October 2014-
A desktop simulator may help you correct chronic problems in your flying.
I’ve been using one version or another of Microsoft Flight Simulator for a very long time. The first version I remember using was—I think—version 5.1, which came out in 1995.
I’m a bit of a computer geek, and was writing full-time for a computer magazine when I restarted flight training in 1996. I soloed back in 1975 as a Civil Air Patrol cadet, but hadn’t the money then to pursue a license.
My wife almost immediately asked if there was any way to use a desktop computer to help learn how to fly. That prompted a trip to the local computer store, and I came back with a copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator (for brevity, I’ll call it “FS95”) and a $29 Logitech joystick.
I set it up, played with it briefly and then made one of the best decisions of my flying life: I decided not to fool with it until after I’d soloed.
Why? Because I wasn’t ready for it yet. I hadn’t soloed the real airplane I was flying—which was very different from the airplanes in FS95. The real airplane I was flying was low-winged, while the airplane I flew in FS95 was high-winged. In the simulator, I was using a joystick; in the real airplane I had a control wheel (yoke) and rudder pedals.
The scenery in FS95 was a lot more realistic than the crude line drawings of the outside world I remembered from earlier flight simulators, but I needed to give myself time to learn and understand how the real airplane worked before practicing with a simulated one. So FS95 stayed in the box until after I soloed.
It came out of the box shortly after that, though. The first thing I did with it was fly simulated patterns around Modesto airport, which was in FS95’s terrain database. In my training I’d had a chronic problem cutting my turn from base to final too early when flying right traffic to 28L (Modesto’s shorter runway), winding up high on final, and then botching the landing. I flew that pattern for hours on the simulator, gradually learning to grit my teeth and stay on base long enough to “square the corners” on my pattern.
I also used FS95 to experiment with crosswind landings, which I found especially difficult. In a real airplane (and today, in Flight Sim, too—now that I have rudder pedals) you crab as necessary to fly straight down final, then step on the rudder pedal to slew the nose around until it lines up with the runway centerline.
At this point, the airplane tries to turn, and you prevent that by cross-controlling the ailerons—turn the yoke (or stick) opposite the rudder. If you have a crosswind from the left, you’ll be crabbed with the nose pointing to the left, so you step on the right rudder to point down the runway, and hold left aileron to keep the airplane flying straight.
If there isn’t too much wind, you can keep this up until you get into ground effect, at which point the wind usually dies down, and you can ease up on both the rudder and aileron until you make a smooth touchdown. If the wind doesn’t die down, you actually land one wheel at a time, and have to quickly center the rudder pedals after touchdown to keep the nose straight.
When I bought FS95, I got the cheapest control stick I could find. Most of the time, this wasn’t a problem—Flight Simulator offers an “auto rudder” feature in which the simulator will, in effect step on the rudder pedals as necessary to keep the inclinometer ball centered—exactly what flight instructors tell student pilots to do.
With that feature turned on, you always fly nicely coordinated turns, which doesn’t give you any training in tracking the ball (and could conceivably give you negative training, by not showing the consequences of failing to step on the ball), but I had gotten that training in the real airplane.
To simulate stepping on the pedals, I turned off auto rudder and controlled the rudder using keyboard commands. That’s tough, and completely unnatural: I was using my right hand on the control stick, and my left hand to press different keys (I don’t remember which ones) to simulate the left and right rudder pedals. Every so often I’d need to make a throttle adjustment, which would involve moving my left hand off the keyboard, and then I’d press the wrong keys… It was very frustrating.
Eventually, though, I figured out how to make it work: I left auto rudder turned on, and flew a pattern with coordinated turns until I had the simulated airplane crabbed into final, and set descent power. Then I paused the simulation, turned auto rudder off, and saved the flight.
Now I could shoot as many crosswind landings as I wanted, one after the other. I didn’t need to shoot the pattern—I’d just restore the saved flight, which put me on about a two-mile final, kick the crab out with the keyboard, and hold enough aileron to stay more or less centered as I flew down to the ground. I must have practiced that for hours.
Amazingly enough, it worked. Part of the problem with practicing crosswind landings in a real airplane is that runways are built to line up with the prevailing winds, so it’s rare that you get more than a very minor crosswind; if the wind is too high, instructors won’t let you fly. (A badly botched crosswind landing is one way airplanes get broken.)
But on one of my dual cross-country trips, we faced a strong yet steady crosswind at Livermore, Calif. (KLVK). I just did exactly what I’d done in FS95: flew a coordinated pattern to get myself on final, then kicked enough rudder to put the nose on the centerline, and held it off with aileron.
It was actually easier to do this in a real airplane than in the simulator—no keyboard!—which left one hand free for the throttle. My instructor was impressed by how well I’d handled it, and that was the first positive feedback I got that using Flight Simulator was really paying off.
Why do I bring this up? Just yesterday, I finally got to spend an hour in N4696K, knocking off almost three months of rust from my piloting skills. I flew turns in the local pattern, then did a few practice approaches.
By the time I got back, I’d been out for over an hour and afternoon winds were beginning to pick up. My final approach back to Modesto involved a right base entry to the left runway, and as I rolled out on final (having waited before starting the turn—so I could fly a square pattern), I found myself facing a crosswind.
No problem at all. I crabbed the airplane to line myself up with the runway, then on short final, used the rudder to get the nose lined up, cross-controlled the yoke, and felt each of the mains touch down before the nosegear… exactly as I’d worked out for myself in FS95 all those years ago.
If you haven’t tried a desktop flight simulator yet, you really ought to. Besides practicing things like square patterns and crosswind landings, you can use a sim to practice cross-country flights. And for instrument pilots, the sim is an enormous help in keeping up your instrument scan skills. I recommend spending the money for a yoke and rudder pedals (mine are from CH Products), which make for an experience that’s closer to flying a real airplane.
John D. Ruley is an instrument-rated pilot and freelance writer. He holds a master’s degree from the University of North Dakota Space Studies program (space.edu). He’s been a volunteer pilot with ligainternational.org and angelflight.org, two charities which operate medical missions in northwest Mexico and provide medical patient transport, respectively. Send questions or comments to editor@www.piperflyer.com.
RESOURCES
CH Products
chproducts.com
Further reading
Microsoft Flight Simulator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator
