Good day, all. I've spent some time learning the finer skills of flying in FSX. I've looked more at route planning, fuel planning, ILS and VOR navigation. Here are some shots I took along the way.







I started by learning how to fly VORs in the C172, and I flew out of Birmingham airport in clear weather. All was going well!








The weather was nice. A perfect day for flying.








Then I moved it up to the Baron, and tested my skills in the real world weather, where it was constantly cloudy. A lot more navigation training than before. However, the autopilto was very useful whilst I went off to eat dinner. This time I flew out of Seattle towards Portland. I figured it would be good to learn the skills on strange airports, so I found somewhere different to the 'norm, and practised there.








The weather closed in, but I still had plenty of time to land. The runways were perfectly clear, and I stopped just before some 737s were taking off.





Now, the really really bad bit. Fuel planning:




If you can see, there is 161lbs of fuel left after my trip. Both of the wing tanks are empty. I had about a tonne of fuel left, but then the airport sent me around, and I nearly ran out. I went over the threshold with 8lbs left, and unfortunately I was stuck on the runway. Oops! However, it was one of the smoothest landings any my greatest ILS success so far, so not a total loss. However, every flight for the next half hour was sent elsewhere 





Cheers for looking. I clearly still have some more work to do 

jetprop wrote on Jun 1^st, 2012 at 3:57pm:

I was aware of the 30-min addition. However, I foolishly trusted the FSX 'Navlog' and despite puiting in about 5 times more fuel than it suggested, I nearly crashed and died 

jetprop wrote on Jun 1^st, 2012 at 3:57pm:


You'll always look to land with enough fuel to divert to another (nominated airport). Hence you'll need enough fuel to get to the nominated airport, enough fuel to do an approach at that airport, and somewhere in the ballpark of half an hours holding fuel.

So depending on how far your nominated diversion airport is from your destination airport determines the fuel you have to land with at your destination.

machineman9 wrote on Jun 1^st, 2012 at 7:23pm:



Woodford? Not for long!

C wrote on Jun 1^st, 2012 at 8:17pm:

It's okay, like Meigs Field, it will live on (in my addons folder) 


Like photography, I always try to learn a new skill every time I take a shot. Either testing out styles, or creating some of my own. You win some, you lose some, but so long as you get there in the end.