OK... I think the most applicable concept to get out of Part 2, is situational awareness. Where you are; where you want to be;  how what's around you will affect this; and what to do about it.

On a VFR takeoff, you're expected to hold runway centerline until at least 500agl. If, at a controlled field, you've been, "cleared for takeoff on cousre". ..this means.. stay on runway centerline and at 500agl you can turn to the course/heading you requested when talking to ground. Sometimes you'll hear something like this, "cleared for takeoff, fly runway heading until past the river, then on course".. and it means just what it says.

This doesn't sound complicated, but when there's any kind of wind, it gets complicated. Staying on runway centerline is no big deal right after lift-off when all the ground references are near and familiar... but as soon as you leave the immediate proximity of the runway, you'd be surprised how quickly you can drift. My method, is to lower the nose a little at about 200agl (looking for traffic); pick a landmark out toward the horizon, and reference it during the climb to stay on runway centerline. This stuff can be critical, and best case scenario will be the tower guy scolding you... worst case is that you can drift over toward traffic entering on an extended downwind leg.. and even WORSE, is all the conflict potential at a busy airport with parallel, active runways, and a pattern full of student pilots...

Equally important, along these techniques, is to enter a crowded pattern safley, and fly each leg accurately......

Brett_Henderson wrote on Nov 20^th, 2007 at 6:59pm:

Hey Brett, I think you have you're Vx and Vy switched.  Vx ~60 kias and Vy ~75kias.

hey brett... are you conducting actual online sim training in multiplayer shared aircraft for sim-pilots?

if so thats great!

sounds like something i might like to help out with now and again. 

One addition... i have tried this before, but we quickly discovered that our keyboard and joystick assignments were completely different, it took a lot of time to sort that out hahaha so watch out for that! 

Now......  As soon as you're above pattern altitude, it's OK to pitch for a cruise climb. Anywere from 85kias to 100kias, depending on how much of hurry you're in to reach cruise altitude..

During a full power climb, you need not pay much attention to mixture, until you're above 3000msl. At that point, it's good to just lean it a tad (you'll hear the power come back up). In a real C172, you want full rich during full-power, because leaning causes the engine to run hot, but as you exceed 3000msl, full rich means less than full power. The "real" way to gauge this as you climb, is by the EGT gauge. MSFS EGT gauges are slow to respond and not very realistic. Just use the fuel-flow gauge (keep it peaked) during the climb.

Next topic is VFR cruising altitudes. I'll leave it to a contributor to fill us in  

As soon as that's sorted out, we'll get into trimming for cruise, holding heading and altitude...

Trimming at cruise altitude and make the plane "happy".....

There's and old joke:  How long does it take to trim a Cessna 172 ?   ...  "About 20 hours"  


Meaning, it's more about experience than method. The traditional way to teach trimming is: Pitch / Power / Trim.  When you near your desired altitude, pitch to stop the climb. As the airspeed comes up, reduce to cruise power. When the airspeed equals what you'd expect for that power-setting and altitude, trim  out the yoke pressure. In theory, that works.. but by the time you lean for cruise and the airspeed finally does settle, you'll be trimming a couple more times.

Quick note on leaning for cruise in MSFS... Since most EGT gauges are unrealistic, we'll use  fuel-flow. Lean until the flow peaks and then lean just a tad more. That gives you reasonably accurate fuel consumption.  In a real C172, you lean slowly until the EGT peaks and then richen two-notches. If you have no EGT gauge (or you don't trust it).. just lean EVER so slowly until there's a slight RPM drop.. then richen slightly. Do this slowly (and make sure there's a field nearby), because passengers don't like it when the engine sputters in flight  

After a while, you get familiar with your airplane... and this is true for MSFS, too. When I'm flying a real C172, I can trim for cruise pretty quickly....  Just a whip or two on the trim wheel; a quick power reduction and an instinctive mixture setting and the plane will settle in nicely  

Every plane is different.. even C172s of the same model/year... and especially as they and their engines "age" and develop their own personalities. Throw in that the gauges, even tachometers, have built-in errors and flying a normally-aspirated, piston airplane becomes somewhat of an art-form  

Constant-speed props give the pilot more control, but even that has gray areas. A given MP/RPM doesn't always have a predictable, prop-pitch-angle and correspondingy predicatable true airspeed  . If one or more of the valves are aging ahead of schedule, there's a difference in the amount of torque that finds its way to the propellor; hence a different prop-pitch and different thrust.

So.. flying the Champ from sea-level, up to an airfield at 5,000msl is tricky ?

ANYway.... Once happy and trimmed for level flight, we need to hold that altitude and follow our course..

That's the next post (input encouraged    )

Hardly a digression   ..  more valuable input...
Got me to thinking too. If I ever get around flying our Champ, I'll be picking your brain.. Last time I was up at KMRT to take a look at it.. all I got was a shot of it taxiing out...




Next time up there, I'll get better photos (hopefully from inside   )

I don't think I can coax a 172 up near 13,000msl without leaning. And even if I could I'd be worried about plug fouling. Which prompts me to ask; How do you clear a sputtering magneto in a Champ. And if you did have to take-off from a 7,000msl airport.. umm.. can you ?

Anyway.. this is all, topic relative, good discussion. Good stuff for pilots and aspiring pilots to kick around. You're very likely to pick up that little tibit of life-saving knowledge, when you sit in on a pilot's gab-fest  

I think my inner-stick-and-rudder pilot is in there helping the muzzle-loader in me work on target shooting...  

They both need to come out and play.


On to holding altitude and course, as it applies to VFR simming...

As good as the ground scenery has gotten in FSX  (much more accurate bodies of water, rivers, railroads, power-lines, major roads/highways and cities); true VFR simmimg is still pretty tough. To get intimately familiar with pure landmark navigation, takes more time then is realistically proportional. All but the shortest, sim, VFR flights will require some sort of nav-aid. Since tracking VORs, and using NDBs with winds aloft gets into advanced navigation and instrument flight; holding altitude and heading on this level is just that.. holding altitude and heading.

If the C172 is properly trimmed, you're 1/2 home as far as holding altitude goes... and holding a heading is just a matter of keeping an eye on the heading indicator (henceforth known as directional gyro). The only time you'll be challenged, is during and after a significant heading change. The best way to fine-tune these skills is to practice steep turns.

Rolling into; maintaining, and rolling out of a steep turn forces you into coordinated turning, else you'll be chasing your altitude... This is one area where simming is pretty darn close to real flying (sans g-forces).

Since we'll be covering steep turns later (and mastering them).. I'll just touch on the important part, that will make holding altitude through a course change, second nature.

Get your eyes OFF the attitude indicator... focus on the REAL horizon... roll into your turn, hold a constant bank-angle (20-30 degrees) and quickly note where the horizon intersects panel/dashboard. that's your target throughout the turn (and keeps your eyes outside the cockpit).. If your bank-angle is stable, all it takes is a little pitch-input to nail that target. Most heading changes will be small enough that that's all you'll need to do. During a steep turn and/or larger heading change, you might have to glance at the altimeter and VSI, and pitch accordingly. Extended, steep turns might even call for some cross-control and power increase.. but we'll get to that later.

Planning your rollout onto the new heading is just a matter of timing and practice. By the time you can change heading by 30 degrees, holding a perfectly constant altitude; you'll find that rolling out accurately will come naturally..

Practice and discussion encouraged  

But even so, it is still possible to fly in Flightsim using a sectional chart and navigate by visual landmarks with default scenery

Absolutely 

It's very VERY accurate...

Quote:


I know what you mean... There are a few reservoirs near Columbus, that are pretty poorly replicated in FS9..  In FSX, they, and all the other references (highways, roads, city-boundaries) are MUCH more accurate. Same with the inland lakes, rivers... and Great Lake bays and coves in other areas I've frequented for real.

Flying a Lake Michigan shore-line in FSX can be done with a VFR sectional on your lap  

Flying the pattern, at least a leg or two, will give you a good feel for the wind... and a good reference for how much crab-angle you'll need on final. Touch-n-goes are good for stabilizing an approach, because you can immediately execute another approach with what went wrong, fresh in your mind.

The only way to learn this, is to practice, keeping the goal in mind... By the time you're established on final; your airspeed and rate-of-descent will be such that you just ride the plane to the touch-down point, almost as though  you were sliding down a rope... making only slight corrections via the classic method, "pitch for airspeed / power for altitude".

If you sense that you're a little low, you DO NOT pitch up. If if you're at approach speed, and pitch to slow your descent (or gain a little altitude), neither will happen. Oh sure, the descent will slow for a second, but the airspeed will bleed off too and you'll end up just as low (if not lower) with LESS airspeed.

The proper method when slightly low (visual approach only.. we'll get into instrument approaches later), is to just add power. This will not only slow the descent a bit, it will shorten the time needed to reach the runway; hence shallowing the approach-angle and leaving you at a higher altitude at any given point, further into the approach.

Obviously, the opposite applies if you're slightly high. Pitching down will will increase your airspeed, so even if you do end up at the proper altitude, you'll be going too fast to continue a stabilized approach. Pulling the power back while too high will allow you to slow and THEN pitch for airspeed, leaving you right where you need to be.

If you're at the right altitude, but above approach speed; you'd pitch to bleed off that airspeed and then pull the power back to resume the descent.

If you're at the right altitude, but a little slow, you first pitch down to increase your airpseed, and then pull power back to slow the descent.

In actuality, you pitch, AND adjust power, for any correction. Just keep in mind that to stabilize, or re-stabilize the approach, it's the counter-intuitive, "pitch for airspeed / power for altitude".

If you find that you're too far off on either airspeed or altitude for this method... then you're not in a stabilized approach and will likely end up going around.

This is the part of a flight where a visualization of the power-curve helps. I'll leave that for discussion, and then we're done with Part 2..

Hey Brett, and Mobius. Fantastic guide!

One question however, I am not good at judging distance, but is this a good distance to position the downwind leg from the runway?

http://www.simviation.com/yabbuploads/2007-12-16_1-55-5-734.jpg

And two, my Marchetti slices the air so efficiently that it struggles to fly under 130 knots.   Anyway, is it ok to fly 130 knots or more, provided you're not stuck behind a slower aircraft?

Thanks in advance.

and....................

That's one of the reason's I was taught (and teach) pilots to enter the pattern on whichever leg they're already flying (i.e. .. if you're north of a 9/27, left-hand pattern runway,,, go ahead and enter on the crosswind (as opposed to over-flying the field and entering 45 degrees into the downwing leg, potentially putting you in conflict with that KingAir at TPA+500')...