I didn't want you to think I didn't see these questions...
Quote:Ok so I started a free flight from North Las Vegas Airport to Henderson Executive in the Cessna 172.
I figured out the Air Traffic Controller stuff, which was pretty cool. I take off. Awesome, doing great. I was able to trim the climb so that I could completely take my hands off the stick and it was climbing at around 75 kias. Perfect.
But then I realized the problem....where the heck am I going???? In the missions it had that little compass in the upper left hand corner that gave me visual clues as to where my next waypoint is. Now I have no visual help. I dont even know if I'm going in the right direction. I did set up waypoints and just assumed that they would show up.
I brought up the GPS but that didnt help. I brought up the map but couldnt even find Henderson on it.
Can anyone help me out? I saw there was an option called Visual Flight Path, so I enabled that, set it to Nav 1 and then turned on Nav1 but I still saw nothing.
Even though we're just learning trimming and some basic flying stuff.. having a place to go, and knowing how to get there is good too. You can't just buzz around perfecting your trim techniques and then shut the sim down. You gotta land SOMEwhere, and it might as well be a destination you intended, when you first took off.
Flight planning and navigation is a whole new learning world. I'll suggest that you forget about visual cues, waypoints and anything else (especially the GPS) while learning to navigate. Keep it simple at first. Don't use the flight planner at all. Just pick your "home" airport from the free flight screen. Check and set fuel there too (this is a good habit to get into for advanced flight planning, when you'll load the plane with your two buddies and know that you'll want a specific fuel load)(I start EVERY flight going through the fuel and payload screen).
At first, just stay close to your home airport. In fact, just stay in the traffic pattern.. Flying the patter at a consistent altitude will really strengthen you pitch/power/trim skills. Throw in a few touch and goes every time you practice.. and before you know it... you'll be ready to actually GO somewhere.
If you haven't done it yet; go down to your local airport and pick up the VFR sectional for your area (if your home airport in the sim is indeed the airport near you), or the area that you plan to train in. Sectionals are about $8 ... and the airport guys might even give you an expired one (works fine for simming). That sectional chart is years worth of flying... dozens of airports .. and you need to learn how to read it anyway.
Then.. before you plant to fly somewhere... sit down with the sectional and plan your flight. Pick the airport you want to fly to.. figure the time and distance.. make mental (and actual) notes of landmarks (cities, roads, lakes, rivers, etc.) and THOSE will be your waypoints.
The fun and challenge of flight planning and navigating has now begun.
Hop over and see us in the 'Flight School' section... The 'Sim Flight Training' lessons are in there (1-7).
Follow along (we don't mind going back and answering questions).
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