Flight Simulators

What does anybody know about flight simulators? I'm thinking about setting one up in my hanger to practice approaches but I need it to be cost effective.

There are a ton of options. I would just spring for a nice display a computer with a super graphics card and a yoke & Rudder set. Then buy MS flight simulator. This way you can set the weather and the airport. You can reposition the airplane instantly. I have not used it in a long time but even the old stuff was great for practice. The problem with trying to go with a "Real Simulator" is the maintenance costs. With a PC you can have it all with relatively low investment.

Look Here.

http://www.fspilotshop.com

MS flight sim works good for a "practice" vfr flight into someplace you haven't been before too. I flew my first long solo flight with it before flying the trip for real. Really helped out.
The terrain rendering is good enough that you can fly pilotage in the sim using a sectional.

I was fortunate to be able to fly the Blackhawk helicopter simulator at Ft Bragg a few weeks ago. The motion was limited to five degrees, but it was very realistic. The graphics are accurate down to 1 meter close to the airfield at Bragg. They actually digitally photoed the area around the runway there with the appropriate GPS coordinates to locate them on the graphics. I'm no helicopter pilot, but I could fly the thing, hover and land in ideal conditions. The auto throttle helped a lot. It was neat landing tail wheel first and feel the 17,500 pound helicopter go clunk-clunk!

Ron

Jerry,
for personal use, MS Flight Sim w/ the yoke controls are pretty impressive. I don't think the rudder pedals add much though. You get all the IFR approaches and the terrain/sight picture is authentic when you go visual. Beware, if you are thinking about MS FS-X, it will cost you a new computer w/ dual processor, maxed out memory, topend graphics card and Vista to get the full capability. But the earlier versions like FS2004 have all the terrain database and realtime wx capability. I used it before leaving on an IFR for the first time into Jackson Hole a few years ago to practice the approach and miss. I was blown away by how accurate the sim was to the real thing when I arrived.
Chris

PS: SJ - when did the auto spell check arrive? Pretty cool, but my 'puiter may run out of yellow highlighter!

Ron I will say you were most fortunate. Do you know someone there at Bragg or are you an ex-military guy? There was an order a while back from my understanding that after some civilians were killed in a helo accident that they were restricting even simulator flights to civilians.

(Hey Chris, I have a whole lot of that yellow highlighter stuff, I can email you some for about $20........ )

I got to fly the F-16 simulator last Summer. Even got to shoot the guns, and strafe the tower. That side-stick thingy, that doesn't really move, is pretty tough on a Super Cub pilot. I will need a little more work to master that. Another thing that is counter-intuitive for a taildragger pilot, is that you better not touch the rudder pedals on the approach. I induced a Dutch roll that I couldn't stop, until I just took my feet off of the pedals. Made a decent visual approach, and got it on on the runway. Don't know if the sim was flyable again when I finished.

Mikey does the MS Flight Simulator accurately depict the IFR approaches and would the FAA allow logging the time for approach requirements

Jerry,

Yes and No in that order.

The setup of the radios can be a little funky w/ having to point and click on knobs on the screen, but the nav aids are all there, so if you have the approach plate, you can fly it on the sim.

I believe the FAA is in the process of rethinking the rules limiting use of PC desktop sims like this for currency, but don't believe you can currently log it on your own, just as any valid sim time requires an CFI sign it off.
Personally, I think the IPC signoff w/ a CFII n a real airplane is the way to go anyway rather than relying on getting 6 approaches and a hold every six month. It should be a better workout for you and it may save burning up 100ll just for instrument practice as at the CFII's discretion, it doesn't have to be 6 approaches on the IPC. That said, the time spent on the desktop sims is still time well spent on helping to staying sharp on the gauges.

Regards
Chris

PSS: Grant, thanks for the offer, but I just discovered that if I left-click over my yellow words, it can fix them for me Why can the rest of my life be that simple...

Jerry
I've seen Elite simulators set up around the countryside used at flight schools. I think that there is some special hardware required to log time with it but I believe you can use less expensive controls and a more or less standard PC and get good results. I think the basic software is something around $200 and that gives only a couple of light planes. Nothing like the hundreds available for the Microsoft, but the flight dynamics are supposed to be really good.

Jack

Jerry,

Flight sim 2004 is great. It's the latest without having to upgrade computers. IFR approaches are as real as it gets, except the movement of the aircraft. It's all about repetition and procedures and it will sharpen your skills in real life. It has a J3 but that wasn't good enough for me, so I down loaded some Supercub's off the net. Got straight floats, amphibs, bushwheels, standard wheels, straight skis and wheel skis, 135hp or 150hp, flaps or no flaps. Have a yoke and a forcefeedback 2 stick, pedals are fine but don't work like you want them to, I'd leave the pedals out for now. Lots of fun and you can fly anywhere in the world in just a click.
I think you can get Flight Sim 2004 for around $39.95 now.

Where did you download all the Cubs? Did you have to pay for them, or were they free? Thanks.

Lachlan

Lachlan,

http://www.aerosoft.com/cgi-local/us/iboshop.cgi?showd800,4430677490,DF01348

$8.79 USD

I left out a few more that you get, but you'll see when you get there.

X-plane is supposed to be real great. Alaska Medallion Foundation sims use it. IMHO sims PC based or Level D are more of an excellent procedures trainer. They do not fly like an airplane. The best I ever used was a ratty old navajo fixed base simulator Flight Safety in Lakeland that thing would give you Vertigo and make you fly the clocks was tough, tough, tough; a good sim instructor though is paramount. Flight Safety Caravan and King Air level D sucked, but most would disagree with me on that point. The instructors were excellent and that was were the real learning stems from, not the box.

Load MS Flight Simulator buy any controller for $25 bucks, find some instruction and relearn the procedures.

Mike

I totally agree with mghallen. My preference would be for X-Plane, over MS flight sim.

We use an Elite PCATD here at the school for procedures training. It works fine. All up price was $4K, so not cheap. It can be used for some legal IFR time logged, WITH a CFII instructing.

I had the opportunity to fly the Blackhawk sim at Ft Wainwright several years ago, and the F-16 sim at Eielson AFB about the same time.

The really cool feature of hte Blackhawk sim was when my instructor said while I was flying at 50 feet and 110 knots, "Okay, we're going into super stealth mode, now--engage earth masking feature". He pushed a button and told me to dive. As we "hit" the ground, nothing happened, and we flew through the surface and underground. We could see the bottoms of the trees going by at 110 knots out the top of the windshield.

He had turned off the "crash" mode :lol: to "no crash".

I need one of those buttons on every panel, I'm thinking.

The F-16 thing that got my attention was how nice it was to fly IMC with the HUD. Then they failed the HUD and I died. I also died any time a bad guy got within several hundred miles of me. I was pretty good at moving mud with bombs, though it turned out....

MTV

Lachlan, check out the http://www.avsim.com/ website. They have a whole bunch of freeware to download for Cub's or just about any thing associated with flightsim's. They have stuff for MS sim's, Fly & fly2, X-Plane etc. And besides the plane's there is terrain graphic's, scenery updates and much,much more. Best of all, most of these add-on's is for free. Tom

Here is an interesting web site to make the sim environment a bit more realistic: http://www.simcockpitsystem.com/index.asp I always thought that setting up a flight sim in an old fuselage would be a real cool set up in a hanger. This would be a great way to introduce young kids to aviation. How cool would that have been for most of us when we were kids!

Marty

Thanks for all the pointers on more airplanes, and Cub mods for the sims!

Lachlan

This one is a lot of fun. Works on PC's or Macs, and it includes a program to build your own, as you can see here. Takes a bit of practice, (and time), but you can really have some fun with this. Decent scenery, you can get custom stuff from various places around the world that are nearly photo-realistic. Pretty decent flight modeling, since it was designed by an aeronautical engineer (to test ideas). Not as big of an on-line "community" as MS Flight Sim, but there are virtually unlimited aircraft that you can design and build. You can paint your own numbers on it with a bit of fiddling.








It's called X-Plane: http://x-plane.com/

I was sent a photo from the approach (MS flight sim) from Winifred (9S7). It was really accurate. If there are photos/approaches from this little airport, what about the back country strips in Idaho? Someone take a look. It would really be great to see those approaches a few more times before this summer. Ralph