So how good a sim pilot are you?

[britfrog 180]

here is a simple little test for you all to see how good you are. It is based on a real life (non official) approach that was given to me by a friend (now dead) whose plane I used to use on the odd occasion, it was based at Fairoaks which was about half an hour from where I used to live

 

the flight is based on Fairoaks EGTF so it is nice to use the FTX scenery of this airport but not obligatory,

 

I suggest you use a cessna 172 or any small plane of your preference

 

fire up fsx and set the weather as follows : cloud base 500 feet , visibility 1/2 mile fog !!!

 

set your nav radio on OCK 115.30

zero your altimeter or set to local qnh if you prefer

 

Now if you have started the sim with you on the runway at Fairoaks simply take off and head toward Ockham VOR (approx 130 degrees) and climb to 1200 feet, at the beacon do a 180 turn and head outbound on 310 degrees,,at 3 miles dme you should be at 700 feet,  at 4.5 miles dme you should be at 400 feet and you should turn onto 240 degrees the runway will be in front of you.

 

Now how many of you forgot to put your legs down or flaps???  and slow up to approach speed?

 

you can of course make it easier by setting up the ADF to 348 and set the nav box 2 to 109.85 to get a dme read out from fairoaks but I prefer not to use these 2 extras

 

let me know how you get on

[brett 2,316]

In that kind of weather, why would you not use every available nav instrument you have on board, otherwise a good pilot would not be flying without at least a mile worth of visibility. Is that the test.

 

I will try it when I get a chance.

[mutley 4,498]

I'll have a go real soon Nigel 

[britfrog 180]

i accept the criticism  of lack of distances but as I said I and others have flown this approach in reality, this is not a dare situ. but a common to garden real situ, now go and do it!!

 

and when you do it .feel the satisfaction\\\\\\\\1

[brett 2,316]

Well, I'll never do that again.   I ended up coming in too high into the airport, when I finally spotted it I hit full flaps and pulled up the nose to almost stall, dropping down enough to add some power for an almost smooth landing. I stopped before the end of runway with my brakes smoking.  I should have gone around but I did want to go back into the soup.

 

That was with even using the ADF so it's not the kind of flying I would want to do in a C172 everyday, that's for sure. I have always found it disconcerting flying manually in fog like that, especially in such a short maneuvering area. I guess I have to concede this task.

[britfrog 180]

Hi Brett,

Give it another go It will surprise you how easy it is after you get a good scan going. if you overshoot just go back to OCK by turning the hsi until it points at the beacon, watch your dme countdown until it says you are going further away from it if you get closer than 1/2 a mile you have done ok. Then turn the heading bug and hsi back to 310 and have another go.

Actually it is easier in real life so if you can do it in fsx it is a piece of pi-s in reality.

 

However you will find it deeply gratifying when you do get it right

[brett 2,316]

Thanks Nigel, I didn't use the DME and tried to do it using the ADF to find my turn off the radial. The worst part was fling into the soup at 1200', usually with conditions like that I tend to just hug the tree tops to find my way. Instrument flying has never been my strong suit when blinded. I did set up the flight and made a save to try it again though. I was going to take screenshots of my flight but there was no time for that.

[allardjd 1,853]

I was going to take screenshots of my flight but there was no time for that.

@ Brett - Tip: Run FS Recorder while you're flying, then play it back and take your screenshots during the playback.

John

[britfrog 180]

Brett I will try to make a video using fraps later on I am not very good so bear with me.

. OK we are only simming but scud running as it is called has killed as many as it has saved. if you put yourself into the mind set of a pilot, as long as you are above all the known obstacles , not just those you can see you are alright and wont hurt yourself, from this vantage point even with little vision you can plan a descent safely to a level where you can arrive safely.

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

with your GPU your better off using nVidia's Shadow Play instead of fraps

its a proprietary embedded chip for recording your screen without FPS lose

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Shadowplay

 

[jaydor 345]

with your GPU your better off using nVidia's Shadow Play instead of fraps

its a proprietary embedded chip for recording your screen without FPS lose

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Shadowplay

 

Good post on that Chris, will try it.. 

[britfrog 180]

I have tried shadow play a few times, I have just updated it and it now works very well however it will only work when FSX is fullscreen, which is a bit of a pain,  however it uses more space than FRAPS  although it does seem a bit quicker, fyi 3 minutes of mp4 video is 1.1 gb in size