That's My Way with Microsoft FSX

Introduction

Microsoft Flight Simulator is undoubtedly the most famous flight simulator on the market, as well as the first to be launched. This book deals only of the 'X' version because excluding the previous " Flight " version, which remained on the market only for a short period of time, this is the first version to give the possibility to use the mouse, in addition to the traditional keyboard and joystick, to control the functionality of an aircraft.

Why use the mouse? Because it does not determine the choice of additional, dedicated and perhaps expensive controllers, giving in any case the possibility of acquiring an excellent manual sensitivity and a very precise control of the flight.

Since from the first moment, not problems, but questions came to my mind. How can I do to move from the parking slot with the pushback? How do I approach the runway without wandering around? What is the best landing procedure to avoid crashing or missing the runway? And many other questions that are certainly trivial but whose answers must be known to have an optimal realism.

At this point a search of manuals begins; there are not so many, and in most cases they say how a command is implemented, but not in what circumstances and above all why it must be implemented.

Then I got the idea of writing this booklet, both because it was useful to me to keep trace of what I did and looked for, and to summarize actions and procedures to be helpful, I hope so, to those who face FSX for the first time.

This absolutely is not a Flight Manual. I do not have a pilot's license, nor am I an instructor, so I‘m not entitled to teach how to fly, even if I have some piloting experience. Nor is it my intention to go deep inside all the facets of FSX in its various menu and submenu items; but I will examine only what we need.

The title That’s My Way is therefore a sentence explaining what I want to express in these pages. Correct or wrong they are, these are the steps I personally take to fly from an airport to another in a reasonable amount of time, without stress, but keeping a constant focus on maneuvers, without wandering and always with the intent of learning while having fun.

Anyhow, I feel up to give some advice.

Do not rush to try a Jet experience too soon. If you want to fly as it should be done, it's not so instinctive as it seems, especially if you do not have complete control of the fundamentals. Try for a long time with small mono or twin-engine propeller; bring an aircraft in the sky, pause the flight and take a look of what you can see in the window that shows the outside environment. FSX relies heavily on Google Maps for cartography and you will see panoramas you will probably never see in reality: the fjords in Norway, the Manhattan’s skyscrapers, the valley of Innsbruck, the islands of the Aegean Sea. At worst you will learn geography a little bit deeply.

Do not disarm yourself from the first failures, crashes happen to everyone, and they are welcome in simulators as long as you make profit of mistakes and avoid them in subsequent attempts.

One of the first mistakes is not to notice the bounce while landing: this means destroying the front gear; doing it in reality may cost tens of thousands Euro. Another mistake is to stall at take-off; it is an unrecoverable situation and inevitably leads to a crash.

So TRY, TRY and TRY AGAIN until you can get good results. And when you finally reach the moment when you feel confident, do not think you are real pilot: FSX has nothing to do with professional simulators (those used by pilots to train), and even professional simulators are not exactly reality. Performing a turn even with a 20-25° bank in reality is not exactly the same thing as sitting comfortably in a chair in front of a monitor.

Just take some lessons in a flying school to be aware of that and, I say this from personal experience, be gratified for using FSX for a long time.

I divided this manual into chapters and each chapter into paragraphs, each of which is propaedeutic to the next. These should be read consecutively by those who face the simulation for the first time.

In Chapter 1 the Microsoft Simulator is introduced and we will face a first practical situation.

In Chapter 2 you will setup a short flight to become familiar in all the phases that compose it with a small aircraft.

In Chapter 3 we will talk about regulations, systems and instruments on land and on board. A couple of practical examples and another short flight will show how these tools are used in various situations in which you need them.

Chapter 4 deals with the analysis of flights under the supervision of Flight Controllers, also addressing the particular case of a landing a bit less simple than normal.

In Chapter 5 we will talk about the so-called Circuit for takeoff and landing at uncontrolled airports.

At the end, an Appendix examines, from a technical point of view, the main gauges available to the pilot to control an aircraft

This is the English translation of my book Come Volo Io con Microsoft FSX, originally written in Italian and on the market since short time.

Have fun and enjoy your flights.

Chapter 1 - The Simulator

1.1 - Generalities

Microsoft's Flight Simulator X is, as the 'X' says, the tenth version of the popular Microsoft simulation game.

Released on the market in 2006, it was abandoned after a few years because Microsoft decided to stop the development and the maintenance of games. The package was passed to Dovetail