cover modeling leaving the Los Angeles area, up over the San Gabriel mountains, climbing up to FL320. The snow has reached the valley floors, as many towns at 1,000 feet or so got accumulation. The snow-cover model is updated when satellite imagery is also downloaded, or will modify if you manually modify the weather pages and deactivate live weather.

You can customize the throttle quadrant for single-engine land, single-engine complex, multiengine land, turbojets, and airliners all right out of the box. It’s one massive step toward realism and proficiency for a reasonable investment price. Thirty years ago, I would have never dreamt of such an amazing amount of realism and fun to be had at our hobby, which is now a serious tool for professional aviators anywhere. 

The post Flying Through Snowy Southern California, Virtually appeared first on FLYING Magazine.